OOTS #1277 - The Discussion Thread

[The Giant]

New comic is up.

[TruDivination]

We love to see a good V moment!!!

[Ivrytwr]

I love the logical V. And Serini's "folksy" charm.
This one made me laugh hard.
Thanks Giant!

[Roland Itiative]

Loved the combination shell game and gauntlet, but I'm not sure I follow V's logic there. If they're doing each dungeon in a known average time, in order, Serini could easily figure out roughly how long they have until they hit the correct door in the pure shell game scenario. Well, either way, great comic as always!

[Duncun]

I have to admit. I did not see that one coming. But it makes sense now that it has been revealed.

[Wintermoot]

tweeby shoe-doubler
goat-smacking fleece folders


man, this lady is on fire

I did not solve the mystery of how to get to the final gate, and I don't think I've seen anyone in thread figure it out either. But its genius and makes perfect sense. Way to go Giant!

[vonBoomslang]

Loved the combination shell game and gauntlet, but I'm not sure I follow V's logic there. If they're doing each dungeon in a known average time, in order, Serini could easily figure out roughly how long they have until they hit the correct door in the pure shell game scenario. Well, either way, great comic as always!

V is working off the interpretation that even a vague time estimate would let them figure out the exact location.

[Peelee]

tweeby shoe-doubler
goat-smacking fleece folders


man, this lady is on fire

I did not solve the mystery of how to get to the final gate, and I don't think I've seen anyone in thread figure it out either. But its genius and makes perfect sense. Way to go Giant!

I recall people suggesting it might be a gauntlet, but i dont have any links to such.

[Shining Wrath]

OK, I did not see this coming. The right door is always the last place you look.

But that means that if you can somehow hide a door so that Team Evil skips it, they'll never find the Gate.

A better solution would be to convince the LN robot to leave.

[Peelee]

Also, this means that while he couldn't have known it, MitD's tactic of painting extra doors would have prevented Reddie and Bones from ever finding the last Gate.

[Wintermoot]

Loved the combination shell game and gauntlet, but I'm not sure I follow V's logic there. If they're doing each dungeon in a known average time, in order, Serini could easily figure out roughly how long they have until they hit the correct door in the pure shell game scenario. Well, either way, great comic as always!

let's say there are 100 doors. I Know there are more, but for the sake of the explanation, it doesn't matter. Let's say there are 1 hundred

We know they have explored 27 of them already, at a rate of 7 minutes per door. Starting at end A and working toward end B.

1. If the gate was behind ONE specific door, say, door 50, then Serini's rough estimate would be "they will find the door in 161 more minutes." which could then be fed into a formula to figure out what door it's behind. Regardless, this has been removed as an option.

2. If the gate isn't there at all, then Serini wouldn't be able to give an estimate beyond "some point beyond another 511 minutes. Regardless, this has been removed as an option.

2.5. The unspoken option. the gate is randomly shifted and could be located behind any random door. Serini wouldn't be able to give an estimate and she says she can. So that removes that option.

3. Minimum number. the gate COULD be located behind any door. In this case Serini's estimate would have to be "within the next 7 minutes" because she doesn't know if they will find it or not. And, as V pointed out, they would statistically have already found it.

4. Maximum number. 511 minutes. That's the only remaining "rough estimate" that Serini could provide (after she herself removed the option that it WAS behind a specific singular door) so that's how V deduced it. The entrance to the final dungeon can only be revealed after all dungeons are explored.

[Morgaln]

Loved the combination shell game and gauntlet, but I'm not sure I follow V's logic there. If they're doing each dungeon in a known average time, in order, Serini could easily figure out roughly how long they have until they hit the correct door in the pure shell game scenario. Well, either way, great comic as always!

That's only true if Serini knows the order in which they are searching the doors. Are they going left to right? Top to bottom? Counterclockwise in a circle? If the target is a specific door, the search pattern matters. If it is not one particular door, it doesn't.

[Zarhan]

Ok, how does this "explore every dungeon to get to the final one" works, in terms of implementation?

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

[KorvinStarmast]

But that means that if you can somehow hide a door so that Team Evil skips it, they'll never find the Gate.

A different variation than the MitD 'mark as searched' a door that they have not searched as a means to frustrate Team Evil's search scheme. But it doesn't rely on an outside agent.

This strip, 1277, suggests that Redcloak's organized and efficient search plan approach wasn't going to get Team Evil to the gate any sooner than brute force.

[Windscion]

Whoa! They are totes back on the clock. I did not anticipate this.
If only there were some way to hide at least one entrance. With illusions, say.

[Sir_Norbert]

Well, that puts paid to the "it's really under the statue" nonsense at long last :D

[Frozenstep]

Huh. That's pretty clever, actually. No chance of invaders getting lucky, no chance of invaders outsmarting it...plenty of time for Serini to either arrange an ambush, or call for help. This gate might be the most impressive one yet.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

Are we sure that the Bugbears do full clears?

