Ticker Replacements

[Qrash]

Just to clear things up, an 83% would become a 75.4%. 79.5% would become 73%. So 3.5% difference would become 2.4%

 

See I have no f'n idea how you got an 83% to 75.4%. Need specific examples. Hell take my fighter Benoit, post his exact stats and use him as an example.

[MMATycoon]

Based on my time in chat over the past 24 hours I think this very explanation is what's confusing people the most. You need to be more specific. Take a specific fighter (or fighters), post his skills and then what they would become afterwards.

OK here's just a load of numbers - the build doesn't make sense. Total skill is 2470 points of max 3150. 78.4%.

 

Boxing 140

Muay Thai 130

Wrestling 125

BJJ 110

 

Punches 110

Kicks 120

Elbows 100

Knees 100

Clinchwork 75

Striking D 120

GNP 135

TD Off 130

TD Def 100

Subs 100

Def Grap 100

 

Agility 120

Flexibility 130

Strength 135

Speed 120

Conditioning 130

Balance 140

 

So on the sliding scale, he's not at the very top where you have to take off 10% of his skills, but he's near that top level, where he needs (calculated from the sliding scale) 7.8% of his skills chopping off. Just a simple chop would be 9.3 points off everything make it:

 

Boxing 130.7

Muay Thai 120.7

Wrestling 115.7

BJJ 100.7

 

Punches 100.7

Kicks 110.7

Elbows 90.7

Knees 90.7

Clinchwork 65.7

Striking D 110.7

GNP 125.7

TD Off 120.7

TD Def 90.7

Subs 90.7

Def Grap 90.7

 

Agility 110.7

Flexibility 120.7

Strength 125.7

Speed 110.7

Conditioning 120.7

Balance 130.7

 

Or we could do it so that you can pick whatever you like and take a total of 195.3 points off anything you like.

 

The more I say it, there more doom I feel, knowing some people just won't do it, despite the fact that everyone else has to do it too, so there's very little negative effect other than psychology. Perhaps the only way is to add two more levels above elite. I'm certainly not going to be stubborn this time around and insist on pushing something through just for the good of the game, if it makes people quit based on emotions... not if we can have a *nearly* as good system without as many negative psychological effects. With two more levels added we can maybe cap at what is now 90% in terms of the "elite" etc words... It's just a bit messier having 17 skill levels and I personally don't like it as much but whatever, if it keeps people happier.

[Qrash]

OK here's just a load of numbers - the build doesn't make sense. Total skill is 2470 points of max 3150. 78.4%.

 

 

Or we could do it so that you can pick whatever you like and take a total of 195.3 points off anything you like.

 

Where the heck did you come up with 195.3 as the amount of points to take off?

[DeadlyDirk]

Where the heck did you come up with 195.3 as the amount of points to take off?

9.3 (Probably a typo) and that's 5% of the total skill points.

[Qrash]

9.3 (Probably a typo) and that's 5% of the total skill points.

No 195.3 is 9.3 x 21. 9.3 off of each of the 21 categories. I still don't understand where 195.3 or 9.3 off each category came from.

[MMATycoon]

Where the heck did you come up with 195.3 as the amount of points to take off?

9.3 points per skill * 21 skills.

[Qrash]

9.3 points per skill * 21 skills.

Yes that I understand but where did you come up with 9.3 ? IS that just a totally random number you are using as an example? That's fine if so, but there really needs to be a clear chart showing how much your fighter will be losing.

 

For example:

 

85% total skills = 11.5 off each skill or 241.5 total points

84% total skills = 11.0 off each skill or 231 total points

....

76% total skills = 7.5 off each skill or 157.5 total points

etc.

 

And the only reason I'm saying that is so people can have the information before they "rage quit". you can do the math for your fighter and one of your opponents, and see that your 1% advantage just became an 0.8% advantage. Or your 4% advantage just became a 3.3% advantage. Its not as much as they really think it will be. It's really not killing anyone.

