Comparative Analysis of Stunning and Scaling

[The Dogfather]

There are many variables about the CJ battle that still puzzle many TT players, especially whether we need to stun or scale. Many people have the idea that in order to fully overtake the CJ effectively, you must stun the cogs, while others believe that exclusive stunning is the key. I’m posting this thread to do a comparison of how effective your game plan is if some of the members do decide to stun the cogs while others scale or if your group decided to scale alone.

This situation I am setting up is going to be a controlled situation to make things easy. I am going to setup this hypothetical situation on a per minute basis (one round). In my hypothetical CJ battle, there will be 8 toons. Each toon’s evidence weight is 1, and each toon is only able to throw one piece of evidence per second. I am going to neglect the time it takes to run and get more evidence, bonus weight from toons in the jury, the number of cogs and everything else outside of evidence weight. I will also incorporate a bonus (2x the evidence) for 20 seconds for each round for the situations where there is at least one cog stunner, simulating that all of the cogs are stunned.

To make things easy, the table below demonstrates on a per minute basis the total weight the scale accumulates per round. I am comparing exclusive scaling to different variables of stunning and scaling. I am dividing each round into two divisions: the first 20 seconds and the last 40 seconds. In the first 20 seconds, the evidence weight will be doubled for the examples that do have stunners and the last 40 seconds will have no bonus.

Criteria:
1 evidence thrown per second
60 second total time interval (one round)
Excluding all variables mentioned above

Formula:
First 20 sec: Number of toons scaling X 1 evidence/sec X 20 seconds X bonus round value (1 for no stunners and 2 if any number of stunners present)
Last 40 sec: Number of toons scaling X 1 evidence/sec X 40 seconds

Example:
8 Scaling & 0 Stunning: Total weight in the scale per minute is 480
1st 20 sec: 8 toons X 1 evidence/sec X 20 Seconds X 1 (no stunners) = 160
Last 40 sec: 8 toons X 1 evidence/sec X 40 Seconds X 1 (no stunners) = 360

4 Scaling & 4 Stunning: Total weight in the scale per minute is 320
1st 20 sec: 4 toons X 1 evidence/sec X 20 Seconds X 2 bonus (stunners present) = 160
Last 40 sec: 4 toons X 1 evidence/sec X 40 Seconds X 1 (no bonus available) = 160

Results:


The table above demonstrates the total evidence weight each round. I have added the extended variable of 5 minutes, simulating 5 consecutive rounds. The table shows for a full round basis that you will get a total evidence weight of 480 in the scale with no stunners as compared to 320 with 4 stunning and 4 scaling (most CJs are done this way). This difference might seem small, but if you look beyond one minute intervals, the difference heavily favors no stunning, but yet still requires advanced players.

In order to increase the safety of the toons that are scaling, it would be best to have some of the cogs stunned during the course of the battle, because not all toons are advanced players and are not able to effectively dodge the evidence and scale at the same time. If you compare the outcomes above, it seems that the best possible situation is to have 6 toons scaling and 2 stunning. Although you get the same weight as in no stunning battle, this would require you to have 2 excellent stunners being able to stun cogs once every minute, which is highly unlikely, especially if you bring in the 9th and 10th cogs. Although it is not as effective as exclusive stunning, it still provides some protection for toons that are scaling. The 7 toons scaling and 1 toon stunning gives great results, but what is the possibility of one toon being able to stun all the cogs every minute? It wont ever happen! The use of 2 toons stunning and 6 scaling is the best option for toons that are not advanced players.

Now if you begin to add in the variables I removed, such as cog number, amount of evidence we are able to carry, bonus weight (from cannon round), the distance to the witness stand (longer distance from cogs to the stand than from the scale), so on and so forth, a no stunning CJ begins to appear as the best candidate.

Aside from the evidence I provided above, from my own personal perspective and experience, its more useful for all of the members to just focus on scaling, the downfall is that it does require lots of CJ experience. Out of all the CJ battles I have been in, the ones where all members were scaling (requires advanced players) have resulted in the quickest battles. The scale moves down so fast that the cogs don’t have much time to respond and bring you down in laff. The times that I have seen toons go sad or go low in laff are when we had a mixture of toons stunning and others scaling. Depending on the group you CJ with, some might find they need some stunners, and so stunning for this specific group would be the best and others exclusive scaling is the best. We all have different levels of experience, and if you feel its necessary to have stunner, by all means have them, just minimize the amount of stunners in the group.

