Fernswarthy's basement helper... was wrong?

Spiny

Member
r8376

I've been manually trucking along thru a basement dive using mafia's basement helper as guide. I've done two previous dives without noticable issue, but in those dives I was excessively buffed. In this case, I'm trying to not use buffs unless I must.

It's my understanding that the helper suggests hp and mp requirements necessary with a cushion to protect from failure, so if one met the bare minimum target noted, one would be safe. I have noticed this with elemental resistance tests as being the case. That being said, note the following:

Code:
[21947] Fernswarthy's Basement (Level 129)
Buffed Mysticality Test: 1,002 current, 975 needed

[21948] Fernswarthy's Basement (Level 130)
You gain 652 Wizardliness

[21949] Fernswarthy's Basement (Level 131)
Buffed Mysticality Test: 1,002 current, 996 needed

[21950] Fernswarthy's Basement (Level 131)
Buffed Mysticality Test: 1,002 current, 996 needed

Again these are manual adventures so I'm watching the relay browser all the way, the floor levels are correct. I had no problem with floor level 129, but on floor level 131, though I met the needed requirement, I failed somehow and passed it on a 2nd attempt with no changes.

This really is a small nitpicky thing, but it caught me by surprise. Is the cushion to protect from failure just something I imagined?

Also of note, as you can see, there is nothing in the log indicating failure other than increased turn counter and same floor level. I found that interesting as well.
 

jasonharper

Developer
The basement helper has an 8% cushion; that's sufficient the vast majority of the time, but isn't a guarantee of success.

I'm not sure if the exact nature of the variance in basement tests has been spaded, but I'll guess that it's something like +/-10% with a triangular distribution - results higher than the cushion would occur maybe 3-5% of the time.
 

StDoodle

Minion
Yeah, once you get really deep, even mafia's built-in cushion can get a bit excessive, and one can spend a bit more meat than necessary. But unless the basement is re-coded by Jick et. al., the current mafia functionality seems about the best that you could hope for; rarely fails, rarely "wastes" meat.

P.S. I doubt I would have done dives 3+ w/o mafia. :p
 
Top