 

If people are going to rage quit and/or complain I'd rather them do it with the right information.

[Widing]

Dont totally understand it yet, but I think it's a good idea, people seem to have the idea that their elite fighters will turn into useless cans, which is not the case is here. This is a good way to get some more diversity at the top, since now almost all the top fighters are old as shit and are still gaining skills, which is not the way it should be. I also believe that when fighters hit a certain age they should decline so badly or retire or something so we get some rotation in the game.

[DeadlyDirk]

No 195.3 is 9.3 x 21. 9.3 off of each of the 21 categories. I still don't understand where 195.3 or 9.3 off each category came from.

 

Yeh my maths were out, I don't get is either, 5% would have been 12.3 not 9.3

[Goatacre]

No 195.3 is 9.3 x 21. 9.3 off of each of the 21 categories. I still don't understand where 195.3 or 9.3 off each category came from.

 

It's because Mike is (rightly) applying a graduated approach to the skill drop, I think. So where he says that a fighter with a average skill point of 135 would drop 15 to 120, and a 120 would drop 10 to 110, 100 to 95, they are not absolute markers but effectively milestones demonstrating what the cut is by the time you reach that point.

 

Therefore in Mike's example, the average skill point is 117.6 but applying a graduated approach means that his skill drop is 17.6/20 of the way up from a 5 point drop to a 10 point drop. This would come to a drop of 9.4 (per my quick maths - slightly different to Mike's, could be that Mike's technique is not wholly straight line, but hopefully this illustrates the point).

[Goatacre]

Yes that I understand but where did you come up with 9.3 ? IS that just a totally random number you are using as an example? That's fine if so, but there really needs to be a clear chart showing how much your fighter will be losing.

 

For example:

 

85% total skills = 11.5 off each skill or 241.5 total points

84% total skills = 11.0 off each skill or 231 total points

....

76% total skills = 7.5 off each skill or 157.5 total points

etc.

 

And the only reason I'm saying that is so people can have the information before they "rage quit". you can do the math for your fighter and one of your opponents, and see that your 1% advantage just became an 0.8% advantage. Or your 4% advantage just became a 3.3% advantage. Its not as much as they really think it will be. It's really not killing anyone.

 

If people are going to rage quit and/or complain I'd rather them do it with the right information.

 

If people rage quit over this then that should mean either:

 

1) they're managing fighters significantly above the 80% mark who really will see a larger cut to their marginal advantage (but given many of these are veteran players who understand the importance of game balance and have witnessed other long time players quitting, one would hope they would understand why the change was being made), or

 

2) they really don't understand maths, because this point is being explained over and over again that it won't hurt them in the grand scheme of things if their goal is genuinely to compete with the best.

[Qrash]

It's because Mike is (rightly) applying a graduated approach to the skill drop, I think. So where he says that a fighter with a average skill point of 135 would drop 15 to 120, and a 120 would drop 10 to 110, 100 to 95, they are not absolute markers but effectively milestones demonstrating what the cut is by the time you reach that point.

 

Therefore in Mike's example, the average skill point is 117.6 but applying a graduated approach means that his skill drop is 17.6/20 of the way up from a 5 point drop to a 10 point drop. This would come to a drop of 9.4 (per my quick maths - slightly different to Mike's, could be that Mike's technique is not wholly straight line, but hopefully this illustrates the point).

Ok that explains it and makes sense completely. I didn't know in his chart that 135/150 meant the "AVERAGE". That clears everything up. If that is the case we can easily make a chart for this.

[Goatacre]

Yeh my maths were out, I don't get is either, 5% would have been 12.3 not 9.3

 

See my post above. It is not intended to be 5%. These are not hard cut-off points for the drops, instead it is a sliding scale.

[Goatacre]

Ok that explains it and makes sense completely. If that is the case we can easily make a chart for this.

 

Yep, dead easily could be done in 2 minutes. I would. Us I'm actually on holiday so only have my iPad, so don't have Excel.

