Planet M.U.L.E.

I have notice since the last update player awards for 2nd thru 4th have changed.

In the 6 to 8 games I have played since the update I have been in 4th place for around 30 to 40 rounds and seen less then 4 individual events. Same with 3rd place player. While 2nd has probably been awarded at least 15 events during the same number of games and that is  probably a low figure.

Could you please check this and make sure it was not inadvertently changed.
I have quizzed other players and they think it has changed also.

Thanks

In the Atari version, there was a pattern in how bonuses were given!
If I am in last and player 2 gets a bonus, player 3 and last would tend to get a bonus also.
In the latest version, I can be in last and watch 2nd place get a bonus frequently and I will NOT get a bonus also.  I think the original had a "niceness factor".  If 2nd or 3rd place got a bonus, usually last place would get a bonus also.  If 1st place didnt get a negative, that was a clue that the others WOULD get a bonus.
Currently, 2nd place does seem to have too much pos and neg hits happening to him and last not nearly enuf.
So if niceness factor was real low, #1, #2, and #3 may get hit with a negative and last, of course, can't have a neg. so last does not get a positive event.

Also, the pest attack only attacks #1 position.

i too have noticed 2nd place getting a lot of bonus's and 3rd and 4th nothing.
in fact 4th place seldom gets anything.it has happened in too many games for it to be a random occurrence.

We'll have a look at it. Though nothing should be changed since the previous versions.

Edit:
I have not found any problem, but I've given the player events their own random number source and added some logging to show the probabilities.

There is never any event the first round and there are no bad events the last two rounds. This would mean that the number of events for 3rd and 4th player should on average be higher than those of the 1st and 2nd player.

It might help if you could provide a link to a game where you think the events are skewed.

If several palyers have the same feeling that the event probabilities are skewed there's probably something to it. We'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious.

2nd place is the place to be! You can stay within striking distance of 1st yet ring the bell on all the breaks! Personally i thing 1st and 2nd should only get bad and 3rd and 4th good. 1st place sometimes gets TO MANY bad breaks! Pass a few of those on to the 2nd place guy.

I'm in favor of original, all events on all rounds (fulfilling the event requirements, that is). Cruel but more exciting.

It should balance a bit when 2nd place gets pest and radiation, too. Now 2nd place is too good.

+1

Here are some numbers, although a very small sample, of my experience with this since the latest patch.

I have played a total of 13 games; 9 of which to completion(due to that other Land Grant Bug)

Of the 9 completed, the extra plot event happened in 4 games.

3 of the 4 games the extra plot went to the player in 2nd place:

2nd round: http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=31676

7th round: http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=31650

7th round: http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=31512

1 of the 4 games the extra plot went to the player in 4th place:

6th round: http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=31563

+2 @piete....

can not get that Quote thing working.....

  Rho is right, the ratio for events are way off. Ill give just 1 eg. as there are many- I believe i hold the record for no events in 10rds(last place whole game)....not only once, 2games this has happened. C64 mule tends to throw you a bone when your dying more often than pm. Besides no events, when i did get a plot filled(rd9)...the comp decides to hit that plot with a meteor...wow big fun!!

         1st place gets hammered to much and 2nd place gets to many breaks! Many times you will see the 1st place guy get 2 bad events in a single round! Pass one of those bad events to the 2nd place guy! 2nd place should not be receiving any breaks in my humble opinion! The last place guy gets the plot he wants at the start of each round + first shot at buying up Ore/Food/Energy and the added security that he is at no risk of being hit with a bad event. Because of all those advantages going to last place i dont really have a issue with last place not getting lots of added events in his favor. My problem is with 1st place getting TO MANY bad breaks especially in the early rounds where everybody is pretty much even. I have seen the guy in 1st place lose a plot or have his food mule run away in like the 2nd or 3rd round before and the player never fully recover from it. Would be nice to see the strenght of events increase as the game gets into the later rounds. Early round plot loss/mule running away can be to harsh! Double bad if you get both in the same round!

I notice 3rd is more likely than 4th to get something, 2nd gets more good events than it should.  3rd should get an occasional bad event, never happens.

