Squad Leader Archive
Thread: The Quest for The New Squad Leader XP Formula
Hehe, the answer to that requires a lot more arithmetic. This has no relevance on the merit of the formulas listed above, so please disregard it for those purposes 
Firstly, I based my "Goal SLXP" on what most of us seem to consider "good XP" (ie, about 2000 or so for a routine fight against a tough creature, like you might have thoroughout a night on Dantooine or Lok) That seems to be what the developer want us to get for XP to progress at their desired rates.
If you want faster XP progression using those formulas, say 50% faster, then take all of those Coefficients of Scaling and multiply them by 1.5; same with slower progression.
Now for the arithmetic:
It takes 4,900,000 SL XP to Master (175,000 + 250,000 + 350,000 + 450,000) * 4.
In my regular hunting group, I would get 1591 SL XP per kill.
That would require 3080 kills to reach Master.
Over an entire hunting expedition, we average a kill around every 2 minutes.
That requires102hours of hunting to Master.
I get about 25 hours of good hunting time in per week.
It would require about four weeks to Master Squad Leader. It took me10 days to reach Novice.
But all those numbers are just guesses, and again, have no relevance on the merit of the formulas, but you asked for the arithmetic, and I gladly provided it.
This looks really good, Volatris. The XP values feel about right for the rate of advancement that seems appropriate.
What would be the impact if the squad leader did significantlymore orless damage than his fair share value? For example:
- The doctor/squad leader who gets in a few shots with his pistol (~500 damage) before taking on a healing role.
- The melee/squad leaer who does 10,000 damage by himself while the rest of the squad keeps the enemy suppressed (prone).
D'oh... I see those are both addressed by subvalue 5!
You still can't advance as a pure healer, and won't get any XP on the main target if you're handling crowd control, but I don't see any means to bring those roles in without opening the door to AFK exploits either.
Excellent start - I hope it's noticed by the appropriate people.
What if Subvalue5, Squad Leader Fairshare was two-parted.
Healing and Combat.
You could either do your 75% fair share in damage, or you could do your 75% in fair share of healing, to get your full SL XP.
Or you could do 50% fair share damage, and 25% fair share of healing, and get full SL XP.
Question: How do you calculate fair share of healing? Total healing done in a battle / people who used a heal? Total people? People with Novice Medic? Also, I'm not sure if Total Healing Done is an available metric...
But the good thing is that with the subvalues set up as they are, itsvery modular.
What factors can we agree on that definently should count towards the ultimate formula?
SL's combat XP?
Group's combat XP?
Size of group?
Toughness of mob?
SL's use of his abilities?
A regular, every few minute guaranteed amount of XP?
There should be a bonus XP given when a group with an SL as the leader completes a mission. This could be based on group size and mission difficulty.
Do tell us your method for detecting AFKness... 
There's some awfully tricky players out there...
If you're marked as AFK and you bug it, you'll learn pretty fast why you're not getting Squad Leader EXP. The only way that would happen is if you turned AFK on manually, because any action breaks the other kind of AFK (system detects inactivity). You could attach the Squad Leader no EXP AFK to system activity (just make some safeguards to prevent people from declaring AFK at the beginning and then not getting hit with the inactive AFK).
Furthermore, exploiters will always be able to PL and get fast EXP. In some cases, it's a problem. In the case of Squad Leader, I don't envision it as being one. I have another thread open (EXP: Some Clever Title, so sue me, it's late) where I explain my reasoning and my ideas for how Squad Leader EXP should be calculated.
I'm sorry if I'm not being coherent right now, I'm going to go fall asleep (starting to feel physically ill from tiredness, heh ;-P). Night all!
For the last few weeks, we have all lamented the insanity of awarding Squad Leader XP based on damage done.
At this time, the formula for Squad Leader XP is:
Combat XP * Size of Group * 2
(or Weapons XP * Size of Group * 1/5, same result)
Obviously this results in a Squad Leader needing to do maximum damage to get his XP; and helping the group, doing crowd-control, performing non-damage specials, healing, and using Squad Leader specials all reduce the amount of XP granted. The current Squad Leader XP formula must be nothing more than a quick-fix put in by a developer long ago, and they simply never had time to go back and put in a real, sensible one.
