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new research levels seem stupidly easy
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Nick Wright RJ: Marx Post Rating: 1 + / - Total Posts: 8 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 1, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 (Last edited on Apr 25, 2012) @Emile: The new system is broken, in the sense that the formula used isn't doing what Scott intended it to do - assuming that his aim was to help out new players so they're not excluded from the game but keep research relevant for established players. We all know what they say about assumption though.http://www.ratjoy.com/forum/topic/can-i-have-loads-of-free-research-too/ I'll go ahead and copy/paste my thoughts from the above thread here: ------------------ I'm sure you've already considered lots of ways of balancing tech costs, but here's my take on it. I've plotted your tech cost coefficient (that's everything after the x in your formula) against tech level (along the bottom). I've assumed an average tech level of 30. http://i50.tinypic.com/jkzrzo.jpg The red line is the old coefficient, the blue line is the new coefficient (using the equation you posted above - the one that's currently live) and the green line is one I've come up with. It seems to me that, you're not giving a boost to newbies, rather just adjusting the cost for everybody across the board. If the average tech level is above 20, everyone gets a discount, if it's below 20, everyone gets a penalty, regardless of what your tech level is. Here's another plot, showing the cost coefficients if the average tech level is 15: http://i50.tinypic.com/2cql0li.jpg So, with an average tech level below 20, the price goes up for everyone. This is based on the equations posted above. I'm not really sure this really achieves the goal of giving newbies a boost. The equation I used to get the coefficient in the green line is: e^((a - b)/a) * (a^1.2) Where a = tech level being researched, and b = average tech level. What this does is give everyone a discount as the approach they average tech level. When they reach the average tech level, the cost of research is the same as it was previously, and when they go beyond the average tech level, the cost of research gets progressively higher. I think this would have a normalising effect on tech levels across everyone playing, allowing newbies to compete and allowing people who invest heavily in tech to stay ahead of the average. Maybe it might be worth considering? Also, using the new equation (the one currently active), you might be raising a negative number to the power 1.2. I'm not sure how that's calculated on your server, but MS Excel (for example) doesn't like that unless you explicitly use a complex power function. It might be worth checking how this is handled. ----------------------- So I suggest replacing the current implementation... Cost = x * (level+20-world_avg)^1.2 Time = y * (level+15-world_avg)^1.2 with Cost = x * e^((a - b)/a) * (a^1.2) Time = y * e^((a - b)/a) * (a^1.2) This is a) Fair to both new and established players b) "fun" because you still get the rewarded from investing in research c) Easy to implement because it uses simple maths and a standard function d) Doesn't rely on conditional statements e) Is easily reversible if you want to start with a cost and work backwards f) Can be replicated client side on other platforms with little fuss g) Is easily tweaked - you can set "b" to whatever, it doesn't have to be an average h) Isn't a big change i) Can be proven to work in a spreadsheet with a couple of mins effort j) Doesn't rely on a huge pointlessly wordy explanation to justify it! |
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Nick Wright RJ: Marx Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 8 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 1, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 Of course the other way to deal with this is simply to move the minimum tech level floor up from zero as time progresses for everybody for free. This is indeed close to how things work in the real world. Technology and technical skill invariably permeate through society, because of education, publication and a circulating workforce, among other things.If a company sets out to build a television, for example, they don't start by cobbling together an old CRT and then scratch their heads trying to decide how to improve it, hoping to arrive at an LED flatscreen after doing a bunch of "in house development". They look at the best practise around them, hire some engineers who already have the required knowledge/experience to design one, hire consultants, license designs, consult ISO/IEEE standards, use off the shelf components. That kind of thing. No organisation works in a vacuum. |
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Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 After giving it a lot of thought earlier, I think it would be best not to use world-average quality anywhere in the equations to determine cost and time. Instead, I think it makes sense to use world-max-quality. This does a few things:1) You don't have to worry about figuring out which companies to use in the world average (have a low-level quality cutoff to be included? are they active players? etc) 2) It avoids some negative and counter-intuitive situations. If there was 1 world-leader with, say, q70 widgets and 1 other person in the field trying to catch up (currently at q10, say), the average will be roughly 40. In this case, we make it easy to get to 40 and hard to get past it. On the other hand, if there were 9 other people trying to catch up to the world leader and they were currently at q10, the average will be roughly 160/10 = 16. Perversely, in this situation, the more low-level players there are, the harder it becomes to advance (as it drags the average down). |
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Nick Wright RJ: Marx Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 8 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 1, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 To deal with both 1 & 2, which are good points, you could use a median rather than an average in your equation. It doesn't have to be a strict median either, it can just be a fudge/tweak factor.
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Innocent Bystander RJ: Matthew Matician Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 76 Karma: 54 Joined: Apr 2, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 Just to clarify, I meant a function using maxAvg, not maxAvg by itself. I'd advocate anywhere between .5*maxAvg and .75*maxAvg (my post in the other thread has more info)Also, to respond to some of your other points upthread, I tend to be a bit verbose but the equations I proposed are very straightforward and I don't think me being long-winded about them makes them a worse proposal. Also, it can be computed without using conditional statements--I was just trying to give a conceptual sense of it. |
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Nick Wright RJ: Marx Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 8 Karma: 15 Joined: Apr 1, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 25, 2012 I'm sorry if I came across as critical, that wasn't my intention. I wasn't actually thinking about your (or anybody else's) contribution when I posted and I don't want to detract from whatever it is you suggested. I'm sure it's valid. |
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zxektok megatron RJ: zxektok Post Rating: 0 + / - Total Posts: 140 Karma: 170 Joined: Mar 6, 2012 |
Posted on Apr 26, 2012 post it the rats den - to me he curve on your green line seems tiny wee bit too steep - only cos people already have 70+ researchbut i like it |
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