Reused Boss Mechanics

All boss encounters as respective wholes are unique, although there are several cases of encounters sharing mechanics. From a computer programming perspective, it is good practice when mechanics that work are adopted again and incorporated in a future encounter.

A veteran player might notice this over the time they have been playing. In fact, while they have progressed through World of Warcraft's many raids, they may have noticed the following commonalities...

The Healer's Skills Record

In my adolescence, I went to swimming lessons. I would learn various swimming skills and the instructor would keep track of my progress. At the end of the program, I received a certificate, overleaf a checklist of the skills being assessed. Ticked were the skills I managed to master, and unticked were the ones I still need to work on.

The listed skills were also sorted according to difficulty. In the above example, from easiest to hardest, the categories are Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. There was also a note that continual practice was needed to maintain mastery of the skills learnt.

Like swimming, the responsibility of providing healing to a group requires the mastery of several skills. Like swimming, some skills are more difficult than others. And like swimming, being a good healer requires continuous practice, not only to maintain current proficiency, but also improve on it. In the spirit of the above example, I have prepared a checklist of the many skills a healer needs in order to heal well. It assesses the following general criteria:

WoW Mathematics: Destructive Shadow interference

During the Blood Prince Council encounter in Icecrown Citadel, players may find a number of Dark Nuclei floating around. These are vital for the tank tanking Prince Keleseth, for they each offer a stacking Shadow damage reduction. Against conventional wisdom, this damage reduction stacks multiplicatively, so full immunity cannot be achieved from a stack of three (as is the case with additive stacking).

Aim: To calculate the damage taken from Empowered Shadow Lance at a particular level of Shadow Resonance.

Summary:

• With Shadow Resonance of an order of a stack of n, the Keleseth tank will take 80,000(0.65)ⁿ damage from an Empowered Shadow Lance.

Optimising the Blizzard Default UI

Some people play World of Warcraft using user interface (UI) mods. These AddOns change how unitframes, actionbars, the chat frame, scrolling combat text and screen fonts are displayed on the screen, usually by making them more streamline and compact. They do away with the clunkiness of the ornamentation that is in the default UI.

However, these addons are usually highly intertwined with the WoW program code, and often stop working as intended when the game client is changed with a content patch. Players usually become very accustomed to playing the game using a narrow set of controls, and become very frustrated when they have to do without their UI mods, spoiling their virgin dungeon or raid experience.

Some other people would rather avoid such disappointment and leave their UI mostly unadulterated. Of course, others may find a joy or challenge in playing the game in the way Blizzard intended them to play it, with an elaborate and ornate UI complementing the vibe of the playing field. For whichever reason people play the game through the Blizzard default UI, there are still ways to make handling the character easier under it.

Random Ramblings to 31 January 2010

Acetylcholine
A chemical in the body which transmits messages between a neuron and the nearby cells (a neurotransmitter). Its presence will signal muscles to contract. Nerve agents prevent its breakdown, causing muscles (including those in the heart and lungs) to contract uncontrollably. Atropine, the toxin of deadly nightshade and an antidote of nerve agents, prevents cells from detecting acetylcholine, causing muscles to relax uncontrollably at high doses. Its chemical formula is C₇H₁₆NO₂.

The skeletal formula for acetylcholine.

Components of Latency

Latency (in computer networking) is the amount of time that passes between connected computer's sending an instruction to a server and its receiving of a response from it. In an MMO like World of Warcraft, it greatly affects how much a player enjoys the game. In a raiding scenario, a delay of more than 500ms (half of one second) is usually considered unacceptable.

While network latency is a significant component of the total delay, it is not the only one. In any case where signals need to be sent from one physical place to another, a time delay will exist, no matter how short the link or how fast the signals can travel.

Five reasons to like Moonkin

World of Warcraft's portrayals of things are noticeably cartoony when compared to real life equivalents. Moonkin (also known as owlbears) and druids in Moonkin Form are no different, being any combination of cute, adorable, cuddly, pitiable and likeable.

