The suitability comes from the "Red Book" in its explanation of tactics and references to styles.
I of course assume that there are only two possibilities WS (Well Suited) or US (unsuited). Nothing in the fight says you are using this tactic unsuitably so how can we judge tactic usage...?
I look to the Favorites Chart and see what tactics are possible to the style and those must be Well Suited. All the other tactics must not be Well Suited.
Perhaps there's a middle category, but I can't see a defined structure to prove it so I stick with what I can know. Managers make the three pronged assumption because weapons have three categories, WS / S / Unorthodox. They assume that tactics must work the same way without any data to support their belief.
I believe that any style can use a tactic that they can get a favorite in. All other tactics lower their style's fighting "string" in the program. There's always a chance of getting a favorite tactic based on luck and any warrior could get any tactic, but I don't think so.
Why I haven't made a change in my charts to reflect my ideas:
This is how the tactics are written on the styles, in the current RSI stuff:
"The Parry-Riposte style is well suited to the Lunge, poorly suited to the Slash, and horribly suited to the Decisiveness and Bash tactics."
WS I can understand; Poorly Suited has no reference for me; Horribly Suited means US to me but this could all mean varying degrees of badness. How in the world do you rate terms like Poor, Horrible, Ineffective, not-well, and other tags I've seen mentioned in the styles of the Red-Book to denote skills not WS?
Favorites chart lists Slash, Decise, and Bash as not possible to ever have as a favorite tactic. If you add up all the number of PR warriors that got one of these as a favorite tactic you get the big ZERO. Decise I see is against the fundamentals of the style. Bash is Horribly Suited...? Using Bash for the PR is just wrong since the style doesn't even have a weapon that it could be used with. But I would bet that they wouldn't put that in there if one or both of the following reasons were true:
HERE'S ANOTHER:
"Offensively, because of its economy of motion, the Parry-Strike style lends itself to Decisiveness modification. The Slash, Lunge, and Bash tactics can be used, but are not very effective."
What does "not very effective" mean? Does it mean Poorly Suited? Why is there a reference in the Parry Riposte about Horribly Suited to Decise and Bash, but not to others? Does that mean that the Parry Strike is/or is not Horribly Suited to a tactic? Is 'not very effective' the same as 'poor', or 'not well'?
This is all ambiguous. But let's try and look at what we "know."
The Favorites chart lists Slash, Lunge, and Bash as not possible to ever have as a favorite tactic. If you add up all the number of PS warriors you get ZERO with those tactics. I guess I could start to assume that the reason the PR got a special extra mention about the Bash tactic may be from that style's weapons selection. The PS weapon selection does offer it the potential to at least use a weapon suited to the three tactics even though they are not suitable to the style (it is not possible to get them as a favorite).
HERE'S ANOTHER:
"Defensively, the Parry-Lunge style is Well Suited to both the Parry and the Dodge tactics. The Riposte can be used to some effect, but it is not a well suited tactic. The Responsiveness tactic is not at all suited to this style."
A lot of the same questions apply. I can see Well Suited, but what about the other tactics? Since the PL is not suited at all to Response, then is this the worst possible tactic that could be used for the style, or should I assume that 'not at all suited' has more innate badness than 'Horribly Suited'? The others are bad but not as bad? Does it go from helpful to gradually getting worse? Wouldn't the program have a rhyme/reason for tactics used by styles? Wouldn't there be a simple computer formulation to be used in the fighting? If it goes from helpful to bad in categories, then so far I have listed quite a few categories over the presumed three.
I hate the red-book for stuff just like this, and I am not alone in this opinion.
Favorite tactics for the three above styles listed in the Favorites Chart:
PR 3 Lunge ; 11 Riposte ; 6 Parry
PS 12 Decise ; 9 Response ; 9 Dodge ; 1 Riposte ; 8 Parry
PL 23 Lunge ; 12 Dodge ; 12 Parry
Now if you look at what the actual favorites are then you'll see the only tactics that are Well Suited. Neither of the three have a favorite tactic available that didn't say it was Well Suited. They had some WS tactics that weren't written about at all but as for the PR we assume Riposte could be a favorite, where PL we assume that Parry could be a favorite. The other tactics mentioned as being 'Poorly Suited', or 'could be used to some effect' are not listed to be a favorite tactic at all for the corresponding style when you look at a Favorites Chart. But we don't even have to assume the styles WS tactics, just by looking at the Favorites Chart we can see them for ourselves.
I think the need to put more words into the "what is the such-and-such style" made the writer(s) of the Red-Book put comments about which tactics could be used. By looking at the Parry-Lunge style you immediately guess that this style will be able to use Parry and Lunge tactics, and the inferences seem to show themselves this way through all of the styles. The trouble is determining if there are degrees of US tactics or not. I personally doubt that there are.
I'm sure that the Poorly Suited, Horribly Suited, and other adjectives used in the style explanations of all the ten styles reflect both the weapons available to the style and the preferential weapons that are well-suited. I have to say preferential since weapons used can be well-suited, marginally-effective, or unorthodox. Use a marginally effective weapon with a tactic listed as Poorly Suited and you have a bad combination, so instead of listing Bash for the PR as 'not-well' (or some such adjective) it gets listed as 'horrible'. What it broke down to was the PR using a weapon with negatives, and a tactic which causes negatives. But enough of my rambling about the Red-Book of Lies....
I'm sure that anything not able to be gotten as a favorite tactic is a negative modifier to your warrior. The others only alter the program's numbers. Like moving some of your attack skills to Decise when using the decise tactic but over all not reducing your warrior's total skill performance.
Say a warrior has 10 skills in all 6 skill areas
INI RIP ATT PAR DEF DEC TTL 10 10 10 10 10 10 60Now let's assume a 5 skill bonus for a WS tactic Our Striker uses Decise - a WS tactic
INI RIP ATT PAR DEF DEC TTL 9 9 9 9 9 15 60In this case I can see a shuffling around of 5 skill points towards Decise, lowering the effectiveness of the others by 1, while keeping the total skills at 60.
But use a tactic your style can't get a favorite in (in my opinion an US tactic) and I bet it enhances that area while subtracting from your warrior's total skill performance by twice the amount (2 skills per area instead of 1)
INI RIP ATT PAR DEF DEC TTL 10 10 10 10 10 10 60A Parry-Lunger uses Decise - an US tactic
INI RIP ATT PAR DEF DEC TTL 8 8 8 8 8 15 55In this case I can see a shuffling around of skill points towards Decise, lowering the effectiveness of the others by twice the amount of a WS tactic, and lowering the total skills to 55 (that's a 5 total skill loss). Where the former keeps you at zero skills negated, the latter would keep you at a negated skill level. Use your favorite tactic, and I assume there would be no shuffling of skills just an enhancement of the skill area correspondent to the tactic. And in my examples that would be an enhancement of +5 skills in decise for a total of 65 skills ( a +5 total skill gain).
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