Author Topic: bogus ENY calculation (Read 2288 times)

Ghastly · « **Reply #60 on:** October 12, 2007, 10:56:37 AM »

BaldEagle, that's exactly what I was working through the logic for some time ago ... and I realized - it just doesn't work unless you make the area so large as to be virtually indistinguishable from the current "entire arena" system - or remove the ability to destroy hangers from the arena.

Otherwise, the moment someone destroys the hangers denying the enemy the ability to launch aircraft, you lose the ability to relaunch.

Here's a graphic - now imagine what happens when a guy with a bomber or 3 shuts down the hangers at A53?

The complete write up is on this page, very nearly at the bottom of the page. Before I realized that there was a gaping hole in the logic, I mean.

http://forums.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=209329&perpage=40&highlight=sectors&pagenumber=2

Tiger · « **Reply #61 on:** October 12, 2007, 10:57:59 AM »

How about rather than whining about ENY and how you get hit with it too often or the other side isn't hit hard enough, you just flay a plane and shoot down the red guys and have fun?

I've never seen the A6M, spit I, or P-40 ENY'd out. Use the opprtunity to fly something other than the LA-7 or P-51, you might actually enjoy it.

Nwbie · « **Reply #62 on:** October 12, 2007, 11:43:09 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Tiger
How about rather than whining about ENY and how you get hit with it too often or the other side isn't hit hard enough, you just flay a plane and shoot down the red guys and have fun?

I've never seen the A6M, spit I, or P-40 ENY'd out. Use the opprtunity to fly something other than the LA-7 or P-51, you might actually enjoy it.

Here ..Here...!!!!

You just said it better than me ..thats all...

for all the

there is

if you find the OTHER planes in the hanger

Newbs

BaldEagl · « **Reply #63 on:** October 12, 2007, 11:53:36 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by hubsonfire
So how exactly could it work? I don't think I've ever seen anyone spit out an ENY formula- there's almost always a "I'm not sure how exactly it would work, but HT could figure it out" clause, and other people saying their idea will work, but not how.

How would it deal with missions? What if 2 bases are 5 sectors apart- one under attack by one country, the other by another country? Would people be able to defend both bases, assuming they had fewer total players, but everyone was in those few sectors? What would happen if they all sat in the tower for 10 minutes? A localized system would have to require a huge amount of work, it seems. It would have to compare so many factors in order to be an improvement, that I really doubt that it could work as well, or better than what we have.

There's one simpler alternative that encourages people to quit flying with the horde- Actually disable flight at 30, and ramp ENY up quickly initially. You guys would come up with all sorts of ENY alternatives then, but they'd still be for the same reasons.

Here's one idea:

Lets say Bish and Knighs both have 100 players in the arena and Rooks have 200. Current Rook ENY is 20 (not sure how it's calculated now so this is just as an example) while Bish and Knights face no restrictions.

Now lets say Rooks are steamrolling Knights on one side while a few defend against Bish on the other. Rooks are playing 150 against the Knights while 50 defend against Bish and Bish and Knights are evenly distributed 50 per front.

So, on one side of the map it's 150 Rooks against 50 Knights for a 3 to one advantage locally. On this side of the map you might simply add 3 (or whatever the odds are) to the overall ENY making it 23 locally.

On the other side of the map you have 50 Rooks against 50 Bish or 1 to 1. That ENY would remain at 20.

Why would it remain you ask? Becase to be effective it would have to be an additive for over odds as shown above, but a multiplication for under-odds (with the break point being 1 to 1).

So, if there were 175 Rooks fighting Knights, then their local ENY would be 23.5 (20 ENY + 3.5) while the 25 facing the 50 bish would reduce ENY to 10 (1 to 2 odds or 20 ENY X 0.5).

You could just make this an addition or subraction although it wouldn't be as effective on the low number side affected by ENY.

Like I said before, the ENY zone size could also be tweaked to get the desired results.

People would be able to up in a low ENY area and fly to a high ENY area although it would take time and fuel and for most probably wouldn't be worthwhile.

As to missions sitting in towers, there is that. Maybe cielings and floors need to be set, say at plus or minus 10 from current ENY so in the above examples 10 would be the floor and 30 would be the cieling.

It might take some programming but it's not rocket science. You're simply taking a count of players in a specific area, calculating odds and modifying the existing ENY.

