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So about this "points formula"

Discussion in 'PanOceania' started by eciu, Jun 29, 2018.

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  1. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    A Bagh-Mari paramedic would have been extremely well received.
     
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  2. Ginrei

    Ginrei Well-Known Member

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    You don't think a company is going to work on what they feel is the most important first? What else do you assume companies do with their time and money? Work on what they think is pointless? I'll stand by my assumption in this case.
    What is the rule?
     
  3. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    But hey sales of Bolts have had increased!
    Nah, not always. I dont want to shatter your dreams but there is no such thing as "company", only people. People do have ambitions, flaws, constraints etc. Assuming that "companies" makes "smart, logical decisions (always)" is very, very naive.

    As for example "most important thing atm." might simply be "whatever is most fun for our designers/sculptors etc." which as you might guess might not be equal to "what is most needed by the players/game".
     
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  4. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    There are very good reasons why a model can exit and bolts are not good at the same time. It has to do with local minima in the design space instead of a global minima. This is encountered all the time in engineering and there are few good ways around it. The more complex the model the harder the design space is to sort. If NASA struggles with this on every mission you cant fault CB for having some units get trapped and not residing in the global minima of their unit objective.
     
  5. Ginrei

    Ginrei Well-Known Member

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    You're not shattering my dreams. You're reading and hearing things I have not said. In both of my posts i stated companies like CB will work on what THEY FEEL is important. Of course that's subjective and of course you or I may not agree with them. So I'm not being naive at all. I completely understand players and those running companies will often have different thoughts on what's important. I certainly haven't said I expect them to make smart and logical decisions. What's smart or logical for CB entirely depends on what CB wants from their company.
     
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  6. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    I think you might need a few more years in the workforce to realise what's is important for a company, and that's for its talented people to enjoy they job and continue to be highly productive and effective.

    So in some cases it's very important for CB to do what they want and enjoy. Because just doing what (sometimes very impatient) gamers want all the time looks to be, from my point of view, an entirely thankless pursuit and would crush my soul in a very short time span.

    Of course they can't always do what they want, there's a balance to be had. But I think gamers have unrealistically short timeframes for when things need to be done, we seem to be in this constant race to have things better and faster and cheaper.

    I always remember the rule. It can be fast, good and cheap. But you have to pick two.
     
  7. Wombat85

    Wombat85 Well-Known Member

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    This reminds me of an inventor I was doing contract work for. He wanted an individually custom, mass produced, 3d printed, low cost consumer product with fast turnaround. It took a year to convince him that there are so many conflicting objectives he needed to do some deep reflection on what his product should be.
     
  8. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    I don't know, I think 4 years in which we've seen 9 releases, expecting either a tweak to the available profiles or an actual BSG Bolt model in place of maybe 1 of the 5 CR+LSG models released isn't too much to have expected.

    Here's hoping the Nisse get adjusted with marksman rifles in place of the CR+LSG, so a FTC of MI in Sval isn't priced in excess of HI elsewhere.
     
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  9. derbrizon

    derbrizon Well-Known Member

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    Except there is not actually consistent reverse-engineering of costing, Section 9. Unless you've seen something I haven't, nobody has produced a single formula that can output every army in this game and it's costing without flaw. Consistent and 100% are not the same. But none of that matters as there isn't an argument on whether there is a formula any more - unless someone wants to insist a moderator is untruthful.
     
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  10. Magonus

    Magonus Well-Known Member

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    Then apply Occam's razor. What's more likely? That we are all too dim to understand the formula? Or that the formula is inconsistent? It must, for example, explain why:

    Specialist Operative costs 0 points on CSUs, but 1 point elsewhere.
    Combi+Light Shotgun costs +2 points on an Aragoto, but +4 points elsewhere.
    Assault Pistols cost +1 point on a Killer Hacker Heckler, but +3 points elsewhere​
    Auxilia pay +1 point for having G:Sync, but no other G:Sync models pay for having G:Sync.
    Veteran L1 + WIP14 costs 3 points on Securitate, but Veteran costs 2+ on Morats, and WIP14 costs 2 points on Ghulam.
    Marksmanship L1 costs +5 points on a Locust but -1 point on a Puppetbot.
    Brawlers pay 1-2 points extra for (?).
    And many more, but #dontPublishTheFormula.​

    It's possible that it is quite an intricate machine and we are too dim to understand. It's possible that it's full of fractions or decimals and % modifications based on troop classification or tertiary equipment.

    But it's more likely that the formula inconsistent.

    Furthermore, even if the formula is consistent and it's just us who can't understand it, that doesn't mean we must favor it. Don't pretend you wouldn't like your Bolts being consistent with Securitate and Aragoto pricing.
     
