Exploit human psychology

[anothersimulacrum]

Summary

SUMMARY: None

Purpose of change

Frame proficiencies as bonuses to crafting time as opposed to maluses.

Describe the solution

Convert displays to percentages, adjust grammar, and apply some math to the numbers before display.

Describe alternatives you've considered

(The math may be wrong on some of these) Keeping white text/using multiplicative: Using inverted multiplicative: Using inverted percentages: Using fractions:

Testing

See images.

Additional context

I'm not a particularly huge fan of doing this, but it's probably a good idea.

[Valares]

As a non-native english speaker, the "[...] be take X% as long [...]" seems weird. I honestly don't know the grammatical correct way to phrase that sentence, but omitting the "be" or changing the "take" to "taking" seems better, at least to me...

[anothersimulacrum]

Yeah, the be shouldn't be there at all, whoops.

[olanti-p]

IMO the multiplicative 0.2x version feels better.

It's easier to multiply fractions than percentages (0.2 * 0.4 = 0.08 vs 20% * 40% = 8%), and the 20% failure is commonly used in games to indicate failure chance, not a modifier like here.

[Mom-Bun]

I really like this, a simple change of framing something as a negative, to a positive can really change things and people's outlooks on things.

As for example, when World of Warcraft added a debuff to playing too long, no one liked it, but a simple flip of framing it as a login bonus, people started actually using it actually.

[wapcaplet]

I'm trying to interpret the percentages here:

The "Proficiencies Used" are green, which I guess means the percentages are reductions in crafting time and failure rate, while the "Proficiencies Missing" are yellow, which I take to mean they are increases in time/failure.

If that's the case, I suggest a - or + indicator as well, like:

Proficiencies Used:
Principles of Metalworking (-67% time, -20% failure)
and Blacksmithing (-50% time, -40% failure)

Proficiencies Missing:
Bladesmithing (+50% time, +67% failure)
and Plastic Working (+91% time)

Edit: Using different words would be a good alternative to minus/plus. For example for the time factor, NN% faster or NN% slower would be more readable than -NN% time and +NN% time. Not sure of a similarly succinct way to express failure rate; maybe NN% less failure and NN% more failure.

[anothersimulacrum]

Updated as per @olanti-p's suggestion, the individual displays show multipliers, the collective a percentage. @wapcaplet What is in green is what you have gained due to having those proficiencies, what is in yellow is what you stand to gain from gaining that proficiency.

[Qrox]

What is in green is what you have gained due to having those proficiencies, what is in yellow is what you stand to gain from gaining that proficiency.

Maybe call them something like "active proficiency bonuses" and "unavailable proficiency bonuses"? (And perhaps change the color of the latter to gray which is more often used to denote something not available)

[anothersimulacrum]

Done.

[Qrox]

Using inverted percentages:

I feel that this gives a more positive vibe to it as it emphasizes "fast" and "success" instead of "long" and "failure"

[anothersimulacrum]

Using inverted percentages:

I feel that this gives a more positive vibe to it as it emphasizes "fast" and "success" instead of "long" and "failure"

I agree it's more positive, but it's already been reframed as positive, and I think the current version is more clear. There's room for debate, but unless there's a fairly significant support for that over the current iteration, I think this is better.

[satheon49]

What is in green is what you have gained due to having those proficiencies, what is in yellow is what you stand to gain from gaining that proficiency.

May I suggest using a different green (or grey again) for either missing or used proficiencies. As someone who has medium deuteranopia those colors look very similar. A darker green might be fine too (at least for me) though the safer bet would be keeping grey as one of the colors.

[anothersimulacrum]

Currently the colors are light_green and dark_gray, does that work?

[satheon49]

Yes that works. Should work for most other forms of colorblindness too (except monochromacy I guess).

[JHQWER]

This is travesty...

[blot-runner]

Wait, did I read the code right - actual mechanics stays the same, so fail chance does still increase if you are missing some proficiencies? Let's say we have two recipes with the same skillset requirements, but:

• recipe A has no proficiency requirements;
• the survivor does not have the proficiencies required for recipe B. In actuality, failure_chance(A)<failure_chance(B). At present this is clearly seen in the UI - failure chance without proficience(s) missing is a default value and any missing proficience(s) are shown increasing it. After the proposed modification, unless I'm missing something, UI will essentially show that failure_chance(A)=failure_chance(B), which does not correspond to the true state of events. Am I correct in this analysis? If so, is this effect intended?

