Author Topic: Understanding Balance  (Read 2210 times)

Offline 123savethewhales

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Understanding Balance
« on: January 17, 2011, 04:55:01 AM »
I had a few PM exchange with Click today and we were discussing about component balance, I figure this information might be useful for other modders as well.

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Introduction:  The Distinction Between Randomness and Innovation
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The distinction between randomness and innovation is perhaps the most important thing to know for any modders.  Here I will define the two with a more technical definition.

Randomness - Something different

Innovation - Something different with perceivable potentials to work

The primary distinction is "with perceivable potentials to work", which branches off into 6 sub distinctions

1.  Innovation requires knowledge, randomness requires ignorance
2.  Innovation requires thoughts, randomness requires laziness
3.  Innovation requires foresight, randomness requires hindsight
4.  Innovation is fixed in reality, randomness is fixed in fantasies
5.  Innovation take flaws inward, randomness places flaws outward
6.  Innovation is productive, randomness is destructive


With these distinction, we can see 4 common mistakes that puts people in the unproductive random mode

1.  Spam - This happens when a mod lacks intra-balance.  Spamming will not be a problem if it isn't as good as mixed.
2.  In Game Exploits - This can only happen with an oversight.
3.  Mass Cloning - This happen because the in mechanics can only support so much diversity.
4.  Negate - This happens when ideas fail to translate into numbers.


And finally, the only way a problem can be fixed is if you "fix it yourself".  "Blame the players" will never get you anywhere.


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1.  What is complexity?
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Complexity is a state where multiple local maximum exist.  A game is said to have complexity if the ranking in strategy varies depending on the situation.


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2.  How is complexity differ from diversity
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Complexity can have very little to do with diversity, or the total amount of components.  In order for complexity to apply, the following must be true

A.  Components must serve different functions.  Multiple components with very similar functions can increase diversity, but not complexity.  For example, while different batteries can increase the diversity of what people use, it does not create any complexity strategies.

B.  The differences must be useful in some situations.  For examples, while weapons with normals are different, they are never better in any situations. Therefore, they do not lead to an increase in complexity, they simply get ignored.


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3.  How to remain balance without making everything the same?
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Components interacts with each other, and it's the interaction where complexity lies.

If there are only two weapons, then the only way to retain balance is if each has an equal chance against each others, and no complexity is formed.

Therefore, the simplest relationship for complexity is a triangle.  A interrelated triangle can have advantages/disadvantages without any one side dominating.

For example, suppose we have 3 weapons

Weapon 1 -  Low DP High HP weapon, with 100000 efficiency
Weapon 2 -  A High DP Low HP weapon, with 60000 efficiency
Weapon 3 -  A High Fracture High Frequency weapon

With the sheer efficiency advantage, weapon 1 will easily beat weapon 2
With the high DP, weapon 2 will easily beat weapon 3
With the high fracture, weapon 3 will easily beat weapon 1

In here a complexity relationship is formed, such that saying which of the 3 is the best for weapon to weapon clash is no longer possible.


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Existing Example
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A real example from DSL, first noted by The Ounce, is the Concussion > Piercing > Flail > Concussion relationship.

In normal circumstances, concussion will beat piercing in weapon to weapon clash

Due to a bug, flail boost the piercing damage for both side, but not concussion.  Piercing on flail can now beat concussion with this damage boost.

However, as flails cost kg and boost piercing damage for both side, piercing with flail will lose to piercing without flail simply because it will get out weapon.

For those with NAR AI, you can see that Gorg > Black Storm > Cataclysm > Gorg


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4.  Extremes, Spillover Effects, and Super Armor
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When applying numbers, very often equations are used, either formally or informally.  A formal equation would be

Weapon efficiency = 60000 * KG

An informal equation would be

HP should increase with KG

The problem with that is, often time a simple linear function or curve does not necessary reflect balance.

A.  While HP*DP is an effective indicator of how well weapons do in weapon to weapon clash (piercing and concussion ignored for the time being), it does not account for it's effectiveness against all other components.  A component with high DP is easily better placed onto motors and burst as damage dealers, after all motor does not boost effectiveness of winning the de-weapon war.  A component with low DP is better placed as static armor to protect vital components, such as chassis.  Small components with low DP is simply useless unless they can serve another function (ex.  Beater Bar as extenders).

