[yb2-meta] Generator Talk

[Lady Diamond]

Oy! So much verbiage.. my brain can't process it all right now it doesn't Want to process it, it's the weekend and I'm in playtime mode. Heh, I asked a few questions, I get two pages worth of words.

YB is a game, right? supposed to be fun, not work.

You bring up some valid points that need to be fixed, like spelling, grammar, etc. My understanding of the moves of YB is that they're supposed to be somewhat vague and left up to each player's perspective and each judge's interpretation. I've seen judges turn down bribes, others not giving that much significance to day and location, and others interpreting moves as they will. This to me seems the essence of the spirit behind YB. The person behind the move or decision counts more than the computerization behind the game.

"Fixing" the generator to take some of that subjectivity out is a bad decision, IMO. There are some folks who prefer hard and fast parameters to work with (I think those people turn out to be computer/engineer geeks myself but that's just me). There are some folks who seek the spirit or intention or meaning behind the words. There can be a happy balance between the two types I think.

You'll haveta excuse me, I thought I asked simple questions and the answers I got were couched in so much "wordage" that the answers I sought were lost in the shuffle.

You have So much in the way of good things to say, and valid points. It's sorta tough to try to glean the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

edited, heh, mispelled "grammar"

 

[Berandor]

2: Named Locations are meaningless currently.
They were added to account for Sash, and then removed because the power they gave sash was pretty weak. It might be nice to just have them see some appearance in the generator (related to above, just do a straight replacement of the location potential with the named location potential).

I agree with this proposition, if just for inclusion of the named locations.

3: Spelling Errors/Grammar Errors
These are just annoying to see, and I splot them out at sight, I do hope I don't have to explain them though .

Phew. And I thought I was the only one that noticed them

4: Styles and Locations in other fields (notably the 'noun' table).
Specifically Thorn and River respectively.

I agree, but on different gounds. If someone has a "thorn" attack, and the other fighter draws a direct counter (meaning defense=thorn) it is better (imo) than a defense that just said "plant".

5: Duplicated entry in the x table
There are multiple entries that are the same in a table from which moves are generated. Specifically the swarms of 'and's in the conjunction table, and 'spirit' in the noun table. Of these I really only fixed spirit (spirit->mind) with MeowthBot and my test-gen.

No problems imo. All in all, "and" should be the most common, and other conjunctions much rarer. However, one could trim the list so that you only have 4-6 "and" and 2-5 "as it".

BTW: Conjugation is when you put verbs into the different personal forms... i.e. I am, you are, he/she/it is, ...
as well as through time, or number of subjects. (I am, I was, I have been, I will be, ...)

6: Stale changes from generator talks
Vacuum was supposed to be removed afaik and replaced with void because it just simply sounded better for the wuxia/MA feel we're going after. Vacuum just was a bit to 'sciencey'... Not too sure why it never made it through though, prolly just KD forgot about.

That's all right with me.

7: special oddities
"blood of the sun"."blood of the stars"."kick of the scythe"."kick of the armor", "rising of the teardrop",etc odd moves.
Just move traits that look odd. Not a real problem, but also easy enough to fix by changing some of the table entries to be less specific.

Absolutely NOT.
That's the beauty of the game, that you might draw a move that only makes sense after three minutes of reflection, or not at all. That these moves are weaker all depends on the specific judge, although I agree that the tendency is towards weaker.
Still, what's wrong with drawing a weaker move?
It should absolutely be kept as is.

8: Modifiers making 'moves worse'
Not something I really have an opinion of either way myself, but something I've seen complained about on the chatroom at least. However seeing as this has 'real' results (changes something that affects character points etc) would perfer some talk before touching this. Again, I don't really see this as a problem, and would probably perfer to see modifiers and other specials adjusted so that they don't always make for a 'better' move.

See answer to #7.

Berandor

 

[Wicht]

I will weigh in, though I do not have a lot of time to do so this morning -heh.