 

(Didn't expect to be explaining maths on my holiday either! )

[DeadlyDirk]

See my post above. It is not intended to be 5%. These are not hard cut-off points for the drops, instead it is a sliding scale.

 

Yeh I get it now, cheers fella.

[Qrash]

If people rage quit over this then that should mean either:

 

1) they're managing fighters significantly above the 80% mark who really will see a larger cut to their marginal advantage (but given many of these are veteran players who understand the importance of game balance and have witnessed other long time players quitting, one would hope they would understand why the change was being made), or

 

2) they really don't understand maths, because this point is being explained over and over again that it won't hurt them in the grand scheme of things if their goal is genuinely to compete with the best.

I agree. The top guys are going to lose some advantage for sure, but the #1 skilled fighter vs the #2 skilled fighter will lose fractions of a percentage advantage. An 85% vs an 80% won't lose 5% advantage, which is what most people are thinking. It'll prob be less than a %.

[Goatacre]

How does coming up with the overall percentahe work Mike considering there are more secondaries than physicals and then more physicals than primaries.

 

Is it simply all of them added together (21 skills combining physicals, primaries and secondaries I believe.) divided by 21 to get your overall percentage?

 

Or is it more complex so that since there are less primaries and physicals they will carry more weight to your overall percentage.

 

E.g What sort of overall percentage would a guy like this come out to..

 

Primaries - 82%

Physicals - 93%

Secondaries - 55%

 

It works on the same premise as weighted averages. The total skill points is 3150, but you can just work it out step by step, so using the example you've given their overall % would be 71% (total of 2236.5 skill points). As his average skill point would then be 106.5, his skill drop would be somewhere in the region of 6.625 per skill if across the board, or 139.125 in total.

[DeadlyDirk]

It works on the same premise as weighted averages. The total skill points is 3150, but you can just work it out step by step, so using the example you've given their overall % would be 71% (total of 2236.5 skill points). As his average skill point would then be 106.5, his skill drop would be somewhere in the region of 6.625 per skill if across the board, or 139.125 in total.

 

Cool, thought it should be weighted averages, that makes sense. Takes me back to my Maths A Level!

[DeadlyDirk]

My initial argument seems to be lost on some people, and looking back it was a bit confusing as to what I was getting at. On closer review of my fighters now I understand how the percentage works I have 13 guys over about 78% total skills, some as high as 89% so my suggestion of only nerfing the top guys and not the mid tier/lower guys would certainly hurt me more than it helps me just so people know where I'm coming from.

 

So I'll keep it short

 

Nerfing everyone (Barring the few below 50%) is going to piss more people off than it pleases.

 

I know that's not particularly constructive or helpful but I believe it to be true. The solution I want is the one that makes the fewest people quit.

[EzekelRAGE]

5. Choosing what skills to drop in. We can do that. I don't think it'd be anything like as necessary under the new system as the current system though - you should be able to drop off whatever skills you want to now, as you don't have to constantly spar everything to avoid any losses. I would prefer to just tae the same % off everything as that would be infinitely easier but I get why people wouldn't want that, so we could work something out.

 

 

Would something like this help? To specifically downgrade a skill. I made this post wn tickers were first implemented i think. You could tweak it to where the depletion comes off that skill that is checked or w/e. Seems like it would b a bitch to code/program though :/.

Yea I understand what you saying, wanna drop MT, but can't because you need to keep your CW up. Also with what Stu saying, with the .25 cap on declining skills. It could take while for you to drop where you want. I have a pic of what could solve both problems though.

 

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9172/fenixg.png

[jacky67]

OK here's just a load of numbers - the build doesn't make sense. Total skill is 2470 points of max 3150. 78.4%.

