[Suggestion] - Making Career Scoring representative of difficulty

[mjbroekman]

Now that we've kicked the scoring system around as well as career mode in general, it's time to make the scoring system more representative of the granular difficulty options we have available.

I look on this as being very similar to the way the initial game dropped with NO difficulty settings and then we get the difficulty settings in an update.

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First, correct the scoring mechanic so that a mechwarrior's initial skills do not improve the score just by hiring them. Pilot Experience should ONLY reflect XP gained while in your employ.

Second, introduce a 'Multiplier' for each of the scoring targets.

"CBillPointsPerUnit" => "CBillPointsMultiplier"
"ContractPointsPerUnit" => "ContractPointsMultiplier"
"ChassisPointsPerUnit" => "ChassisPointsMultiplier"
...

At the "normal" settings, the multipliers should be "1".

Some examples of multiplier modifications:

Parts / Mech:

• +0.1 per part above 3 for Mech Chassis.
• +0.2 for Mech Weight Class / Mech Completion.
• ChassisPointsMultiplier = 1.1 for 4 parts. WeightScoreMultiplier = 1.2 for 4 parts.

Unequipped Mechs:

• +0.2 to CBillPointsMultiplier if new mechs are unequipped.

Mech Destruction:

• +0.1 ChassisPointsMultiplier if mechs are destroyed.

Mechwarrior Progress:

• +0.25 PilotExperienceMultiplier for Slow progression.
• +0.5 PilotExperienceMultiplier for Slowest.

No Rare Salvage:

• +0.1 CBillPointsMultiplier if you can't salvage rare items

Contract Payment:

• +0.5 CBillPointsMultiplier for Stingy payment
• -0.1 CBillPointsMultiplier for Generous payment

Salvage:

• +0.5 CBillPointsMultiplier for Stingy salvage
• -0.1 CBillPointsMultiplier for Generous salvage

Lethality:

• +0.1 PilotExperienceMultiplier if enabled.

Caveats:

1. Scores should be tallied additively with multipliers. Not just reflected at the end.
   • If you gain XP while Lethality and Slowest Progression are enabled, those XP would count as 60% (x1.6) more. If you then switched to No Lethality and Normal Progression, you would NOT lose points, but new points would accumulate normally (x1) instead of at the higher rate.
   • This would still allow you to "game" the system in that you could reduce the difficulty if you lost a mech or pilot and thereby not lose the full value that you might have gained under more difficult options, but at least you wouldn't be able to play under the easiest conditions and then, on the last day, increase the difficulty across the board and then gain large multipliers for the final scoring.
2. No scoring change for Harder or Easier opfors. You are already being "penalized" for Easy opfors in that the contracts are lower difficulty...or rewarded for Hard opfors in that the contracts are higher difficulty.

Lastly, and this may be more far-reaching than just Career mode:

• Fix XP gains so incapacitated pilots gain ZERO XP.
• And then allow OUR CHARACTER to contribute to the Mechwarrior XP total.

 

[Amechwarrior]

One big problem I've been having with scoring multipliers is that all but 3 of the difficulty settings are changeable on the fly. Either you need to hard lock all those settings at save creation or create some kind of integrity checker that checks the previous missions difficulty settings before awarding points, which would get really weird in the sim game where you can buy or sell anything at any time, regardless of what difficulty settings those items were acquired under.

 

[mjbroekman]

One big problem I've been having with scoring multipliers is that all but 3 of the difficulty settings are changeable on the fly. Either you need to hard lock all those settings at save creation or create some kind of integrity checker that checks the previous missions difficulty settings before awarding points, which would get really weird in the sim game where you can buy or sell anything at any time, regardless of what difficulty settings those items were acquired under.

And thus the first caveat...Scoring should be applied "in-line" so that changes to the difficulty don't change the "value" of already accrued points.

 

[Amechwarrior]

And thus the first caveat...Scoring should be applied "in-line" so that changes to the difficulty don't change the "value" of already accrued points.

That seems like a coding and balance nightmare. I'd say just make it to where if you check the box "Difficultly Bonus Multipliers: True/False" in the starting difficulty options, it just locks in all settings for the entire career. Toss in another warning tool-tip about "not for new players" and call it a day.

 

[mjbroekman]

It all depends on how the code is written. In general, if I'm totalling something in code for a score it goes something like this:

$score = 0;
while ( $running ) {
    ...
    if ( $loss ) {
        $base *= -1;
    }
    $score_change = $base * $mult;
    $score += $score_change;
    ...
}
print "Final score: $score";

That way, if it's a loss (mech destroyed or sold, pilot killed, etc), the change becomes a 'loss' instead of a gain.

I'd be fine with a non-adjustable toggle (like Ironman) that would lock all the difficulty modifiers, though.

 

[DoomMachine]

They really need to do something with the scoring system. There needs to be additional score for harder difficulty settings.

Also there should be some sort of bonus score for dropping under mission tonnage. If you drop 1/2 skull below mission tonnage or more you should get some sort of additional score per half skull under. This score could be an underdog c-bill bonus, additional rep or MRB points, additional contract points. Contract points are already calculated per half skull anyway so you could just add additional point for each skull under you complete the mission with. Then you would have a reason not to do a 3 skull with 4.5 skulls of drop tonnage.

 

[mjbroekman]

@DoomMachine, great point on dropping under mission rating.

I'm not sure getting paid more or getting more reputation with the employer is appropriate, but I could definitely see getting an MRB boost for dropping under-tonnage. To me, it's the difference between getting it done well and having a reputation for pulling amazing stunts. The employer doesn't care how you get the job done as long as you get it done properly. The rest of the human space might look at you pulling off 5-skull missions with 1-star lances as the work of genius though.

So, yeah, bonus MRB rating and bonus Contract points would be appropriate.

On the flip side, I wouldn't want to penalize a player for taking the heaviest available mechs so I'm not sure I would reduce the score for taking a heavier lance than the skull rating...especially since the contract can end up being harder than the difficulty indicates.

 

[mjbroekman]

With respect to Mechwarrior Experience... Part of me wants to get rid of that and replace it with a different mechanic because, while the MWXP score target accounts for 24 pilots reaching all-10s (and a bit more), there's no actual incentive to do that if you are able to keep all of your mechwarriors alive. MWXP rewards you for gaining XP. Period. You could have 20 pilots gaining XP through the training pods and only use 4 pilots for all the missions. Those 20 pilots contribute points...just by sitting there in the pods, even if you never raise their skills up. And those 4 pilots you use in every mission? They KEEP contributing based on the XP they gain even after they're all-10s. There is literally no reason to train pilots that you never use, but you still get points because they accrue XP in the pods.

So let's ratchet up the difficulty by changing this scoring mechanic ...

Let's call the new category 'MechwarriorSkills' for the sake of discussion.

How does it work: MechwarriorSkills works like contracts, cbills, and systems visited. It increases when 'something' happens and doesn't go down...ever.
What does it measure: MechwarriorSkills measures ... the XP spent on skill nodes instead of the XP accumulated.
How does it measure: MechwarriorSkills accrues points ... in the same way as MWXP. 50 XP per MWSkill point.
Why do it this way: Making the score increase only and basing the score on the amount of XP spent on skill nodes instead of the accumulated XP means several things:

1. You can count the XP spent by the main character because:
   • XP spent is XP spent.
   • There is a finite amount of XP that any player can contribute
2. You incentivize increasing pilot skills (which raises maintenance costs)
3. You incentivize hiring more pilots because pilots stop contributing at all-10s. And so to get higher scores you need to hire more pilots.

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I might make this is a separate suggestion, but for now I'm leaving it here