This post is an attempt to discover how we want our Squad Leader XP rewarded.
The underlying philosophy here is: the better the group does, the better the Squad Leader is (and thus, the more XP that should be rewarded). The big question is, how do you measure better? Well metrics are a specialty of mine, so I've gone and seen what I could cook up.
First of all, the Things We Can Measure (or, Metrics):
Group Size
Group Average Level
Squad Leader Level
Damage Done by Group
Damage Done by Squad Leader
Weapons XP gained by Group
Squad Leader specials used
These are numbers that the game has readily available to use in a formula. Stuff like "did you change the group's target to the more dangerous opponent" or "did you lead well" are not measureable, available, metrics at this time. If anyone can think of any more relevant ones that give information the above ones do not, please let us know.
Second, Test Cases For the Formulas...:
I assumed that most combatants and Squad Leaders are around level 13 at this time (check your mission terminal difficulties to see your level, it ranges from 10 to 25 for most people of advanced professions), and that an average, worthy opponent for a group takes around 20,000 damage to kill (remember to take into account multiple pools, armor, and resistances). I also assumed that with the SL specials the way they are, most of us can use a SL special maybe once a battle, and that would be more likely if we knew we got more XP based on it. I also assumed most Squad Leaders do less than their fair share of damage (Total Damage / Group Size) since they are doing other things.
I have listed a "Goal SLXP" to show what I think would be a fair amount of XP for each case, and the fitness of the formulas will be based on how close they reach that goal. The Goal SLXP assumes you use one SL special per case.
For each case, I have a no-specials, one-special and a few specials sub-cases.
Case 1: Regular Hunting Group
Size: 8, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 2000, Total XP: 8000, Goal SLXP: 2000
Case 2: Small Hunting Group
Size: 4, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 4000, Total XP: 6000, Goal SLXP: 2400
Case 3: Large Hunting Group
Size: 15, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 2000, Total XP: 12000, Goal SLXP: 1200
Case 4: Weak Creatures
Size: 8, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 3,000, SL Damage: 300, Total XP: 800, Goal SLXP: 120
Case 5: Very strong Creatures
Size: 8, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 60,000, SL Damage: 7000, Total XP: 20000, Goal SLXP: 3500
Case 6: Very strong squad members
Size: 8, Level: 25, SL Level: 25, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 2000, Total XP: 6000, Goal SLXP: 1200
Case 7: Additional Regular Case
Size: 6, Level: 15, SL Level: 17, Total Damage: 30,000, SL Damage: 4000, Total XP: 7000, Goal SLXP: 2000
Exploit Cases:
Exploit Attempt 1: Special Spamming
Size: 20, Level: 13, SL Level: 18, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 1, Total XP: 8000, Goal SLXP: 1000
Exploit Attempt 2: Uber group powerlevelling the SL
Size: 15, Level: 25, SL Level: 10, Total Damage: 30,000, SL Damage: 1000, Total XP: 15,000, Goal SLXP: 1000
Exploit Attempt 3: Uber SL using weak group members
Size: 8, Level: 10, SL Level: 25, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 4000, Total XP: 8000, Goal SLXP: 1500
Exploit Attempt 4: Squad Leader solos with a bunch of artisans/AFK in his group
Size: 15, Level: 13, SL Level: 13, Total Damage: 20,000, SL Damage: 20,000, Total XP: 3000, Goal SLXP: 1
These will be referred to as C1 for Case 1 and EA1 for Exploit Attempt 1 from now on.
Third, the Formulas
The following are the formulas I created as possible candidates for the one, true, formula baseline. Since no one really knows the formula for Combat XP, I based those types of calculations off of simply Damage Done and then scaled it based on a coefficient to reach a best-match to all Goal SLXPs for all cases, for a given formula.
Formula 1: Current Formula (Damage and Group Size Based)
= (SL Damage * Group Size)
Coefficient Of Scaling: 1/12
Downsides: Already discussed above
Formula 2: Pure Group XP based. The more Weapon XP the group gets, the more the SL gets
= Total XP
Coefficient of Scaling: 1/6
Downsides: Promotes AFK Squad Leadering, and no skill or involvement
Formula 3: All Individuals Benefitting. Based on XP gained per group member. The more XP you can get per group member, the more you get personally.
