What's the point of + INT?

[Uncle Al]

Silicoid did comment very briefly that skill up chances use the base, unmodified stat, but it was a very passing comment and I'd always wondered if perhaps spell buffs and the like were ignored, but item bonuses counted.

I've just done a quick test by running a monk and ninja against the training dummies. Both had INT and DEX of 85 but the ninja had +20 INT and +10 DEX from items.

After 500 rounds the monk gained 51 stealth and the ninja 50, so I'm willing to bet fairly hard that items don't affect skill learning.

So....+INT gear does virtually nothing. It'll give you a little bit of mental resistance if your INT is 85 or higher.

Turns out the Brilliant Helm is actually just an AC 6 helm that a monk can wear, and that's pretty much its only function.

[vysionier]

Isn’t int one of the stats that passively increase tHC on silicoids formulas? So it’s not completely useless if that’s the case.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by vysionier:

Isn’t int one of the stats that passively increase tHC on silicoids formulas? So it’s not completely useless if that’s the case.

True. Looking like 1% hit chance per 20 points of stat from peddroelm's current testing in his thread. I refuse to be wowed, heh, but I guess every little helps.

[vysionier]

Lol, yeah I’m not wowed either, but on a character like a bard, all those +20’s add up and can help at least in the early game. I’m very curious to see where peddrolem’s tests lead on stats. Mainly if there’s a higher difference in stats would it increase you cTH at a higher rate or not.

[mpnorman10]

According to Silicoid's work even within the original translation, +Stats from items do not impact the probability of skill increase.

IMO, they should, and I think most players assume they do. No game is perfect. Good work on your design of experiment.

[peddroelm]

IF (Intelligence> 80) THEN Mental_Resist += (Int-80) / 2

Tiny bonus to Mental resist (if you cannot max it otherwise) .. (there is no benefit from raising rez pas 100 ?)..
Tiny bonus in the to hit formulas ..

What I'm curious about is Bard And Gadgetter 'casting' ... The damage formulas for their 'spells' ..I do vaguely remember seeing something about this but can't seem to find it anymore ..

Music/Engineering skill level act as pre-requsites but also considered for failure/backfire checks and probably even for the damage/effect inflicted ... Could INT stat affect song/gadget damage ? (probably not .. there have been probably tons of tests in the past figuring out power cast doesn't help, and if that doesn't help why would INT ?)

[HOK1970]

Originally posted by peddroelm:

IF (Intelligence> 80) THEN Mental_Resist += (Int-80) / 2

Is the formula for Divine resistence the same with PIE instead of INT?

[CeterumCenseo]

I cannot fully confirm the experience of the TO. I found Bard developed music grind much faster with bard gear (Prospero) than without. I didn't look for it, but it was noticeable. I suggest to take this test for your own confirmation if INT has that effect or not. Otoh, I did not find the same effect for Brilliant Helm, which is on the main route, set item, available early, and the best helm for many chars.

The INT effect on mental resistance is interesting, similar to the +AC on SPD, which I learned from your guide. Resistance beyond 100, despite not shown in the profile, seems to be important imv, because an Amulet of Healing on top of Soul Shield seems to give additional protection.
However this is not statistically worked out as well.

[Uncle Al]

If the bard gear is somehow pushing the power level of your spells up then I'd expect you to skill up faster, because I bet music and engineering use the same skill up formula as spells.

Which brings us back to peddroelm's excellent question of how the hell is the effect of instruments and gadgets calculated. I'm thinking about some tests but the music skill one is going to be annoying as the bard is going to skill up during the test.

Unfortunately you can't put -skill on items! Might be able to just test with 100 and 125 skill and work out the impact from that, but having some 0 skill data would be much more preferable.

[CeterumCenseo]

No it is not the strength of the spells, but the speed you learn music skill, which of course gives stronger spells. But I didn't recognize any effect that more INT resulted in higher PL spells and/or less fizzles/backfires.

[Uncle Al]

Originally posted by CeterumCenseo:

No it is not the strength of the spells, but the speed you learn music skill, which of course gives stronger spells. But I didn't recognize any effect that more INT resulted in higher PL spells and/or less fizzles/backfires.

I meant that because power level affects experience, if the gear was affecting power level (we don't know, because the music formula is a mystery) then you would see faster skill ups. Interesting you noted anecdotally that you weren't getting higher power casts, but mostly, how would you know? The combat log doesn't tell you your cast strength so a power level 4 shrill sound with a low damage roll will look identical to a power level 3.

As far as the 'gear doesn't affect skill' question, until someone runs more exhaustive tests (I may at some point) I'm calling it settled for myself. Silicoid's observation (although he was mostly talking about +skill on gear) coupled with a test where I'd expect the ninja to gain skill 18% faster (200/170 as skill gain chance is directly proportional to controlling stats) than the monk, if gear had an effect, is enough for me.

I didn't track individual attacks, but they were in the same quadrant facing the same dummies so I'd expect it to average out over 500 rounds. I freely admit it's possible that dumb luck skewed the results, but to my mind it's exceedingly probable that stats from gear doesn't affect skill up chance.

[peddroelm]

The game's extra logging function activated by setting 1 at some address does also log the power level for music and gadgets cast spells ... Also dice rolls to fizzle / backfire ...


Also I'm making some good progress on my logging / trainer CE script ... Editing the level of skill
s/attributes on the fly or locking down say that music skill should be trivial when its done...

https://i.imgur.com/qGxp1eL.jpg

[Zergs]

To test low skills, you could set Intelligence and Senses to zero for the character. If the governing stats are zero, the chance of increase is also zero, correct?

[Uncle Al]

Yes, being able to see the roll and the PL should make it crackable, great news.

And nice idea Zergs, yeah that should stop skill ups.

[mpnorman10]

Guys, do you remember where I said some players wear +INT and other gear on a Bard in spite of these facts?. Well I am one of those, even if it turns out to be for superstitious reasons that have no basis in fact.

I use (on the Gadgeteer as well) the Brilliant Helm, the cloak and even, sometimes the shield. It "feels" like it both makes Music/Engineering rise faster and makes the spells via Instruments/Gadgets more powerful, but I am not claiming that and the analysis shows it is probably not happening.

Then again many of the things I strongly believed, like the strong impact of Power Cast, were proved by recently expanded analysis, so I have both a "wait and see" and "willing to be wrong" about using +INT items on a Bard/Gadgeteer. It is not, either way, any part of my recommendations.

In truth my observations have never been strong enough to be surprised if +INT items have little or no impact and I will not be upset if that turns out to be the case, but because of the nature of the assembly code that Silicoid partially disassembled it can be difficult to tell. When debugging, correct me if wrong Peddroelm, the value of a variable can be known at some point during the running of the code, but that place in the code execution says nothing about how that value got there and whether it was modified by other things prior to that point. Assembly does not do long formulas, everything is broken down into a sequence of tiny steps.

[peddroelm]

@mpnorman10 Assembly will tell 'everything' to somebody skilled enough .. Problem is even Silicoid wasn't skilled 'enough' (his tohit formulas aren't quite it) and I'm nowhere near his level ..

But then there is the issue of the amount of time put in and the quality/power of the tools used so there is still hope :) ...