[EDIT] I just want to add that this can also work against the Bish and Knights in the above example on a local basis, even though they face no overall ENY restrictions. If Bish were hoarding Knights at say 60 to 10 they could have a local ENY of 6 on one side of the map while on the other side ENY would remain at 0.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #64 on:** October 12, 2007, 01:50:20 PM »

What happens when those fights are in the same grid? What happens when a mission ups, and all the defenders clear out? What sort of ENY values would you have with 30 planes and no defenders?

How could you prevent people from directly influencing ENY at any moment?

I'm not thinking it's as easy as everyone claims. If there were something better, and simple, I think HTC would have done that instead.

Ghastly · « **Reply #65 on:** October 12, 2007, 01:56:51 PM »

Here is a simple fix for ENY, that the more I think about it, the more I like it....

Maybe ENY should be set for each player at the point where it is when they log in or change sides - and remain at that level until they log out or change sides again.

This would:

A) Further encourage sideswitching to the lower side when you log in
B) Further discourage switching to the higher side later in the game.
C) End the current nonsense of sitting in the tower hoping to wait out "bad" ENY - the only way to get better ENY is to log out and come back when it's better, or switch sides.

It wouldn't interfere and penalize those players who chose their side when the numbers were even.

Nor would it further handicap those players who are already fighting with a local numbers disadvantage.

Nor would it be subject to all the silliness where half the players on one side log as soon as it appears that a reset is imminent, leaving the remaining players scratching their heads as they try to finish off the reset with TBF's and a Goon.

BaldEagl · « **Reply #66 on:** October 12, 2007, 02:32:58 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by hubsonfire
What happens when those fights are in the same grid? What happens when a mission ups, and all the defenders clear out? What sort of ENY values would you have with 30 planes and no defenders?

How could you prevent people from directly influencing ENY at any moment?

I'm not thinking it's as easy as everyone claims. If there were something better, and simple, I think HTC would have done that instead.

This idea would be based on where you up from, not on where you fight. Fights in the same grid wouldn't matter. Upping from overlapping ENY zones would and ENY is simply modified up or down depending on the player odds in the zone surrounding your take-off field.

If a mission ups and all defenders clear out, then ENY for anyone else wanting to up in the mission country near those mission participants would be affected by ENY to the maximum allowed (base ENY + 10 in the examples above).

You couldn't influence people from affecting ENY and wouldn't want to. That's what this is all about. You want there to be a small additional penalty for upping with the hoard but a very nice reduction in ENY for going where you're country is outnumbered.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #67 on:** October 12, 2007, 02:46:24 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by BaldEagl
This idea would be based on where you up from, not on where you fight. Fights in the same grid wouldn't matter. Upping from overlapping ENY zones would and ENY is simply modified up or down depending on the player odds in the zone surrounding your take-off field.

If a mission ups and all defenders clear out, then ENY for anyone else wanting to up in the mission country near those mission participants would be affected by ENY to the maximum allowed (base ENY + 10 in the examples above).

You couldn't influence people from affecting ENY and wouldn't want to. That's what this is all about. You want there to be a small additional penalty for upping with the hoard but a very nice reduction in ENY for going where you're country is outnumbered.

In the end, it's not trying to encourage overall balance, which is the root problem. This would require a lot of additional code to prevent simple workarounds, and in the end, this would only create high ENYs for short periods of time, while doing nothing to actively encourage balance. The low numbers side would at times be facing the same penalties as the horde country, or higher.

The more you expand on this idea, the less plausible it seems.

BaldEagl · « **Reply #68 on:** October 12, 2007, 03:36:12 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by hubsonfire
In the end, it's not trying to encourage overall balance, which is the root problem. This would require a lot of additional code to prevent simple workarounds, and in the end, this would only create high ENYs for short periods of time, while doing nothing to actively encourage balance. The low numbers side would at times be facing the same penalties as the horde country, or higher.

The more you expand on this idea, the less plausible it seems.

This isn't to address overall balance which the current ENY system attempts to do and still would.

This attempts to address local imbalance and hoarding.

But... you're right. Nothing can be done. What we have is the best. No need for any new ideas. I'll give up.

