Probability & Rate of Fire

[bold ruin]

secondly, that would be a measure of "chance of activating the effect in 1 second"

the rate of fire doesn't matter, what matters is how many bullets hit

[remote wraith]

Correct.

This is why most games have whats called a "Proc Coefficient" on faster weapons, that reduces the proc chance.

[bold ruin]

that's a balancing thing right, not a factor for actual probability ?

[remote wraith]

If you have a machine gun that fires 50 bullets a second. You're ALWAYS going to see it happening.

1-(1-0.5)^50 = 1

And yeah, its a blancing thing.

[bold ruin]

if you're talking about balancing then the question is worded strangely and I misunderstood

[remote wraith]

Its all good lol

Im tired and probably worded it poorly.

[bold ruin]

I see

in that case I do think it makes the most sense to either: determine the bullet's effect on shooting

or have the bullet store info on what shot it and then determine it on hit

[remote wraith]

Yeah I mean, I already have it working in my game.

It was just a discussion point my artist brought up with how he wanted to stylize/ground something.

[bold ruin]

i see

my two cents is that determining beforehand let's you do cool stuff like special effects for onhit bullets

[remote wraith]

In what sense?

[bold ruin]

if, for example, your onhit effect was fire damage, you could make the bullet's that shoot have that effect have a fire trail

just a bit of artistic freedom you would get as a bonus

[remote wraith]

Yeah, I was just unsure if, for example, determining that, would feel worse for the player. Or even fuck with balancing.

Example: You see a fire ball leaving your gun and it misses and does nothing because you missed your target.

[bold ruin]

ah you're right if you count in accuracy it does end up being lower

since if you hit 80% of your shots, a meaningful proc would only happen in like 5% x 80% = 4% instead of 5%

[sick shore]

I may be understanding it wrong, but what you have is : a weapon that randomly proc an effect (say fire for example) on hit ?

[remote wraith]

Right, but at the same time, that same number should take into account for a on hit effect tho as well.

[remote wraith]

Correct.

And I'm trying to determine if a projectile leaving a gun, if, the number would be "Lower" for On Hit effects if it is pre-determined as the bullet leaves the gun, vs, when the bullet hits the target.

[bold ruin]

it would definitely

[remote wraith]

The other question also comes down to, how would I apply it for a weapon like a Flame Thrower.

[bold ruin]

for a weapon like that you'd probably need to give it damage ticks and adjust it around that

while in the flames you'll take damage every x seconds, and treat those ticks the same as you would single hits

[remote wraith]

Not reallytho?

If we go back to my math formula: 1 - (1 - P)^N

and lets add accuracy to that. So.

1 - (1 - P)^N*A

Where P = 0.5
N = Shots per second.
A = Accuracy.

No matter what, the proc chance comes out to 0.43. Doesnt matter if its calculated before or after leaving the gun.

I guess some players might try to, for example.

Shoot a blank shot that doesn't apply the effect, then go "Okay my next shot will apply that effect.". Which, isn't how math works, but you know.

[sick shore]

Well, math works the way you design the formula

[bold ruin]

the 5% check will only occur after hitting though

so you need not count accuracy into there, right?

[sick shore]

In some case, you'd want to increase proc probability each time it doesn't proc

[bold ruin]

I'm kind of out of my water rn tho, so let me know if I'm just clogging up space in the thread and I'll stop

[remote wraith]

5% is still 5%.

Its the chance of seeing something happen over the course of 1 second that I care about. Thats where the balance happens.

[bold ruin]

I'm genuinely interested in this though

[sick shore]

Same for me

[remote wraith]

Yeah, in this case, that would be better suited for "On Hit" effects. I forget what its called, but its like in Hearthstone, where if you don't see a Legendary card pulled from the pack you just bought, then, they increase the chance of you seeing one next pull.

Bit different in this case.

[bold ruin]

iirc league of legends does this for their crit rate, where it dynamically updates and increases if you don't crit for a few hits and decreases immediately after hitting a crit

[sick shore]

Yep, they do

[bold ruin]

the idea is to not have spurts of 6 consecutive crits or dry seasons of no crits

[remote wraith]

Yeah, which, honestly, I'm surprised that they do that. Its why attack speed is a great item choice in their case.

[bold ruin]

also something I should specify. it may be worthwhile not obfuscating the probability too much and focusing on making it more in line with what your players "expect" to receive

you may have proper math but people will complain because they don't know how the probability adds up

[sick shore]

At some point in the game, most character that play around crit has a 100% crit chance, so it probably doesn't matter in their design

[remote wraith]

Youre not wrong still weird tho.

