Health Equalization is Designed Incorrectly
I was having a discussion with McMole after he had explained in his video about how the mechanic works. This applies to Geonosians and Malak as far as I know.
When the character "equalizes" health/protection currently, the average percentage value is calculated of any characters specified including the character that is equalizing, then the character adjusts their health/protection totals to that calculated percentage.
If you're familiar with audio editing, that makes sense. The peaks, clipping, distortion, "noise" of the audio signal is removed. This is specifically to do with signal waves and data transfer and is why when you talk with someone on the phone, they sound slightly off and unclear.
Alright, so let's think about this in terms of a physical value or a physical sense. If I want things to be equal, I want them to be the same. I would add/subtract to make sure that the two items being compared are equal after the adjustment is performed. Let's say I had two glasses of water. One full, one halfway. I can either dump some water from the full cup, or I can add water to it from another source.
I genuinely think the way that health/protection equalization is currently programmed, it makes the team very brittle, very easy to take down. I think there should be a few rules applied to health equalization to resolve the issue. Once that is resolved, there is an entire separate conversation to be had about the method used to "equalize".
Rules:
#1: use numerical values, not percentages
#2: you cannot include the characters whose health value is changing in the calculation for what the average is.
#3 if you are going to equalize a characters health or protection and it results in that character losing health/protection as a result, assume they are the highest values on the team and ignore equalization. (Just because the Ally has lower health, does not mean they should lose health).
I understand the reason for using percentages, but it results in so much variation when you compare it to the raw numerical data. losing 1% health on a character that has 20K is far less than the one that just equalized and had 65K. I think the second biggest issue would be rule #3 above. That needs to be implemented.
Thoughts, what has your experience been? How do bugs work when compared to Malak/Darth Revan. Is that equalization programmed according to the rules above?
When the character "equalizes" health/protection currently, the average percentage value is calculated of any characters specified including the character that is equalizing, then the character adjusts their health/protection totals to that calculated percentage.
If you're familiar with audio editing, that makes sense. The peaks, clipping, distortion, "noise" of the audio signal is removed. This is specifically to do with signal waves and data transfer and is why when you talk with someone on the phone, they sound slightly off and unclear.
Alright, so let's think about this in terms of a physical value or a physical sense. If I want things to be equal, I want them to be the same. I would add/subtract to make sure that the two items being compared are equal after the adjustment is performed. Let's say I had two glasses of water. One full, one halfway. I can either dump some water from the full cup, or I can add water to it from another source.
I genuinely think the way that health/protection equalization is currently programmed, it makes the team very brittle, very easy to take down. I think there should be a few rules applied to health equalization to resolve the issue. Once that is resolved, there is an entire separate conversation to be had about the method used to "equalize".
Rules:
#1: use numerical values, not percentages
#2: you cannot include the characters whose health value is changing in the calculation for what the average is.
#3 if you are going to equalize a characters health or protection and it results in that character losing health/protection as a result, assume they are the highest values on the team and ignore equalization. (Just because the Ally has lower health, does not mean they should lose health).
I understand the reason for using percentages, but it results in so much variation when you compare it to the raw numerical data. losing 1% health on a character that has 20K is far less than the one that just equalized and had 65K. I think the second biggest issue would be rule #3 above. That needs to be implemented.
Thoughts, what has your experience been? How do bugs work when compared to Malak/Darth Revan. Is that equalization programmed according to the rules above?
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Replies
Example 1: Current working version
1. Attack occurs, characters equalize
2. Health percentages summarized, average value obtained.
3. All allies have health's adjusted to average percentage
4. Damage occurs as normal (assume non AoE for clarity)
5. Next attack occurs, all health values drop by a %, lowest health is raised up.
Example 2: Example 1 w/ rules applied
1. Attack occurs, characters equalize
2. Health total is calculated and average number obtained
3. All allies have health adjusted to average numerical value, full %
4. Damage occurs as normal
5. Next attack occurs, Health is equalized again.
Example 3: Osmosis/Hivemind method
1. Attack occurs, characters equalize
2. Total health is evaluated, value obtained, divided evenly among remaining allies.
3. Damage occurs as normal
4. Next attack occurs, equalization occurs again, the "pool" is lowered very slightly.
If Bob has 100 health and Steve has 50, and they equalize, you don’t believe both should be at 75 afterward? You want Bob to remain at 100 and Steve to “equalize” to 100? That’s not equalization, that’s just healing.