[anothersimulacrum]

Am I correct in this analysis? If so, is this effect intended?

You are correct that the failure chance of B is greater than that of A. At present, chance of failure is not displayed at all, so 'UI will essentially show that failure_chance(A)=failure_chance(B)' is not strictly true, but there is definitely room for confusion if people do not consider recipes with proficiency requirements more difficult than those without, like is the case with skills.

The first part is intended. The second part is unclear UI, which should get fixed, but I personally think is out of scope of this PR. (I will be looking at the crafting failure stuff soon, but not right here).

[NorseFTX]

Using inverted percentages:

I feel that this gives a more positive vibe to it as it emphasizes "fast" and "success" instead of "long" and "failure"

I agree it's more positive, but it's already been reframed as positive, and I think the current version is more clear. There's room for debate, but unless there's a fairly significant support for that over the current iteration, I think this is better.

I agree that the percentage is actually more difficult to understand, but the inverted multiplicative I believe is fine, and can be used while combining the positive language. AKA: "This recipe will be 3.0x faster, and be 12.5x more likely to succeed, because of your proficiencies used."

I am fine with this change; in this case the semantics are essentially between calling the glass half full or half empty, and there's no reason for the crafting system itself to be negative when there are enough zombies trying to kill the player lol. Would actually be somewhat funny if the verbage changed from positive to negative depending on the player's own morale status though (and never becomes negative if they are an optimist / always is negative if they are pessimist), but that's probably out of the scope of this change.

[Raikiri]

Fractions blabla will take 2/3 of normal time look very confusing when they are right next to your fabrication (9/8) as it starts looking like a faction too.

I vote for You will craft this recipe 2.0x faster as opposed You will craft this 100% faster because the former one is obviously multiplicative and the latter one could be interpreted as additive.

[Zireael07]

@Raikiri has a good point concerning fabrication level also looking like a fraction.

[reed501]

This makes a lot of sense based on what I've been seeing regarding public opinion on proficiencies. But I think it's much less clear and, as was mentioned earlier, misleading to incorrect in failure chance. This will also make recipe editing much more annoying, because you add a recipe and its proficiencies in such a simple way (18 hrs, 2x, 1.5x, 2.5x multipliers) and it comes out during playtesting as a mess of inverted rounded percentages. I like the idea but I'm not sure these downsides are worth what this change offers: making people feel slightly better about proficiencies? The crafting times are still long I'm not sure this actually fixes any of the problems. This could possibly be toggled by a setting but I doubt that will fly. At the end of the day I understand why the change is being made and the world will continue to revolve if it does.

[paulenka-aleh]

I'd like the idea to rephrase penalties to bonuses. The changes to the time required to craft look well...

However I perceive failures / success rate now is as extremly confusing. My survivor needs to craft something. And the only positive outcome it accepts is success. Which is 100%. By default. It's not just positive, it's something that's normal, usual and should be. If success chance is lower than 100% (or failure chance is higher than 0%) it is bad for my survivor. Because of it,

1. When success chance is not 100% I'd like to clearly see it (or failure chance, but we're thinking positive, right)
2. I'd like to know what is the success chance
3. From what to what the success chance will change if my survivor gains a proficiency The point "3" is the one I have issues with. Previosly it was very simple. If I see that because my survivor lacks a proficiency, he might fail in 20%. 4 out of 5 success. Gain the proficiency and it will be 0% failure. Now with success rate I need to calculate. And actually change the way of thinking, like 0% success is the default and it's very good (or we say 'positive') to increase it to something higher, ecentually to 100%. Furthermore, to figure out how much it will increase when proficiency is gained, I need to do the math...

All in all, maybe it's just me and maybe I'll get used...

Calculating failure chance because my survivor lack a proficiency feels more natural to me, much more. And no, I can't think positive of any success rate less than 100%. It feels wrong in green and the true value feels hidden...

Hope no offense.

[mqrause]

I was about to submit a PR before thinking about checking if something like that was already in the works by someone. Specifically I wanted to remove the 1x multiplier in this

to get this

which will obviously conflict with your PR.

