New efforts!

[CrimsonCapacitor]

That is actually how my fire tank worked, and the reason I had Taunt in her Fire Aura and combat jumping.  I'd bounce her all over the place like a Mexican Jumping Bean to get aggro back after having lost it.

I squeed a little.  Had a post quoted by VV.   :D :D :D

[Biz]

I was going to brush up on some stuff to chime in on this whole conversation but the guy on my risk management audiobook had an annoying voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LErQfoRnIIs

[Vee]

That works too, though https://youtu.be/laKprX-HP94?t=76 was what i specifically had in mind :D

[Arcana]

is this concept of threat Intellectual Property? or can I use it and give you credit for it?

I posted about it many times on the official forums, and my unofficial policy on forum postings is if I'm posting publicly, it is free as in beer to use.  I also don't generally require attribution or credit except where it is appropriate, the only thing I ask is that my ideas not be explicitly passed on as someone else's, just because that's dishonest.

Also, you can't really copyright an idea.  A specific implementation of an idea can be patented, and a specific description can be copyright, but the idea itself not so much.

[Arcana]

I was writing my previous post when your description you refer to went up, but I was talking about something similar I believe.  We establish a baseline by looking at the "typical character" and what is required of that character, the combination of offense and defense necessary to defeat the "typical encounter" (whether that be three nondescript minions, or something else).

But while you were talking about measuring changes in threat based on changes in the hit point cost, I'm thinking about changes in capability necessary to defeat that enemy.  The question I have, is "are you measuring that cost in hit points against the archetypal character?"

Yes.  I would call that the intrinsic threat of that critter, analogous to you calling challenge the intrinsic difficulty of an encounter as an absolute, not relative to any particular player.

For the sake of simplicity, let's suppose our archetypal scrapper has 50% resistance to all damage types, of which there are four.  How would we compare minions if their damage output is the same, but the first does an equal amount of all damage types and the second does all damage of type A?  Against the archetypal scrapper the difference is irrelevant.  Against variations in the scrapper though, they are very different.  In the first case, some quick algebra shows that a total of 200% resistance across the four damage types will produce the same result as the archetype, but in the second case you need less capability to achieve 50% resistance--only 50% resistance to a particular type.  And, if you have more than 50% resistance to type A, you can have a lot more effective mitigation than the archetypal scrapper, even with less total resistance*.

The short answer is that Arcanaville Threat doesn't do that.  We're trying to come up with a way to engineer content and rewards in a consistent fashion.  If I create two critters, one of which deals smashing damage and one of which deals energy damage then of course smash/lethal players will have an easier time with the first than the last, so relative to them those critters will be less difficult to kill.  But, presuming we hand out smashing and energy resistances in roughly equivalent fashion (which may not be true in CoH but set that aside for now) that's irrelevant: both critters should be valued the same.

Furthermore, Arcanaville threat doesn't compare every critter to every player type.  The reason for using the "standard" or "base" player mannequin is that this provides the basis for absolute threat, or normalized threat.  It is *the* threat value for that critter, not *a* threat value.  We then as a separate process compare the base player to the average or design intent archetype.  If we intend the average scrapper to have about 70% damage mitigation, we use that to scale threat appropriately.  So we use the base dummy to calculate threat, and then we compare the base dummy to the archetypal scrapper, the archetypal tanker, the archetypal defender, etc.  Those calculations would then tell us how threat affects those archetypes on a relative basis.  You could say, although this is not strictly mathematically correct, that threat is like your challenge, while each archetype faces a different difficulty from that threat.  Possibly zero.

You might say that's not fair, because every archetype is different.  Yes indeed.  But a good game designer would make those differences intentional.  If the base tanker "sees" a lot less difficulty from a particular amount of (absolute) threat than a blaster, that's because that is intended to be true.  The tanker shouldn't get penalized for that with lower rewards, because in a sense it is not its fault.  You want the tanker to experience that lower effect of threat to do his job.

