The Energon Pub

Note: This is a repost of something posted in the planning thread a week or so back.

It's fairly evident in the game that 1 bot of level x+1 isn't as good as 2 bots of level x, yet they yield the same amount of xp. A 1 level difference might not be huge for xp differential, but when you say a 3 level difference, all of a sudden you are saying (for instance) one level 8 is as good as 8 level 5's.

My proposal would be redoing the xp per level system.

Currently the system is a simple doubling of the xp from the last level. This can actually simply be written as 100 + k, where k is the total experience from all previous levels. I would suggest changing this to 100 + n, where n is the total experience from the 2 previous levels. This would in essence say that someone of level x + 1 is as good as two bots of levels x and x-1.

So here is what that would look like in terms of xp at each level (w/ % of old xp in paratheneses)

Level 0: 100 (100%)
Level 1: 200 (100%)
Level 2: 400 (100%)
Level 3: 700 (88%)
Level 4: 1200 (75%)
Level 5: 2000 (63%)
Level 6: 3300 (52%)
Level 7: 5400 (42%)
Level 8: 8800 (34%)
Level 9: 14,300 (28%)
Level 10: 23,200 (23%)
Level 11: 37,600 (18%)

The beauty of this is it doesn't much mess with the lower levels, but will slow down the upper levels a good bit more. Also, it will have the desired effect of making everyone do more or less equal work to move up the rankings...whereas now in the game we have level 5's earning over 100k a mission quite often, but when the highest players were at level 5, it was nearly impossible to get more than 5k. Some difference I can understand-but we are talking a factor of 20 here (in reality the average gain is probably a factor of 2-3, but still it shouldn't take players only 1/3rd as long to level just because they started later).

This brings another issue to mind which is upgrade cost...honestly I wouldn't mind if they stayed the same, it would have an effect I feel should be desired which is each additional level is harder to attain than the previous.

But it then also becomes extremely difficult to 'finish' the game. For instance in the old game each level could be moved through pretty easily within 3 months (w/ level 0 taking just 1 month). So that results in a total of 34 months to pretty much go from 0xp to maximum stats in all categories. With the new system level 10 for instance would take over 4 times as long (1/.23) to complete. Using the same numbers as above, the game would take about 80 months to complete. (something we probably don't want)

so, that leaves this solution, tier the upgrades as well, but still not to the same degree as the level, I think it should be somewhat more difficult to level, so use the same base formula (1000 + n) in this case, with n being the 3 previous instead of the 2 previous upgrade costs.

So the first stat you upgrade to each level would cost this:

1-1000 (100%)
2-2000 (100%)
3-4000 (100%)
4-8000 (100%)
5-15,000 (94%)
6-28,000 (88%)
7-52,000 (81%)
8-96,000 (75%)
9-177,000 (69%)
10-325,000 (63%)

and the nth stat you upgrade to each level would remain n^2*base, where base is the amount for the 1st upgrade shown in the above table.


Whadda y'all think?

QuietStorm wrote:Level 5's are earning that now because they are facing off against you in the Maximal missions. Plain and simple. If little guy hits big guy, little guy gets mega-XP. And big guy hits little guy, big guy gets no XP.

This system won't be in play much longer. You'll be thrown back down to the little guys when the reset happens. WE ALL WILL.

I'm sorry that you're not able to continue to destroy everyone in your path. But soon, we'll all be back down to square one. Hopefully, you'll still find it fun enough to play.

Word.

I realize that, but it's still very disproportionate to what it should be...and it's going to occur again when v2 comes, just not right away...and it won't necessarily be me giving out the big scores, but whoever is at the top levels will.

The level system implies something about equality. The fact that each level is worth twice the previous level should mean you are as good as two of the previous level.

Since that obviously isn't true, there is an inequality...and in this case it's pretty significant.

Simple as that.

Tammuz wrote:it's not true becuase the difference in levels at the moment is is +1/level, i.e a level 3 only has a third more of the stats of a level 2, more or less.

the gap between competency in the levels thus gets smaller while the pay-off gets bigger.

exactly. I'm saying that for the system to work properly that would have to be the case, and it clearly isn't.

