New Content - Implemented March 2016 IOTM - Witchess Set

[Laserrobotics]

Unknown item found: Witchess Set (8989, 301914635)
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8989 Witchess Set 301914635 chessset.gif usable t 0
# Item Witchess Set

Turns into a campground furnishing with the options to fight chess pieces (5/day), play Witchess against other players (unimplemented as of this posting), and do puzzles based on the exact same mechanics as seen in The Witness.

I'd have more information, but I'm doing puzzles D:

There are various 'disappears at rollover' items to be had from the fights, and the puzzles seem to be entirely free and give no reward (maybe a trophy?).

Edit: Possibly also of note is that the subscription bonus has not changed from the box of gratitude chocolates.

 

[darkcodelagsniper]

Some stuff:

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8992	armored prawn	868825613	armorprawn.gif	spleen, usable	t,d	5
armored prawn	1	1	decent	0	0	0	0	Unspaded
Item	armored prawn	Effect: "Rushtacean'", Effect Duration: 50
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8993	jumping horseradish	586850870	horseradish.gif	food	t,d	5
jumping horseradish	1	1	EPIC	0	0	0	0	Unspaded
Item	jumping horseradish	Effect: "Kicked in the Sinuses", Effect Duration: 50
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8994	Sacramento wine	111757769	wine2.gif	drink	t,d	5
Sacramento wine	1	1	EPIC	0	0	0	0	Unspaded
Item	Sacramento wine	Effect: "Sacré Mental", Effect Duration: 50
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8995	Greek fire	889869567	potion4.gif	multiple	t,d	5
Item	Greek fire	Effect: "Sweetbreads Flambé", Effect Duration: 25
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2089	Rushtacean'	armorprawn.gif	4c04ea5ac2b123c90db8778d1fb2ad87	chew 1 armored prawn
Effect	Rushtacean'	Initiative: +50
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2090	Kicked in the Sinuses	horseradish.gif	a8b9e71de7ccf5a87e20ac8f29289238	eat 1 jumping horseradish
Effect	Kicked in the Sinuses	Meat Drop: +100
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2091	Sacré Mental	wine2.gif	8b5af0a2980a1144c725e3410b5e53e2	drink 1 Sacramento wine
Effect	Sacré Mental	Item Drop: +50
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2092	Sweetbreads Flambé	potion4.gif	b3f3d7e5c72a045fff556e01f287f42d	use 1 Greek fire
Effect	Sweetbreads Flambé	Monster Level: +25, Experience: +10
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2093	Puzzle Champ	chessset.gif	c359f03413fa5582269a860f664cc7fe
Effect	Puzzle Champ	Familiar Weight: +5
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The 'Puzzle Champ' effect is from solving the 5 daily puzzles. Word is that it's a variable effect that increases in effectiveness the more puzzles you've solved.

 

[bigevildan]

New monster #1942 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Bishop' image 'chess_bbishop.gif' attributes ='Atk: 3 Def: 0 HP: 0 Init: -10000 P: dude'
New monster #1936 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Knight' image 'chess_bknight.gif' attributes ='Atk: 2 Def: 0 HP: 0 Init: -10000 P: dude'
New monster #1935 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Pawn' image 'chess_bpawn.gif' attributes ='Atk: 1 Def: 0 HP: 0 Init: -10000 P: dude'
New monster #1939 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Queen' image 'chess_bqueen.gif' attributes ='Atk: 8 Def: 0 HP: 4000 Init: -10000 P: dude'
New monster #1941 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Witch' image 'chess_bwitch.gif' attributes ='Atk: 7 Def: 0 HP: 3000 Init: -10000 P: dude'


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8998 very pointy crown 987470212 wqueencrown.gif hat q 0
very pointy crown 200 Mox: 10
# Item very pointy crown: Weakens Monster on Critical Hit
Item very pointy crown Experience (Moxie): +5, Adventures: +5, Moxie Percent: +50, Combat Rate: -5, Lasts Until Rollover
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8999 battle broom 199500631 battlebroom.gif accessory q 0
battle broom 200 Mys: 10
Item battle broom Experience (Mysticality): +5, MP Regen Min: 5, MP Regen Max: 10, Mysticality Percent: +50, Spell Damage Percent: +100, Spell Critical Percent: +10, Single Equip, Lasts Until Rollover
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The queen drops the very pointy crown, the witch drops the battle broom.