In many games recently, 4th was in dire need of a break, no food, no money, no energy, and no events, if he started on the wrong foot he couldn't get going on development until as late as round 7 or 8, so absolutely no chance of climbing the ladder ever.  When 4th does start getting events, it's toward the late end of the game, far to late, the good events should come earlier and should def target the people who need them.  I have more than once, been the one to get the food/energy gift from homeworld event when I had surplus, but the guy in 4th had none at all.  Some random events are just a bit "to random."

1st - not enough bad events
2nd - not enough bad events - way too many good events
3rd - very few good events
4th - almost no good events

I checked the logs of a few games and the distribution of events seems right. You could look at for example the 10 latest games and count the number of good and bad events for players ranking 1 through 4, then check if the distribution seems skewed. Unfortunately I don't have time to do this.

The events look like this in the log:

The event random chance need to be below or equal to 0.275 if an event is to occur for the current player. However, if the game has run out of applicable events there will still be no event, e.g. all good events have already happened.

The 1st player can only get bad events and the 3rd and 4th only good events.

I tend to agree with Rhodan and Mike

2 Gets way to many good things.

4 Gets very few good events or it seems that way.

Brad

     I agree with most of the above.  1st is too abused, 2nd gets far too many positives (esp. free plot in later rounds), and 4th gets squat.


     I agree in that the original definitely seemed to be more generous with events on rounds when it handed them out.  Perhaps a modifier exited that significantly increased the ratio in favor to being awarded with an event.  Ex: If 2nd received an award, 3rd would be given a much greater chance of being awarded also, and should 3rd gain an award 4th would be certain to receive one as well since it received twice the modifier bonus.
     Nonetheless, I would like to see 4th given more awards, if even to make it more difficult for players to purposefully ride out the early rounds in 4th to gain the bid and land grant benefits.  Give that player that purposely overspent (976-1000) on a first round auction to get a plot so he would have no money to outfit mules even after catching the wampus a nice lump of money on round 2 to entice them to put up at least one, maybe 2, energy/food mule.  What same player still in last on round 3, here's a free plot/more money, and guess who's in 1st or 2nd next round.  While this example may be extreme, but I think more frequent awards for 4th would help continually shuffle the players out of that position and keep things more competitive in the early rounds of the game.  IMHO the free plot should only go to 4th, if and when it is handed out in the game.

     In regard to the pre/post production round events, I've never seen a pest attack hit 2nd in the PM version of Mule.  Only 1st, and sometimes 3 times in one game.  2nd should be struck by this one with an equal chance as 1st.
     I also do not care for the side by side meteor strikes that seem to occur too frequently, yeah yeah, it's all random, trouble is irony falls upon odd coincidences.  The chance for hitting the same side/quadrant of the map should decrease greatly.  Allowing for it to hit the same plot twice would be interesting; it might add some adventure to the game, because it becomes a negative event rather than a positive.

     Ultimately I believe the goal with the events should be to structure them more towards balancing the competition.  Random attempts to level the playing field.


Thanks,

Personally, I think the biggest case of "4th place doesn't get the needed help" type of issue is "3 food and 2 energy".

As I understand it, it will go to the first player encountered that gets an event (30%) and has no food.

If you have 7 or fewer mules, that will help 4th place.
Otherwise, it goes to 2nd place.

(Err, no, I don't _deliberately_ play for that event, but if I can tell I'll be down to one food, I may as well go to zero.)

I've seen people get the energy and food that were not short on either, but one or more players that didn't get it desparately needed the food.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. I think this may be what players experience when they say that the 4th place doesn't get enough good events.

And to Chuck: The food + energy event can randomly happen even if there is no shortage and then it is spent so it can't happen again.

Both of these things could of course be adjusted and maybe it should to favor the 4th position.

Peter:  I have recieved the 3/2 Food Energy Event when I personally did not have a shortage, but someone else in the round did.

The events are not matching the players needing them.

There should be some kind of filter, to where you HAVE TO HAVE the shortage to get the good event in question.  It should not randomly hand out this event to anyone based on position.  It should do two checks for this one...

1.  Are the in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th.  If yes, do they have a shortage of energy or food.  If yes, they qualify to receive the event.  If no, hold the event until the condition is met.

I understand the event can only happen once.  What I am saying is that when it happens, it should apply only to the person it will benefit.  Not to the person that will just experience spoilage at auction time.