First of all, I have never been too concerned with the generator, leaving that to other folks. Back int he day I did brainstorm some of the words but as far as the original chats, I never inputted. I still am not that concerned as there are only so many projects I want to get entangled in at the moment

However, in so far as the generator can be made better I am for it, naturally. I am with berandor in saying that I like having the wierd phrases that make no sense. I thought that was half the point personally. However, the list of words can be made better I am sure. I like having defensive moves that can be used/interpreted in a variety of ways.

As far as grammar, by all means clean it up.

As far as the second location, sure change it to read with a special location if you want. As far as the second location now, if a sig location came up I would count it personally.

 

[Zappo]

I think, too, that the weird combinations should stay as they are, for the reasons Berandor and Wicht posted.

Remove all the styles and locations in the second part, however, because as you said they create confusion when judging.

As for named locations... in the poll thread, I've said I like them, and I repeat it here. Of course, they often won't make much sense, but there's no problem with that.

 

[reiella]

Yes it is a game. But if it were just that, but we've updated the generator more than a few times since it's inception .

There's also a difference between 'vague' and making no sense.

Again, also that's why there is some need for talk, since while yes, there is differing opinion on just what is odd and if it is a good or a bad thing. And before commenting too much on 'odd' moves being a good thing, you may want to look a some of the test-generated moves from the 'new' generator before it was 'fixed' up. Also something of concern was the related issue of just some styles that read bad (which caused more of a problem admittantly)... In truth, I do feel you can maintain a move being bad but still have some sort of logical sense by just changing some of the noun and defensive target table entries (and in general they aren't that bad), but also this is the reason why I want talks, and comments from the community. Could very be that the majority like some of the nonsensical specials that are possible now ...

For alot of a bits (conjunction, I agree with, modifier I agree with, I would personally like to rebalance some of the special tables in all truth to make it slightly more likly that they make a move 'weaker' in general, and also at least hopefully have it so each modifier bundle has the same 'weak' moves... But that is rules based and would need some other help)...

So, who is volunteering for the generator talk? And when works for you (would be in the irc chat).

 

[reiella]

Some table musings for suggestions

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 09 -- Nouns */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab09 = new Array(
"battlements", "body", "chi", "clouds", "dark sunbeam",
"eyes", "fell dagger", "flame", "fortress", "heart",
"invisible blade", "ki", "moon", "rain", "rainbow",
"snow", "soul", "spirit", "stone", "stars",
"steel", "sun", "plant", "comet", "ember",
"foul", "four winds", "lightning", "root", "void",
"willow", "wyrm", "air", "armor", "arrow",
"bamboo", "earth", "fire", "honor", "lava",
"leaf", "lightbeam", "mist", "scythe", "shadow",
"shield", "mind", "steam", "teardrop", "water",
"weapon", "amphibian", "ape", "bird", "canine",
"cat", "reptile", "rodent", "vermin", "lily",
"orchid", "rosewood", "sunflower", "willow");

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 10 -- Verbs (defensive) */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab10 = new Array(
"absorbs", "averts", "avoids", "blocks", "conceals",
"defends against", "dodges", "dominates", "fends off", "grasps",
"guards against", "leaps over", "negates", "parries", "parts",
"protects against", "quells", "redirects", "reduces", "removes",
"scatters", "shields", "shields against", "silences", "shreds",
"wards off", "waves away", "dodges");

/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
/* Chart 11 -- Defensive Targets */
/* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
var xmtab11 = new Array(
"aggression", "assailment", "beauty", "blood", "chaos",
"chi", "cut", "descent", "drive", "edge",
"efforts", "energy", "foray", "gaze", "kick",
"motion", "offensive", "onslaught", "pain", "punch",
"push", "quickening", "rising", "roar", "rolling",
"slash", "speed", "stab", "storm", "tempest",
"terror", "touch", "throw", "thrust", "violence");

"The monkey slashes the grotto; parries the blood of the sun."
The general form of the 'defensive' block is xmtab10 (defensive verb) + " the " + xmtab11 (defensive target) + " of the " + xmtab09 (noun). Some are nice (in fact most are imo), just some suffer from one of the fields being too specific.

