I see new tests were conducted and the percent chance to fire on focus mind is now 33%. I will grant you that number, since you had the time to conduct the tests. It does beg the question though, if the percent chance is the same on every action that BadLuck affects, then where do you get this idea that BadLuck was specifically made to stop a person from curing Temporary Insanity? With the data you have gathered it shows that BadLuck is not specifically made to stop a person from curing Temporary Insanity, but is instead a slightly more limited (but far more powerful) form of Stupidity ailment that stacks with the normal one. Essentially, you have proven that the basis of your argument is false.

BadLuck is not an ability that you can just look at sans all of the other abilities you possess. It is an ability that works quite well with other abilities, if you know what you are doing. Considering the facts that it hinders actions, steals balance, and can stack with stupidity (which you can give via poisons) it does not need any extra malus added to it once the balance loss stacking is removed. It is still a great ability, that would be extremely powerful in competent hands even sans the balance stacking with itself.

Last, using the logic of your ending argument I could say the same thing about TimeWarp, since some abilities in Aeonics are affected by the level of timewarp a person is afflicted with (Including an Insta-Kill). TimeWarp is just as important to Aeonics as Temporary Insanity is to Paradigmatics, but there is no fire and forget ability that helps hinder the curing of TimeWarp. One is not needed either of them, if the person knows how to effectively use the mechanics of how they works. Then again with the new figures you have presented, the logical conclusion would be that BadLuck is just an alternative means of hindering certain actions from being performed by the afflicted of which Focus Mind is one of many.

To start from the end and work up...

Focus Mind is not one of many actions it is one of a few. We have already pointed out that Badluck does not in fact hinder the majority of actions. It hinders - Focus Mind, Stancing, Diagnose (couldn't get it to fire once on diagnose in 3 minutes of testing), offensive actions and supposedly the healing skillset (I will have to test that). Being that it specifically targets focus mind, but not the eating of say... Pennyroyal... it is a logical conclusion that it's intent is to hinder the curing of temporary insanity. There is no reason at all to try and draw parallels with Aeonics because the skillsets are not the same and are not intended to be the same, so what Aeonics doesn't do has zero bearing on what Paradigmatics does do.

Once, again you seem to be arguing a point nobody is contesting, that being that Badluck is a great skill. We have all agreed that it is a great skill. The only thing in dispute here, that you seem unable to grasp the concept of, is that spamming a cure freely and without hinderance until it succeeds is a bad thing, no matter what its curing is for. There is a reason that focus mind, and every other cure, has a malus to spamming it (be that mana loss, or just curative loss), it should have a likewise malus to spamming it when you have badluck. I have already posted a mock log of what no malus on focus mind will look like with only a balance loss change and that should not be allowed to happen. I personally think the malus should be the same for focus mind as it is any other time you spam it, but Shuyin's balance loss idea would work just as well.

As for my argument being false based on the new numbers, your own arguement comes out no further ahead. In fact, your very arguement in regards to Shuyin's proposal - under the assumption that the skill was firing 70% of the time - was that the focus mind malus would only be ok if the chance to fire was greatly reduced below 70%. Following that logic we have just shown that it is indeed reduced below 70% by more than half and there should be no issue anymore from you, because we met your criteria, with a focus mind malus.

Just as a sidebar. I sparred Sadie last night and accidently hit my badluck key (I was avoiding it the whole spar so as not to unfairly balance lock her), other than annoying her she was certainly not balanced lock for any serious length of time and managed to regain her attack after a very brief period.

In fact, I would go so far as to say the only time I have seen a serious balance lock is when someone is using focus mind as much as possible in a badly written system - a system not coded around badluck. Even spamming attack macros to try and fire off badluck I can't balance lock myself, the only time I can is if I do an extreme case of focus mind spam in order to prove a point in testing.

