Guards & Skills

Modern Prince of Persia 1 and 2 level editors for Windows.
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Shamrock
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Guards & Skills

Post by Shamrock »

Hi,

I have been using RoomShaker for a couple of days... it's really a pleasure to think up different obstacles, traps and so on.
But there's a question. What do the skills for guardians mean? I could only find out that 7 is 'waiting guard' , but are there complete explanations for all skills?

Thank you. :)
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mk1995
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by mk1995 »

The skill levels aren't too distinct from each other for the most part.
Skill 1: Takes forever to strike, can't block a single attack
Skill 2: Slightly more aggressive, blocks the occasional attack, but can't block your parries
Skill 3: A bit better than Skill 2, occasionally blocks a parry
Skill 4: Noticeably better than Skill 3
Skill 5: Nothing noteworthy
Skill 6: Fat guard's skill level - a guard with this kind of skill makes for a fairly long parrying chain
Skill 7: Waits for you to get close enough to strike
Skill 8: Somewhere between Skill 5 and 6
Skill 9: Somewhere between Skill 8 and 6
Skill 10: Jaffar's skill level - similar to Skill 6, except a guard with this skill parries more attacks before admitting a hit

Note: When I'm talking about a "parry", I mean a block immediately followed by a strike.
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Norbert
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by Norbert »

Hope I won't piss off mk1995 (just joking ;)), but I made a document about the guard types.
The PDF version of that document is available here.
I don't know which types the skeleton and shadow are, but this overview should, once and for all, answer all questions related to guard skills.
(I've created a page about the document on popot.org, so visitors will be able to find the info.)
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mk1995
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by mk1995 »

Norbert wrote:I don't know which types the skeleton and shadow are, [...]
This is not to be treated as a fact, but considering the general aggressiveness of the skeleton (or lack thereof), I'd say it has a skill level of either 2 or 3, likely 3. As for the shadow, I'm not sure, as I never really bothered fighting him to find out, given it's much easier to just do it the way you're meant to do it.
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Shamrock
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by Shamrock »

mk1995, Norbert, thanks for replies. :)

Norbert, I find your overwiev pretty helpful, well done! But I don't quite understand what is 'striking probability' - all of them will eventually strike, so is it the probability of their strike right after entering proper area (when they can reach)? And, besides, what is 'improper blocking'?
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Norbert
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by Norbert »

Shamrock wrote:But I don't quite understand what is 'striking probability' - all of them will eventually strike, [...]
In the document, the asterisk of Prob.* is referring to "* Probability out of 255.". So, for example, the weakest guard type has a striking probability of 75 out of 255. This means that every 'time frame', there is a chance of about 29.4% that the guard will attack the prince. The 'time frame' is a certain period of time. The DOS version of the game runs at 12 frames per second. Exactly how large the 'time frame' is, I don't know.
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Norbert
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by Norbert »

mk1995 wrote:This is not to be treated as a fact, but considering the general aggressiveness of the skeleton (or lack thereof), I'd say it has a skill level of either 2 or 3, likely 3.
It looks like you're a good guard skill guesser: the guard type is 2, which has number 3 in RoomShaker. :)
(The disassembled source code in question can be found here.)
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kj-5349
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by kj-5349 »

mk1995 wrote:The skill levels aren't too distinct from each other for the most part.
Skill 1: Takes forever to strike, can't block a single attack
Skill 2: Slightly more aggressive, blocks the occasional attack, but can't block your parries
Skill 3: A bit better than Skill 2, occasionally blocks a parry
Skill 4: Noticeably better than Skill 3
Skill 5: Nothing noteworthy
Skill 6: Fat guard's skill level - a guard with this kind of skill makes for a fairly long parrying chain
Skill 7: Waits for you to get close enough to strike
Skill 8: Somewhere between Skill 5 and 6
Skill 9: Somewhere between Skill 8 and 6
Skill 10: Jaffar's skill level - similar to Skill 6, except a guard with this skill parries more attacks before admitting a hit

Note: When I'm talking about a "parry", I mean a block immediately followed by a strike.
Yeah, above may be an old post, but I would like to update on this. Below is a layman's/simplified description to Norbert's doc and lists down the skills according to Apoplexy and Roomshaker (using "Change Skill", not "Guard Here")

Type 0: Never blocks attacks, always walks into your striking range, but tends to attack a lot. Guys in Level 1
Type 1: A bit smarter than type 0. Blocks the occasional attack, but can't block your parries
Type 2: Doesn't block all attacks, and occasionally blocks a parry
Type 3: Higher calibre than types 1 & 2. Blocks attacks and parries more often. You find these guys in Level 4 and mainly the palace levels
Type 4: Almost like type 3 or better. Has an extra HP.
Type 5: Fat guard's skill type. Parries and retaliates/re-strikes. May have a parrying chain before only blocking and not re-striking.
Type 6: Seems like type 3, but attacks quicker if you moved to within his strike range.
Type 7: The "waiting" guard. Only attacks if you got within range and always block parries.
Type 8: The "passive" and simplest guard. Even easier than type 0 and does nothing. However, a lame coward :lol: , he will attack you if you sheath your sword.
Type 9: Jaffar's skill type. Re-strikes more than type 5, having a consistent parrying chain before admitting a hit.
Type A: The hardest ever guard and totally not in Roomshaker. Parries and re-strikes without stopping at all. Similar to SNES Jaffar and the only way of beating him is to block, delay slightly and then strike. A certain timing with the delay is needed and not sure of the technique's name.
Type B: A combination of types 5 and 6. Trickier than type 5 as he attacks quicker and doesn't re-strike as often as type 9.

However a bug that I recently only understood - the guard behaviours are different if you used the "Guard Here" dialog in RS.
Guard Here doesn't have the passive type 8 and hardcore type A guard.
Also for Guard Here only:
Skill 9 behaves exactly like apoplexy type 9.
Skill 10 behaves almost like apoplexy type B. Tends to attack once you come within range often and parries a lot like type 4.
Skill 7 is slightly different than apoplexy type 6 that attacks almost immediately when you step within his range.

Hope this is a decent enough guide for aspiring modders when they are adding guards :D
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Re: Guards & Skills

Post by yourantumayel69 »

mk1995 wrote: November 13th, 2012, 11:04 pm The skill levels aren't too distinct from each other for the most part.
Skill 1: Takes forever to strike, can't block a single attack
Skill 2: Slightly more aggressive, blocks the occasional attack, but can't block your parries
Skill 3: A bit better than Skill 2, occasionally blocks a parry
Skill 4: Noticeably better than Skill 3
Skill 5: Nothing noteworthy
Skill 6: Fat guard's skill level - a guard with this kind of skill makes for a fairly long parrying chain
Skill 7: Waits for you to get close enough to strike
Skill 8: Somewhere between Skill 5 and 6
Skill 9: Somewhere between Skill 8 and 6
Skill 10: Jaffar's skill level - similar to Skill 6, except a guard with this skill parries more attacks before admitting a hit

Note: When I'm talking about a "parry", I mean a block immediately followed by a strike.
I use original skills ;)
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