 

Boxing 140

Muay Thai 130

Wrestling 125

BJJ 110

 

Punches 110

Kicks 120

Elbows 100

Knees 100

Clinchwork 75

Striking D 120

GNP 135

TD Off 130

TD Def 100

Subs 100

Def Grap 100

 

Agility 120

Flexibility 130

Strength 135

Speed 120

Conditioning 130

Balance 140

 

Just a simple chop would be 9.3 points off everythin make it

 

Boxing 130.7

Muay Thai 120.7

Wrestling 115.7

BJJ 100.7

 

Punches 100.7

Kicks 110.7

Elbows 90.7

Knees 90.7

Clinchwork 65.7

Striking D 110.7

GNP 125.7

TD Off 120.7

TD Def 90.7

Subs 90.7

Def Grap 90.7

 

Agility 110.7

Flexibility 120.7

Strength 125.7

Speed 110.7

Conditioning 120.7

Balance 130.7

 

Or we could do it so that you can pick whatever you like and take a total of 195.3 points off anything you like.

 

The more I say it, there more doom I feel, knowing some people just won't do it, despite the fact that everyone else has to do it too, so there's very little negative effect other than psychology. Perhaps the only way is to add two more levels above elite. I'm certainly not going to be stubborn this time around and insist on pushing something through just for the good of the game, if it makes people quit based on emotions... not if we can have a *nearly* as good system without as many negative psychological effects. With two more levels added we can maybe cap at what is now 90% in terms of the "elite" etc words... It's just a bit messier having 17 skill levels and I personally don't like it as much but whatever, if it keeps people happier.

 

 

way too few skills.

 

Improve learning speed and more skills.

 

 

 

And maybe we should split the caps between stand up and wrestling/ground .

 

 

Top guys will still be top guys , a fighter that has 95% skills will still be better than a 85% skills after the drop.

[Ganja]

Oh I get it now. Still don't like it, but I understand.

[Goatacre]

OK, it seems like the conversation's going pretty sensibly so far, so thanks for that. I'll run through a load of the points.

 

1. A hidden for peak skills, I'm cool with that. I would like it to be separate from the fast learner. As has been mentioned a few times, fast learner is already a beast of a hidden that means a lot of cut fighters so I have no problem with it being diluted somewhat. I think personally that's a good thing. Maybe if you have a skill peak hidden and a fast learner hidden, new people will choose fast learner and project builders could go for the peak hidden. More options. I would prefer a relatively narrow band of about 78-82%. I can imagine it would be very disheartening if you had trained a guy up for ages and he hits 75% and stops (in for example a 75-85% spread hidden). That would absolutely suck. 4% total skills is still a big enough spread and is around 100 points or half a skill level across the board.

 

2. Decreasing the effectiveness of ground fighters. This has been repeated a lot of times but I haven't seen anyone explain why. I don't see it changing things either way and if anything I see it as helping that situation. I'm not sure if some people are unaware or have just forgotten or what, but takedown defense / sub defense etc have been looking at your offensive skills for a while now. It's not an insignificant part of the equation, so I think that's more a perception than a reality. If there are difficulties for grappers in the game, that's a game engine issue more than a skills issue now, since those changes about 5 months ago.

 

3. The "I've worked so hard and now it's all gone! I'm done!" argument. If that's how you feel, please can you explain how that's the case, preferably in numbers / an actual example of one fighter and how he is negatively impacted.

 

4. Related to points 1 and 4, I don't know how well this would go down but I have no problem with anyone being over 82% currently, getting that max skill peak hidden of 82%, to show appreciation that they'd worked hard to get their skills to that level and deserve some credit / benefit from that.

 

5. Choosing what skills to drop in. We can do that. I don't think it'd be anything like as necessary under the new system as the current system though - you should be able to drop off whatever skills you want to now, as you don't have to constantly spar everything to avoid any losses. I would prefer to just tae the same % off everything as that would be infinitely easier but I get why people wouldn't want that, so we could work something out.

