New Warrior Types?

There is a rumour that two new types of warriors are going to appear soon.

The first of two is a thief or rogue kind relying on various bombs and “pistols” (I have no idea what pistols are…). The effects of bombs and pistols can increase each other and sometimes it’ll be possible to start a chain reaction. The oracles claim that this new type of fighters rely heavily on strategy and are masters of predicting the opponents moves. But somehow this new fighting style reminds me srams. I wonder if it’s really that needed…

When I heard about the second fighting style I remembered pandas with their two main states — sober and drunk. Masqueraiders, as these warriors are called, can switch between at least three states: coward (good ranged attacks, inability to fight in close combat), psychotic (berserk state resulting in high damage in close combat and inability to distinguish between friends and foes), and “normal” (there is no way someone so unstable can be called normal!), each of them is associated with a certain mask. Depending on the mask in use the fighter may use only certain battle techniques. Masks also give some bonuses and penalties to the wearer.

Quite interesting that unlike all other fighting styles the new ones don’t have patronising gods. And it makes me wonder who has invented them? It was said that their power came from bombs and masks. However it wasn’t explained how mere humans managed to create such powerful objects. It just doesn’t sounds right.

Another concern is the balance between the fighters of different styles. At the moment the correlation of them is far from ideal, and people do not stop complaining. Two new powerful styles may cause a riot or at least a new wave of complaints and insults towards Gods. But let’s hope for the best.

New Lands

Access to another part of Frigost soon will be opened. However, not everyone will be able to see the new lands. Those who seek further exploration are required to defend the bosses of three dungeons in already discovered part of the island. Can be tricky, if you ask me. Nonetheless cra managed to sneak in.

She hasn’t seen all the new areas, only the one closest to the transport. And it is inhabited by relatives of firefouxes — snowfouxes. Unlike their fire brothers and sisters snow foxes are aggressive and hit harder, but they can’t move as fast and therefore can be immobilised easier. In fact cra engaged in a fight with two of them and managed to win even being absolutely unprepared. She claimed they were an easy prey, at least for a cra. The only thing she advised to be concerned with was the ability of some foxes to use a spell similar to the kaniger’s luck. While kanigers can cast it only on themselves, foxes can cast it on a group of allies. Cra was really unlucky and healed foxes more often than damaged them, still she managed to win.

New area is also inhabited by people. There is a small village in the centre. It seems it has no new paddocks, only new houses to buy.

Mounts Steal My Experience, Don’t They?

One of the widespread myths about mounts is the one about dragoturkeys stealing battle experience. Is that really true? Let’s start from the very beginning.

Mounts gain experience if they participate in a battle, i.e. they gain experience when their owners actually ride them during the fight. But dragoturkeys learn nothing if they were left near the battle field. I wish they could become more battle proficient just watching the fight, this way I could train them faster.

Next important point is that dragoturkeys gain experience regardlessly the effort of the rider. If the owner doesn’t want to help the mount to learn faster, the latter will gain experience equal to one fifth of the rider’s experience. Perhaps dragoturkeys are five times stupider than people, of course, if we do not count iops. Anyway, these battle skills are gained by mounts themselves, they are not stolen from the rider. Even thought of stealing skills is ridiculous. Can you imagine someone stealing your skill of wielding the sword?

The process of learning can be greatly accelerated if the rider decides to contribute to it, i.e. instead of analysing own moves and tactics rider pays attention to the mount’s performance during the fight. When all the dirty work is done the rider transmits his knowledge to dragoturkey. Of course, in this case rider’s receives less experience from the fight as he hasn’t paid enough attention to his own performance. Basically it’s what I do when I train mounts: 90% of my attention I pay to a bird and only 10% to myself. I don’t learn much about my strategy and tactics, however, I can improve birdies skills faster.

Now let’s return to the myth in question. Many people these days say they believe mounts “steal” their experience. And no matter how ridiculous it may sound, I can see where it comes from. First reason is that as I said earlier mounts learn by themselves, and people think that mounts are so stupid that they can’t gain any knowledge on their own. Very “iopish” line of reasoning if you ask me. Second possible reason is that while people can see how their skills grow after each battle they have little to no idea how the learning works. Therefore once they saw their experience when riding a mount a bit lower than usual they blame a poor bird without even trying to analyze the situation.