Ghastly · « **Reply #69 on:** October 13, 2007, 11:06:25 AM »

I know how to fix it.... {grin}

Seriously though BaldEagle, I think that if you think it through, you'd realise that applying a local ENY would work very counterintuitively in that as soon as someone kills the local supply of aircraft via closing the enemy hangers, the fight would have to die - they couldn't take off and neither could you, and everyone would be forced to find a different fight.

That's not the intent, I'm sure.

!

Hien · « **Reply #70 on:** October 13, 2007, 11:59:50 AM »

Now, I'm gonna bash my own idea before I even state it. Because I know it won't work. But I can see why Local ENY doesn't work. Though, I don't have to really worry about the ENY system right now... P-40Es and D3As rarely have that little problem.

The reason I'm bashing it is because it would use mostly rank, and as I have seen, Rank has diddly to do with skill.

Okay, why not set it up so only a certain number of planes of a certain type can take off from a base? Say a Base has 5 La-7s, 5 Spit16, and 5 P-51Ds (though I think those numbers may be a bit high.) Now, those planes are all that the base gets, say, hourly. (Mind, if someone happened to land one of thier pretty high performance Fighter aircraft the plane would be placed back into base inventory, and give people a reason to land thier pretty fighters.)

The person with the Higher Rank (eh...) gets first pick. They would have the option to get a better plane. And the people who actually know how to fly other planes wouldn't have such a big problem. Now, I will admit that the Rank system would actually cause the worst players to pick the worst (Well, just weaker... I suppose) set of aircraft. Thusly forcing them to improve thier skills. Or Rankdweeb. I think there could be a way to make it work, but I haven't been here long enough to see a way other than Rank. But this tends to be one of the smarter communities I go to. So, if this is even slightly good, someone can figure something out.

But if you ask me when I see a plane I fly ENY'd, I just fly something else, oh no, I have to move my mouse 5 inches, and click something else (

how dare!) Sure it's less capable but that's never been a big issue to me. I suck in everything.

crockett · « **Reply #71 on:** October 13, 2007, 01:18:24 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Tiger
How about rather than whining about ENY and how you get hit with it too often or the other side isn't hit hard enough, you just flay a plane and shoot down the red guys and have fun?

I've never seen the A6M, spit I, or P-40 ENY'd out. Use the opprtunity to fly something other than the LA-7 or P-51, you might actually enjoy it.

I've been doing this, but ENY changes so fast you still end up getting caught up in it. Yesterday I flew for the bish, because they were far outnumbered in orange when I logged on.

So I log on today and I'm still a bish. I see that the numbers are pretty much even and no one has ENY. I switch to Rooks to go back to my normal country and help out with the country I like to fly with. Within 3 sorties ENY was over 15 for Rooks. Now, because of the side switching limit I can't switch sides for another hour or two.

crockett · « **Reply #72 on:** October 13, 2007, 01:32:46 PM »

Here is a thought..why not have the game set up so you have to select a country when you enter the arena. If there are too many players on the country you pick, well you can't enter that arena unless you pick a diffrent country.

That would mean once a country has too many players they are cut off from new joins until the numbers even up. Country swaps would have to be controlled as well once players were inside. This would mean ENY would be a thing of the past, you would just have to auto kick players that sit idel too long or stay in the tower too long.

I just took these two screen shots about 20 mins ago.. Tell me what's wrong with this picture..

Orange Arena..

Blue Arena

Ghastly · « **Reply #73 on:** October 13, 2007, 11:57:36 PM »

Not bad Crockett, but I'll go you one better... You can enter the arena on the side you were last on just like now, and choose any side you want just like now presuming you aren't inside the timer - but whatever ENY is when you enter the arena or change sides to a side is what you get from then on until you leave or change sides.

No hope of improvement until and unless you leave the arena or change to another side.

This would solve most of the problems... and leave people the flexibility to be as inflexible as they want as long as they don't mind paying the price.

hubsonfire · « **Reply #74 on:** October 14, 2007, 02:18:29 AM »

We would have to have some sort of inactivity timer to boot people. We would also lose the option to disable flight, but as far as I can tell, that doesn't really happen regardless of what it says. In addition, I'd propose making the ENY flexible, but retaining, as a minimum, the ENY value when you logged in.

Aside from disabling flight, or ramping up the ENY formula to get nastier, earlier, I can't think of anything that would make people more miserable than your idea, which seems to be a good indicator for how effective something is.