B.  With HP*DP, two extremes emerge past a certain point, the Spillover Effect, and the Super Armor.

The spillover effect is when a component does not have enough HP to take the hit.  The component breaks, taking damage to it's total HP, and the rest of the damage dissipated.  This becomes a problem when damage is so high, and HP is so low, such that most hit leads to spillovers.  The most extreme case would be a 1kg weapon with 1HP and 60000DP.  Therefore, in these situation, the quantity of weapons, rather than mass, becomes the determining factor.

The super armor is the exact opposite, when a weapon component has DP so low such that it's HP outclass any armor.  While this is no longer limited to light weight component, a fine example would be a component with 1kg, 1DP, and 60000HP.  HP*DP simply does not account for a match to only lasting 3 minutes.

To Be Continued.
« Last Edit: July 02, 2011, 06:52:12 PM by 123savethewhales »

Offline Naryar

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2011, 05:05:02 AM »
You seem to have forgotten the piercing and concussion values... total DP isn't everything.

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2011, 05:12:08 AM »
You seem to have forgotten the piercing and concussion values... total DP isn't everything.
I haven't forgot.  I will write that example if you want to see it.  The point of this is to show how you can add complexity into the game.

Offline Naryar

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2011, 05:30:02 AM »
Of course I want to see it...

Offline Trovaner

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2011, 12:00:34 PM »
I'm glad you defined #1 and #2 because it makes things much more scientific.

#3 is also known as the rock-paper-scissors effect. It was briefly mentioned in Korium9's tutorial. The examples for this are pretty cool and I will undoubtedly test them for myself.

#4 is especially interesting when looking at chassis armor. Like normal components, the HP needs to be depleted first before fracture comes into play. Unlike normal components, the fracture defaults to 40 and 3 critial hits to be destroyed. A powerful blow to a component (including the chassis) that exceeds the remaining HP + fracture results in the component breaking (or in the case of a chassis, a critical hit). If a blow to the chassis exceeds the remaining HP+80 (double the fracture) it will still count as one critical hit to the chassis regardless of whether it is the first or second hit. Using this proven logic, it can also be said that a "one-hit KO" is impossible in RA2. What is really happens is the chassis is getting hit more than once with damage greater than 40 (and with enough force to take out all the HP). With this in mind, a popup that swings three offensive brackets is more likely to destroy its opponent in the first go (as opposed to a popup with 2 offensive brackets).

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2011, 12:15:47 PM »
That's odd.  I got 1 hit KO in the past before.  I can still replicate it.

Or it could be the stack weapon counting as multiple hits, even though only 1 number shows up.

So a popup with 5 to 7 razors stack on a single burst can still 1 hit KO.

Offline Trovaner

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2011, 02:00:51 PM »
Although similar, the formulas for points and damage are different. You may be delivering damage even when there are no points being earned.

One way of testing this would be by using plus.damage(BotID, CompID, Amount, (XYZ-Location)).
Another way of testing this would be by attaching a super powerful spike to the bottom of your chassis and letting the bot drop onto the opponent.

I've successfully done many variations of the above tests without a single 1HKO and I can safely say that the HP, mass, piece, concussion, material, normals, and collision mesh are not the underlying factors for this. The only time that I even came close to a 1HKO was by setting the frequency high enough that the bot received 3 indistinguishable hits upon making contact. I was actually debunking the damage formula in my tests (which after coming up with another test will be showcased in the Mythbusters thread)

When most people get a 1HKO, their weapons are actually hitting the chassis more than once as their weapons are rounding their arc. While completing the arc, there are two possible things that may be happening: (although, I can't say for sure whether both or just one of them is the culprit)
1. The weapons are bouncing off the chassis in the same way that wedges bounce off the arena floor.
2. The weapons knock the chassis and hit it again before it goes out of reach.

Edit: I haven't tested the effect of having two weapons hit at once but I'm pretty sure they get a group sum (not individual sum). The AI actually has a code to see how much damage it last received but IIRC it treats stacked weapons as a single hit, too.

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2011, 12:43:17 AM »
Well okay.  I only know I press the fire button once and see 1 number show up, I didn't really go far into trying to figure out how much contact it made or anything.

I didn't use a popup, I used a chain piston hitting down with 20 ds light for over 9000 damage.  That was back in the older installment of NAR AI though.  Nowadays bots are so heavily armored with indestructible components you will be lucky to KO bots in 3 minutes.

Do you have anything on how metal works relative to piercing and concussion?

