The Junction/UC/JKF Debate. (in Debates)

There's been a discussion continuing on and off for quite some time about how the Jigorokano Familiar stacks with Unarmed Combat. This thread is for the discussion of this skill and familiar relationship. It will be divided up by issue, and this initial post will change as necessary as the discussion continues.

1) Explanation of how the Jiggy familiar and UC skill stack.

Currently, as explained by Nightstrike:

>Basically, the JKF gets evasion from his new higher level of UC. He >also gets evasion junctioned over from what the minion has from his >own UC. That's a confusing sentence, so read it twice.
>So the JKF gets a nice buff. Cool.

So JKF UC/Eva + minion UC/Eva.


Timeline, again as given by NS:

>Spawn the familiar
>give it intrinsics
>give it UC
>give it evasion based on that UC

>test for junction
>[do a lot of other stuff]
>if the minion has %-boosting gear, boost UC from that
>ditto, + gear
>ditto, trained UC
>recalculate innate evasion from new UC

>if the minion has evasion, junction that over **by level**

And the last quote:

>The fact that you don't lose much Evasion is the *actual* bug that >we can't easily fix. Right now, there's no excessive evasion >granted. If that changes in the wild, then we'll have to find a >better fix.


So the questions of this discussion are:

What is buggy?
What is "excessive?"
What are your interpretations of the statements?



I'll begin by saying that I don't believe it is "buggy." The current method of Junction implementation is as it was designed to be. It was done on purpose.

As far as "what is excessive," I believe that is up to the programmer who designed the formula. He said he would be watching to see how it worked in the wild, so it seems to me that to prove excessiveness, one should try to use the UC/Junction relationship to its greatest extent and see how much Evasion can be granted.

My interpretation of the statement is pretty clear. I think NS was saying that this was how it was intended to work, and it is a nice bonus for the JKF junctioning UC. Sort of like a synergy bonus. However, there was the potential that it could be too powerful as the curve continued, so we'll see how it works at that point.

Discuss :) this thread will be moderated, so please follow the rules as outlined in the Debate forum.

Relevant links:
Link 1
Link 2

if i understood correctly, which is usually questionable, the junctioned uc double dips and grants free evasion that wasn't intended but it was the simplest solution to have any kind of functional uc junctioning.

in effect, you get the minion evasion and uc added to the familiar whereas it should just be the uc added and evasion figured on the total uc.

as for what is excessive, if it was a true jkf buff or uc buff i would have less of a problem but it is actually a uc minion with junctioned uc buff. that in my mind reeks of "it is not worth fixing until exploited" which we have seen with the fighting through suspension issue. in effect do we just fix the easy issues or do we shoot for a bug-free game?

as far as policing the police, nightstrike played that role before he became a dev. are we just supposed to stop that now and trust him to watch it? furthermore, he never actually said that he would watch it, his quote is "If that changes in the wild, then we'll have to find a better fix." you could just as easily read that as asking the community to help monitor and let them know. we do have one dev that doesn't play and one that does but he dropped his jiggy for a robf!

i guess if you are willing to let the devs do their work ob, you are no longer in support of a rolling bonus and will never post support for that again? ; )

Although it's off-topic, I'll go along - of course I'll still post support of the Rolling Bonus, or any bonus really that accomplishes the goals I'm looking for, but that doesn't mean I am in any capacity capable of "policing the police." I'm just offering the suggestion that I firmly believe would be helpful to the game.

>> if i understood correctly, which is usually questionable, the junctioned uc double dips and grants free evasion that wasn't intended but it was the simplest solution to have any kind of functional uc junctioning.

I am curious how it was unintended? The way I understood it was that the UC from the minion added to the UC from the JKF, and that was inclusive of the inherent Evasion bonus. I don't believe the Evasion effect should be separated from that, and I saw it more as a synergy bonus of sorts since you're junctioning UC skill to a UC familiar. I understand that it seems more appropriate to figure Evasion on the full level rather than adding the two, but does that mean "I think it would be better this way" or does it mean "this is buggy?"

I think the phrase that is being searched for here is "I find this solution to be more appropriate." Since the implementation was intentionally done this way, I don't believe that buggy is the correct word, much as "buggy" didn't fit the Exbow (but rather it was overpowered.)

>>he never actually said that he would watch it, his quote is "If that changes in the wild, then we'll have to find a better fix." you could just as easily read that as asking the community to help monitor and let them know.

