Change How Level-Up Stats are Allocated
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Change How Level-Up Stats are Allocated
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Posted 2021-10-22 06:53:39
It makes sense that the stats gained on level up should reinforce whatever the wolf is already good in. However, I don't think it does that successfully most of the time. I propose either taking a little of the "R" in "RNG" out and making level ups more strongly favor the highest stat, or factoring proficiency into where stats fall upon level up. That is, hunters with 40% proficiency in finishing and 0% in stalking and chasing should get more strength than a wolf with high strength who has 40% proficiency in chasing. Here are some examples of level-ups that just don't make sense with the current distribution of the wolf. Here is the worst I have ever seen, from a finisher. Note absolutely zero points to strength.  Even wolves very clearly bred for strength get 18% of their level up stats going there!  It's not limited to just finishers; this wolf is obviously a chaser, what is she doing gaining more than half her stats in wisdom and smarts?  I recently found a chased NBW that I was really excited about. She was young, had wonderful stats, and a good distribution as a finisher. Maybe not the prettiest but that's what base changers and marking apps are for, right? Through gaining +1 and +2 stats through pup training and hunting as a finisher, I made sure she had strength as her highest stat before I pushed the level-up button. In total across her 4 level-ups, she gained 14 wisdom and 6 strength. I feel really discouraged that this is ruining her chances at being a good finisher because now I have to rip her out of her hunting party and destroy their synergy (to allow the finisher she replaced to get exp) and send her to pup training jail for at least 2 more days (if I am lucky and she gets her bonus stats) before she can level up again, and hope she doesn't pull the same thing. Maybe I am being dramatic, but I only keep wolves that I am very excited about. I am mostly excited about stats. And honestly? I don't even want her any more because I am not excited about tediously dragging her along, letting her fester doing nothing after she's gotten her pup training +2s (on fodder pups mind you, because her strength isn't high enough to bean effective mentor) and forcing her into a role that she apparently doesn't want to perform.   Because pack members are limited on the number of stats they can gain per day, and teams are limited on the number of hunts they can send out, and because stat items don't exist, bad RNG with level-ups is essentially irreversible. It feels like such a letdown when a good hunter prospect doesn't turn out like you hope even when you do everything in your power to try and make it work out. Getting good stats is already a huge time commitment, and it's very discouraging to see all the effort go to waste. This could be ameliorated by factoring hunting proficiency into the level-up formula, or making it focus more on the highest stat. This would even help packs living in easier biomes - because hunters get less exp per hunt, there are more hunts between level ups, and more chances to gain proficiency. So for people who can't live in hard biomes, they could gain more stats relevant to their hunter's roles because of their increased proficiency in the early level-ups before they reach 100. There would be some balancing to figure out, as well as the question of what to do with other proficiency like pupsitting or scouting that isn't tied to certain stats, but it would make us stat breeders very happy. And if you are not a stat breeder, it shouldn't affect you at all. |
 Zea #27549 |
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Posted 2021-10-22 07:08:47
At the moment, despite there being an obvious bias towards the top two stats, it is still capricious enough to solidly wreck a lot of very carefully allocated wolves. Ideally I would want the top stats bias weighed more heavily, or as Web says, incorporate some other weighting, such as looking at proficiency. This could just ignore pupsitting and scouting proficiency as those have non specific stats associated, but herbalism and all the specific hunter roles have clear stat associations that could be factored in to the levelup algorithm. This would be especially helpful for finishers, as mentioned above. I understand that some element of randomness is valuable in a game like this, to keep things balanced and at least somewhat luck dependent. But it does take quite a lot of effort to specifically fix a NBW's stats for a specific role, and to have the levelup algorithm frequently completely ignore that effort is pretty demoralising. RNG will be RNG, but in this case I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to weigh it more heavily or intelligently towards favourable outcomes. With, for example, an algorithm that takes proficiency into account. |
 Spontaneite #2993 |
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Posted 2021-10-22 15:01:21
A while back, there was a suggestion that pup/adol training be used to direct stat allocation, e.g., someone who apprenticed as a chaser would have higher chances of getting speed/agility on leveling up. That ship has kind of sailed, but maybe mentors could still perform that kind of role for younger adults. (Having a mentor as a young adult can definitely influence your growth for life! And it would be nice for NBW trainers, who can't benefit from pup/adol training at all.) Alternately, as Websteak said, the level-up algorithm could just be changed to favor top stats more heavily. |
 Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2021-10-23 12:32:54