Offline Trovaner

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2011, 06:15:56 PM »
Do you have anything on how metal works relative to piercing and concussion?
I have a pretty good idea of how they correlate but telling you now would spoil the surprise. All my notes on the subject will be in the Mythbuster's thread after I'm finished testing.

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2011, 11:29:08 PM »
Lol okay I guess I just run the test myself then.

Offline Clickbeetle

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2011, 11:52:57 PM »
You seem to have forgotten the piercing and concussion values... total DP isn't everything.
I haven't forgot.  I will write that example if you want to see it.  The point of this is to show how you can add complexity into the game.


Do we even know what piercing and concussion do?  I've heard a lot of theories but none of them have been officially tested as far as I know.


From all the testing I've done, there is no detectable difference between piercing and concussion.  They do equal damage to both chassis and components (with concussion multiplied by 1.839 as in the DP formula) and they both return damage at the same rate.


The relationships between concussion weapons, flail piercing weapons, and piercing weapons may have more to do with HP/DP balance than with piercing and concussion.  (And has this relationship even been formally tested or is it just a general observation?)


Anyways, that's a nice explanation 123, really makes clear what you're talking about.


And I'm excited to see what Trovaner's been researching.  I remember hearing about it several months ago... if he's been researching that long, it's gotta be good.

To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2011, 12:09:57 AM »
From all the testing I've done, there is no detectable difference between piercing and concussion.  They do equal damage to both chassis and components (with concussion multiplied by 1.839 as in the DP formula) and they both return damage at the same rate.

This is the test I done

1.  Black storm from NAR AI
2.  Black Storm with hacked concussion razor (4.2)
3.  Cataclysm
4.  Cataclysm with hacked concussion razor (4.2)

1 vs 2, 2 wins
1 vs 3, 1 wins
3 vs 4, 3 wins
3 vs 2, 3 wins

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2011, 12:34:45 AM »
I have a pretty good idea of how they correlate but telling you now would spoil the surprise. All my notes on the subject will be in the Mythbuster's thread after I'm finished testing.
I see what you mean by surprise.  Metal value doesn't add, it alters.  I think we need to throw this old 189.3 vs 100 out the window now.

Edit:  This is not good, the numbers are not making any sense.......  It will take me some time to make sense of this.

Edit2:  Apparently I don't need the material at all, even without material tag, extenders damage can be boosted simply by giving it a very high concussion value.

Edit3:  The 183.9 to 100 theory is DEFINITELY wrong.  Concussion consistently deals 2x the damage as pierce on weapon to weapon clash.

This is what I do

The test I did was simple, I made 2 sledge hammers, one with 3 concussion, one with 3 piercing.  I ram them at each other at the start, and concussion deals 2x the damage of pierce every time.  Being greatly disturbed, I checked for error over and over again, but find nothing.  Anyone who is in doubt can feel free to replicate this experiment.  Be sure to include concussion = 0 on your piercing weapon, or it will be set with a default of 1.

I repeat the experiment with razor tips, same thing.  The concussion razor tip always beats piercing with the same value by about 2x damage.

I don't know how to make sense of this.  I suspect Click made a mistake on his test by leaving out "concussion = 0" on his piercing weapon, therefore inherited the default concussion value of 1 and made piercing seem a lot stronger than it is.

As far as metal, it seems that weapon has a default value of metal(0.8).  Therefore, if you want other components to deal damage like a normal weapon, simply set metal (0.8) then type in piercing/concussion as you would normally.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2011, 08:30:56 AM by 123savethewhales »

Offline JoeBlo

Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2011, 09:43:45 AM »
excuse me while I dwell on but a small aspect

does this mean with metal (0.8) you can apply damage ability to other components?

say.. a Flamethrower spike?

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2011, 10:12:45 AM »
excuse me while I dwell on but a small aspect

does this mean with metal (0.8) you can apply damage ability to other components?

say.. a Flamethrower spike?
Yes.

Offline JoeBlo

Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2011, 10:21:14 AM »
well that itself creates a new door to components..

it essentially opens the door to having different flamethrowers available (say in space arena) as you could create purpose for each like the  different sizes on the flame spike..

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2011, 10:26:06 AM »
Not really, not with the new damage findings (see the other post I just made on tutorial and tips).  How to have anything other than the lightest component usable is going to be a challenge.

Offline 123savethewhales

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Re: Understanding Balance
« Reply #17 on: July 02, 2011, 06:53:19 PM »
I necro this post since I just wrote a somewhat long introduction.