“Just because the ally has lower health does not mean they should lose health.” Yes, it does. If you have 10 apples and your brother has 4, and your mom tells you to make the apples equal, you lose 3 apples.
No, it's not that simple.
If 10 apples was the focus of equalization, rule #3 no change.
If 4 apples was the focus, then everyone now has 7.
This is based on Values, not percentages, that is a critical difference.
Thats why it works as %... Because units can have more hp than his max xD
This is why they have to use %.
I also believe it would make it worse to do this method:
Let's say Sun Fec is taunting, he is countering and healing, but without the equalization applying your team wouldnt heal if he was the healthiest character.
How is this related? Just because two things use the same word (equalization) doesn't mean it's a good comparison.
Yeah, just hard disagree here. I've had plenty of DRs tenaciously cling to life, and the bugs' post-rework beastliness is pretty well-documented also.
It's working as intended.
So, if I hit an character for 10k damage when his max health is 20k then a 50% would be factored into the equalization. If I instead hit a different character for 10k when that character’s max health is 100k then a 10% would be factored into the equalization. In other words, you should be attacking the lowest health character to bring the whole team down faster.
I’m just curious if I understand you correct.
The easiest way to work around the strategy is to get someone low, hit someone else and get them low again. Think of it in terms of JKR with the geobug health equalization. If you attack yoda every time, he has the lowest health/protection pools and taking him out constantly, but not killing him just results in everyone sucking the life from themselves to equalize. Logically that doesn't make sense. If you have GK, Jolee with 3-4x the health pool, yoda gets hit for 5K damage by a low damage character, but because it is such a high %, The tanks will lose so much more actual value in their health pool.
There's a few ways to "solve it", but the easiest way to do so is to just stop equalizing percentages. If one character is really low, they get pulled up, but the tanks, etc., shouldn't necessarily lose value. If you are equalizing on every ability before damage is calculated, the math should always be 100% x4, plus your one outlier. Clearly the "average" is 99.99% give or take a few percentages. Because there is such a disparity between health values, the percentage calculation doesn't make sense for a numerical equalization in terms of a numerical pool.
Here's a video to give you something to watch the mechanic. Keep in mine the actual numerical values don't mean much. Mod for insane high defense, you lose the smallest % to curb this. The actual values lost i the back end just isn't logical. If you hit the weakest character, it's so easy to get the bugs to kill themselves.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qCTcKs-K-Yo
Basically yeah.
Take a 200k health malak and a 40k health drevan. You get drevan to 50% which would be 20k health. He equalizes with malak, so now they're both at 75% health. Malak would lose 50k health, drevan would gain 10k health. So the equalization is a net loss of 40k health.
It's unfortunate, but I don't know that there is a great alternative.
So we have the two key terms, "health percentages equalize" and "they equalize health", and these are two very different things.
"health percentages equalize" - not equalization of health, but of the % itself.
"they equalize health" - This should be actual health equalization, you equalize the numbers and the two characters have the same value after the adjustment at 100% health.
Specifically for L3 and for Darth Revan this should be cut and dry. DR should be getting the health value split between himself and Malak. If malak has 150K Health, DR has 40, then they both should have 95K after equalization.
For the Geobugs specifically, this issue really cripples them. The best thing to do is to try to mod them so they all have very high defense, especially the weakest characters. Mod your lowest health pool character with the highest armor, essentially, or your entire squad is going to tear themselves apart.
Yep, definitely isn't true equalization. In your example, they both should have 110K Health. DR saves himself and add a huge amount of survivability, malak is much more brittle, but he can actually recover it and add to his pool.
