The exact mechanism would have been pretty tricky to figure out
I was getting close. :) Had I spent 3x as long, I probably would have gotten it. Where I left off:
convinced it was very likely to be a repeated exchange from HP=X to HP=0, and thought the exact HP number would be static and “nice”
leaning heavily toward turn-based rather than simultaneous
had thought of a small handful of possible ways “damage” could be happening, one of which was this exact mechanism (convinced of x0 and x2 because Pokemon/etc)
plotted calibration curves for potential mechanisms
The things I was missing were:
automation to easily try out new damage mechanisms and then try all the (relatively small) combinations
notice that “choose randomly” and “choose best” didn’t work quite right, and figure out that it was actually “choose weighted” (this is the hardest part for sure, and it’s possible the calibration curves even look fine without it, which would scrap my chances)
I was getting close. :) Had I spent 3x as long, I probably would have gotten it. Where I left off:
convinced it was very likely to be a repeated exchange from HP=X to HP=0, and thought the exact HP number would be static and “nice”
leaning heavily toward turn-based rather than simultaneous
had thought of a small handful of possible ways “damage” could be happening, one of which was this exact mechanism (convinced of x0 and x2 because Pokemon/etc)
plotted calibration curves for potential mechanisms
The things I was missing were:
automation to easily try out new damage mechanisms and then try all the (relatively small) combinations
notice that “choose randomly” and “choose best” didn’t work quite right, and figure out that it was actually “choose weighted” (this is the hardest part for sure, and it’s possible the calibration curves even look fine without it, which would scrap my chances)
pin down HP=100 rather than HP=20, 50, 200, etc.