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Balance Algorithm funness

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Aug 31, 2009 Shapenaji link
So essentially, the way the algorithm works right now is as follows
(Several changes have been made since the last step)

I assume that:
Weapons are built on a system of points,

Even if we don't know exactly what that system is, and even if our allocation of points isn't perfectly accurate (weapons aren't completely balanced), it's close enough to fit.

So I picked the following weapons:
LENB, Widowmaker, Neut I-III, AAP, HivePosi, Positron, Flechette I-II, Raven, Gauss I-III.

Essentially, in my experience, the useable blasters.

I start by saying that these are, at least within reason, balanced. (The Widowmaker and the Hiveposi are on the high end, but then we have the N1, Posi, Gauss 1, Flechette 1 on the low side too. It's okay to have spread)

I then attempt to fit these, assuming that all of them add to around 1000 points (1000 points is arbitrary, I can choose any number, but it seemed like a nice number)

The system then tries to find an equation which fits all of these weapons to 1000 points. I give it a little bit of a helping hand, just to get it started, by suggesting that it start with certain values (basically telling it to start in the range where Velocity is worth a lot of points, Damage is worth less, DPS is worth more than Damage, etc...

It then steadily tweaks the equation over successive iterations to produce one which fits these.

Ideally, this is how we want a balance equation to work, every point of velocity or damage, etc... should add up to some value.

An even better system is to establish a "Quality" for each weapon, which changes the base number of points to allocate. I threw down some quality estimates when I first made this, but they are currently only used to narrow the field.

EDIT: Oh, and FM, you should probably move this to Community projects
Aug 31, 2009 Whistler link
You're the OP!

[moved]
Sep 01, 2009 Jzalae link
"interestingly, the flechette mk II (The EPS, the mass, the DPS, and the speed are all up there, so if we consider the top group (the best) of weapons as balanced against one another, then the flechette mk II is a vastly undervalued weapon."

If I understand correctly, the algorithm doesn't (currently) consider range, and IIRC, the Flechette is quite short range. That might explain the disparity. Pumping up the Flechette's stats to compensate for it's short range might not be so good, though, since there is an infamous bot and even a legendary human or two who can be quite devastating with it just like it is.
Sep 06, 2009 peytros link
shape are you still working on this? i would like to see what happens when you plug flares and energy into this thing together
Sep 06, 2009 Shapenaji link
I am still working on this, but I've had a thousand things on my plate, hopefully I'll have time as soon as this drama boils down.