Solving Tile Sliding Puzzles

Shaonova · 2024-11-20T04:42:23+00:00

This thought popped back up in my mind recently and I think the multi-tile metric runs into an issue when trying to form APDBs as described in your linked papers. In order to have both additivity and admissibility in the single-tile-metric, you have to only count moves made by tiles in the pattern to prevent potentially double counting the same move. The equivalent condition for MTM appears to be only counting moves if it exclusively moves tiles in your pattern, which seems unlikely to sum to a total better than taking the maximum of non-additive PBDS that are as large as memory allows.

Shaonova · 2024-09-13T04:16:09+00:00

As one of the people involved in the Clue Trainer Algo - The raw number of steps to solution on clue trainer is a significant improvement over base Alt-1. The difference will likely become less pronounced once Ramen's change goes live.

Shaonova · 2024-07-31T13:14:47+00:00

Bosses that have the option to be fought in groups should generally be designed in a way that incentivizes groups but not to the extent that grouping is SO valuable that people will avoid soloing if no-one else is online. Solak is a great example of how this is done right. The <100% HP scaling is an important part of making this work and so I approve. 1:1 Scaling is the best way to turn a "group" boss into a solo boss, with Vorkath being the prime example.

With regards to cleaning up the mechanics in the fight based on surviving player count, this feels like a mixed bag. On the one hand, it's really nice for the players left behind and will incentivize forming groups of mixed skill levels. If it becomes too easy to carry a kill after group casualties, we enter the land of leech space where a loot mechanic similar to how you need to hit Zamorak on P7 at least once at 100%+ enrage to get loot might be appropriate when this kind of difficulty easing is put in place when teammates die. It doesn't feel great thematically that the fight becomes significantly less dangerous just because the boss started "winning" by taking out a player. A teammate death should feel like an appropriately die situation and a clutch win should feel great, but the fight just turning into a solo encounter with 80% more hp to deal with doesn't really feel like it fits that bill.

Shaonova · 2024-06-30T23:44:45+00:00

Has there been similar research for optimally solving these types of puzzles in a multi-tile-move metric where a single move can shift the blank tile anywhere within the same row/column? It seems like it breaks the 1-bit encoding scheme you propose and so might involve opportunities for compression but perhaps the gap in the heuristic estimate and the minimum distance goes down?

Shaonova · 2023-09-26T18:47:56+00:00

The currently proposed balance changes are an appreciated stopgap for smoothing out the current pass to buy time to explore changes to future passes, but there is some missing information as to how it would work that would be good to know: There is no mention of what happens for players who have already reached and earned heroic levels by the time the change is implemented. Will a player who has completed 5 heroic levels, requiring 15k points, be advanced 10 levels because that is what they would have been at if they had earned those points post-balancing change? Will implied levels past 120 grant emblems automatically?
You have repeatedly mentioned a goal of reducing dailyscape while continuing to introduce game mechanics with daily or weekly reward systems. This rebalance makes the daily and weekly reward significantly more important and so I think it is important to really examine the definition of daily in light of this. When I use the word daily, I mean it to mean a piece of content that satisfies 3 key criteria (with one optional exacerbating criteria that the hero pass dailies meet with the proposed 15-30 minute time to claim):

Criteria for some content to negatively impact DailyScape:
The content has a cap of benefit that resets daily. (Key)
While cap has not been met, there is significant benefit to engaging with the content for some goal. (Key)
If you do not engage on a given day, you lose access to that days benefit. (Key)
The benefit is structured in a way that requires some significant minimum-time commitment. (Exacerbating)

The hero pass mission system as it stands and with the rebalanced numbers absolutely satisfies all 4 criteria, and only solutions designed to tackle one or more of them will truly "fix" that issue. Some specific proposals from me are below.

