An interesting search problem

[Markbnj]

Hmmm, I have more questions as well.

1. Are any items duplicate stats (perhaps with different skins)?
2. You mention you +1 str sword would work with +5 str helmet, is the stat cap simply limiting or restrictive? (does it have to equal EXACTLY cap value or does it ignore all values beyond cap?)
3. Are you looking for a single perfect solution or is it conceivable to have numerous amounts of perfect solutions?

Answers:

1) almost certainly yes.

2) values above the caps are ignored. They represent some amount of wasted augmentation, so should be minimized. But they probably should weigh less than values below the cap.

3) there would definitely be many possible "good" solutions and the tool would facilitate exploring the solution space, making changes and rerunning the search, etc.

 

[SJP0tato]

Just to add more complexity (like it wasn't bad enough, right?): What about things like level restrictions? Most games of this type half the motivation for playing is to "level up" in order to get that +1 item compared to what you were previously able to use.

Although now that I think about it, that might help in that you could filter items no higher than current level, but no lower than maybe 10 levels "lower" than current. Unless the game has low level items with extreme stats, then maybe it wouldn't work as well.

Just a random thought I had. It's definitely a fun/interesting problem.

 

[Markbnj]

Just to add more complexity (like it wasn't bad enough, right?): What about things like level restrictions? Most games of this type half the motivation for playing is to "level up" in order to get that +1 item compared to what you were previously able to use.

Although now that I think about it, that might help in that you could filter items no higher than current level, but no lower than maybe 10 levels "lower" than current. Unless the game has low level items with extreme stats, then maybe it wouldn't work as well.

Just a random thought I had. It's definitely a fun/interesting problem.

Definitely, level restrictions are one of the filters that reduce the population of items to be searched. Another is class restrictions, and then obviously slot restrictions.

One of the reasons I'm noodling about this is that the game in question has a fairly complete xml item database available, so the hardest problem in most apps of this kind - how to get the data - is already solved. It only remains to process it 🙂.