If there is anything that I may have missed (I'm sure I have), please feel free to comment.

[Edit] - Exclusive scaling is best when done with friends that are advanced players. Stunning, although not as effective as exclusive scaling, still is the best option for general, random CJ runs.

The Dogfather

[Kehawin]

Very convincing argument.

I have to say, since I was apparently a miserable failure (if you ask one of the people there) the time I tried to scale on test, I haven't tried to scale. (Keep in mind I left toontown for a year about a month after it hit open, so I don't have as much experience as many Big Wigs) So, obviously, I have held the opinion that making sure the cogs are stunned promotes:

• double evidence weight for those scaling
• lack of cog evidence hitting the scale - each cog evidence piece that hits the scale negates any toon evidence that is not doubled
• lack of cog evidence hitting toons
• +10 laff bonus for anyone who accidentally hits a gavel or misses a jump, or gets hit by cog evidence while trying to avoid either of the other two

So, I realize that your scenarios include the assumption that these are "advanced toons" in the CJ... unfortunately, very rarely does one find such a scenario unless it is with friends. "Random" runs generally include people of mixed skills. So, you have to include in these scenarios at least a little bit of backsliding as cog evidence hits the scales when one or more toons are refilling evidence, when they are jumping to avoid other cog evidence, or when they are flat on the tushes with -5 or -10 over their head from missed jumps and giving the cogs time to pile evidence in.

It's a pretty convincing argument the way you have it presented, but when you add in the variables that you left out (5-7 seconds to get evidence, X1 for 3-4stunners, X2 or more for less stunners, and times I dont know how many for all scalers involved - any flat-on-your-bum time, and taking away some of the evidence weight for cog evidence that lands) it seriously changes the calculations.

Not saying your way doesn't work. In fact, I hope to someday be good enough to try it that way... but that's not likely because I find the CJ extremely repetitive and tedious.

Good job presenting this, I hope that "new to the CJ" toons don't get any ideas, most of the battles I have been in with inexperienced toons end up close calls or worse, because they go to the scale, don't understand why they are losing so much laff, start screaming for a toon up, and we end up with maybe 1 or 2 stunning, maybe 1 or 2 on scale, while the rest hide in a corner tooning each other.

[SamLC5]

That is very helpful! thanks dogfather! although i must say it took me a while to read it, (I had to come back and read the second half), it is a very good arguement!

[The Dogfather]

Originally Posted by Kehawin

I have held the opinion that making sure the cogs are stunned promotes:

• double evidence weight for those scaling
• lack of cog evidence hitting the scale - each cog evidence piece that hits the scale negates any toon evidence that is not doubled
• lack of cog evidence hitting toons
• +10 laff bonus for anyone who accidentally hits a gavel or misses a jump, or gets hit by cog evidence while trying to avoid either of the other two

So, I realize that your scenarios include the assumption that these are "advanced toons" in the CJ... unfortunately, very rarely does one find such a scenario unless it is with friends. "Random" runs generally include people of mixed skills. So, you have to include in these scenarios at least a little bit of backsliding as cog evidence hits the scales when one or more toons are refilling evidence, when they are jumping to avoid other cog evidence, or when they are flat on the tushes with -5 or -10 over their head from missed jumps and giving the cogs time to pile evidence in.

It's a pretty convincing argument the way you have it presented, but when you add in the variables that you left out (5-7 seconds to get evidence, X1 for 3-4stunners, X2 or more for less stunners, and times I dont know how many for all scalers involved - any flat-on-your-bum time, and taking away some of the evidence weight for cog evidence that lands) it seriously changes the calculations.

Not saying your way doesn't work. In fact, I hope to someday be good enough to try it that way... but that's not likely because I find the CJ extremely repetitive and tedious.

Good job presenting this, I hope that "new to the CJ" toons don't get any ideas, most of the battles I have been in with inexperienced toons end up close calls or worse, because they go to the scale, don't understand why they are losing so much laff, start screaming for a toon up, and we end up with maybe 1 or 2 stunning, maybe 1 or 2 on scale, while the rest hide in a corner tooning each other.

When I read your post I just laughed because it reminds me of CJs I have been in where everyone is running around frantically as if an Earthquake had just hit, LOL! I've seen plenty of CJs just fall apart.

There are a lot of variables I did not include in my simple scenario because its just too complicated to analyse with all the added variables. If I was a mathmatician or statistician I might get the idea, but I am not, LOL!!!