In further testing it seems that offensive actions actually means any action that consumes balance/eq has a chance to proc badluck, but if you are already off balance/eq when you send the command it won't proc - i.E A Bonecrusher procs badluck on the first swing and is knocked off balance, the second swing fails due to having no balance, but will not proc badluck. (same with stancing, if you are off balance when you try and stance you won't proc badluck, so it can't stack with itself). This is why the perpetual balance locks happen with focus mind only, because of the fact that focus mind does not consume focus balance on a failure in badluck, so the mechanics allow you to try again and effectively lock yourself with badluck procs.

In effect, what Geb is asking for already exists, since it appears to check for balance/eq before it checks for a badluck proc, except in the case of focus mind. Geb's change, which is under false assumptions and lack of thorough testing of the ability to stack with itself, would purely be a buff to being able to cure via focus mind in badluck.

The most obvious fix then would be, apply focus balance loss to badluck procs. Or code your system to not focus mind in badluck. I think the former is better than the latter myself, because it still gives people a chance to try and focus mind without having it completely shut out for 1 minute.

Edit:: Worst case scenario, with the focus balance fix in place, you are unlucky and proc badluck on an attack and then again on focus mind, for a balance loss of 3 - 6 seconds, but the skill is called badluck afterall. Again though, even this can be coded around so as not to focus mind if you suffered a badluck proc, reducing the chance of even this scenario coming up.


Edit:: After some thought on the matter, I am even leaning towards not putting in a fix for focus mind causing perpetual balance loss. People know what the risk of focusing mind might end up being and if they choose to use it in badluck then they should suffer that risk. It's a simple enough risk (2 triggers 1 variable) to code around and it is not the first skill to hinder curing methods. It is certainly far less debilitating than curing in choke. (nerf choke)

You want Badluck to be a skill that simply turns off Focus Mind, but from hearing these tests and such, I'm really not sure that's what it was meant to do, exactly. It almost sounds like not consuming focus balance on a badluck proc is a bug.

It doesn't turn it off, it attaches a high risk to using it, repeatedly, as more than an emergency. Crucify, now that is a skill that turns off focus mind.

Edit:: Also if you attach focus balance to the loss guess what happens. You still don't focus mind. Not attaching the focus balance means you risk losing regular balance for a longer period, but you still get a chance for focus mind to go through more often.

That's like saying "If you use focus mind against a Wiccan, there's a chance to strip insomnia, kafe, metawake, and put you to sleep." Wouldn't actually keep you from using it, but in practice, no one ever would. A minute long balance lock isn't quite that extreme, but the principle is the same, I think. But maybe you're right, maybe that's the whole point of the skill.

Again, there is already a risk to using focus mind. Adding focus balance loss doesn't take the risk away it merely changes what the risk is. The one means you mechanically won't be focusing mind every time it procs, the other means you will decide for yourself if you focus mind or not. The former means no retry on fail, the latter means you can instantly retry on fail if you want to risk it.

My original argument was based on the fact that I agreed BadLuck may have been made to stop Focus Mind since original testing seemed to show that it fired on use of that ability so much more than other actions. Since the new information came out showing it does not fire anymore on actions like attack attempts than it does on focus mind attempts, I had to change my argument based on the new evidence that was presented. So, your new evidence nullified my last argument by pointing out that BadLuck was not made to particularly stop Focus Mind, but was instead probably made as an alternative form of stupidity that has a smaller list of actions it fires on of which Focus Mind is one of them (with the added malus of stealing balance when it fires).

Your next argument about balance stacking only happening in a poor system still does not counter my point that BadLuck does not only hinder Focus Mind. I know it was an intentional jab, but ultimately proves nothing concerning the nature of the ability. Besides, to even be able to tell whether a person has a poor system or not, the person making the judgement would have to actually be good at fighting himself. So I suggest you refrain from taking that path in this argument, unless you are actually willing to prove your point.

Anyhow, your whole new write up still does not give any solid evidence on why BadLuck must be given some added malus to focus mind curing, if the balance loss stacking with itself is removed. It fires on other actions just as much as focus mind, which goes counter to your argument that it was particularly made to stop focus mind from curing Temp Insanity. It fires on parry attempts, so do we need to also add an extra malus to that if the stacking is removed? We can't have people hammering their parrying alias, now can we?

