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Messages - Langdon

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196
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: December 02, 2010, 10:04:03 pm »
So I've gotten a friend to try the game out today. I then realized why we're getting a whole lot of inactive/useless players:

He went into a town, saw the forums were empty, and walked out into the desert, promptly running into 3 zombies. He gets injured, and decides to start over. So he goes and makes a new account and joins a new town, where he walks out into the desert and runs into four zombies. He was about to make a third account when I told him to ask on the forums for help, and pointed him at the wiki.

There are probably more inactive players than active players now (i.e. people who signed up, found it too confusing, and left, never to return).

As for me, I'm probably just gonna use up my hero days, then also leave.

197
Just wondering, does anyone know how to get rid of the screwy symbols?

You need to replace the LANGUAGExx files with "cleaned" versions. I believe the ones in this pack and Mayday's are cleaned already, but you can do it yourself using search-and-replace.

198
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Goblins making this game too easy
« on: December 01, 2010, 11:57:12 am »
Bug has been reported as http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=368.

In my latest game it's triggered by having ambush squads with ex-abductees. Once humans or dwarves spawn inside the squads, some bug makes nearby goblins hostile to them. Once a goblin hits his squadmate, he is now an enemy of his civ, and the other squadmates pile on him. This is a loyalty cascade.

If two goblins in the same squad are from different towns (i.e. members of two different subgroups within the civ) then the subgroup also becomes an enemy of the parent civ (goblin civil war!). For example in my last game, I have a goblin civ called The Dread Trails, and this civ owns a town, Scourgeyouth which was founded by The Clean Malice.

A human ex-abductee from The Clean Malice is killed by his squadmate, who is not from The Clean Malice (from some other town) but is also a member of The Dread Trails. Once he commits the murder, goblins from The Clean Malice will hit him in revenge. Once he dies, The Clean Malice is now an enemy of its parent civ The Dread Trails.

For every ambush squad after this, if there is a member of The Clean Malice mixed into one of the squads, the killing will commence. I believe this will continue until The Clean Malice is wiped out and no longer contributes goblins to invading squads. (In my game, after five or so years, ambushes reverted to normal and were no longer killing each other).

All this can be verified in Legends mode after abandoning the fort. I saw lots of "has become an enemy of The Dread Trails" and "has become an enemy of The Clean Malice" messages when examining the goblin ambushes that started it all.

199
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: December 01, 2010, 09:54:22 am »
And I agree - we need some statistics.

Quote
Again, we have no hard data, unless someone runs an analysis on Last Man Standing awardings on a statistically significant number of towns over the course of the beta. Maybe the hoah.org people can help with that.
What do you think would be a large enough number of towns to provide evidence one way or the other?

Depends on the number of towns that have played since start of beta. If we have 1000 towns played since beta, 95% confidence (+/- ~8%) would need about a 100-town sample size.

I've been poking around the soul page display and I see it doesn't record number of zombies or house defense. Ideally there would be some way for a third-party site (hoah.org or someone else) to pull the gazette page upon town death, as the gazette list does have the attack information we need.

Might be easier to ask the devs point blank. :-P

200
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: December 01, 2010, 12:15:54 am »
The developers have said that the Last Man standing is chosen randomly. They have NOT said that things you do can't change the weightings the choices are given - only that it is, ultimately, up the RNG.

This statement is also what the non-English players referred to when I asked them. I believe (and here, I understand if you choose not to believe me) that this statement from the developers "Last Man Standing is chosen randomly" means "all citizens who die in their bed on the final night have equal chances at LMS". I believe that defense does not make a difference (does not change the weighings) in the final roll for LMS.

My belief is based on my interpretation of the developers' statements and from what I have observed on LMS from my own experience and from examining the soul pages of other LMS awardees.  Again, we have no hard data, unless someone runs an analysis on Last Man Standing awardings on a statistically significant number of towns over the course of the beta. Maybe the hoah.org people can help with that.

