Gepard Diary: "Hangar Average" a MM Solution?

When do we get to test the "paddle thwacker" on the TS?

Thanks for the post!

I think hangar rating more than hangar average is more often floated.

We know average doesn't work. That's how gep clubbers used to manage with 2 lev 1 and a lev 12 magnum.

Average hangar by using just lvls wouldn't work, unless they would be adapted
counting their exponential progression, and putting some additional rules
to avoid exploiting AND possible abuses.


as first points i'd take:

highest weapon equipped as baseWpnLvl.
highest bot in hangar as baseBotLvl.

other bots/weapons lower than 15~20% of these base values, would be counted as BaseLvl-15~20%

for Weapons i would count lvls as per your exponential Chart:

lvl 1: 1.0
lvl 2: 1.1
lvl 3: 1.21
lvl 4: 1.331
lvl 5: 1.464
lvl 6: 1.611
lvl 7: 1.772
lvl 8: 1.949
lvl 9: 2.144
lvl 10: 2.358
lvl 11: 2.853

multipliers:

light weapon: x1.0
med weapon: x1.5
heavy weapon: x2.0

Ecu Counted as a normal Light weapon.
Ancile Counted as a normal Heavy weapon.


Bots:

Exponential lvl  progression similar to the Weapon Chart,
and individual multiplier applied per Bot Category[OPTIONAL].

Light x 1
Med x 1.25
Heavy x 1.5

End calculation would sum up:

#1Bot: (sum of all weaponLVLs)+(BotLvl x BotCategoryMultiplier)
#2Bot: "             "              "           "           "             "
#3Bot: etc etc

Hangar Lvl would be a sum up of each bot,  and in case of bots or weapons lower than -15~20% it
would sum them as they were just -15~20% less than the base bot.

This way weapons would have a way heavier weight in hangar judgement (3 or 4 more times more important
than Bot Lvl).
Bot category multiplier is still something that leaves me some doubts , and could be taken off completely
from the equations, as the heavier they are, generally they pack more weapons that would still balance
out the general hangar level. So a variation would be totally without any BotCategoryMultiplier.


Just wrote this on rush, quite certainly better solutions could be considered.


EDIT1:

Possible Problems or Abuses of this kind of Calculations:

1)Hangar slots abuse:
    Not Buying Hangar slots would give an unfair advantage. a 12/12 hangar with 2 slots would be equated
    with a roughly estimation to a 10/10~9/9 hangar with 3 slots, and a 8/8~7/7 with 4 slots, and a 5/5~6/6 with 5 slots.
    Solution: If hangar has more than 3 slots, count as having 3 hangar slots, and discarding the lower bots.
                   If 2 slots or less, equate as a 3 hangar slot, counting lowest bot in hangar as their 2nd/3rd.

2)People would tend play with lower level hangars:
    Playing with lower lvl hangars would  generate faster battles, and easier access to gold per battle determined
    by higher skill.
    Solution: Make Silver earning scale with HangarLvl, and make macro categories for Gold Earning to entice playing
                    with maxed hangars for higher earnings.

3)Incompatible with the Actual League system.
    It would bypass totally the league system, so it would become redundant.
    Solution1: scrap the League system as matching sytem, but use it just as Activity per Month for Prizes.
    Solution2: make a separate mode that is hangar based, and doesn't count for End of Month prizes.


EDIT2:
for the sake of balance, some bots should be considered armed with some weapons
to justify their corresponding ability:

carnage: ancile (x0.5 ?)
gareth: ecu lvl as bot lvl
galahad: ecu lvl as bot lvl x1.25
Lancelot: ecu lvl as bot lvl
Fujin: ancile lvl as bot lvl x0.5
Raijin: ecu lvl as bot lvl
stalker: stealth = a fixed lvl 4 light weapon?
rogatka: jump = a fixed lvl 4 light weapon?
cossack: jump = a fixed lvl 2 light weapon?
griffin: jump = a fixed lvl 4 light weapon?
Rhino: ecu lvl as bot lvl

Wild West Bots: modifier for summed weapons x0.75?

Aye, we know the problem. Is it the only one the average hangar calculation has?

'Cause this one is easy to fix, ain't it?

It's not much difference for server to calculate exponential average instead of linear one.
The only discussion would be about the basis for exponential function - weapons go by 10 %, bots by 6-6.5%. However, anything in this range would probably work.

Another problem to cope with (and a worse one) is balancing bots in their category. Based on Forum discussion, I'd for example assume that Gareth can't be taken with the same weight as other light bots, same for Galahad & Carnage among mediums. IMO it was THIS and not ne non-linearity that has lead Pix to performance-based rating. I remember a piece of argument when they advocated the new MM. It was like "And we realized that we need to put MM penalty on Gepard and Gareth and then Orkan etc. and after some time the MM was just one heap of patches one  on another"

EDIT: As it took me quite long to write this port, llama has posted something very similar in the meantime.

The amoung of time and money you've invested in your hangar should not affect MM, i.e. the argument is void.

Claiming that stronger 2/12 shall be paired with weaker 7/7 because 2/12 has invested more is similar to claim that someone who invested 1200 Au in Gepard should be paired with Destriers and Cossacks. We've had that before

There's a problem with this. Raijin would be rated much higher than Griffin because it's hp is so much higher.

Not sure if the firepower between Raijin and Griffin will balance this out though. So then a better example would be Rhino vs Griffin because they have equal firepower. According to your system Rhino is rated higher when in fact Griffin is the better bot.

How about Leo versus Galahad then?

With all due respect: 2x Rhino 3x Leo is better than 2x Galahad 3x Lancelot in that system.

What do you mean by better? Score lower?

All this MM talk has me

I don't see the problem, medium vs heavy. 3 points vs 4points. A maxed medium vs a mid level heavy.

I'm just spit balling an idea. It's wide open to improvements.

Nice post Dredd77. Might I recommend alternate leagues and game modes to fix the uneven squadding issue.

Recruit League = Silver bots and weapons only with max Level of 7

Veteran League = WSP bots and weapons allowed with a max level of 9

Ranked League = Normal league with no restrictions

Veteran players will now have a use for extra bots and weapons in their hangar and will fix the balance issue when squadding with lower level players.

A few things:

First great article.... But I think many of you failed to read between the lines:

Backing up your random idea with an analysis is what is required for it to be taken seriously, and if you fail to do it someone will come up with the data to rip it to shreds. Even if you do a good job, someone might find the things you missed and shred it. 

I think that Dredd77 made an interesting choice in what he picked, and I would love to know if he did it on purpose. 

Hanger average, and the current league system, both have a "feature" that the old MM didn't. The old MM was truly a set of arbitrary rules, that had more arbitrary rules stacked on top of it. Because they were so arbitrary the game got balanced INTO these rules, and the groups and pools they created. 

Hanger average to some (fairly large) extent, and the leagues to large extent make no such assumptions. There is very little that is arbitrary about them! Because of this, pix has a larger degree of freedom, not only to balance the game, but to let players pick a path.  However hanger average is BROKEN in a rather grave and unfixable way, unless you start stacking arbitrary rules on it and those are a non starter, because we end up right back into the old MM. 

Who knows kung fu?

The Op-Ed assumes a completely random Match-up. The purpose of the "Average Hangar" is to keep Players in their respective Leagues and to avoid incidents such as that described.

In the "Average Hangar" system, Cagney would remain in Champion League, Lacy would be kept in Bronze League while Lavern and Shirley would be in the same League(s) and Matched against each other as Opponents.

Also, the Op-Ed used a different method to solve for "Average" than what has been proposed.