Talk:Spading

From A KoL Wiki

A while ago I did a rough draft of a "statistics for spades" guide at User:Starwed/Spading. Probably info which should make it's way into any mainspace article on spading. --Starwed 11:25, 30 August 2007 (CDT)

I agree, that was the infomation I wanted to add to this article but was far to lazy to write out myself. I plan on adding that content after the holiday weekend. thank you =) --Zafoquat 14:42, 31 August 2007 (CDT)

Would anyone mind if I completely rewrote this page to be more similar to the paragraphs I just added? I do not think the page in the current form will help any would-be-spaders. Some basic spading theory as well as some of starwed's math would be a big help to most people.--QuantumNightmare 13:27, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

Margin of Error

The formula for margin of error is quite wrong. The margin of error formula taught in my AP Statistics class goes like this: Take a sample of 'n' and take the sample mean 'x-bar' and sample standard deviation 's'. The margin of error for 95% confidence is plus or minus 1.96 times s divided by the square root of n. The 95% confidence range would be from x-bar minus the margin of error to x-bar plus the margin of error. --Darkfeline 00:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

If you think about it, that just doesn't apply in the same way when you're trying to measure the likelihood of something occurring. Every sample is a single bit of info: the event happened, or it didn't.
In your stats class, you were discussing measurements where a continuous range of values for each sample were possible (and furthermore, it was assumed that such samples were taken from a normal distribution.) --Starwed 02:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Provided the sample size is large enough, then you are looking at an aproximately normal distribution, whether you started with a discrete random variable or a continuous one. The joys of the central limit theorem in action. --Flargen 02:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes and no. The mean will be drawn from a normal distribution, but the individual samples aren't. --Starwed 15:59, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and incidentally, the formula has simply replaced the "1.96" with a "2" because...um...2's prettier? I mean, look at that makeup! The value is the error margin (at better than 95%), which is half the width of the CI. --Flargen 03:54, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

A question about spading deleveling items

I'm currently testing the bronzed locust, and trying to determine how to best spade out the deleveling effect. My thought is this:

  • Start with a high-level character and go unarmed into battle.
  • Hit with Fist of Fury.
  • Use delevelling item.
  • Hit with Fist of Fury.
  • Repeat

If I'm right, the difference between the two (ignoring critical hits) should give me within one or two what the deleveling effect was.

For example, I'm using a multi with stats of 344/260/288. I then adventured in the Valley, taking into account the numbers above. (The problem is, I'm hitting with just enough damage to wollop some of the monsters after the third hit.)

Is this a good approach to take? Is there a better way to do it? Should I level up and go after the Snowmen to have a better chance of getting four hits?--Foggy 11:17, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

You're probably better off using the basement, with constant ML monsters. This eliminates the need to get a 2-hit baseline on each monster you fight. Also, damage reducing items such as the scuba gear might help.--QuantumNightmare 13:51, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
My concern about double-hitting was more random number variance, not ML variance. Unarmed combat, as it turns out, doesn't appear to have an RNG factor, despite what the weapon damage page claims (if it does, it hasn't shown up in 50 rounds of combat so far).
The Weapon Damage page doesn't indicate any RNG for unarmed combat. You're quite right that when trying to spade an ML adjustment, fluctuations around the base defense don't matter.--Starwed 15:30, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
While unarmed combat will always deal 1 damage due to weapon power, the Weapon Damage page does seem to imply that the extra 0-1 damage term is applied regardless of weapon used. Is this incorrect?--QuantumNightmare 20:02, 26 September 2007 (CDT)
Ah, I missed that in haste. Yes, it seems to be incorrect for unarmed combat at least: I haven't noticed any variation. --Starwed 08:02, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

I've emended the sequence above to reflect this.--Foggy 14:43, 26 September 2007 (CDT)

Initiative Spading

So, what's a reliable way to spade out initiative? I've never really been sure how to go about that. --TechSmurf 22:55, 13 October 2007 (CDT)

Deleveling Equipment Spading

Is there any good way to spade deleveling effects on weapons (like the clockwork crossbow)? The current technique is based on being barehanded. --TechSmurf 09:41, 12 June 2008 (CDT) I believe that weapons all work the same way, deleveling 10-20% of the weapons power. If you wanted to double-check this, you'd just need a lot more data points to compensate for the variability of the damage dealt. --Starwed 15:44, 12 June 2008 (CDT)

History

Should there be a paragraph on the history of the term "spading" and how it relates to KoL? I don't know how many people come to this page looking for that definition, but I'm sure some do... --TelcontarNuva 23:21, 3 July 2008 (CDT)

Item Drops

So, I just thought of an expensive but accurate way to spade out item drops: Hobopolis bosses. For each ++100% item drops, they'll drop an additional consumable item. Stack up with known effects to a certain point, add the unknown effect, and see how many consumables you get. Play around with varying levels of known bonuses against bosses till you whittle down the unknown bonus. Viable enough to put in the article, though? --[TechSmurf][T][C] 01:07, 25 August 2008 (CDT)

  • This has been suggested... however a dev has mentioned we need to double check if you actually do get a guaranteed consumable drop for each +100% item drops first. Once someone tests several bosses with +99.0%/99.9%, and +499.0%/499.9% and confirms the mechanic, we can use this for spading.--QuantumNightmare 01:14, 25 August 2008 (CDT)

Things useful to spading

This can be useful, and hopefully made obsolete.

This is more of a reminder to keep a list of things which should be incorporated into the spading article (or may have already been). --Raijinili 00:42, 2 September 2008 (CDT)

I think it would also be worth noting

at any rate I'd love to see a list somewhere of items like this; ones that change the interface to give more info.

some specialty effects might be worth noting for spading things like Jammin':

(tho as you can already see this list gets looong)

perhaps just a brief table at the bottom denoting that these items exist, and how they help --SilentKnight 12:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Combat Frequency

I think the on and on... method can still be used to spade frequency modifiers by piling on known modifiers one at a time, but I'm too bloody tired to think it through. Although, now that I reflect a bit, it doesn't much matter so long as Jick keeps his promise not to introduce other modifiers of this type. --BagatelleT/C 04:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

  • You can still use this method to verify if a combat modifier is in effect, it's just a bit harder to find the exact magnitude. For example:

To test for +combat effects: With +10% noncombats, the text is displayed 6 times. With +9% it is displayed 5 times. To test for +noncombat effects: With +15% noncombats, the text is displayed 7 times. With +16% it is displayed 8 times.

You can find relevant numbers for other tests, and search for the magnitude of the bonus. So this method isn't obsolete, just needs a bit of more work to use. It's still the best way to spade combat modifiers.-QuantumNightmare 19:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Old Forums

The hardcore oxygenarian site domain is up for sale, so is probably safe to remove? --AppleSaws (talk) 06:02, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

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