1. Wide abdomen
Much like the bear, the moonkin has a wide profile. Also, much like the owl, the moonkin is covered with soft, fluffy feathers. These appeals to the hugger's touch.

Riding Out the Swarm

The Heroic Anub'arak encounter places great strain on a 10-man raid attempting it. Teams with a relatively weak dps team may choose to bring two healers into it, placing a great burden on the healing team during Phase 3.

Phase 3 is notorious for Leeching Swarm that Anub'arak keeps up during this time. This is coupled with a heavily ticking Penetrating Cold debuff cast on three random players. Due to high-hitting melee attacks and Freezing Slash, one healer usually must focus 100% on healing the main tank, leaving the other healer handling the raid and the offtank. That raid healer has a hard job, though a few tips and tricks may make it much easier.

WoW Mathematics: Fatally Attracted to You

Back in the Burning Crusade era, Mother Shahraz was notorious for the encounter's high Shadow Resistance requirement and her femininity. She would also, at random times, cast Fatal Attraction on three random non-tank players.

Despite having Shadow Resistance at the cap, the damage is still great, and the unlucky trio need to separate promptly if they are to survive. It may be useful to know, given a certain set of vectors and using calculus, how fast they are moving away from each other...

Father rescues son from Icecrown Citadel

The Deathbringer Saurfang encounter provides for a very tantalising and moving lore moment. Not only is the more recent death knight dilemma explored, but also it draws from history as far back as the First War.

A father (Varok Saurfang, also known as High Overlord Saurfang ingame) talks to the reanimation of his son (Dranosh Saurfang, the Younger), the latter of which is obstructing the former's passage. A commentary on the more detailed Horde version of the dialogue is offered in a Q&A format.

High Overlord Saurfang yells: Kor'kron, move out! Champions, watch your backs! The Scourge have been...
Deathbringer Saurfang yells: Join me, father. Join me and we will crush this world in the name of the Scourge. For the glory of the Lich King!

Names of Raid Target Icons

Each of the eight raid target icons (also raid icons or lucky charms) are referred to with common (and usually standard) names. However, for some of them, the names used in mathematics are different.

A few definitions

• Shape: An object occupying space, distinguished by its perimeter (outer boundary).
• Plane figure: A shape occupying a two-dimensional plane.
• Quadrilateral: A plane figure with four straight sides
• Parallelogram: A quadrilateral with opposite sides parallel to each other respectively.
• Rectangle: A parallelogram with at least one vertex (corner) a right angle.

My Computer and I: Rat-a-tat-a-tat

My desktop is a 3-year-old Dell Dimension 8400. It was high-end at the time it was bought, but regardless is starting to show its age. I have upgraded some of its parts since then to keep playing World of Warcraft bearable, but of course it will need to be replaced eventually.

I have had my share of computer problems with my current computer (not suggesting that Dell is necessarily a poor computer assembler, mind you). Other than high school computing studies, I have had no formal training in maintaining a computer, so I usually need to end up experimenting when something goes wrong. Without further ado...

The Problem:
I had upgraded the video card (to an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS). After its installation, the computer tower would emit a noticeable low-pitch rattling sound. It was easily recognised as percussion and distinct from beeps emitted from the system speaker.

Random Ramblings to 17 November 2009

Acidosis
An increase in the acidity (or a decrease in the pH) of blood. The eventual state of highly acidic blood is referred to as acidaemia. The pH of blood must be kept near 7.4 (slightly basic) or the body will not be able to function properly. One type of acidosis occurs when carbon dioxide (CO₂) is not released through the lungs fast enough, causing a buildup of carbonic acid (H₂CO₃). Another type of acidosis (lactic acidosis) occurs from excessive anaerobic respiration, where instead of using oxygen to break down sugar to release energy, the body instead breaks the sugar down into lactic acid. The lactic acid itself does not cause the acidity, but rather the respiration process. This commonly happens when sleeping on an arm, which becomes numb and experiences a pins-and-needles sensation when blood circulation is finally restored.