This kind of gets into the subject of design intent.  When does the game reality accurately reflect the intent of the designers, and when does it not.  CoH intends tankers to take less damage than blasters.  Thus, even though tankers face less risk, in the sense of taking damage and potentially being killed, they are intended to generate the same rewards as blasters facing the same content. Colloquially, their risk/reward intention is dramatically different, but intentionally so.

What the devs intended was for tanker kill speed to be lower, so that while they achieved the same rewards for facing the same content as blasters, their reward rate would be lower.  Except that would imply that tankers would level much slower than blasters, not accounting for debt, and the devs didn't directly intend that: they intended everyone to level approximately at the same rate.  Here's the payoff: had they actually sat down and thought this through explicitly they would have realized they were attempting the logically impossible. 

And that's why I think this is important.

Measuring challenge only against the archetype is unsatisfying to me, because we know from experience that it doesn't capture the ease of varying the subjective difficulty.  By limiting the second minion to a single damage type, you have introduced a particular weakness: the ability to mitigate more of its damage with a narrower set of capabilities relative to the first minion.  I would propose then that challenge cannot be measured solely against the archetype, but also against the possibility of deviation from the archetype.

This isn't strictly speaking a problem with the model or with the notion of subjective difficulty.  It is actually a fundamental problem with a property of City of Heroes: you can generally pick your fights.  In a game where you all but had to run through a fairly representative subset of the content, such problems would average out.  Overspecialize to take on one thing, and you'd automatically make yourself weaker to its converse which you'd face eventually.  But in a game like City of Heroes where you could, if you wanted to, avoid ever having to face those converse enemies, this is an intractable problem.  In effect, it is the "lactose intolerance" problem of the Champions PnP game.  It was very easy for players to game the system by trying to buy powers that were extremely useful with weaknesses that were trivially easy to hide, unless GMs were extremely careful (the game even warned about this directly).

Short answer: I would object, and yes, it should have an impact.

Longer answer: Is it really possible for those statements to be true in our hypothetical in the general sense?  I've been talking about challenge as a collective measure of the capabilities needed to overcome the encounter, including the expenditure of resources, which in turn includes endurance.  Is there some possibility of running out of endurance against these critters?  What if you don't start with a full blue bar?

That was the point I was trying to get to.  You were defining challenge by the amount of resources required to complete an encounter (i.e. defeat a group of NPCs).  But that seems to me to be an intrinsically static view.  When you start looking at it dynamically, what you need may stay the same, but what you have may change.  Accounting for that is tricky.  Very tricky in a game like City of Heroes, where "recovery" is something we're allowed to push to ludicrous levels in many cases.

[Pyromantic]

The short answer is that Arcanaville Threat doesn't do that.  We're trying to come up with a way to engineer content and rewards in a consistent fashion.  If I create two critters, one of which deals smashing damage and one of which deals energy damage then of course smash/lethal players will have an easier time with the first than the last, so relative to them those critters will be less difficult to kill.  But, presuming we hand out smashing and energy resistances in roughly equivalent fashion (which may not be true in CoH but set that aside for now) that's irrelevant: both critters should be valued the same.

And I would agree with that valuation.  What I want to make sure is clear is that I believe each should be valued less than a minion that does an equal mix of smashing and energy damage.  Further, I would go so far as to value each of the minions you mentioned higher if you face one of each, rather than two of one or two of the other.  The principle is that the inherent challenge of the minions is determined in part by their damage output, but also the ease with which that damage can be mitigated.  It depends on something that may seem paradoxical at first: the availability of mitigation to players should be considered in determining challenge, even though the actual mitigation any particular player has should not.