I asked cra to help me with the research: she is the fastest in killing bow meows and rats living on the streets of Frigost village. Why these creatures were selected for the experiment? Because they are easy to find, they can be seen and fought alone, and they are strong enough for cra to learn something, but not too strong to make a fight too long. Hence they were ideal subjects of my little experiment. Cra killed about 35 monsters: she didn’t complete any challenges, the only difference in equipment she used was mount/pet. Half of the fights she did riding a mount (she didn’t work on mount learning, a bird was left on her own) and the rest of them with the water bwak. All the results of each fight were written down. After examination of the results only fights with the identical monsters were left for further analysis (28 in total). The documented results can be found here.

According to the results of the fights dragoturkeys do not steal experience: it was almost the same with or without a bird. However, I noticed one interesting detail — the experience is not static. Currently existing learning theories take into account monster’s and fighter’s battling skills and bonuses like challenges, stars, and wisdom of the fighter. These theories also assume that the base amount of experience is fixed. Even with such a small sample like mine I can suggest that the authors of these theories overlooked some variables that also affect learning. Even though facts indicate that some additional factors may exist their role isn’t that important.

 

Girls Are Back in Town

After a six weeks of extreme laziness we are back to business!

However it would be a lie to say that we did nothing. In fact, cra, eni, and sram managed to breed 1 more type of chameleon mounts (and it makes 23 breeds — ⅓ of all possible). They also were very successful in purifying lines, both for chameleons and regular mounts.

Our new hunters (panda and xelor) are almost ready for the up-coming scaraleaves hunt: the meat for their professional training is already gathered and only waits to be processed.

P.S. I’m looking at these pictures… we look like we are wearing uniforms. But these uniforms aren’t that bad!

Half Full or Half Empty?

 

We overslept. Just a few minutes late but it was enough to miss the chance to buy any paddock. However, cra is surprisingly calm and already makes plans to make money. And this is the half empty part of today’s adventure.

What about the bright side? I bought a house! Three chests, three flours, close to the butcher’s workshop, nice and calm place, what else a humble feca like me can wish for? I’m happy.

With this purchase all of us have houses. We even managed to buy three luxurious houses in Bonta with five chests each and workbenches and cra’s house was moved to a more convenient location near Bonta zaap.

So, all in all I think that the glass is more than half full. I also hope that some paddocks will go for sale some time later. Or maybe Gods will take pity and give us a solution where each guild can have as many paddocks as possible. In fact, something like this could drastically improve the situation and boost breeding.

 

Are You Ready for the Race?

Communication with Frigost is finally fully reestablished! Access to the island will be opened to everyone. And it will happen today, which, of course, is very unexpected as almost everyone was sure that repairs would take much more time.

Anyway, waiting for the new lands ends today. And with the new lands new paddocks and new houses will be available. However, there are only 18 new paddocks and almost all of them are of decent size, so we expect a race for paddocks. Our guild will participate as well. We have room for three more enclosures and cra is desperate to get them. I wish her best of luck.

And now I have to go and make last preparations. I’m going to participate in another race – race for houses. Hopefully I’ll be able to buy one not so far from zaap, I really dislike walking through the snow and there are no zaapis in Frigost town.

First Reports from Frigost

First rumours about the frozen island, Frigost, appeared a couple of years ago, but for a long time no somewhat reliable information was available. And several days ago it happened, the communication with Frigost was established (or reestablished according to the inhabitants of the island). Unfortunately at the moment only the luckiest and the most special people can take a trip to this faraway land. However, cra was among these people and she brought back not only stories but also some pictures.