A simple gear score

There exists several ways to rate the items a player has equipped (examples include gear scores from Be Imba, Armory Light and the GearScore addon. Each method places varying importances on different characteristics of the gear. While changes in single gear scores can track the player's gear progression, different gear scores cannot be compared with each other, or to any other benchmark.

There is another, simpler way to rate the quality of gear. Every item has an item level (ilvl), which Blizzard calculates from from the statistics (stats) they assign to it. Generally, the more stats there are on the item, the higher the ilvl. Why not base a gear score on a stat sanctioned by Blizzard?

WoW Mathematics: Programming Your Warlock Tank

In a few rare NPC encounters, a warlock may be needed to tank a boss. Examples include Mimiron's Aerial Command Unit and Leotheras the Blind in Demon Form. While the focus of the warlock is to maximise threat, they may be interested in maximising DPS while generating the minimum amount of threat needed to hold aggro.

Fortunately, they have the mathematical tool of programming (not to be confused with programming computers) to work with. In its simplest form, linear programming, a certain value (e.g. profit, costs, or in this case a warlock tank's DPS) will need to be optimised (maximised or minimised). Of course, two chosen factors will influence that value (for this case, the number of casts of Shadow Bolt and Searing Pain), and, subject to several constraints, the right combination of both will need to be found.

This exercise gives a little insight to the workings of stat optimising utilities like Rawr.

The Time-Value of Health

This blog post builds on the concepts suggested in 'Not All Hitpoints are Created Equal', helping to adjust healing for the health level of the recipient.

Experts in finance speak of the time-value of money. Under this concept, the value of a certain quantity of dollars (or other currency) will decrease as time passes. Many attribute this to the fact that people want money now rather than later. Therefore, to keep this time-value the same, interest must be paid on top of this quantity of dollars.

Hitpoints restored by healing also seem to have this time-value, since a heal of the same size will be more valued the sooner it is received (considering that people wish to keep their health at a maximum). How should such heal weighting be done?

Five reasons to like (Northrend) Ghouls

World of Warcraft's portrayals of things are noticeably cartoony when compared to real life equivalents. Northrend ghouls (ghouls) are no different, being any combination of cute, adorable, cuddly, pitiable, likeable and silly.

1. Descent into undeath

These lumbering, rotting corpses were once innocent townsfolk who have made the final transition into true undeath... They are vicious creatures, retaining little of their humanity. The plague has torn away most of their memories, leaving only hunger and basic survival instincts in their place... Even those who were close to the individual in life have difficulty recognizing their loved one; the transformation removes most vestiges of humanity as well as identifying features of voice and body structure.

WoWWiki

Responsible Guild Leadership

Government is a human institution that exists to exact order on an otherwise chaotic society. Its citizens willingly surrender some amount of freedom to be able to take some solace in a sense of security.

Because government is conceived by the people, it must uphold the interests of the people, lest its purpose be defeated. Responsible government is a principle that attempts to achieve this by giving the people a direct say, or at least allow them to elect representatives. Under this framework, the government becomes directly responsible or accountable to the citizens it governs.

This widely accepted (by many democratic countries) principle can readily be applied to guild leadership in World of Warcraft. The guild's officers simply need to act in the best interests of the membership.

Succeeding at not being trampled

FailBot has been retired, but EnsidiaFails has taken over! What remains the same is the humiliation that arises if a boss ability, if avoidable, is not handled properly.

In the Trial of the Crusader, the Northrend Beast Icehowl casts Massive Crash, which can send players scattered throughout the instance. If players do not move out in time to avoid the following Trample, the situation can become very messy (in both senses of the word!).

Dilemmas in Guild Matchmaking and Promotion

In the ideal world, prospective guild members would quickly find the guild of their dreams, and the guild would swiftly recruit them. However, in reality, asymmetric information exists, and this hampers the guild matchmaking process.

Asymmetric information occurs when one party (in this case, the person or guild) knows something that the other does not, and such knowledge cannot easily transfer from one to the other. This may be because of significant distance between the two, or one does not quite believe what the other claims.