Figuring out how to handle that is not simple, for at least two reasons.  The first is that deviation from the archetypal average is intentional and encouraged.  How much deviation is permitted is something that needs to be well defined in order to determine its effect on challenge.  The second is that mitigation obviously doesn't just exist as resistance, but as a host of other manifestations such as crowd control and the ever-nebulous blaster-faceplanting notion of mitigation through superior firepower.  And this is still before approaching other issues.  But I think it's worth approaching, in no small part because:

This isn't strictly speaking a problem with the model or with the notion of subjective difficulty.  It is actually a fundamental problem with a property of City of Heroes: you can generally pick your fights.  In a game where you all but had to run through a fairly representative subset of the content, such problems would average out.  Overspecialize to take on one thing, and you'd automatically make yourself weaker to its converse which you'd face eventually.  But in a game like City of Heroes where you could, if you wanted to, avoid ever having to face those converse enemies, this is an intractable problem.  In effect, it is the "lactose intolerance" problem of the Champions PnP game.  It was very easy for players to game the system by trying to buy powers that were extremely useful with weaknesses that were trivially easy to hide, unless GMs were extremely careful (the game even warned about this directly).

An intractable problem indeed.  It was also a problem that was substantially magnified by AE.  Developers could reduce the issue by designing enemy groups that had a sufficient level of diversity, so that even characters well-suited to facing them didn't have to be overly so.  Maybe some of the enemies deal mostly fire damage, but put them in a group with minions doing other types and it's less of an issue.  Or, make the determination that because they deal mostly fire damage, they should be worth less experience.  AE compounded the problem by giving players finer control over the enemies they would face.  To my mind this problem was not sufficiently dealt with, though I recall a specific example of the devs considering the issue of players tinkering with the assumed diversity of enemy groups by introducing xp penalties on groups that did not include minions, lieutenants and bosses.

That was the point I was trying to get to.  You were defining challenge by the amount of resources required to complete an encounter (i.e. defeat a group of NPCs).  But that seems to me to be an intrinsically static view.  When you start looking at it dynamically, what you need may stay the same, but what you have may change.  Accounting for that is tricky.  Very tricky in a game like City of Heroes, where "recovery" is something we're allowed to push to ludicrous levels in many cases.

Only in part by the amount of resources required.  And inextricably linked to what is necessary to recover resources that are spent, which is further complicated by the fact that time is not the only way to recover endurance and health.  So I don't deny at all that it's tricky. 

As you've asked me a number of questions, might I ask you one?  What do you think of the idea of measuring diversity within an enemy group in some fashion and using it as a modifier on rewards? 

[Arcana]

As you've asked me a number of questions, might I ask you one?  What do you think of the idea of measuring diversity within an enemy group in some fashion and using it as a modifier on rewards?

I was thinking about that problem within the context of the AE.  I did not find a viable way to do that.  In principle though I think it is a potentially good idea, but the question is how to define "diversity" in a mathematically rigorous manner that a game engine could implement.

Thinking about a single critter to start, it seems intuitively obvious that a critter with very high fire/cold resistance and very low s/l resistance is somehow "weaker" than a critter with an equal amount of both.  It seems that shifting resistance points around isn't "free" - that adding weaknesses takes more value away than adding strengths adds value.  But how should the game "compute" what's going on when you pair a high s/l low f/c critter with a high f/c low s/l critter?  Should that cancel out and be equal to a pair of even resistance critters?  I'm not sure if it should, and even if I was sure I'm not sure how the computer would know to do that.

I had the notion to make a "critter group matrix" that contained all the possible strengths and weaknesses and then tried to fill in those matrix slots with each individual critter in the group, "summing" them up (for some definition of "summing") and then performing some matrix-y calculations on that to determine, what: the "hamiltonian threat" of the critter group?  I never got far enough to be sure if that idea would eventually loop around and lead back to something practical, or if it flew off into number salad space.

If I was asked to make a system like this for a game identical to City of Heroes today, my best effort would be to create a prototypical critter of each class (minion, LT, etc) that was a composite average of the normal critters in the game.  The average minion would have this much smashing resistance and that much energy defense, etc.  For each critter I wanted to evaluate I would look at the highest differentials for resistance, defense, health, and regen, and add points for the stat that had the highest upward differential, then *divide* by a scaling factor for the stat that had the highest downward differential.  In other words, to oversimplify a bit, something with a little more s/l resistance but much weaker energy/negative defense might start at 100 (i.e. percent) and get +15 for the better s/l, but then get hit with a 0.80 modifier for the e/n weakness.  It would then be worth something like 92, or 92% of full.  The idea would be to tweak the factors so the amount you get more for strengths was more than overridden by the scale down factor for having weaknesses, and I would focus on the biggest strength and the worst weakness, and ignore the rest.