201
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: December 01, 2010, 12:02:07 am »
Quote
If everyone dies, regardless of number of zombies or defenses, then LMS is awarded randomly among the people who "died in their bed" (i.e. you might have more zombies on you, but they were saving you for dessert).
The problem is that this is not a meaningful statement in regards to what we are discussing (and  most of the rest of what you said was irrelevant).

We know its random. What we want to know is HOW the random outcome is determined. Not all "randoms" are created equal.

If we take turns drawing cards, but I draw 2 on my turn and you draw 1, the first person to draw an Ace of Spades is random. But the odds are certainly not equal.

Quote
From the point of view of a survivor it looks really random, but it's just the RNG.
Err... from the point of the view of a survivor it looks random, but it's really just random? Not sure what you are getting at there. :/

If you ALL die, LMS is not determined by how many zombies you had on you or what your defense was. LMS is determined by who was eaten last. This, from my understanding, is randomly selected from all citizens who "die in their bed" on the final night.

My comments are based on posts from German and French players. I understand that the English Die2Nite may very well use a different system, but so far from the posts of people who have gotten LMS (and I myself have LMS from my last town) this system as described by the French and German players seems to be still in place.

Further corroboration would involve a systematic recording of LMS awardees, and a statistical study of LMS selection vs. house defense and number of zombies assigned at death.

202
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 30, 2010, 11:20:03 pm »
Right. Basically, it's random chance but by no means pure chance or equal chance. Stuff you do CAN increase your odds.

Quote
When the zombie brak the door, they start attacking random villager until a sufficient number ( equal to your home defence, noramlly) attack you, then kill you.

If this is true, it is in stark contrast to what everyone has been saying on the forums, and much closer to what I've been arguing.

Zombies are distributed as stated above - one zombie chooses random villager, next zombie chooses random villager. Statistically you will get a number of zombies evenly distributed between citizens, but due to the vagaries of the RNG some will get more, some will get less. It doesn't stop at the home defense number - I've seen people with bedrolls get dogpiled by 9 zombies, while the rest of us get 1-2 each.

There are several possibilities:

1) There are enough zombies that make it through the defenses that everybody gets more zombies than their house can defend against. i.e. 200 zombies make it through, there are 4 of you, you get 50 zombies average each. Even if one has a fort (8 defense+4 defense items=12 defense) if you all get 40-50 zombies each, defense doesn't matter, you all die. There is still a vanishingly small chance that fort guy gets 11 zombies while the rest of you get 60 each.

2) Just enough zombies get through the gate that there is an increased chance of survival for those with higher defenses. For example, there are 4 of you in town, and 40 zombies make it through. Someone has a fort (8+4=12 defense) while the rest of you are in hovels (4+4=8 def). If the zombies are evenly distributed, fort guy lives, the rest of you die. There is still a chance that fort guy gets 20 zombies, and the other three gets 3-4 each. Still, the odds are stacked against the other three.

3) The number of zombies that get through the gate is less than the number of citizens in town. In this case you see 1 zombie per citizen, although an unlucky few get 2-3 each. Anything higher than a tent will almost guarantee survival here.

From the point of view of a survivor it looks really random, but it's just the RNG.

Also, each corpse you leave in the town (did not use water to destroy the corpse or drag it out of town) will instakill one citizen come the attack, regardless of defense.

The only thing that assures LMS is if you survive till the next night. If everyone dies, regardless of number of zombies or defenses, then LMS is awarded randomly among the people who "died in their bed" (i.e. you might have more zombies on you, but they were saving you for dessert).

203
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 30, 2010, 11:59:48 am »
So one of the town leaders suicided last night, and from reading the World Forums I see they were angling for a slot in the Pits.

I congratulate him on his decision on the Town Forums, and I get a complaint of "community extremist" in return.

End of beta is doing weird stuff to folk.

204
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 29, 2010, 06:39:48 am »
We built a Workshop on the first day, then built around 10 more constructions before the days end too, we were at 100+Def on the first day and around 200 by the second. The workshop helped alot cause we also divided ourselves into Constructors and Scavengers, The constructors would waste 2ap each day on scaving the 4 tiles that were depleated around the town so that we would have a large amount of Raw Resources for later, and the Scavs would do all the long treks. THIS worked well...