[bold ruin]

like how some tactical rpgs secretly have 95% hit chsnces act like closer to 98%

[remote wraith]

And I agree with this, I've mostly been looking at the Math for Risk of Rain/2

[sick shore]

As a player, it makes more sense to me that a weapon has X% chance to deal fire damage, whether it hits or not

[bold ruin]

I think it should specified

[remote wraith]

See, thats what I'd rather hear at the end of the day. Lol.

So you'd rather see the bullet, leaving your gun, with a fire effect, say, 5% of the time. Vs seeing a fire effect on hit 5% of the time?

[bold ruin]

"5% chance to shoot flaming bullet" or "5% chance to burn on hit" for example

whatever it is, make it clear to the player

and they'll do the math on their own

[sick shore]

Jody formulated it better than i did

[remote wraith]

Right, but. This is the big but here.

The artist currently dislikes that the bullet isn't grounded, and as such, it should never apply a burning effect on hit, beacuse the bullet isn't on fire.

[bold ruin]

if you're specifying it as an "On hit" effect then I guess the most intuitive thing would be be to determine it On Hit

then you would have to change it from an onhit effect to a bullet effect and deal with rebalancing around that

which is probably the kind of thing that gives balance teams headaches

[sick shore]

When it has X% to burn on hit, seeing it again as a player, I would expect every bullets to look alike

[bold ruin]

[sick shore]

In game like Borderlands, a weapon can deal fire damage but the burn isn't guaranteed for example

[remote wraith]

Right, so, thats what I think as well. And I even proposed to him that "We can have another effect that is like '5% chance on shooting for your bullet to be imbued with fire damage.'" which we could layer on other things with it.

Like for example "On hitting a target whos burning with fire damage, explode into a ball of fire."

[sick shore]

IIRC

[bold ruin]

because at the end of the day there's no way to know if your bullet will hit or not

[remote wraith]

Well, there is. Its just Math. Lol

[bold ruin]

depends on your game

[remote wraith]

Right but in those games, they bullets are on fire when they leave the gun every time.

[bold ruin]

if it's multiplayer then you gotta take into consideration the other person moving lut of the way

[sick shore]

Yes, it was to illustrate the fact that I expect all bullets to look the same if it's an on hit effect

[remote wraith]

Its not in my case. :^)

[bold ruin]

possibly genius and or dumb idea. determine the hit with a raycast and then draw the bullet afterwards following the ray

[remote wraith]

Yeah so in this case, its a Rogue Like.

So you get upgrades that will effect every gun you get, that can apply "On hit burn enemy"

[remote wraith]

Thats how hit scan weapons work in most games. Lol.

[sick shore]

Twin stick shooter like isaac or enter the gungeon ?

[remote wraith]

Yeah, our original prototype/demo is on itch, youtube video on the right if you dont want to download it: https://thestoff.itch.io/robodome

[bold ruin]

neuron activation

[sick shore]

So, technically, all bullet hits ?

It's just a question of player's accuracy

[remote wraith]

Pretty much the case is what I'm thinking.

I think at the end of the day, I bite the bullet, and let the artist have this one. Its a big code rework for me, but I'm sure I can figure it out.

[bold ruin]

okay in that kind of game yeah I'd make the bullet have the effect on shoot

[sick shore]

In that kind of game it's more common to have X% chance to shoot a bullet of type

[bold ruin]

the visual effect would be great

[remote wraith]

Coolio. Cheers.

Getting feedback is part of why we released the original prototype.

Pretty much every streamer we got to play it I told them "Please, only give us NEGATIVE feedback. We already know whats good."

Lol

[bold ruin]

also to a lesser degree players may make different choices depending on what bullet they see come out of their gun

if they see the big boy they might stick it for the dps rather than dodging out of the way if the boss is about to die

half the fun of gungeon and isaac is watching all the crazy projectiles though

so I'd definitely do whatever I can to give the artist more tools to work with

[remote wraith]

I'll let the artist figure it out from here:
https://gyazo.com/310257ee8500f1fa93788c63eadb4ef1

@bold ruin @sick shore - Thanks again for feedback and whatnot.

And this kinda goes to what I was saying where shooting for long periods of time with nothing happening, feels bad. Even tho this is a 50% chance.

https://gyazo.com/e3bd71a7ebd75d41121d6b878e2fd767

[bold ruin]

yeah in that case maybe your game would benefit from that skewed math that other games use to make 50% feel more like 50%

though i have no idea what math they use for that

[remote wraith]

They probably just do 50% every time, no matter the rate of fire.

[bold ruin]

no i mean increasing the odds when you activate it and decreasing the odds after consecutive procs

[remote wraith]

Ah, yeah, so, no many games actually do that :).

But, I get it.