Actually my statement about a poorly coded system was not an intentional jab, hence there being a qualifying statement about a system not being coded to deal with badluck, meaning anyone who has one that falls in that category. The only person making this personal and this is at least the third time in this thread you have tried to do so instead of sticking to the facts, is yourself. Attempting to argue "I am right because I am Geb and better fighter than you" is nothing but a poor attempt to save a badly founded case. Now that we have that sorted out let's once again move back to the facts.

Cures have maluses attached to them for being spammed. If you spam eat myrtle, you will eat one, then not be able to have another succeed until you regain balance, however you will still lose myrtle, that is the malus. If you spam focus mind you will have the first one succeed, but not have another succeed until you regain balance, though you will lose mana, that is the malus. What you want is focus mind spamming to have no malus when badluck procs for whatever reason it procs. You can't spam it when you don't have badluck, the same should hold true with badluck.

Your example on parrying proves just how wrong you are in all this because Parry does not in fact proc badluck. IN fact, just to make sure I wasn't mistaken as I posted this I gave myself badluck and spammed parry head 100 for 1 minute without a single proc. So no, Parry does not need a malus. What does need a malus is the only thing that causes perpetual balance loss. Perhaps you should come down off your mountain, and stop pretending that all you have to do is preach and everyone will bow to you, and test things for yourself for once. (see, now that was personal)


Edit:; I failed to point out, that balance stacking does not need any change because there is no balance loss stacking unless you focus mind over and over and over. The mechanic of how badluck works prevents exactly that. Perhaps instead of looking for ways to passive aggressively make personal attacks you could start reading what is actually being posted.

EDIT: nvm ninja'd

This is something people do need to remember!

Of the things that cause badluck to fire, ALL of them require balance/eq to use, except for focusing. Thus, badluck can only begin to stack when focus is spammed.

If it isn't spammed, then badluck will never stack eq loss, purely by the very nature of its design.

You have made your jabs through out your arguments, so I assume you are continuing to make them. I simply pointed out that you should not make statements about someone's system unless you are willing to prove your point.

Also, the malus for focus mind spamming is not removed if BadLuck is on the person. The person still can't spam focus mind, because the person still loses mana while off focus balance without curing anything. BadLuck does not change that fact, but instead adds an extra malus of losing balance for 3 seconds.

Maybe you are correct, what I thought was it firing on parry attempts could have actually been it firing on Focus Body. Here is an example:

Raikogen razes your aura of rebounding with a steel inquisitor rapier.
SmokeFae One
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13478w elrkb<>-
You eat a wormwood stem.
You can handle the idea of open spaces again.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkb<>-
You take a long drag off your pipe.
*** SMOKED PIPE ***
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkb<>-
----------------------
|REGAINED SPARKBALANCE|
----------------------
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkb<>-
-------------------------------------------------------
-----------RAIKOGEN HAS APPLIED SALVE TO GUT.-----------
-------------------------------------------------------
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkb<>-
----------------------------
|REGAINED SMOKE/HERBBALANCE|
----------------------------
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkb<>-
With a focused look, Raikogen strikes at you with a steel inquisitor rapier. You are merely clipped on your right arm for a small cut.
unparry
parry rarm 100
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.
focus body
7651h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
A jet black cat races between your legs, causing you to trip and forget what you were doing.
7651h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
------------------------
|REGAINED SCROLLBALANCE|
------------------------
focus body
7651h, 4485m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13506w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
I AM CURING MY PARALYSIS!
7651h, 4298m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13431w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
You bleed 14 health.
7637h, 4298m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13431w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
With a focused look, Raikogen strikes at you with a steel inquisitor rapier. You are pricked in the gut and bleed slightly.
Hmmmm. Why must everything be so difficult to figure out?
7548h, 4298m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13431w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
outr pennyroyal
eat pennyroyal
----------------------------
|REGAINED SMOKE/HERBBALANCE|
----------------------------
7548h, 4298m, 5175e, 9p, 30900en, 13431w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
*** I AM NO LONGER PARALYSED!!! ***


So can you tell me what fired it off that time? Was it focus body, or my parry attempt? Another explaination is that I attempted an aggressive action while off-balance and paralyzed, causing it to fire too. Though, did you guys not say it will not fire on aggressive actions if you are not already off-balance?