 

[digitrev]

Unknown item found: ox-head shield (8996, 959124564)
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8996 ox-head shield 959124564 oxshield.gif offhand q 0
ox-head shield 0 Mus: 10 shield
Item ox-head shield Maximum HP: +100, Spooky Resistance: +2, Stench Resistance: +2, Hot Resistance: +2, Cold Resistance: +2, Sleaze Resistance: +2, Damage Reduction: 26, PvP Fights: +8, Never Fumble, Lasts Until Rollover
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[Darzil]

r16767

 

[Terion]

New monster #1938 found in Manuel with name 'Witchess Rook' image 'chess_brook.gif' attributes ='Atk: 4 Def: 0 HP: 0 Init: -10000 P: construct'

 

[Bale]

Small problem with r16767

Encounter: Witchess Set
Encounter: Witchess Puzzles
You acquire an effect: Puzzle Champ (0)

Note that I got 25 turns of the effect, not 0 as reported. If this problem still exists once I think I'll encounter it again, I'll get a debug log.

 

[lostcalpolydude]

The first bit that happens is that KoL puts a <br> tag between the effect name and duration, so mafia doesn't parse them together. That's done at such a general level (before we know if it's an item, effect, or something else) that I don't know if it's worth addressing.

The second thing is that mafia prints the duration even when it's 0, which probably just shouldn't happen.

 

[heeheehee]

I'm not sure that's it, lost: casting a skill

<table><tr><td><img class=hand src="/images/itemimages/contemplation.gif" onClick='eff("2817b71ed041fdffb5b4b514c8be662d");' width=30 height=30 alt="Saucemastery" title="Saucemastery"></td><td valign=center class=effect>You acquire an effect: <b>Saucemastery</b><br>(duration: 5 Adventures)</td></tr></table>

gets parsed just fine, but a hookah effect

<table><tr><td><img class=hand src="/images/itemimages/swords.gif" onClick='eff("d8cd2af4589547387589ba03454d442a");' width=30 height=30 alt="Swordholder" title="Swordholder"></td><td valign=center class=effect>You acquire an effect: <b>Swordholder</b><br>(duration: 6 Adventures)</td></tr></table>

does not.

 

[Darzil]

Don't go believing the Manuel stats. Witchess Rook is Scaling 7, Cap 600, Floor 25, so is Witchess Bishop. Ox is an odd one, 1 Attack, 5000 Def, haven't worked out what the HP is based on. was just under 64k for my first fight, 56k for my second. King looks like scale 20, cap 6000, floor 100. HP 2000 maybe (actually saw 2001 then 2002).

 

[heeheehee]

Ox had 2452 HP at 98/107/164; 200 max HP. (level 13)
5851 HP the next fight, at 435/165/264; 689 max HP.
4870 the next fight, at 435/377/595; 689 max HP.
4519 the next fight with the same stats.
2801 at 106 max HP, 378/377/395.

Looks like some component that scales based off of max HP together with some randomness. More data would be needed to be certain.

 

[Darzil]

I've started some Ox HP spading here : http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=475

4022 mus, 1765 mys, 2454 mox, 7774 curr hp, 7904 max hp, 30250 hp for ox
6 mus, 6 mys, 6 mox, 50 curr hp, 50 max hp, 2500 hp for ox

r16771 has what I do know about the monsters in it.

 

[Crowther]

Not to sound rude, but I think we all expect mafia will eventually collect your daily puzzle solving buff. One thing we're going to need is a solution to every puzzle. Thankfully, a catalog exists.

EDIT: Oh, and while the wiki says Puzzle Champ is +5 it goes higher as you solve more puzzles. No idea what the cap is.

 

[Ezandora]

One thing we're going to need is a solution to every puzzle.

Maybe just the solution URLs?