[Wintermoot]

Ok, how does this "explore every dungeon to get to the final one" works, in terms of implementation?

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

well V was about to explore the possibilities, before they were so rudely interrupted. Now we'll never know!

We know it's probably not "kill everyone in every dungeon" because if so, the bad guys would be screwed as they are leaving everything alive. But then again team Good doesn't know that, so they could be laboring for no reason.

I suspect it's tied to the "trap". You have to cross and recross each swapover once and back. If you go retrigger a swapover you've already been through, it resets the count. I bet if you just stepped in and out of each swapover, it would reveal the final dungeon.

[Resileaf]

Not entirely unexpected, but good to see that Serini did indeed combine her dungeon designing philosophy with Kraagor's.

[hamishspence]

I like Serini's increasingly imaginative swears.

[Resileaf]

Ok, how does this "explore every dungeon to get to the final one" works, in terms of implementation?

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

We know for a fact that the dungeons replenish themselves after a few months. It seems likely that you need to clear every dungeon in the span of a few months and when you do, something happens at the end of the last.

[Faldrath]

Are we sure that the Bugbears do full clears?

I don't think full clears matter, since Team Evil is not doing full clears now (they're skipping most monsters). Might be just reaching the final room?

[SlashDash]

Ha! I figured it was something requiring you to go through all the doors - otherwise the monster's trick was pointless to the story.

But I am confused about one thing. Is there a point to the swap-overs?
Does it matter if you go through them or not?
I'll guess we'll wait and see.


That, and I still wonder if there's some significance for Redcloak moving Kraggor's statue.
It's possible the author just wanted to exclude the obvious guess that the gate is in the statue or something.

But I still wonder if there's something more about it.

[Psyren]

Ok, how does this "explore every dungeon to get to the final one" works, in terms of implementation?

Is there some pressure plate in all of the dungeons (that resets after a day or two, otherwise the bugbears would have discovered the gate long ago), and when they are all pressed down the door appears?

This is my question. I can't think of how this works at all.

And come on Kraagor, really? A gauntlet where you don't actually have to fight anything? He should be forcing you to pile up the corpses on a scale or something!

[Roland Itiative]

V is working off the interpretation that even a vague time estimate would let them figure out the exact location.

Yeah, and that assumption is not really that good. We're dealing with average times and rough estimations, any conclusion would likewise work only within a certain margin of error.

If the Gate was behind one specific door, and Serini gave her rough estimate based on the average 7 minutes per door data, the Order would be able to easily conclude that one of a few doors are the only possible candidates, which would allow them to bypass most of the problem and trivialise the search (just start at the door that the math says is the correct one assuming the estimated information is entirely correct, then expand the interval as needed until you find the correct one). Clearly that's already way more information than the paranoid Serini would be willing to give.

1. If the gate was behind ONE specific door, say, door 50, then Serini's rough estimate would be "they will find the door in 161 more minutes." which could then be fed into a formula to figure out what door it's behind. Regardless, this has been removed as an option.

That's exactly my question, why has it been removed as an option?

[Wintermoot]

Yeah, and that assumption is not really that good. We're dealing with average times and rough estimations, any conclusion would likewise work only within a certain margin of error.

If the Gate was behind one specific door, and Serini gave her rough estimate based on the average 7 minutes per door data, the Order would be able to easily conclude that one of a few doors are the only possible candidates, which would allow them to bypass most of the problem and trivialise the search (just start at the door that the math says is the correct one assuming the estimated information is entirely correct, then expand the interval as needed until you find the correct one). Clearly that's already way more information than the paranoid Serini would be willing to give.


That's exactly my question, why has it been removed as an option?

Because they asked Serini and she told them "It's not behind one specific door". So that option was removed before we got to the "can a rough estimate reveal the location"

[Quinton250]

Would the possibility that the gate is hidden by a mechanism similar to the combination lock on a locker or safe be covered by V's explanation of a "minimum quantity" but also the explanation for a scenario where a vague approximation of the estimated time would not reveal the solution? Let's say they had to finish gates 44, 27, 81 and 11 in that order without finishing any other gates in between. If they messed up the order, they've have to wait for them to repopulate again. That would have a minimum time (four dungeons, 28 or so minutes) but the average time it would take would be so impossibly long that it would be indiscernible from other random based solutions.

[Sir_Norbert]

That's exactly my question, why has it been removed as an option?

Serini said "If I told you that, you'd know where it is", which would only make sense with the gate being behind a specific door if Team Evil's order of searching the doors was known to everyone in the room.

[Starknight62040]

Roh Ruh. Clock's a ticking.