You take a long drag off your pipe.
*** SMOKED PIPE ***
You are patient once again.
read 23122 healing
recharge 23122 with 53143
7509h, 3879m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
You eat a sparkleberry.
You feel your health, mana and ego replenished.
7740h, 4327m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
You read a Scroll of Healing.
You feel an invigorating energy rush through you.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
assess Raikogen
focus body
With a focused look, Raikogen strikes at you with a steel inquisitor rapier. He stumbles forward as he fails to strike you.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
----------------------
|REGAINED HEALBALANCE|
----------------------
apply health to gut
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
A bag of salt that you didn't realize you were carrying splits open, showering the coarse granules everywhere. You curse as some get into your eyes and break your concentration.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
Terror descends upon you and your head swims - you must find shelter!
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
You take out some healing potion and quickly rub it on your gut.
unparry
parry head 100
The deep damage in your gut completely heals.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13525w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
assess Raikogen
focus body
Using your foresight, you completely avoid an attack by Raikogen.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
Your concentration is shattered as you trip over a mirror, which breaks into a thousand pieces.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
outr wormwood
eat wormwood
----------------------------
|REGAINED SMOKE/HERBBALANCE|
----------------------------
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
You eat a wormwood stem.
You can handle the idea of open spaces again.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
----MY REBOUNDING IS UP----
focus body
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
Merfua de Brume, a mist dragon breathes mist at Raikogen.
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
-------------------------------------------------------
-----------RAIKOGEN HAS APPLIED SALVE TO GUT.-----------
-------------------------------------------------------
7740h, 4485m, 5175e, 8p, 30900en, 13553w elrkbp<>-|Prone|Paralyzed
Your concentration is shattered as you trip over a mirror, which breaks into a thousand pieces.

In that example above I was off-balance the entire time, while BadLuck was firing off of either Focus Body, or my Assess Attempt. I am inclined to think it was focus body causing it to fire since I had to attempt to cure paralysis multiple times. So I seem to erroneously assumed it was parry attempts causing it to fire, but instead it looks like focus body causes it to fire too. Unless assess attempts were causing it to fire while I was paralyzed and off-balance already, something you guys said does not happen. So even without the use of Focus Mind, it still can balance stack with itself.

So I freely admit that I was wrong about it firing on parry, unfortunately now I see it fires on something even worse or it fires on aggressive actions (assess is considered aggressive) while off balance, something you guys say is impossible. All of the above does not matter anyhow, because your original point of BadLuck needing the extra malus to stop focus mind is a fallacy anyway. It is like someone saying you should still lose mana if you try to use focus mind and stupidity stops it. Though now you are saying, the balance stacking is fine since it can only occure if you do use focus mind. Unfortunately, that statement is false too.

Last but not least, you still have not proven that BadLuck was made with the main intention of stoping people from curing Temporary Insanity. Logically, if what you are trying to argue was true then BadLuck would only fire on focus mind attempts. No matter how you try to spin it, it still fires on more things than Focus Mind.

Ok, just tested the hell out of that.

A) It doesn't fire on assess, at all, period.

I tried to balance lock myself by attempting to execute non focusing actions while off eq and under badluck. Doesn't work, just like we've said. You can't do the action. Because you can't do the action, you can't trip bad luck. Because you can't trip bad luck, it can't further knock you off EQ, until you have recovered EQ, at which point you have, ipso facto, recovered from the firing of badluck.

C) The exception to this is focus. Which is exactly what we've said. The ONLY way you're going to lock yourself is by spamming the ever loving crap out of focus. I managed to burn my mana bar out before I meaningfully locked myself, though that all comes down to statistics, and probably just got lucky.

But to go back to the point-

Except for focus, the only things that can fire bad luck all take balance and eq.