Are you interested in adding that to your PR? It just needs the revised texts. (Or a more elegant implementation without duplicated texts that I'm not capable of providing.) (Commit on my fork: 66571b9878c638328316d1a964d8c5c8c310c906)

[ghost]

You can't invert the multiplication and stuff because it looks like the recipe is already grammatically incorrect, or just misleading.

It looks like the time multipliers just are bugged atm for mitigation.

The .1x more likely to incur failure means .1x of the base failure rate being added on that you must compensate for, decreasing your likeliness of success.

Here is another example:

Both times and failure are positive multipliers (that multiply time and failure rates between each other) but go through a "-1" to remove 1 base value of duration, what is displayed is suppose to be added to 1, the base value.

Also, do not remove the 1x more likely to incur failures because your failure base rates may be increased by 1 (confirm if true or not before trying to remove, if there is a null value you can remove it).

1x more likely to incur failure is adding 100% of the base failure rate to the item, this is the default value for missing a proficiency that is being multiplied between all failure multipliers before adding it to your base value.

To clarify, the base failure rate should from 100% of the requirements (including proficiencies but no more and no less) from my understanding. If you have 100% of the requirements you can still fail because of the base failure rate, and you have to compensate for base failure rate 1 in order to have 100% crafting success all the time.

.1x more likely to incur failure means it's a 1.1x failure after being modified, 1x more likely to incur failure means 2x base failure after being modified that must be compensated for.

EDIT: I think the bigger issue is trying to get the display to show something consistent enough to understand and reflect what it's actually doing. Grammar is equivalent to the order of operations in math and coding, so it has to reflect its meaning the same way.

[Kelenius]

Wait, did I read the code right - actual mechanics stays the same, so fail chance does still increase if you are missing some proficiencies? Let's say we have two recipes with the same skillset requirements, but:

* recipe A has no proficiency requirements;

* the survivor does not have the proficiencies required for recipe B.
  In actuality, failure_chance(A)<failure_chance(B). At present this is clearly seen in the UI - failure chance without proficience(s) missing is a default value and any missing proficience(s) are shown increasing it. After the proposed modification, unless I'm missing something, UI will essentially show that failure_chance(A)=failure_chance(B), which does not correspond to the true state of events.
  Am I correct in this analysis? If so, is this effect intended?

I think that this is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed. This idea works fine for the crafting time, but it doesn't work for crafting failure chances. It would make it confusing why a character is able to craft recipe A without any problems but struggles with recipe B despite not having any penalties in the UI. And even more confusing if recipe B has other proficiencies that the survivor does have, making it look like the success rate on B should be even higher than A.

[ghost]

It looks like "x2 as long as normal" by nature will translate into 1x more likely to incur failure or a proficiency multiplier of 2.

Since the fail point threshold is triggered by failure ticks, increasing the number of rolls calculated in real-time will by default double your chances of incurring failure by increasing the frequency and adding more to the counter. This will trigger the failure point threshold before the craft is finished twice as much.

Because it is tied to needing additional rolls, ".5x times as long as" is 1.5x time multiplier for the normalization point where success and failure are the same and you'll get about 1.1 as your failure multiplier.

Part of the issue is that you should treat "0x as long as" and "0x more likely to incur failure" for calculations on the normalized point where success=failure. It's where both are treated as 50%.

There are technically bonuses for having all the proficiencies, you'll have a time multiplier of (1/2) from the normalization point to make you "1x more likely succeed".

[ghost]

Someone broke the code and use the values for base addition into the values being divided.

At this point, I'm in favor of adding a 50% faster than normal and 100% more likely to succeed for clearing all proficiencies, because that's the effect of what it should be doing. It also adds an amount of clarity and shows players an effect of what it is doing.

This does explain why people have been complaining about the proficiency system lately, the operations done to the normal value state are completely being destroyed.

On paper, it should be 100% effective on your rolls if the normal states operate by multiplication rather than incrementing by values of 25%.

[anothersimulacrum]

I'll return to this in a bit, as is it's just clogging up the PR queue.

[Raikiri]

Sorry for necroposting, why does player even care how much more likely they're to incur a failure if they can't even see their actual failure rate anyway? Instead of focusing on very deliberate wording of how much more unlikely they're to fail, I'd rather first and foremost give an esitmation of their actual chance to succeed.

[Night-Pryanik]

@anothersimulacrum could you please resolve conflicts?

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