Boat arrives to the city which has almost everything Bonta and Brakmar have but zaapis. Cra was so upset with the lack of transport, she couldn’t stop to complain about her hurt legs, she even called the citizens barbarians. Well, I guess, she got a point (of course, if all her stories were true). She talked to mayor and he suggested to pay visits to the most respectable people of the town, she couldn’t reject an opportunity to get to know more about the new land and wended her way across the town. It took her quite some time to find everyone in the mayors list, even he was kind enough to point there locations on the map, not to mention cra is not accustomed to walking through snow. But all’s well that ends well, she managed to find everyone.

After a brief look at the city (disappointed as she found no paddocks inside the walls) cra went to explore the suburbs. To her surpise she found there distant relatives of our gobbals, she was so impressed she made the pictures of them. Then she decided to fight them and attacked the big group, and it was a grave mistake. Our gobbals are no match for their relatives from the frozen country. I assume that the life is do hard there that fluffy creatures had to develop some impressive skills in order to survive. According to cra they can heal, accelerate and increase their damage potential, and all of this on top of the pretty strong attacks. For the next attempt cra chose a smaller group and won, but during the investigation of the bodies she found out that they spread the disease. Natives are afraid of it and refuse to talk if notice any symptoms, the only exclusion is a doctor, but it’s his duty to help sick. Cra managed to survived the disease, but she was touched by the doctor’s kindness and offered him her help in looking for cure.

But, of course, no matter how determined is she to help others there is one thing that interests her more — paddocks!  And she found them not far from the city. Eighteen new paddocks (it seems dragoturkeys didn’t survive the cold and paddocks stay unused) can accommodate from 8 to 19 mounts. I can’t say that these new paddocks will provide every breeder with a breeding space, but it is definitely better than nothing. Sure thing, cra is upset but I don’t share her feelings.

Cra is going to take another trip to the island soon. I heard they have strange creatures there called penguins.  Cra promised to check this rumour and bring their pictures if they really exist.

Lucky Day

No matter how often I rant about the mounts I’m always happy to know that we got new chameleons. Of course, I’m a bit selfish here, as the more chameleons are born the faster our breeding project will be complete and it means less work for me (last time I was “asked” to train over 100 birds).

The other day 6 chameleons were born, and luckily all of them were of the colours we wanted.  We even got almost purebred golden and ebony chameleon mount. Eni was so happy he told everyone about her success. A lot of work still awaits, but the progress can be seen already.

However, sadida mentioned that if several months ago people were ready to buy just any birds with this capacity nowadays they are very selective and want only emerald and plum striped breeds. Still she managed to sell almost all the chameleons she had, so it’s not all that bad.

Money, Money, Money…

It seems money is the only thing cra cares about nowadays. She made 50’000’000 kamas in two weeks. Someone may say that’s a lot, but I would say she could do much better especially  knowing her dirty tricks like selling others set pieces or scrolls. And she did exactly it! She sold my new cape and hat.

To be absolutely honest cra wasn’t the first who came up with this idea, the authorship belongs to Drelas who was responsible for crafting and maging my stuff. She was disappointed with the result and advised cra to sell these items and make new ones. Of course, cra couldn’t reject that very tempting suggestion and she placed the items in sellrooms without any word to me. When I got to know about it (from enu, by the way) my items were sold. I was so upset I couldn’t find words to express my feelings. Seeing my reaction cra assumed I was fine with her actions…

On the bright side free cash is what we needed. Cra is planning to buy three more paddocks and new houses and our usual tactics – barter – doesn’t work anymore. Nowadays everyone wants to be paid in specie.

Scrolls Calculator Template

Some time ago cra made a scrolling template. It was meant as a tool to facilitate all the calculations needed to gather scrolls and materials for them.

Unlike similar calculators hers takes into account already used scrolls and also scrolls that are already collected but have not been used yet.

The calculator also contains all the formulas needed to estimate the costs of scrolls when buying materials for them.

It also allows to use both ways of gathering scrolls: buying/obtaining scrolls and buying/collecting materials for scrolls.

It appeared to be a very useful tool.

Template preview can be found here.

Template for Excel.

OpenOffice Template.

Template Instructions

All other fields will be calculated automatically.

Please, do not touch them unless you are 100% sure you know what you are doing.