 

6. We already have a hidden for age drop offs and have had it about a year

 

7. The concept of cutting / squeezing skills. I'm sure that if I added two levels of skill above elite, people wouldn't really have a problem with that. It's a psychological thing to lose skills and I understand that but it's only psychological and is EXACTLY the same concept, barring two facts;

- Adding more skills is way harder to program, would much longer, would mean re-learning skill levels / what's good etc. It would also mean the possibility of errors in training / fight programming and possibly the speed of training would need re-doing.

- I've forgotten the second point whilst I was writing the first one, so that one will have to do

 

8. Aptitudes. I'm struggling to think of a way to work in aptitudes properly, that wouldn't take loads of explaining and in which they aren't a bit of a pointless add on to something that works fine without them. I want to keep the new system simple. Maybe we scrap them, I dunno. We could just leave them as they are whereby you train them a bit faster than other skills but then people would just put their aptitude on the stuff they had the lowest skills in, on creation. With a more basic skill decline system like we'll have in place, I don't really see how to have them affect skill decreases. I don't personally have a problem getting rid of them - the less complicated fighter creation is, the better... I never really liked throwing them in there on creation when a new manager had to stare at even more numbers.

 

1) Sounds great.

 

2) I think we should probably take you on trust for this point. The game engine can obviously be tweaked further in the future if necessary as a separate point. We've probably not had enough time pass since those last updates to see the full effect of this yet (ie not yet enough fighters actively trying to fight on the ground as the primary area of attack to form a decent enough sample).

 

3) Hopefully this argument can be put to bed now. Certainly I agree with you that it is definitely not an issue, and happy to continue trying to explain it to people if it's helpful.

 

4) Sounds fair (wouldn't benefit any of my fighters, so this is not self-interest, merely sounds a reasonable approach to take).

 

5) Given this is likely to be some way off implementation, I guess it will be useful to understand from people what they would prefer. I'm sure it's a case of turkeys voting for Christmas, though, so it would be easy to predict which way that poll would go. It just seemed a bit too easy for managers in my view, but I understand that this is most importantly about stabilising the game (mechanics and user base), so is important to consider this.

 

6) Is this the one that was brought in before with a range of 28-38 as the starting point? From what I recall this did also factor in injury history, is that right? Notwithstanding the above, it will inevitably manifest itself in quite a different fashion based on what was revealed to us before as the impact before (and still now until any change is made), was to shorten the triggers in the ticker system so that fighters entered the red sooner. This would still be easy to overcome by fighting as frequently as possible to constantly reset tickers and hence no real impact. The proposed change will reduce the cap constantly, meaning that dealing with ageing is unavoidable.

 

Ageing, in my view, is the main issue because it has not yet been truly introduced at all for a smart manager and so it would be good to understand a bit more about it, as much as you're prepared to allay concerns about this. If it is still the 28-38 range, and if (making assumptions here, possibly) 33 is the most common point to begin ageing, that just feels really quite old to me (in game, not particularly in real life these days...).

 

7) The cut is much neater and less work, meaning you're able to move onto looking at further value adding initiatives and making the game even more interesting: win-win

 

8) I'm even more sure now that scrapping them is the better answer. Simplicity really is at e heart of that. To give a quite different real life example that contains similar concepts - one of the biggest corporate success stories in the UK in recent years is Hargreaves Lansdown, the stockbrokers. They're basically the last good IPO to get away, and that was at a fiendishly difficult time for the market at that. They've since gone from strength to strength and flown into the FTSE100, largely driven by ever-increasing customer numbers. What is a massive part to this success?

 

It's the new customer application process. They quickly realised that simplicity was key and so the fewer number of questions on the initial form, and the shorter it was, the far greater the chances that a prospective customer will actually complete the form and become a fully fledged customer.

 

The crossover with here is that the aptitudes are just another hurdle for a potential new player, and an extra opportunity for them to decide that this game is not for them before they get helplessly hooked on your game

[MMATycoon]

I have a pension with Hargreaves Lansdown

[Guest]

I have a pension with Hargreaves Lansdown

 

Huh?