Thursday, August 25, 2022

Proposal: Some of the bits

Times out 4-2 and is enacted -SingularByte

Adminned at 27 Aug 2022 13:49:38 UTC

In the rule Statuses, replace “it will cease to be Flipped after 3 turns have passed” with:

it will cease to be Flipped after 5 turns have passed

In the rule Statuses, replace the bullet point Scrambled with:

Scrambled: Each round a Bot is Scrambled, before running its turn, the Announcer separately randomises the order of its Script’s Triggers and Reactions. When it ceases to be Scrambled its Triggers and Reactions regain their standard order. A Bot may only become Scrambled once per Bout and ceases to be Scrambled after three rounds have elapsed.

Remove “for the next two turns” from the effect of the Signal Jammer, and reduce its Consumption to 270.

Two changes from Proposal: Tournament Balance Changes that I particularly liked; strengthening the Scrambled buff further.

Comments

SingularByte: he/him

25-08-2022 14:07:35 UTC

If scrambled is getting buffed heavily, it might be worth clarifying whether there’s any opportunity for a bot to act unscrambled if they’re hit with it every turn, or if you can be continuously scrambled all match long.

Does the scramble effect wear off after an opponent has acted on the turn that it will end or before they act, and does firing it again refresh the timer, or does it fail because they can’t gain a status they already have?

Josh: Observer he/they

25-08-2022 14:30:40 UTC

Mm, interesting. At the moment there’s only two ways to be Scrambled; the shock tile (whose effect is permanent) and the Signal Jammer (two turns).

I guess the hope with Scrambled is that the Opponent gets so janked up that it effectively self-destructs; I’ve made some tweaks.

SingularByte: he/him

25-08-2022 14:34:00 UTC

Looks good, thanks.

Brendan: he/him

25-08-2022 16:30:19 UTC

This actually seems like a big nerf to the signal jammer! Why would you put the highest-consumption system in the game on your bot if you can only use it once for a temporary effect of uncertain value?

Josh: Observer he/they

25-08-2022 16:47:28 UTC

Uncertain, sure, but the impact of Scrambled is now much more severe; in a lot of scripts the order of the commands only semi-matters, as the circumstances that trigger them don’t overlap. Now you’re guaranteed to have the impacts come out weird, and the possibility of the impacts being major is much higher.

At the moment I think that Signal Jammer is hard to really use well; this makes it into a glass cannon, a hail mary. I like it for that.

I am going to strengthen it a little more though: the randomisation now re-rolls each round, so you have better odds over three rounds of having something happen.

SingularByte: he/him

25-08-2022 16:48:14 UTC

Because it’s worthless against well written scripts in the old version?

SingularByte: he/him

25-08-2022 16:48:56 UTC

(That answer was to Brendan by the way)

Habanero:

25-08-2022 18:37:54 UTC

Only being able to Scramble your opponent once per Bout makes Scrambled a lot worse in my opinion, as it’s relatively easy to mostly shut down a scramble-bot by putting ‘if the actor does not have scrambled’ in all the triggers you can and dealing with the three rounds you most likely won’t move. If Bots can be scrambled more than once, then doing this makes you almost completely immobile whenever the opponent uses their signal jammer and they can keep using it until they get lucky, which makes it a lot less effective of a strategy to deal with a scramble-bot.

Habanero:

25-08-2022 18:39:42 UTC

Ah, wait, if you can keep using the jammer to extend the effect indefinitely then this is not an issue.

Brendan: he/him

25-08-2022 20:29:14 UTC

I don’t think it can be extended—“A Bot may only become Scrambled once per Bout and ceases to be Scrambled after three rounds have elapsed.”

SingularByte: he/him

26-08-2022 04:45:43 UTC

for

Darknight: he/him

26-08-2022 11:49:43 UTC

for

Maldor: he/him

26-08-2022 18:18:06 UTC

imperial

Brendan: he/him

26-08-2022 18:37:39 UTC

against

Habanero:

26-08-2022 18:45:19 UTC

against