Yep, my current town also has dedicated scavengers and builders. Pretty good organization, and I think we'd have it good if not for the number of inactive and non-responsive people (first thing we did was put a note on everyone's door to read the forums). It also seems there's a bunch of players who see someone shouting orders on the forum, go "I hate this town" and then run out into the desert to die on the first day.

My last town started out good, then went to hell when the main organizer died. (no, I'm not a leader, I'm just the guy who goes "all right, from my calculations, we have a 33.33% (repeating) chance of survival").

Good job with the Crows and with the Hero thing. Too bad they're gonna wipe distinctions after the beta, but still, you're going to be one of the more recognizable players around.

205
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 29, 2010, 02:04:32 am »
Workshop day 1 is not a requirement as many seem to believe

Still, if you're going defense instead of workshop, Armor Plating sucks compared to other options.

The Workshop may not be a requirement but has significant resource and manpower requirements, enough that it serves as a test for how many people are willing to follow group decisions and how many aren't. Especially for new people, the morale boost of the perception of being in a non-fail town is very important, and makes them willing to contribute more to later projects. Towns with a workshop on Day 1 have no problems focusing construction APs on specific needed projects later, and waste less resources in general.

206
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 26, 2010, 08:29:01 am »
Its the fact that people that ain't from Bay12 come on and leech the keys...
If somebody takes the effort to PM me for a key then they probably won't sign up, die in the Beyond and never play again.

I think this thread comes close to the top of the Google search for die2nite. On one hand, as Cheeetar said, you'd have someone just taking keys off this thread courtesy of Google. On the other hand, we're getting a small influx of escaped lunatics who sign up, PM for keys, then disappear, never to login to Bay12 again.

Of course, lots of newbies getting keys off the Facebook page compared to here, so it might not matter.

207
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: Question: One dwarf owns all my food
« on: November 26, 2010, 12:10:11 am »
Any ideas on how to get him to relinquish his hold on the entire pantry?

This is caused by the default military setting telling the squad to carry food in their backpacks. In the military screen, go to (s)upplies, and tell them to not carry food.

The bug is that they drop the food while sparring or training, then go to the stockpiles to get more food, instead of picking up the food they dropped.

208
DF Gameplay Questions / Re: The DF2010 Little Questions Thread
« on: November 26, 2010, 12:07:43 am »
Stone traps suck.  Must be reloaded after each triggering, and cause little to no damage.

True. In 40d I found them useful against hostile wildlife (rhesus monkeys and such) but with the new materials system in df2010 they can't even stop deer. Stone has lower density than metal, so rocks just bounce off most animals, causing light bruises, but little else.

209
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 25, 2010, 08:15:33 pm »
If none of us four choose to die outside the walls, there will be at least fifty zombies for every one of us.

Gaah, stupid RNG.

It sent 140 zombies (30 less than the previous night).

We get 10 zombies each. 3 of us died. Mr. Ex-Hero-Haha-I-Have-A-Fort lived. He's getting hero status again.

Oh well. That'll teach me, after day five in chaos mode, no more Mr. Nice Citizen. next time I'm getting a fort as well.

210
Other Games / Re: Die2Nite
« on: November 25, 2010, 09:29:00 am »
Actually it won't help him at all. If all of them die in the last attack the 'last man standing' is awarded randomly.

In this case sure, but the last town might have been a little different.
Yea possibly.

You could check his last town's death history.

Only one previous town, he was one of 8 "eaten in town" on 5th and last day.

Looks like he just got lucky then, and decided not to rely on luck this time.

I remember hearing that he was taking Cyanide today, lucky bastard, it was the only one and he got to it first...

I don't really get why people commit suicide instead of waiting to die during the attack - if you die by walking outside the gates or by taking poison, the current day isn't counted when awarding soul points and distinctions.

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