Bonus: integer vs. percent

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

http://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/19052

 

There probably have be internal talk about auras and techs bonuses, but we can have open talk too. I think integer not sure what word would be best, bonus is better than percentage and I will tell you why.

 

With integer bonus you give the same bonus to all units that it effect. With percentage you give a bigger bonus to entities that are already stronger and a smaller bonus to the entities that are already weak, so you unintentionally widen the gap between these units. This happens because if you give a +10% bonus to a unit with base 10 stat, it is smaller than the bonus to a unit with base 20 stat: 1 vs. 2. Now the stronger base 20 unit is even more stronger than the base 10 unit, incentivising creating these stronger units, let's be real here, champions even more than they already are. This is mainly a problem with health and attack and speed. Armor already has a kind of self-balancing feature inherent in the armor stats, so the problem doesn't exist with armor techs and bonuses. Problem exist with cost and gather rates too, but it doesn't worry me as much.

 

With this in mind, I will remove most percentage techs and auras for attack and health where possible and go with integrer in DE. I propose vanilla game do the same. Thank you for your time.

Edited December 21, 2016 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Palaxin]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

I think integer not sure what word would be best, bonus is better than percentage and I will tell you why.

Actually percentage bonus (I will call it relative bonus) is clearly better than integer bonus (I will call it constant bonus).

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

With integer bonus you give the same bonus to all units that it effect.

Which is pretty OP for very weak units (high bonus in relative strength) and pretty useless for very strong units (small bonus in relative strength). Balance is not touched if relative strength between weak and strong units stays the same, which can only be achieved by relative bonuses. However, balance between weak and strong units is shifted with constant bonuses because weak units profit better from them. Why? Because strong units usually are proportionally more expensive than weak units (this is the most simple explanation, but I could dig deeper if you wish so). Let's say there is strong type of unit A and a weak type of unit B. A costs 100 resources, B costs 50 resources and A is twice as strong as B (a well balanced game manages to link unit strength and costs similar to that, of course it is not always pure combat strength which is taken into account, but also e.g. speed, gather rate, ...). Player 1 used 100 resources to train unit A and player 2 used 100 resources to train two units B. If we would apply constant bonuses now, the two units B would each receive the bonus, though player B only invested half of the resources for each of the units B, whereas there is only one unit A which gets the bonus. Consequently, unit A which has double the strength of the units B, but also double the costs, needs to receive double the aura bonus in order to maintain balance. This is achieved with relative bonuses. I hope this is clear.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

With percentage you give a bigger bonus to entities that are already stronger and a smaller bonus to the entities that are already weak, so you unintentionally widen the gap between these units.

As explained above, it must be this way. The gap is not widened, it only seems so. The absolute difference of the stat XY between a weak and a strong unit is increased, however the relative difference of the stat XY remains the same. But the stronger units always are more expensive than the cheaper units.

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

With this in mind, I will remove most percentage techs and auras for attack and health where possible and go with integrer in DE. I propose vanilla game do the same. Thank you for your time.

Please do not. I actually waited for relative bonuses and with the exception of armor (because it doesn't work linear, but exponentially), IMHO all techs and auras should only use relative bonuses in order to avoid balance shifts. At least from a mathematical point of view I'm convinced that this is necessary.

 

Regarding the spelling changes in r19052 I do not always understand the logic:

Quote

When garrisoned in a ship, his Ship is +50% faster.

Quote

+25% Cavalry Melee Attack within his aura.

Quote

All Soldiers and Siege engines +15% speed.

It is not clear when to use capital letters and when not. I suggest to not use capital letters at all since it is easier and more correct IMHO.

Edited December 21, 2016 by Palaxin

[Vercingetorix_]

I like that idea, have skimed changes in tickes and it seems better.

Would like to test in SVN

[sphyrth]

I don't know, but basing on the posted replays and my own casual games against the AI, there's just some things I find intuitive about the percentage bonuses:

1. Quality vs. Quantity - I believe that the Citizen Soldiers'strength in numbers can make up for their weakness in damage bonus. This is base-stat (no level up) argument for now. Yeah, there's a champion that had its attack raised to 220. But did you consider putting him against 2 units x 110? How about 3 units x 110? This is emphasized on Point 3, but how fast can you spam out 110-damage units vs 220-damage units?
2. Benefit of Phasing Up - It might not be worth it putting the effort of phasing up and then building structures so that I could train champions if the aura bonus isn't that significant. For me, Percentage buffs to widen the gap is one of the key factors that separate a player who is in Phase III from the one who needs to catch up. Asides from Fortresses and Siege Weapons, I won't think it's worth the effort of reaching Phase III if the damage gap isn't widened.
3. Train Time - Even if we grant the aura buffs are too wide between units, you must consider if you're willing to wait for them getting trained. I believe this is one of the developers' best decisions in balancing out the champions. Even I don't see myself spamming them out as much as before because the long train time. How could I make an emergency defense if these units take SO LONG to train?!
4. Economy Bonus - I'm assuming that this bonus issue is specifically for the military, and not for the economy (gathering/mining/trading/population). But this is the part that makes percentage bonuses intuitive for me. If the military bonuses should be static, then shouldn't the economic bonuses should be as well?

I'm quite happy with the current (%) bonus system. It's these rush strategies that I find scary. I even tried the Gaellic Slinger Rush against Hardest Petra, and I was like "Who needs siege engines and towers if I have these bad boys?"

[LordGood]

I agree with Justus in this one, I also think that armor should follow the threshold system of AoE 1 and 2 as opposed to percentage blocked

[Grugnas]

5 hours ago, elexis said:

r19055 reduces the +25% aura to +20%, uses lower case everywhere and fixes the Armor levels string.

Modifying auras from integer to percent can be a nice solution to keep differences between Champions and Warrior Citizen

Edited December 22, 2016 by Grugnas

[elexis]

The correct phrasing would be relative vs. absolute bonuses (and mark my words with the chariots ).