    #370 Magonus, Jul 9, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2018
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  11. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Is it possible the points values for things are fractions and then get rounded?
     
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  12. Magonus

    Magonus Well-Known Member

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    If they are, they are hand-rounded. Some things are certainly % based (Irregular vs Regular), other things (weapons, equipment, skills) are almost universally consistent. PH10 to PH11 is almost certainly 1.5. But then you deconstruct some of the (especially newer) entries, and you have to think either you're stupid, or the formula has changed, but the rest of the profiles haven't.
     
  13. Alphz

    Alphz Kuang Shi Vet. Retired.

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    Are you telling me this with confidence?
    And what do you mean by hand rounding? Like 4.2 goes to 5 sometimes, or 4 sometimes?

    I'm sorry for being skeptical but the forums of late have been exceedingly cynical.
     
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  14. Magonus

    Magonus Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, no, I don't blame you. That's why I've been working on a mod project for Infinity for the past few months with some other guys. Got tired of waiting and bitching and waiting again.

    Yes—sometimes, it looks like 4.2 goes to 5. Or it doesn't. As I say, there has to be a massive list of exception clauses to make sense of the formula. More likely it is hand-adjusted, since it is hand-entered.
     
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  15. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    Not through exactly. I'm aware of such need but I'm also aware (and saw) what happens when a tail starts to guide a dog (and not vice versa as it should be).

    Being talented and enthusiastic doesn't mean you can just stop working on "dull" projects/tasks, or dont finish the cool projects you had started (because last 20% of work is boring and requires another 80% of time).

    Either way whole point of diss side-discussion was that it seems apparent that some factions are well, made up with a lot of excitiment, while others ... well it seems that they are more of a "sad janitor duty" than "something cool to work on". (which in general is a normal thing, but it shouldn't really affect the outcome product THAT much).
     
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  16. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    It looks more like CC is the universal "get out of jail" stat, with +3 being equivalent to 1 point, so any rounding is taken into account by a small CC bump.
     
  17. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    Which doesn't make sens on Orders Sergeants as it would mean that either they pay 3 pts for +1WIP or for some reason Religious costs ~1.5 pts (which also doesn't make too much of a sense).

    Seeing not "formula" inconsistency?
     
  18. Barrogh

    Barrogh Well-Known Member

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    It's a phrase taken out of context so often that it has become the norm.
    The original phrase refers to a Cicero's point he was using to defend Balbus' right to Roman citizenship. The argument was that since laws prohibiting having double citizenship (Roman + another one) were specifically noted in some treaties between Rome and some of their neighbours, then that should mean the general rule (never properly formulated though) is the opposite, and Balbus actually didn't have to refuse his first citizenship in order to acquire Roman one (since his state wasn't on the list of exceptions, citizens of which could not be also Roman citizens at the same time).

    The issue here, of course, is that what works for dealing with written laws (where rules come first, resolutions come second based on those rules) doesn't work when you try to analyze actual events and formulate rules that could adequately explain your observations (so, when it's the other way round). Doesn't stop people from (mis)using same line.

    Although people voting with their wallets is still the hardest measurement of success we can realistically gather, a point to be made is that one possible reason newer films do poorly is because some part of the viewer base gave up on the series after repeatedly being not very satisfied with previous movies. Whereas first films of the era did well because people were excited to see new SW regardless of what they could expect from it.

    At least that's the story of people I know, however anecdotal that may be.

    Not to take from the new trilogy in that there are some interesting readings of its events, allowing us to re-image characters from the original trilogy and realize it actually makes sense. It does fail to make sense in some other areas and presentation is not always good enough though.

    I think it boils down to how you define "formula exists" statement. Non-integers and rounding aside (which is on us), formula that isn't occasionally adhered to is still a formula used by game designers, at least as a reference.

    Of course, we are told that we just don't know everything about it, so there's that.
     
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  19. Cartographer

    Cartographer Well-Known Member

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    Well, I base my workings on a "zero point base profile" with base stats like MOV 4-4, CC 13, BS 10 etc. then add stats for certain (generally fixed) points, weaponry is pretty consistent (a combi looks to cost the same no matter who carries it, LSG less so), some skills are universally the same (doctor, engineer, FO etc.) and some change dependent on what stats the profile has (e.g. CH:TO), equipment is pretty consistent (medikit, hacking devices), except for MSV 2 which seems to sit between 2 values.

    Looking at OS, they're pretty much exactly where I expect them to be. With combi at (what you think it is), BS 12 costing (consistent with other BS 10 to 12 increases), WIP 13 and ARM 1 both costing (what I see them cost on everything else). Religious looks to be ~1 point and CC gets bumped by 2 to take the overall cost to 15.
     
  20. eciu

    eciu Easter worshiper

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    And now compare them to Fusiliers or Securitate.
     
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