However, comparing her to the other hunters and taking into consideration her two highest stats, it does seem to be consistent--the two highest stats most often get the highest stat gain. So, I would prefer linking it to role proficiency. I do not want to have my stalkers and chasers only gain stats in one of their needed stats. That way, strength gets a little bit more weight to it when leveling a finisher while the others remain balanced. Assigning stat proficiencies to scouts, herbalists, and pupsitters wouldn't be super difficult either, if it had to be done across the board. My scouts more often than not end up with strength and wisdom as their best stats, since they typically spend their time in the glacier and rainforest (and I would venture to say that is the case with many others). It also would make sense because those are the two biomes that are stat locked. Herbalists need the same stats as stalkers. Pupsitters I suppose don't matter too much, though I would say speed as that is the 3 hour pup lesson they teach. Or... Instead of linking it to proficiency, it could be linked to pup training like Lionel suggested? That way, whatever they were trained in the most is what they are specialized in as adults. I understand that this does not help NBWs, but maybe Lionel's suggestion of being able to mentor young adult wolves could help that too (age range of maybe 1-3 years?). |
 Sepulchre #33572 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 05:14:52
It's unique for finishers that as they rely on only one stat, the secondary one is an annoyance for leveling and the variation of the relevant stat for fully leveled wolves is the greatest between finishers, compared to other hunter roles. However, stat bonuses from performing tasks make it up for the loss. They buff finishers even better than other hunter roles. According to the hunting chance formula, the average of relevant stats is taken into account. Chasers and stalkers rely on two stats, finishers - only one. As pack wolves can't get any stat boost daily after receiving 2 points, for finishers it's 2 points, for other hunters - 1 point daily of average. Finishers usually end up with the strongest relevant stat in the hunting party. Highest strength leaderboards for pack wolves are filled with finishers having better score than any other stat in the same leaderboard category. Not sure if what you intend to achieve is that finishers should have even greater strength than now which means even greater offset to other stats? That best finishers would have twice as much strength as other relevant stats for the remaining hunters? This would disfigure the leaderboard. |
 Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 06:17:40 (edited)
If you look at my main hunting party (recently changed to a new generation), there is a large difference in relative stats for proficiencies. My stalker Ursa has 760 total stats, and a distributed 471 between her two role related stats (62%). She is lvl 11. My chaser Wander has 690 total stats with 416 of those going to her role related stats (60%). She is lvl 9. My chaser Flash has 622 total stats with 376 of those to role related stats (60%). He is lvl 5. My chaser Avalanche has 618 total stats with 373 of those to role related stats (60%). She is also level 5. Then, in contrast, there is Inferno, my finisher. She has 789 total stats, but only 308 of them are in her role related stat (39%). She is lvl 12. She has less role related stats than my lvl 5 chasers! Her percentage of relevant stats for her role compared to the others is sad, 21% difference is far too large. It isn't that I want her to have double strength persay, I just want her to have the same chance to excel as her hunt mates have. She was bred with the same care. Her mom was on the leaderboards for strength, and I found a good, comparable stud for the best replacement possible. But she still lags behind the others because her major stat gains at level up are going to agility, which is not relevant for her role. The small stat bonuses she gets while hunting cannot make up that difference, which is why I would like to see a change that brings her up to on par with her hunt mates. I know that this was an issue with generations before, but tweaking how finishers gain stats shouldn't skew things in favor of one player or another in terms of the leaderboards as wolves are always aging and will eventually die and not be on the leaderboards anymore anyway. So a relatively short period of time when younger finishers beat out the older squad a bit faster due to a tweak should not be the determining factor in this matter, at least in my opinion. |
Sepulchre #33572 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 09:33:56
What do you mean that you don't want double strength but the finisher to have the same chance to excel as her hunt mates have? That Inferno would have 60% of stats allocated into strength? So 60% of 789 which would be 473 stat points into strength? The remaining party members have relevant stats around from 186½ to 235½ but you desire your finisher to have 473 strength assigned which is the double strength. |
Dżanek #24018 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 10:09:36
When I say I don't want her to have double strength, it is mainly that the doubling of it isn't what I am concerned about--I want her hunting stat that she uses to be comparable to the others. Just because she only uses one and they use two does not mean that she should have a lower overall hunting stat block. And to be honest, it isn't actually double strength. 616 would be double. She just needs 21% or so more allocated to her strength to match up with the rest of the hunting party. |
Sepulchre #33572 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 10:17:17 (edited)
So, hunting success rates seem to be balanced around the fact that a finisher's strength will be less than a chaser's combined speed + agility. |
Lionel #34199 |
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Posted 2021-10-24 10:46:17
Finisher stats don't necessarily have to be doubled. However, as my screenshots in my first post demonstrated, sometimes level-up stats end up not reflecting what the wolf is actually good at. While bred hunters can usually absorb some of that, it can simply erase all the progress you make trying to fix the stats of NBWs to a certain role. Because they start so even and there are so few points betwern leading stats and second in line, just a few unlucky level ups early on could dispose a hunter toward the wrong role for the rest of their life. Finishers are especially vulnerable to this because if it tries to balance the second stat, this doesn't matter at all for finishers, but does help stalkers and chasers. If level ups were just a little more biased, it wouldn't be so painfuland capricious to train good NBW hunters. |
Zea #27549 |