That said we don't know exactly how the game works so we can't say all upgrades are equal...in theory upgrades could be exponential as well...i.e. a courage of 5 could make you twice as likely to attack as a courage of 4, which is twice as likely as a courage of 3. So that isn't impossible, but empirical evidence shows that certainly isn't the case.

Tammuz wrote:well that's how me and cealus and os where talking about balancing the weapons; each point in FP or skll increasing the damage by the same amount and each point in rnk or end decreasing damage by the same.

EDIT: i have no idea how glyph has set courage up, but he tweaked alot.

are those changes all in %'s or actual #'s. Percentages make more sense to me.

For instance each pt in rank or endurance decreases damage by 10%, while each fp & sk pt for a weapon has a 10% increase. So a 5 fp 4 sk weap should do 1.10^9 = 2.36 as much damage as a 0 fp 0 sk weap. This especially makes sense given the exponential nature of the leveling system. Actually with the way the system is setup, these effects should be just about 10%. That way each upgrade is equivalent to a roughly 10% improvement to a player. Obviously some things should be a little less as they have multiple uses...but this way 8 upgrades would make a player almost twice as good.

Constant increases don't really make sense to me. I assume all damage dealt is calculated and multiplied by an absorb factor. So a 5 fp 0 sk weapon deals 1.1^5 normal damage, then it is absorbed by 5 points of endurance so we would be back to 1.0 damage.

Constant numbers when mixed with that lead to some screwy results. (like the 1% damage stuff we are seeing with all the computational robot modes).

So here is what I'm trying to say in psuedo code:

str = pts in strength stat
fp = weapons firepower requirement
sk = weapons skill requirement
ornk = armors rank requirement (for opponent you are attacking)
oton = tons of armor installed (for opponent you are attacking)
cou = pts in courage stat
spd = pt's in speed stat
int = pts in intel stat
oend = pts in endurance stat (for opponent you are attacking)
ospd = pts in speed stat (for opponent you are attacking)


first the random generator selects who will attack based on a persons courage where he person gets to put 1.1^cou possibilites in a hat with the winner being the name pulled from the hat.

next a tactic/weapons attack is chosen
next a target is chosen at random (or based on intel)
(more detailed info left out on these 2)

then a probability of hit based on the 2 speed's (and potentially a weapon's accuracy rating)

phit = 1.1^spe/(1.1^spe + n*(1.1^ospe)); (n = 1 assumes a 50% hit chance on average, n of about .5 could be nominally used giving an average hit chance of 67%)

Then the damage where most of the factors come in.

basedamage = 10; (base damage in % is 10 for this example)
weapmult = 1.1^(fp+sk)
strmult = 1.03^str
endmult = 1/1.1^oend
armmult = 1/(1.01^ornk)^oton

actdamage = basedamage*weapmult*strmult*endmult*armmult

Tammuz wrote:you do realise how hard it is not to discuss this without breaking OS embargo on spilling game mechanics.


i really can't contribute further without getting myself banned, you're assumptions are right, your maths is wrong

alright, I guess I'll leave it at that then. Though I doubt my math is 'wrong'. Probably something is being miscommunicated about each others assumptions, or defenitions like the word constant.

sprockitz wrote:Constant increases don't really make sense to me. I assume all damage dealt is calculated and multiplied by an absorb factor. So a 5 fp 0 sk weapon deals 1.1^5 normal damage, then it is absorbed by 5 points of endurance so we would be back to 1.0 damage.

okay, that example is of exponential increases, not constant increases. Constant increases (or decreases) lead to the law of diminishing returns. if everything increases something by 5% from the base, then we have what I call constant. i.e. fp+sk = 0 -> 1.0; fp+sk = 1 -> 1.05; fp+sk = n -> 1 + .05*n. as opposed to exponential which is 1.05^n.

Tammuz wrote:sorry.

you've got the support forum access still right? read the config sticky it's all in there

if i read that then i can't share stuff

okay, will do.

Tammuz wrote:

sprockitz wrote:

Tammuz wrote:sorry.

you've got the support forum access still right? read the config sticky it's all in there

if i read that then i can't share stuff

okay, will do.

it sucks doesn't it?

good thing i worked it all out and posted it out before being gagged

heh yeah

perhaps we should make this topic disappear