For critter groups  I would probably make a composite score that was a separate group modifier slapped on top of the individual critter calculations.  A really good group might make its members 5% more valuable.  That 92 would then be worth 97 in that group.  In a crappy group it might be worth only 85.

[Felderburg]

it is free as in beer to use.

Beer... isn't free...?

[Aggelakis]

Beer... isn't free...?

Free as in speech. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[Arcana]

Free as in speech. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Free as in don't pay or otherwise compensate me for just my general ideas.  I guess it is also free as in speech, although that's usually a given for ideas since brains currently don't come with EULAs.

[Aggelakis]

Free as in don't pay or otherwise compensate me for just my general ideas.  I guess it is also free as in speech, although that's usually a given for ideas since brains currently don't come with EULAs.

No, I was indicating where "free as in beer" came from. :)

[Joshex]

I don't recall saying what I believe the news should do. I'm just noting that there's not too many actual laws that obligate them to be unbiased. Besides, people who watch the news tend to be aware that news can be biased.

At this stage, humanity would benefit from a Death Star level of tech, since it would mean, in effect, a second planetary body to live on, and the ability to travel to other planets (and blow them up, I guess, but why?).

1; true, but it's still necessary, they are handling data transmitting it from one source to another. it's like a bank, say you have some money in your account ($1000) and it made 23.567% interest total over the last 4 years and you had paid no attention to it, so you go to the bank to ask how much money is in your account, the Correct Answer should be "[Title] [name], you have $1235.67 in your account" .

instead what the news is doing is like saying "he doesn't need to know the cents, and heck he probably wont care if we just give a rough ballpark, and we can generalize the name and just say "an account" because our boss doesn't want anyone to know whats in their accounts so he can secretly steal/use it: "an account we are looking at has a decent sum of money". and then not being able to ask further questions or look up the definite answer yourself.

luckily that isn't the case with banks. but it is with the news.

2: take a moment to look at the people in charge of the world, what do they care about? the bottom dollar. what do they see all those millions of jobless people as? charity cases, mouths to feed on their dollars, people constantly begging for jobs when their corporate partners have expressed that they feel that they just don't need any more employees. the old "I'm giving you a job out of the goodness of my heart!, I don't really need you, and to be honest could make more money if I weren't paying for you."

suddenly fingers would be hovering over that fire button contemplating how they can get the unwashed masses onto one world that they don't care about "it was an accident, no it was rebel scum and we are deeply grieved". that's why.

then there'd be a huge fake investigation into the scandal where they say a half truth "our records show the persons in charge of the death star did not activate the firing sequence, it was a security breach by a group of rebels that had been working on the death star unbeknownst to us"

then the question would come up "did you actually give them clearance to access and work on such a dangerous weapon and really not know they were rebels? why were the controls for firing unguarded at just the right time for their strike?"

and it would be ignored with smiles and waves "we'll look into that" and maybe followed by a feel good humanitarian story about the people responsible for allowing the breach meeting up with some poor, minority, disabled children and teaching them how to build a basic hyperspeed drive.

then after a few tatooine months later and a few doctored hologram mails are screened through, the justices report their verdict " there's not enough evidence to bring a case against anyone under this trial's investigation, there may have been some sloppy data handling (those 4 rebels who each got a way with copies of the blueprints to the death star) but there is no evidence to show any willful intention to aide the rebels or to suspect any criminal negligence of those not already choked by Darth Vader."

then those responsible will be running for emperor before too long. Heck if they are shameless/evil enough they'll run for emperor while under investigation and maybe attempt to do little electron fraud

cause like "who doesn't do electron fraud these days? you're only a chump if you let people catch you and own up to it, a real politician knows how to change the topic of concern to keep people on their toes always not knowing what they should investigate first to sue you for, and while they are contemplating that; make sure to call their lack of comment as an inability to bring a case because you did nothing wrong, then condemn and damn them and shame them as conspirators, then use that as an excuse for not having to release any data when they do decide what to sue you for by calling them crazy, if forced to release stuff, of course it's doctored by then, isn't it obvious? I mean you expressed concern about it months before you actually brought the case to us! plenty of time for us to take preventative measures!".