 

[heeheehee]

This reminds me of the volcano maze, that is, the approach I expect the Mafia devs will take (eventually!) is to write a general-purpose solver in the event that puzzles start being procedurally generated. Granted, a solver for this would significantly more complex, since the constraints are nontrivial to check.

 

[Bale]

Or we could simply decide not to add a Witchness solver to KoLmafia because it makes the developers sad to see their puzzle become trivial? Okay, if he actually asked us not to do it, I'm sure you wouldn't. He didn't ask, but should it be done?

Eventually I am sure someone will write an ash script for this that puts in the solution URLs for all five daily puzzles, but there is a difference in the level of accessibility that makes a difference to how the developers feel about this.

 

[Veracity]

This reminds me of the volcano maze, that is, the approach I expect the Mafia devs will take (eventually!) is to write a general-purpose solver in the event that puzzles start being procedurally generated. Granted, a solver for this would significantly more complex, since the constraints are nontrivial to check.

It is an easy depth-first brute force problem, with the caveat that heeheehee mentioned: it is not trivial to check that a proposed move can be rejected because it invalidates the solution.

Plus, as Bale pointed out, we don't really want to demoralize the KoL devs. I would MUCH prefer that they keep coming up with new puzzles.

Much as I dislike hardcoding in solutions, Ezandora's idea is by far the easiest, since you can solve the whole puzzle with a single URL submission, unlike the Volcano Maze or the Chessboard.

 

[Veracity]

I just sent the following message to Riff:

When you came up with Volcano Maze, that was a remarkable puzzle.

I worked Hard to come up with a Computer Science solution which could automatically solve any such puzzle. And I was happy.

And then I learned that you were demoralized at my work and didn't want to make any more Volcano Maze maps, since KoLmafia would automatically solve them, and I was sad.

Now we have Witchess, and it is fascinating. I can see how to write a generic solver for it - a depth first search which will reject any path which would immediately invalidate the rules of the game. Tricky, but doable. It might be a fun programming challenge.

But, I really really do not want to dissuade you from writing new puzzles, since they are actually Quite Fun to figure out on your own for lots of people (as opposed to the Volcano Maze, which was sort of "I solved it once, so why do I have to do this again?")

So, I want your opinion on this: if I (or some KoLmafia dev) were to write a solver which could solve any new Witchness puzzle, would that keep you from doing more of them?

If so, we won't do it.

Thanks.

- V

Note that this does not preclude adding a Solve! button which uses a built-in puzzle # - > solution URL map, as suggested by Ezandora, but it means we will have to keep updating our solution database, rather than adding a general solver.

Which I think would be a Fun Programming Project, but I really don't want to demoralize the KoL devs again, like I did with my Volcano Maze solver.

 

[Veracity]

From Riff (#27048) [reply] [quoted]
Date: Monday, March 07, 2016, 12:35AM

It wasn't the existence of the solver that stopped me making more lava mazes, it was way more that they were a real pain in the ass to construct, and not enough people seemed to enjoy solving them themselves to make it worth it. The Witchess puzzles don't look to have either of those problems. And like, it's basically inevitable that /someone/ is gonna make a solver, so. As long as it's like, a definite opt-in and plainly disclaimed as a fun-ruiner, I don't really care. The reward for solving them isn't such a thing that I'm particularly concerned about people getting it unearned. I can't speak for HotStuff, though.

OK. I guess the next step is to get HotStuff's opinion.

(We can definitely gate having a "Solve!" button on whether or not you have opted in to "add puzzle spoilers" (or whatever we call it).

 

[Veracity]

Message to HotStuff:

Hi there.

We've been discussing Witchess. And we are considering adding a "Solve" button to the page where you offer a Witchess puzzle.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1) Hardcode a list of solutions, based on puzzle #.
2) Write a generic solver, using Computer Science, which will generate a solution. That would actually be a Fun programming challenge.

In either case, we'd put the Solve button under an explicit "give me spoilers for puzzles in the browser" preference.

Riff says that that would be enough for him, but he couldn't speak for you.

What is your opinion? We really really do not want to demoralize KoL devs and make them unwilling to make new Witchess puzzles, which are quite fun to figure out on your own - even if repeating them so you can get the daily buff is not so much fun, and is hence worthy of some help.

- V