 

[reiella]

I've seen judges turn down bribes, others not giving that much significance to day and location, and others interpreting moves as they will. This to me seems the essence of the spirit behind YB.

Just noticed this comment....

True for the most part, but I'm wondering now, what judges have turned down bribes? That would be pretty much akin to a judge deciding to refuse to acknowledge Fist of Fury... Prolly just late talking though .

 

[Berandor]

Meowth... just be sure you don't change it nonetheless, just because you don't like it.

I mean, I'll probably not take part in the generator talk, because I have other issued to attend, and because it will probably be in a time frame I won't be comfortable with due to my living in GMT+1. (that may not be true, and perhaps I'll be there).

I just think that Wicht (who doesn't want too many projects), Zappo (GMT+1, as well) and I all wrote our opinion, and even if we are not in the talks themselves, this opinion shouldn't be given no thought.

I also thought your second to last post changed our opinion to be more in line with yours. Fact is, at least *I* still want nonsensical moves.

What's so wrong with drawing a move that is nonsensical? When I draw one, and it is really bad, I laugh at myself and think, "Well, that round is lost for sure."
And sometimes, a judge will even think different.

Truth be told, I like "blood of the castle", or "blood of the sun".

Berandor

 

[reiella]

Fair enough Berandor .

And hopefully it will be, and hopefully will get more than just me sitting in the chatroom staring at MeowthBot and the web-gen code grumbling again .

Although truth be, from what I can see, most of the defensive target (ie, blood) tend to be less considered in general by judges, even if they don't make sense (often just optly to reduce 'protects against the blood of the sun' to just 'protects against the sun'). Hopefully though, we can come to some middle ground were the targets do make more sense in general (most of them do to some extent. only really a couple oddities that occur that really upset me one way or the other but seen a few other comments at least in the chatroom about some of the oddities that occur... and despite what Gray says I think 'rolling of the plant' sounds cool , although ... hmm I would like to possibly change some of the noun fields around so that plural targets can occur (rolling of the plants, orchids, some of the other nouns too)... Possibly add a number quantifier as well. Hmm, maybe later on that though .

From Chatroom
<Berandor> Meowth - regarding the generator: Would you want to just delete the "blood", etc, or would you want to get new ones?

Sorry about that was afk. I honestly don't know either way, my personal inclination is to replation blood or sun with something less ... specific, but will see what we can come up with either way, and actually post it before shifting over my test-gen and the actual mb generator... And really don't think blood of the sun is as big of a problem as I'vem ade it out to be either,j ust that happened to be the first odd gen move I got out of meowthbot while testing if the changed (plant, etc) showed up.

<MeowthBot> Reiella: The owl rides below the forest; quells the assailment of the teardrop and in addition it guards against the terror of the heart! *yen*

Only one part of that move which is just odd.

What exactly is a teardrop's assailment?

 

[Jin Chi]

For me, too many of these defensive nouns are just irrelevant. I really think they should be able to be applied more readily to the equivilent offensive list.

When my opponent comes roaring in with his dragon attack, I like having a defense that "skillfully reduces the storm of the reptile!"

But what good is a defense that "parts the slash of the dark sunbeam!"?

IMO, the defenses should be general categories referring to types of attacks. Canine, Cat, Body, flame, snow, plant, ember, root, weapon, amphibian, bird, reptile, rodent, vermin -- these can all be extrapolated to refer to some of the different styles....

Some of the others either make no sense at all (teardrop is a good example), are way too specific, or worse yet, are specific to something that is totally irrelevant.

Sounding cool is one thing, but given the nature of YB, I'd rather the defensive moves were vaguely relevant to the attacks....