All for the sake of the Galactic Empire.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=cf.mp-cdn.net%2Fe1%2Fcb%2F2bf00b1015a87bdf8f6b542d9129.jpg
http://cf.mp-cdn.net/e1/cb/2bf00b1015a87bdf8f6b542d9129.jpg edit because of anti-hotlinking.

Any Objections? I will presume not. just ignore the door access security logs of course they wont say I had anything to do with it! someone get those logs doctored now! what I'm still on holorecorder!? who is responsible for that! *one choking later* you, now you are in charge of the holorecorder pray it doesn't happen again! and someone clean that filth up..

[Azrael]

All for the sake of the Galactic Empire.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=cf.mp-cdn.net%2Fe1%2Fcb%2F2bf00b1015a87bdf8f6b542d9129.jpg

A shadow of darkness surrounds us.

Azrael.

[Vee]

cause like "who doesn't do electron fraud these days?

We must stand up for the poor defrauded electrons.

[Joshex]

We must stand up for the poor defrauded electrons.

Oh wow, that's one heck of a typing error! *facepalms at self*

[FemFury]

although that's usually a given for ideas since brains currently don't come with EULAs.

Well, at least not yet:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E

[ivanhedgehog]

1; true, but it's still necessary, they are handling data transmitting

massive snip
Any Objections? I will presume not. just ignore the door access security logs of course they wont say I had anything to do with it! someone get those logs doctored now! what I'm still on holorecorder!? who is responsible for that! *one choking later* you, now you are in charge of the holorecorder pray it doesn't happen again! and someone clean that filth up..

Journalism is a business. they dont owe you anything. when you remember this, it will become much clearer. they are not saint, public servants benefactors or boy scouts. They are employed in the job to make money by providing a service. sometimes they do dangerous things to get the information and bad things happen. sometimes they break the law to get the information and they are not exempt from penalties for doing so. they hype news to get readers and sell advertising. It is not a conspiracy, any more than all those evil car dealers trying to get you to buy more cars. they have zero responsibility to report on things you think you know. they do have liability if they report things they think might be true but arent and defame someone. part of doing business.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

they have zero responsibility to report on things you think you know.

Especially since the things he thinks he knows frequently fail to correspond to the actual world except in the broadest strokes, and even then it's not uncommon to be more of a vague resemblance that falls farther and farther away the closer you look at it.

[LaughingAlex]

I keep thinking at times and I often feel sorry for Joshex, but he needs to slow down and chill, :).

[Ironwolf]

I work for a big company and as you get older you realize - no one owes you a job.

I repeat - No one owes you a job.

You are paid because you bring value to the company. When you work for yourself - such as a writer or painter does - you get paid because your work can sell. If it makes a profit for whoever publishes it - they can pay you according to the profit.

Jim Butcher makes a lot of money for his work, some authors make far less and not because they don't work as hard. Talent and the skill to apply the talent often make up the difference. I make good money because I have a lot of knowledge and I am not afraid to apply myself to the work to be done.

Business is not inherently evil. It is not altruistic on its own but when you add in the freedom and lifestyle you can enjoy with the results on a personal level - the overall affect of business - is positive.

The evil robber barons of the 1800's have given way to a populace in at least the USA who thinks poor means you just have a flip phone, used car and an apartment. In most nations around the world poor means you live in a rural area with no food you don't grow yourself or gather and you burn dung for heat and cooking.

The old corporations don't care gets really old to hear.