When badluck fires, it takes bal/eq.
If you don't have bal/eq, you can't perform abilities, save for focus, that take bal/eq.
Because you can't perform abilities that take bal/eq, you cannot cause badluck to fire while having lost balance eq from anything, including bad luck.

The exception to this is focus, which is what has been said over and over.

The only way you'll lock yourself is by spamming focus. And spamming it a lot. You could lock yourself with anything that trips bad luck, but doesn't require eq/balance to use, but the only things we've found that fall into that category are focus cures.

Edit- doesn't fire on compose either. Looking for other things that don't require balance/eq to use, and fire badluck, but so far, looks like just focusing

So we should refrain from curing paralysis with Focus Body while we have BadLuck on us? Do you mean people should only attempt to cure paralysis if they have balance, if BadLuck is on them? Do you mean people should only use power cures for paralysis while they have BadLuck on them? Or, is it you mean people should sip allheale to cure paralysis while BadLuck is on them? Maybe you mean all of the above?

There is no mana loss on focus mind if you proc badluck, so everytime it procs (which is what we have been saying all along) you can instantly do it again until it goes through.


Assess doesn't trip badluck either. It was most likely focus body that did, which would again use... focus balance... and since the skill checks for balance/eq not focus balance it stacked. Again making the fix be, 'focus procs should lose focus balance' so there is no stacking chance. I did not test focus body so could not add it to my earlier statements, but having seen it now I will adjust my statement to the lack of losing focus balance in general is the only way to stack balance losses.

Also, your initial argument was based on faulty information as was my own. Stop trying to play up that I am still arguing old data and facts when it is quite obvious my recent posts (after proper testing) have changed to reflect the new information. You are possibly correct, focus mind proccing badluck may not be meant to hinder insanity curing. Though one has to ask themselves, why it and focus body were singled out among the vast amount of other things that could have been hindered. It certainly was put in for some reason beyond 'hey why not?'.

There is no mana loss on focus mind if you proc stupidity. Should we now add one? Seems so with your line of reasoning.

I can't speak for Kalin, but what I mean is this- the only way to lock yourself with badluck is spamming focus cures like you hate your mana pool with a vengance.

There's no other way to do it.

That's what I mean. There's a lot of really misleading bullcrap in this thread, and at this point, I'm mostly posting to comb out this factually incorrect data.

Compose doesn't fire it. Writhe, does not fire it. Focusing does. 1/3 times, it fires on focusing. If you don't just spam the crap out of focus body, changes are, it won't even fire. If it does, do it again! Chances are even smaller that it will happen twice in a row! Or if it does fire, wait for it to fade before firing it again.

Nobody can MAKE you spam the crap out of focus.

To read your argument, you would think that it fired the vast majority of the time. It does no such thing. 33%. 1 in 3.

As for the mana loss thing, I'm not even going to go there, at least until the wild misinformation stops flying around.

Edit- and now, I get to go refill my mana vials, because I burnt through ALL of them spamming focus cures testing this.

I am not asking for mana loss. I am, using the theme and mechanic of the skill proposing a fix that is the only fix actually needed. Badluck procs on focusing should steal focus balance. You put that in and all the trouble goes away. The only thing the code has to do then is check if you are off balance/eq/focus balance before applying a balance loss proc. The mechanics already protect you from balance loss stacking on everything else. Furthermore, badluck is a limited effect in what it procs on with a steeper penalty. While it may 'work' similar to stupidity it is not stupidity and drawing parallels just doesn't fly.

That is false, because you should read that log I posted up there. If you continue to try to cure paralysis after failed attempts, you can still end up firing BadLuck over and over while off-balance. The second log shows that. I even highlighted where BadLuck was firing. So yes, you can have stacking occur even if you refrain from using focus mind if a person uses a lot of mantakaya on you.

I think it's fine as it is, but there seems to be too many misconceptions taken from doing limited testing. You need hundreds, if not thousands, of data points to prove any certain frequency for EACH command you think may fire the effect.