Also, I emphasized "Advanced players" because the majority of the times I have done a no stun CJ was with players that I would consider good to great players. Its not easy to try and scale while you have evidence flying everywhere, so I would recommend it only for players that are capable of dodging effectively.

There was one CJ (a low suit CJ) I did with randoms (when I was working Law) where only one toon went to stun. He kept yelling "I need help with the cogs" and no one would help (poor guy), so he stopped and helped us scale, LOL. This CJ resulted just as any other no stun CJ I have experienced.

I posted this to try and find the best possible situations for both stunning and exclusive scaling CJs. I would recommend that in a "random" group setting, 6 on scale and 2 stunning is the best possible situation. I just hate to go with randoms and find 5 toons stunning the cogs, LOL!

Thanks for your input, I greatly appreciate it. Also, no worries, just practice being able to avoid the evidence and eventually you will be able to try one, one of these days so that you can see it first hand how fast the battle ends when everyone focuses on the scale. Have fun!

The Dogfather

[cputnal]

Thanks for this excellent analysis.

I agree with your calculations, and would add that the scenario you present is effectively what the CJ solo'ers have done - no cog stun (and in their case, because they were BWs, seating 4, even though the 9th cog was there, the extra weight on Blinky's evidence carried the day rather quickly. All you have to do is be good at jumping evidence and listening for the CJ jumps....)

What I was thinking was that I want to get together a few of my friends and try this - doesn't have to be 8, if an all BW run, because one or two of us would have bonus of 2 or more....we could stand close together, so that if a unite was needed, it would hit everyone....

anyone wanna try a no-stun? I haven't done this before and think it would be fun! While I'm very comfortable stunning 4 at a time myself, it would be interesting to try this....

Let me know!
Craig

[Kehawin]

Originally Posted by cputnal

What I was thinking was that I want to get together a few of my friends and try this - doesn't have to be 8, if an all BW run, because one or two of us would have bonus of 2 or more....we could stand close together, so that if a unite was needed, it would hit everyone....

anyone wanna try a no-stun? I haven't done this before and think it would be fun! While I'm very comfortable stunning 4 at a time myself, it would be interesting to try this....

Let me know!
Craig

Well, considering I either am absolutely useless on the scale, or the person who so adamantly insisted so via numerous PMs was wrong, and I don't have the slightest clue which one of those two is true, I can't go with ya... I need a "scale training run" or 10, and still have 6 more to go before I earn my key. But I would be glad to go and just practice jumping over all that evidence!!!! (You know, with my lag and all, just that would be a challenge)... oh, and don't forget that I have effectively used up the few unites I still had left trying to help out less experienced toons... we would also need to do a couple handfuls (or a hundred) CFOs to restock TU unites.

LOL, is the invitation still open?

[The Dogfather]

Originally Posted by cputnal

Thanks for this excellent analysis.

I agree with your calculations, and would add that the scenario you present is effectively what the CJ solo'ers have done - no cog stun (and in their case, because they were BWs, seating 4, even though the 9th cog was there, the extra weight on Blinky's evidence carried the day rather quickly. All you have to do is be good at jumping evidence and listening for the CJ jumps....)

What I was thinking was that I want to get together a few of my friends and try this - doesn't have to be 8, if an all BW run, because one or two of us would have bonus of 2 or more....we could stand close together, so that if a unite was needed, it would hit everyone....

anyone wanna try a no-stun? I haven't done this before and think it would be fun! While I'm very comfortable stunning 4 at a time myself, it would be interesting to try this....

Let me know!
Craig

Yes, having good peripheral perception and being able to anticipate the evidence is necessary for a CJ solo. Its very fun! All you have to do is be very aware of when the cogs are targeting you and just move out of the way and they will miss. As for doing the no stun CJ, I am up for a challenge anytime. Let me know when you would like to do this and I'll be there. Lots of fun!

The Dogfather

[Bubbles Ruffleseed]

Too much math and too many big words!!! lol, jk Really good guide though!

[The Dogfather]

Originally Posted by Bubbles Ruffleseed

Too much math and too many big words!!! lol, jk Really good guide though!

LOL, that is funny!!! Thanks for the post, just thought I would share my perspective on stunning and scaling.

Also, one last note, math is good for you, LOL!!! Might be a pain, but is good. Have a wonderful day!