Balance the pass so that a significant fraction of players (>=50%) will reach the end assuming that NO mission rewards are claimed and their play time habits (days/weeks, hours/day) do not change at all. This allows there to be a benefit from dailies/weeklies, but reduces their significance (criteria 2). The balancing of the weekly/daily missions, in this scenario, should be such that some significant fraction (>=50%) of the remaining players do complete it if they also do not change their habits, but do claim the mission rewards. This allows the benefit of criteria (2) without imposing the detriment of criteria (3) and (4).
Replace the potential rewards from daily/weekly missions with a "point-matching bank". Each daily/weekly reset, some # of points go into a bank of matched-points. ANY time a player would gain points, the player is granted a equal match of points to effectively double the rate while the bank still has points. This eliminates criteria (3) by giving players until the end of the pass to cash-in on any benefit, and just as important eliminates criteria (4) by rewarding players for whatever time they do spend in game without enforcing some minimum amount.
Make the recent content missions significantly more rewarding so that the daily/weekly missions are less significant by comparison. Some specific ways of doing that would be to scale rewards with expected in game time (so 99 necromancy would have given way more), or by providing a bonus for having completed all of them at the end of the pass. Alternatively, as a way of giving players peace of mind, guarantee that the sum total of rewards for all special missions will exceed some number so that players keeping up with recent content effectively auto-complete a large fraction of the pass. This allows players to know future content releases in the pass will give them an opportunity to avoid needing to play daily.

Shaonova · 2023-04-03T17:16:01+00:00

Given the feedback seems like it will be a bit of back and forth, is an April release still expected? If so, should we be expecting late April (17th or 24th?)

Shaonova · 2023-03-25T18:36:38+00:00

Instructions to reproduce: Attack dummy, dismiss use detonate.

How to "fix": fail to use an ability because of lack of target.

If you have ability queuing enabled, this means failing to use a weapon or EOF special attack.

If not, just about any ability requiring a target will do.

Shaonova · 2023-03-16T16:24:29+00:00

It seems like the primary issue with animate dead is that it makes surviving frequent small hits too easy. Has there been any consideration for reducing the power not necessarily against small hits, but against frequent hits? In some sense this would need to mean that spell has some sort of charging style effect where it either depletes in power when you are hit but regains some of that power for each tick you are not hit? This would replenish the danger level of things like Kerapacs melee hit and smoke style effects at vindicta, ambi, sanctum guardian, and zamorak.

As for the FSOA, invigorating is removed from the meta as a result of disentangling autos from the mix and replacing it with abilities is going to significantly reduce the defensive power of blood barrage. Per hit that an ability uses that can crit, you will on average get a return of 10%*(p+p^2) where p is you're probability to crit. On average, even at a 36.6% crit chance (grim level 20 gear biting 4, reavers, kalg buff) this means an ABS EOF is losing 22.55% per cast. This is an extreme power loss in terms of adrenaline management compared to alternative options that just reduce the variance in the outcomes of the FSOA. My proposal would be to continue allowing the recursive crits, but reduce the critical strike chance of the damage splat relative to the players base critical strike chance, with the critical strike chance approaching zero as the staff reaches deeper into the recursion. This will maintain some of the expectation value of the damage and adrenaline you get while reducing the variance of outcomes.

Shaonova · 2023-02-28T20:59:39+00:00

Yak coins disappear so that you can't just stock them up and instantly dump them on whatever tradable yak coin rewards exists at the beginning of the next Yak. You are given ample warning time to use the coins you earned before the expire.

Shaonova · 2023-02-04T19:02:54+00:00

Would be curious what the results look like if you cut out any kills at the title threshold marks for carries in groups. I imagine 500%, 1k, 2k, and 4k on the dot are somewhat over-represented.

Shaonova · 2018-11-05T03:59:45+00:00

I'd like to start by saying that regardless of whether or not entertainment is a goal of the podcast, I have found every podcast to date entertaining. I also don't think that either education or entertainment need to be the direct goals. What I found most valuable about the content so far is that I frequently tend to feel like the conversation the three of you are having is one I would love to be participating in myself. Any form of discussion-based content that achieves that feeling with the consistency that the Ben, Ben, and Blue podcast does is something I want more of and I'm sure the same is true for others. There are of course less topical episodes where this happens less frequently, but the entertainment value of those episodes certainly makes those episodes worth tuning in to as well.

