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20FEB18 - Defy Death Update

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GM Stormcrow View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GM Stormcrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: 20FEB18 - Defy Death Update
    Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 20:57
Hi Everyone,

An update/patch to the commander Defy Death skill (Military skill tree).

We've recently received reports that the commander skill Defy Death works erratically, and/or over/under-enthusiastically, in bursts.

Commanders with a Level 10 Defy Death should only survive 10% of the time, however (anecdotally) we've been told that in most battles, when one commander belonging to a player army dies, most all of them die; when one commander survives in the same player army, most all of them survive.

We looked at the historical logs, and this anecdote proves true.

This was a code issue that has been in place since commanders were introduced to the game back in 2010 and has affected all players, attackers or defenders, with equal likelihood, in every combat.

Having delved into the codentrails, and after extensive consultation with the Norse God of Mischief, I've determined that the error was in the RNG (Random Number Generator), which wasn't providing as random a number as we would have expected.  If that's not oxymoronic.

Therefore, I've rewritten the RNG and deployed it to live, and it is now truly random - or at least as random as any logic-based computorial system can be.  Please feel free to reply with any ramblings you may have about pseudo-RNGs, chaos theory, ordered systems and/or the Second Law of Thermodynamics below.

The (few) other systems that depend on RNG (such as diplomatic chances, theft etc) were unaffected by this bug; and continue as before.

Also, during the investigation, it appears that commanders were *much* more likely to survive, with a likelihood getting close to 50% in certain circumstances.  Of course, the stated aim of Defy Death is a 1% chance per level, up to a maximum of 10% at Level 10, and this is now in place and working as it should; so please do expect a more realistic 1-in-10 chance of surviving at L10 Defy Death.

We're actively monitoring the new RNG and the diceroll outcomes it provides at a statistically significant level, and it appears to be working as it should, now. As things stand (the new RNG has been running for a few days) we have data from 11,817 commander Defy Death rolls, and 1,138 of them are <= 10%, which seems statistically significantly likely that things are now working as intended.

tldr; The random number generator for deciding whether military commanders should Defy Death or not was a bit broken, and has been weird ever since commanders were introduced to the game.  This has now been fixed, and commanders should now Defy Death in keeping with the expected 1% per level of the Defy Death skill, at an individual level of granularity.

Best wishes,

SC

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Solanar View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote Solanar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 21:23
I would venture to say that most of us with the Defy Death skill had obtained it based on the anecdotal experience of it working, a lot. 

It's not worth the additional 10 hours resurrect time at a mere 10%.

Is there any hope of a returning those levels en masse so that people can choose where, or whether, to reapply the points on their commanders?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GM Stormcrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 21:26
Originally posted by Solanar Solanar wrote:


Is there any hope of a returning those levels en masse so that people can choose where, or whether, to reapply the points on their commanders?

Nope, sorry.  

The Defy Death skill now does what it said it would do, rather than what it accidentally did back in the day :)

Best,

SC
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Telios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 22:04
Any chance there could be a "respec" option added?  With a cost of course.
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Solanar View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Solanar Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 22:06
@ Telios, there already is, but it's 15 prestige per commander. 1125 prestige to respec just the commanders on this account, not even including my alt, seems a steep price to pay. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ten Kulch Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 22:29
Very happy to see this game mechanic get fixed. The unintended Defy Death behavior was making elite Heroism commanders into undying killing machines. I've already observed a return to balanced gameplay after the patch. Many thanks to GM Stormcrow and his team for investigating the strange results.

Solanar, if the Defy Death correction is an issue, then it seems like a great time to build some new commanders.
Check out my blog, Warmongering in Illyriad for self-defense techniques, military city construction, and PvP strategies.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gragnog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Feb 2018 at 05:33
Great to see it fixed. I would however like to see the commander level also play a role. It makes sense that the higher the commanders level the greater warrior he should be. Perhaps adding an extra 1% chance of survival per commander level might make people more willing to get commanders to high levels.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Almost Balanced Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Feb 2018 at 10:14
All in all, I welcome the resolution of this problem.

I hope that you will do something with the gold, t2 and t3 resources traffic in the next medium term, and by 2023 at the latest.
Schooling and salary traders are very expensive, so their education does not pay.
It is much cheaper to buy all kinds of goods on the black market, which is unobtrusively advertised via the GC, and on the pages of this forum (occasionally)
Someone has already suggested something like this.
Limit or completely ban traffic with gold, t2, and t3 resources out of the legal market.
Be more generous to the players, increase the welcome prizes, give them to the top three cities.



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tink XX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Feb 2018 at 17:46
GM Stormcrow, thank you very much for fixing this bug!

Almost Balanced, this is a laundry list all of your own.
I don't think most players have a problem with training traders. Your proposal to limit or completely ban the traffic of advanced res and gold is super problematic. What happens if you need to distribute advanced resources between your cities - do you now have to get every transaction through the hub? There isn't that much of a problem with black market anyway, and trade still exists through trade hubs, you just need to put your traders in the hubs that are actually active. Granted, trade is really sluggish in this game but it's not in fact because of black markets. It's because of the glut of resource farms that creates ongoing deflation.

Get yourself into a good alliance if you need more resources.

If our devs would implement some new features out of the ginormous wish list the player base already has created, I think picking a few top demands and making a poll would be the most gracious way to go about it.


Edited by Tink XX - 21 Feb 2018 at 17:49
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Almost Balanced Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Feb 2018 at 18:24
I expect different opinions.Solving this problem all the "sat" accounts makes them useless.


I am in good,very good alliance.
Have and producing enough for my needs, too small for trader

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