But see, I see that as "I've fixed it and it works pretty good, but if that turns out differently in real-time gameplay then we'll have to fix that." Let's be honest, it doesn't matter who is watching it, we're going to find out if it turns out differently 'in the wild' and so if it does he's said we'd have to find a better fix. No matter how you interpret it, that much is clear. So in all reality, it seems like the time spent analyzing the statement would be better spent trying to find out if it really does become excessive in the wild.

i concluded that it was buggy due to the fact that ns was going through and fixing all of the other "double-dipping" that came about when switching junction from a skill to an amulet. that taken in context with "Right now, there's no excessive evasion >granted. If that changes in the wild, then we'll have to find a >better fix." pretty much tells me this is buggy.

taking the individual statements out of context really doesn't show the whole picture. nem was actually there helping nightstrike. both of them described it to me as a bug at the time but just one that it wasn't worth the trouble to fix, as of yet. i do remember that clearly because of the fact that i was posting about a different bug entirely and nightstrike thought i was referring to this one and was continuing to put it on the known issues page.

i will see if i can pull up the pm, but i do believe in one of those threads he says to me "that is not even the bug i am talking about..." referring to this bug as the BUG.

here is the post from ns:

...Wiki page reverted. Dude, that's not even what we're talking about. What you just put in the wiki isn't a bug at all. The issue that won't be fixed is the junctioning of a UC minion's inherent Evasion from UC. That has nothing to do with the 40% penalty, which is valid if you read the original junction thread on how it's supposed to work.

i was referring to the 40 percent penalty on junctioned evasion while what he states as the "issue that won't be fixed" is the junctioned uc issue.

Right. But above that, he states:

"Basically, the JKF gets evasion from his new higher level of UC. He also gets evasion junctioned over from what the minion has from his own UC. That's a confusing sentence, so read it twice. I guess I should use less pronouns.

So the JKF gets a nice buff. Cool."

He did that intentionally. How can that be described as an overlooked example of double-dipping when he called it a buff?

context again, read the posts previous to that:

AdminNightStrike May 19 3:45 PM EDT
Once again, many many thanks to Nem for his help in correcting this stuff.

Right now, there's only a few minor bugs left.
Colonel Custard May 19 3:46 PM EDT
I get what you're saying.

I still think it makes the most sense to just make it (a+b)*c across the board, or, in the case of Evasion, (UClevel/3+trained evasion level)*DX bonus = total Evasion level.
Colonel Custard May 19 3:47 PM EDT
Oops.

(UClevel/3+trained evasion level)*(DX bonus+1)
Nemerizt May 19 4:00 PM EDT
Well, most of the things seem to have been fixed. There is still 1 small issue with UC transferred evasion but it isn't very big and other than that everything should work right.

Also the elven gear are junctioning UC correctly now as well. For probably the first time since maybe when he came out, the JKF is working just about perfectly. :)
AdminNightStrike May 19 4:02 PM EDT
Ok, so evasion with the JKF is as fixed as it's going to get, barring someone who wants to pay me several thousand dollars to make up for all the lost time so far :)

Basically, the JKF gets evasion from his new higher level of UC. He also gets evasion junctioned over from what the minion has from his own UC. That's a confusing sentence, so read it twice. I guess I should use less pronouns.

So the JKF gets a nice buff. Cool.

On a side note, Evasion (and DB) with all the familiars should work, fyi.

what i see as "i am giving up, it is too time consuming to fix" you are evidently seeing as "i will intentionally design it to work this way"?

we have also heard from ns himself since this time that he doesn't do balance, just bug fixing. so i don't think he "intentionally" decided to buff jkf's in a very specific setup. i think he fixed it as well as he could given the time frame and left a bug that until exploited would remain in game. which leaves us with "when will it be an exploit and should the community help watch for it?"

>> dudemus 3:44 PM EDT
what i see as "i am giving up, it is too time consuming to fix" you are evidently seeing as "i will intentionally design it to work this way"?

That pretty much sums it up.

"Right now, there's no excessive evasion granted. If that changes in the wild, then we'll have to find a better fix. "


if he designed it that way as a permanent fix, why leave room for a better fix? if he designed it as a temporary fix, then it leans more towards my interpreation rather than yours no?

I think it falls more or less in the middle of that. This was not an intentional fix, but rather something that would be very hard to change. But it is also something that is not all that exploitable to the point where it is significantly game changing. There is also the fact that UC isn't exactly the most powerful thing on the block.

In my case I am getting the benefits of this to more or less its maximum extent. I have the survivability through the PL wall and just about all the rest of my exp is in UC. But if I continue to grow by just adding in UC this will actually weaken my team overall. I will be extremely weak vs any kind of other team.

"There is also the fact that UC isn't exactly the most powerful thing on the block."

which is why i have a major problem with it. uc needs a boost, when it can be exploited to seem stronger in one sense will it ever get the boost it needs.

that is why i jumped all over the other thread actually. the first post was talking about how good a jiggy team was doing.

i disagree and think that it could be exploited to a great affect due to the threshold nature of evasion given plus to hits upgrade curve. yes, you would still be vulnerable to magic damage and robf, but you would be able to fight much higher against physical damage teams. if you can get a higher challenge bonus for longer, then life is good!

"I will be extremely weak vs any kind of other team."

unless you can max challenge bonus for most of an ncb run and then retrain to be better rounded after you pass the other teams up! that is where this kind of thing gets annoying.

i am in no way implying that is what you are doing, someone will though and then it will be the only way to run an ncb because it is the best or the one with the most "free" xp.

single minion with all xp in uc to max challenge bonus against physical teams, should be pretty easy pickings with the hals out there now.