Meh. Par for the course with CG. You can't fully trust any ability description and need to check SWGoH.gg for the mechanics. If the mechanics are the same and the words are different then it's probably working the way they want it to.
But when you are talking about the other wording, Percentages equalize, then they have a massive heal or a heal over time added to compensate.
I'm not arguing with you. I'm telling you how it is. There are a bunch of ability description that are either confusing or misleading. CG is pretty bad at writing descriptions. The only way to tell what it is supposed to do is to look at the mechanics.
I don’t think you’re explaining it very well, but I think I understood. Hit the weak guy over and over to bring the whole team down and then aoe for the win
you don't need AoE. You don't want to use AoE. You hit the one weak person over and over and you don't kill them. They equalize, and you constantly suck life from everyone else. I am going to be testing with FO. use KRU to stun, use FO-X and TFPs to hit hard. The issue is going to be healing.
Geonosians are better than ever, and performing really well for a team of 5 or 6 bugs that are force-insensitive.
Downside is obviously that every geo has exactly the same h/p after just one equaliziation, which is silly imo. Also like already mentioned, the lower h/p geos will have more h/p than their max, which is also silly imo.
Think of the concept of hive mind. You're hitting one area but the hive comes after you. You hit one aspect of the squad, they take a little bit of damage, but the hive protects them. If you don't match that concept, then it doesn't work. Right now, the way it's programmed is flawed. I'm not saying it isn't good, I'm saying it isn't what it should be and the intent of the ability isn't working as described or as it should be.
If you truly equalize after each hit, there isn't as great of a chance for the Geos to kill themselves off. It means that you need to have a counter to the strategy and use a specific squad to take them down, something like Traya and Sion/pain have been really successful at breaking down the synergies of the team. It isn't a monumental difference, but we're talking about adding a slight bump to their suirvivability, which definitely comes at a cost.
They Last a lot longer, but there isn't one part of the squad that is much stronger than the other. Yes the brood, the alpha, sun fac act as the tanks, but that doesn't mean they alone are the ones that have the most health and protection, they are a tank in the sense that they take the damage while the others feed health and attack.
Using the strategy of taking out GBA and the squad falls apart is no longer viable, because it is one massive health pool. Hit above this damage mark or they will not die at all.
So, if I mod Brood Alpha for health and he's at 80k and mod the rest for speed leaving them around 40k health would they all equalize to 80k on the first opponent move?
I would really really hate having a dinner conversation with ^ guy
it's flawed in your opinion because of your interpretation of the concept of hive mind. Which is fine, but you haven't been able to convince me that your opinion and/or interpretation is the correct way of looking at it.
You do realize that while hitting a low h/p toon is favourable for the attack, it's exactly the other way around when you're hitting a high h/p toon right? It adds strategy instead of taking it away.
I really feel like the way they "equalize" currently is preferable by far over the way you're suggesting it should work. I'm sorry if that doesn't match your idea of the concept of hive mind, but imo that alone isn't enough to warrant a change.
Let's say I had two glasses of water. One full, one halfway. I can either dump some water from the full cup, or I can add water to it from another source.
Adding to “it from another source” is healing period. Luminara heals in this fashion. That isn’t equalization of the two; and this is why equalization is NOT blocked from healing debuffs because it is not healing, it is taking from the existing health
if i understand the OP correctly your team would equalize to 53.3k across the board.
extreme example:
All geos are at full h/p. Everyone of them has 100k h/p except for soldier who only has 10k h/p.
If you hit soldier for 5k damage he will have 50% h/p left. After they equalize all of them will have (5*100% + 50% / 6 = ) 91.7% h/p. So effectively you've done (8.3k * 5 + 0.83k = ) 42.33k worth of damage with a 5k hit.
So in one a 5k hit becomes 42k spread across the team and the other your healthiest character (usually a tank) loses 27k health without being attacked.
Guess I'm fine with either since there are good counters to both. Therefore I'd prefer no change.