The Dogfather

[Deputy Furball Peppermush]

here was the main problem with the cj i did with u earlier this evening, from my prospective. I'm not a great stunner, normally can do 3 cogs at a time. And w/o having a way to communicate to me and the others in the group what in the world u guys were doing, i was left for awhile stunning alone. And not that well i might add. So i then ask my sf's in there to come and help me, but none of them ever stun cogs. I get one friend to come over and help. Still not doing a great job but it's a little better, and i keep hearing from other toons "I need a toon-up". All i can think to myself is well if i could get some help on the cogs then we'd get the 10 lp toon up. So i ask for help with the cogs. And i get nothing back from any of the toons other than my sf's. I go down to 17 lp from 113, and my other sf is down to 5 from 110. We get a sf to come over and toon us up some. The toons on the scales get low on lp's not sure how much tho, and some one uses a unite thank goodness. We did win in the end, but i was 27 lp and my other sf was 20 lp. Now this is my first toon, and in law i have my lowest suit i think its a amulance chaser 8. My other suits are high, holly 35, and baron 19. But my most experience isn't in law. So i think ur theory is great if ur with all sf's or toons that know what ur doing. But if not it might make more sence to help out more at stunning cogs too. Now granted i did notice some cogs being stunned by evidence from ur way over by the scales, but honestly all that did was add to my confusion. I would turn to stun the cog and he was already stunned, which wasted time i could have been stunning a diff cog. I'm truely not trying to give grief here, but that was one of the most frustrating cj's i've been in, in a long time.

[Curly Picklenoodle]

A lot of times while stunning I would get beat up more because my fellow stunners were garbage. It's one thing to get all cogs stunned at once but you'd think they could at least keep them from throwing.

I've since given up stunning and I just scale and jump.

[The Dogfather]

Originally Posted by Deputy Furball Peppermush

here was the main problem with the cj i did with u earlier this evening, from my prospective. I'm not a great stunner, normally can do 3 cogs at a time. And w/o having a way to communicate to me and the others in the group what in the world u guys were doing, i was left for awhile stunning alone. And not that well i might add. So i then ask my sf's in there to come and help me, but none of them ever stun cogs. I get one friend to come over and help. Still not doing a great job but it's a little better, and i keep hearing from other toons "I need a toon-up". All i can think to myself is well if i could get some help on the cogs then we'd get the 10 lp toon up. So i ask for help with the cogs. And i get nothing back from any of the toons other than my sf's. I go down to 17 lp from 113, and my other sf is down to 5 from 110. We get a sf to come over and toon us up some. The toons on the scales get low on lp's not sure how much tho, and some one uses a unite thank goodness. We did win in the end, but i was 27 lp and my other sf was 20 lp. Now this is my first toon, and in law i have my lowest suit i think its a amulance chaser 8. My other suits are high, holly 35, and baron 19. But my most experience isn't in law. So i think ur theory is great if ur with all sf's or toons that know what ur doing. But if not it might make more sence to help out more at stunning cogs too. Now granted i did notice some cogs being stunned by evidence from ur way over by the scales, but honestly all that did was add to my confusion. I would turn to stun the cog and he was already stunned, which wasted time i could have been stunning a diff cog. I'm truely not trying to give grief here, but that was one of the most frustrating cj's i've been in, in a long time.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have not gone in with friends and done an exclusive scale CJ or anything remotely close to that in a few months. Since you are referring to the CJ from last night, I will note to you that we were not trying to exclusively scale or anything of that sort, too many random toons.

Also, in order to run one of those CJs, the majority of the toons participating have to be experienced players. That is why I emphasized that you have to have experienced players that are able to avoid evidence. If so, having all 8 of them hit the scale is the fastest way to defeat the CJ. Also, if you want to have 6 hitting the scale and 2 stunning, the 2 stunners have to be really good at it. Plus another thing, that CJ from last night was a low suit CJ, so there was no bonus weight for us, which makes it more difficult to move the scale down.

I am sorry if you confused that CJ for one of my experimental trials in a CJ. I can assure you that I would not do so with randoms. Had it been one of my trials, the CJ would not have resulted the way it did, although we still won.

The Dogfather

[fleabag pinkerpal]

fine if u r a BW and everyone else is that experienced however the only times I have become sad were when there weren't enough people stunning...usually with BW and we all go sad.so please people keep stunning....who cares if it takes a few min longer to win....at least you win I think too many new toons to LB CJ is trying to scale only now please imphasize that it is important to stun when it is a random!! I personally will try my hardest not to board with too many BW b/c of the fact they all want to scale and b/c I haven't won that way since and we ALL get sad...I rather play with bottom feeders b/c they will use good teamwork. Just my new view on things since so many bad runs with high level scalers. I also agree with everyone tooning each other up the scale is only going higher on the cogs side and if we stunned during that time not only would we get 10 laff pts we would get weight and prevent the caogs from scaling.