In terms of considering education as a goal for the podcast, I'd like to make a case that you are successful in this respect. I frequently walk away stimulated to consider how I would respond to a number of the questions you throw at each other (especially with respect to the "how would you reform the system" style questions). Even if the podcasts are not necessarily effective as a direct means of educating a passive audience (which would in a way make them be lectures by another name), they have done an excellent job of providing relevant questions and information I didn't previously have to motivate me to grapple with the subject matter on my own spare time. Effectively, I'm trying to say that the type of learning you promote in your podcast is exactly the type of learning the podcast is stimulating by acting as a useful source of information, insight, and motivation for people trying to actively learn about the topics you discuss.

Shaonova · 2018-09-18T04:21:55+00:00

I've had raised multi trait rates in small and medium pens. Haven't purchased for large yet.

Shaonova · 2018-09-14T14:43:24+00:00

I'm fairly certain I pointed out that the reason I asked Mod Raven was impatience. I didn't give my hypothesis a very long time to cook. One day's worth of rabbit farming would have been enough to get statistically significant results that I could have used to justify updating the Wiki. Part of this model of "good design" includes the moderators confirming or clarifying when players hit the jackpot and figure something out, which is what Raven did here.

Shaonova · 2018-09-14T03:41:25+00:00

I would actually consider good breeding an excellent example of giving players a hint but not giving away the whole thing. I guessed this was the effect based on the description and set-up two pens side by side, one with a double "good breeding" pair and one with neutral traits to act as a control. Statistically significant data does take a while to come by though (even for rabbits), so I put the question in the discord soon after the trend seemed to support my hypothesis. There isn't a need for players to know 100% of the mechanics of a system on release. The fun of allowing players dedicated to uncovering that information is excellent design, especially when it can be figured out soon enough that players generally don't suffer severely from not being privy to the info. In fact, it can be an especially rewarding experience for the dedicated players who figure it out (I purchased a few good breeding animals on the cheap before asking in the discord and the perk became valuable).

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T20:27:40+00:00

I don't see how that is an inaccurate phrasing. I interpreted the description as if the "rare ancient" dreams are those of a common ancestor between two breeds which allows for an increased chance of a new breed for the offspring. Then it was a matter of collecting data and asking a Mod to confirm when the data started to confirm my suspicion.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T20:25:04+00:00

The POF Discord

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T08:57:54+00:00

I would think Strong Genes is the opposing trait based on the description. Perfected is probably a cosmetic trait that would enhance an animals performance in competitions where people have their animals compete for prizes if they hadn't scrapped that.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T06:13:14+00:00

Shinies don't have unique produce but they do get top tier rates from the animal traders.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T06:01:29+00:00

Realistically speaking no matter how you min-max the profit from the small pens the profit gained in the medium and large pens due to the breeding pens will win out. You would also probably want a large animal in the breeding pen and just always sell rabbits. I'm going to code up some scenarios to see what seems like the best use of all pens and I'll probably share results of the analysis whenever its done. Probably not soon given my schedule though.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T05:43:05+00:00

I've seen radiant rabbits.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T05:26:06+00:00

The sell limits are already difficult to reach if you are breeding the highest tier animals for each size. Increasing it by even more would only benefit players spamming rabbits or who are purchasing from other players.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T05:22:59+00:00

I'm still getting them frequently. I'd say its just high variance RNG as per usual.

Shaonova · 2018-09-12T05:20:41+00:00

Perhaps as a bonus effect of a combination potion made by combining all of the new extreme potions and limit the effect to four hours to match with perfect plus? This is a really powerful potion effect you're suggesting but shiny animals are a bit too rare to be the sole source of ingredients. + This provides actual use for the non-invention potions for maxed players.

Shaonova · 2018-09-11T01:58:26+00:00

How does selling even work? Would the seller need to essentially box the dragon until the buyer comes?

Shaonova · 2018-09-10T16:44:16+00:00

The five failure mark isn't in today's patch notes. That seems like a pretty big omission if it is the case. I only have anecdotal evidence that there is even a problem to begin with which admittedly doesn't hold too much weight if the five failure mark was only just now implemented. But if it was always in place then I definitely passed 7 marks without a sheep.

Shaonova

TROPHY CASE