Normalizing Lives in a TD

[sevensc]

I am looking for an effective and fair method o normalize lives as players are defeated in or leave from a vs. TD.

Why it's Needed:
If 6 players are playing with 20 lives each, by the time the game gets down to the last two players, they are fighting over 120 lives, and in the game I am making it is unrealistic to be stealing that many lives.

Possible Solution:
Every time a player leaves or loses, the game calculates what % of the total lives a player has, and then gives them that % of a lower number.

• Example:
• The goal, keep total lives in the game equal to numPlayers*20.
• If the third last player is eliminated and the two remaining players each have 30 lives, 30 is 50% of 60, reduce 60 by 20 lives (because of losing player) and give each player 20 lives which is still 50% of the total lives.

Possible Issue:
Players who already have a very low number of lives may feel cheated since they will most likely be reduced to only 1 or 2 lives after normalization.

Can you help?
I need feedback on this idea, and any other ideas that are different/better than this one for keeping the number of lives low (or anything that achieves a similar effect).

Thanks for you help.

 

[Tubba]

Uhm, when there are two players left, just set their lives to like 25?

 

[Flare]

How about you don't have lifesteal in the first place?

* If the third last player is eliminated and the two remaining players each have 30 lives, 30 is 50% of 60, reduce 60 by 20 lives for the losing player and give each player 20 lives which is still 50% of the total lives.

Why would you reduce the lives for the losing player, wouldn't he/she already have 0 lives? And where did 20 come from?

 

[sevensc]

But what if one player has 90% of the lives and the other have 10% when the third last player is eliminated?

Won't that seem VERY unfair to the player with 90%?

 

[Knight7770]

Yes, but there's really no way to make it completely fair to all situations. You could just give each remaining player half of the lives that they started with.

 

[sevensc]

How about you don't have lifesteal in the first place?

Life steal is in the game to reward the players.

Why would you reduce the lives for the losing player, wouldn't he/she already have 0 lives? And where did 20 come from?

I didn't mean reduce the lives for the losing player, I meant reduce them because there is a losing player. And reduce them by 20 so that lives always equal numPlayers*20.

 

[sevensc]

Yes, but there's really no way to make it completely fair to all situations. You could just give each remaining player half of the lives that they started with.

Do you mean half the lives they currently have when a player is defeated? That will remove a lot of lives from the game, probably too many.

 

[Knight7770]

No, I mean half of the X lives that they started the game with.

 

[sevensc]

No, I mean half of the X lives that they started the game with.

I'm still not following. Do you mean just reduce the lives in general for the whole game so that players start with fewer lives?

 

[Knight7770]

I mean that when there are only 2 players left, you would just give them how ever many lives they had in the beginning of the game divided by 2. Here's an example:

20/2=10
Each player has his/her lives either reduced or increased to 10.

 

[sevensc]

I mean that when there are only 2 players left, you would just give them how ever many lives they had in the beginning of the game divided by 2. Here's an example:

20/2=10
Each player has his/her lives either reduced or increased to 10.

That would seem quite unfair if one player had double the lives of the other player before they were normalized using that method.

 

[Flare]

But what if one player has 90% of the lives and the other have 10% when the third last player is eliminated?

Won't that seem VERY unfair to the player with 90%?

That would just indicate that the person with 90% of the lives is better, why should the game work against him just because he/she is better?

Maybe you should have a counter for leaks (or Default lives - Current lives, that way people with less lives will have a positive counter and people above will have a negative counter) for each player. Then, when a player leaves, distribute however many lives that need distribution (maybe 20% of total lives, get the amount of lives each player has, and take an portion of that, based on total lives i.e. one player has 10 lives, another has 50 and max lives is 100. Take 50% of the redistributed lives from the player with 50, and 10% from the player with 10 lives. If 20 lives were being distributed that'd 10 taken from 50-lives player and 2 taken from 10-lives player. Then, distribute lives based on the counter

So:
Default lives = 20
Total lives when a player leaves = Current Players (including the leaver, not including any previous leavers) x 20
Lives redistributed when first player leaves: Total lives X 0.2 (in this case, thats 12)
Player 1 has 10 lives (counter: 20-10 = 10)
Player 2 has 50 lives(counter: 20-50 = -30)
Now, since there is 2 people left (there was a leaver, i just never showed it ^^)
Player 1 has 12x (10/60) lives taken (or swapped)
Player 2 has 12x (50/60) lives taken (or swapped)

In the case of lives being swapped, player 1 now has +10-2 lives (10+8), and player 2 has -10+2 lives (50-8)

 

[sevensc]

EDIT: Ahh, I see what you are doing now and it's a bit different that what I'm looking for.

What I want to do is normalize and reduce the number of lives so that there are not a extremely large number of lives left for only 2 players to fight over.

Using your method, if 6 players were playing the game at 20 lives each, the last 2 players would be fighting over 120 lives, which is far too many. I would really like to keep the number of lives equal to numPlayers*starting lives.

6 Players = 120 lives
5 Players = 100 lives
4 Players = 80 lives
3 Players = 60 lives
2 Players = 40 lives

It doesn't have to be exactly like this, but I need something that will adjust the numbers to keep them low enough to keep the game fair/playable/short/etc.

 

[Flare]

I editted my post, check the example. Might give you a better understanding of what I'm saying ^^

 

[sevensc]

I edited mine too

 

[ManyTimes]

Q:If 6 players are playing with 20 lives each, by the time the game gets down to the last two players, they are fighting over 120 lives, and in the game I am making it is unrealistic to be stealing that many lives.

A1
Why not rather create a max limit if you dont want to have one player ending up with (20xNumbers of players Playing) lives

Lets say max limit is 50, then when the player 1 red steals a life from player2.
Assume player 1 red got 50 lives, and player 2 got more than 0. What happends with the life he just stole? It vanishes, due to the max limit of lives a player can sustain! Or add it to the next player in "line", unless that is player 2, then it is vanishes...

A2
Whenever a player steals a life, you earn only 0.5 lives.
Leak 2 units lose 2 lives.
Steal 2 lives, gain 1.

 

[Flare]

OK, from 3 players to 2

So:
Default lives = 20
Total lives = 20x Player count (including leaver)
Player 1 has 10 lives
Player 2 has 50 lives
Multiply lives removed when a player leaves, by (Players current lives/Total lives BEFORE the player leaves) (in this case, total lives = 60)
Player 1 has 20x (10/60) lives taken. Player 1 loses 3 lives. Current lives: 7
Player 2 has 20x (50/60) lives taken. Player 2 loses 16 lives. Current lives: 34
Since lives would be an integer, you may have 1 life more/less than you want

ManyTimes's idea is good though.

 

[sevensc]

ManyTimes and Flare, those are some good ideas.

For ManyTimes first method, I might have to add some sort of bonus for every life stolen when a player is already at the max cap, other than that though, it's an interesting idea wirht exploring.

Method 2 is also great since lives are constantly being reduced as the game is played, not just when a player leaves/loses adn there is no need for a player bonus.

Flare's method is pretty much what I had originally thought about, and it keeps ratios intact throughout the game - but could have a harsh impact on a player who already has very few lives.

I guess I'll have to think about this and do some math or tests to see what seems the most fair (and to see what players can most easily understand).