[Deputy Furball Peppermush]

Originally Posted by The Dogfather

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have not gone in with friends and done an exclusive scale CJ or anything remotely close to that in a few months. Since you are referring to the CJ from last night, I will note to you that we were not trying to exclusively scale or anything of that sort, too many random toons.

Also, in order to run one of those CJs, the majority of the toons participating have to be experienced players. That is why I emphasized that you have to have experienced players that are able to avoid evidence. If so, having all 8 of them hit the scale is the fastest way to defeat the CJ. Also, if you want to have 6 hitting the scale and 2 stunning, the 2 stunners have to be really good at it. Plus another thing, that CJ from last night was a low suit CJ, so there was no bonus weight for us, which makes it more difficult to move the scale down.

I am sorry if you confused that CJ for one of my experimental trials in a CJ. I can assure you that I would not do so with randoms. Had it been one of my trials, the CJ would not have resulted the way it did, although we still won.

The Dogfather

The main reason I confused last nights CJ for an experimental trial was after coming and reading this thread on The Compariative Analysis of Stuning and Scaling. And the fact that I asked more than once for help and received none, made me think that maybe in fact it was one of the experimental trials.

You are in fact a well known toon, all in my group knew of u, and what an awesome player u are. So i was just a little surprised with the way the CJ went, but like u said it was still a win.

[The Dogfather]

Originally Posted by fleabag pinkerpal

fine if u r a BW and everyone else is that experienced however the only times I have become sad were when there weren't enough people stunning...usually with BW and we all go sad.so please people keep stunning....who cares if it takes a few min longer to win....at least you win I think too many new toons to LB CJ is trying to scale only now please imphasize that it is important to stun when it is a random!! I personally will try my hardest not to board with too many BW b/c of the fact they all want to scale and b/c I haven't won that way since and we ALL get sad...I rather play with bottom feeders b/c they will use good teamwork. Just my new view on things since so many bad runs with high level scalers. I also agree with everyone tooning each other up the scale is only going higher on the cogs side and if we stunned during that time not only would we get 10 laff pts we would get weight and prevent the caogs from scaling.

That is why on my comparative I was looking at both perspectives, but at the end did put in my own input as to what I feel is the best approach. I dont expect all to agree with me, because we all have different variations of expertise and what we consider as fun. But you need to understand my threshold of gameplay, and what I feel I need to do to keep my interest in the game is different from the next toon over.

Yes, I think I should emphasize a little more that this method of exclusive scaling should be done with friends and if you are experienced enough, but I will still protest that stunning is not necessary. Very helpful, but not at all necessary. If it were, how can soloers get through their battle?

I see your point of not wanting to board with BW suits, because the CJ does increase in difficulty. But let me ask you this, dont you think you are missing out on what this game has to offer and what its all about; experiencing new areas that we ourselves do not encounter? Isnt that the reason we look forward to moving from Sell HQ to Cash to Law?

Also, I have been in many, but many CJs where 4 scaled and 4 were stunning, each taking 30 min or so to complete. That is just counting the scale round. That is too much time to sit there in a boss battle. So, its not actually a few min difference, its a lot of difference in minutes because the exclusive scaling CJs (need experienced toons) dont take more than a handful of minutes. To me, time is precious because I dont live in TT and dont have a lot of time to play. The time I do spend on TT I like to make as productive as possible.

Thanks for your input, maybe I should hightlight the areas in my OP that specifically state these methods do require advanced players.

Originally Posted by Deputy Furball Peppermush

The main reason I confused last nights CJ for an experimental trial was after coming and reading this thread on The Compariative Analysis of Stuning and Scaling. And the fact that I asked more than once for help and received none, made me think that maybe in fact it was one of the experimental trials.

You are in fact a well known toon, all in my group knew of u, and what an awesome player u are. So i was just a little surprised with the way the CJ went, but like u said it was still a win.

I am sorry if you took this as a trial run. As I said, I will never do that with randoms, its just not fair for those that are not ready to do so. Out of that whole CJ, I only had 2 friends with me, not enought for an experimental run. I think the main problem with that CJ is that toons kept moving from the scale to stun and back and forth. That tends to creat lots of confusion as to who is doing what and where. But overall, just look at it on the bright side, use those "interesting" situations as a learning experience. I do, and that is how I have learned to play this game.