= Total XP / Group Size
Coefficient of Scaling: 1.25
Downsides: Seems to promote smaller groups, but in fact promotes more efficient groups, yet doesn't require the Squad leader to actually do anything to get XP
Formula 4: Damage per group member (since the total damage for a given creature has a max, this is a measure of creature difficulty), scaled for levels with a simple ratio
= (Total Damage / Group Size) * (SL Level / Average Level)
Coefficieny of Scaling: 0.5
Downsides: Again, seems to promote smaller groups, and is a bit EQ-ish (basically, monster level vs. your level)
Formula 5: XP per group member, scaled for SL Level, in a more sophisticated way
Subvalue1 = 1 - abs(SL Level - Average Level)/20
Formula = (Total XP / Group size) * Subvalue1
Coefficient of Scaling: 1.7
Downsides: Better, but still doesn't require the Squad Leader to actually do anything
Formula 6: Group performance & Squad Leader contribution
Subvalue1 = 1 - abs(SL Level - Average Level)/20
Subvalue2 = Total XP / Group Size
Subvalue3 = 1 + (Specials Used/10)
Subvalue4 = (Total Damage Done / Group Size) * 0.75
Subvalue5 = sqrt(1 + (Squad Leader Damage - Subvalue4)/Subvalue4)
Formula = Subvalue1 * Subvalue2 * Subvalue3 * Subvalue5
Coefficienct of Scaling: 1.4
Downsides: A bit more complicated, still requires SL to do damage
Fourth, Explanation of Subvalues
Subvalue1 is a measure of a group's level balance. A Uber Squad Leader should not be able to lead newbies and get big XP, and a newbie Squad Leader should be able to be powerlevelled by uber combatants.
For a Squad Leader level of 15, here is the value of Subvalue1 for varying average group levels:
Group Level: 10, Subvalue1 = 0.75
Group Level: 15, Subvalue1 = 1.0
Group Level: 20, Subvalue1 = 0.75
Group Level: 25, Subvalue1 = 0.5
Subvalue1 is used to multiple against the final XP calculation, and thus scales all your XP. If you're a level 15 Squad Leader in a group of nothing but Level 25s (maxed characters), you will get half XP.
Subvalue2 is self explanatory, its XP per group member.
Subvalue3 gives a 10% bonus in XP for every special used. Use zero specials and your XP gets multiplied by (1 + 0) = 1, no bonus. Use two specials, and get (1 + 2/10) = 1.2, a 20% bonus to your XP.
Subvalue4 is a measure of fair-share of damage, or, if every group member did equal damage in a battle, how much would that be? Simply total damage, over number of group members. The 0.75 multiplier signifies it is reasonable to expect that a Squad Leader's fair-share of damage is 75% that of everyone else's (since he's busy doing other things).
Subvalue5 is key, yet tricky one. This is the part of the formula that ensures the Squad Leader is actually doing something, yet not forcing him to be a maximum damage doer.
Rather than explain the formula, I'll just show you how it works. For an 8 man group, killing something that requires 20,000 damage, each person has a fair-share of 2500 damage. The Squad Leader's fair-share (at 75% of everyone else's) is 1875 damage.
Here's showing how much damage is done by the SL, versus the value of Subvalue5
SL Damage: 0, Subvalue5 = 0
SL Damage: 500, Subvalue5 = 0.52
SL Damage: 1000, Subvalue5 = 0.73
SL Damage: 1875, Subvalue5 = 1.00
SL Damage: 2000, Subvalue5 = 1.03
SL Damage: 4000, Subvalue5 = 1.46
SL Damage: 8000, Subvalue5 = 2.07
As you can see, its a decent penalty if you can't muster your smaller fair-share damage, but even if you do four-times the fair-share of everyone else, the bonus you get is only 2x. Something like this is absolutely necessary to ensure we don't have AFK Squad Leaders getting XP.
Fifth, fitness of formulas
For the seven cases, four exploit attempts, and six formulas, I have calculated a geometric-mean fitness score. Based on all the cases, the formulas give an XP output, and the root of the sums of the squares of the differences between the XP output and the desired Goal SLXP results in our fitness score for each candidate formula, with a score approaching 1.0 as best.
Formula 1, Fitness: 1.23
Formula 2, Fitness: 1.24
Formula 3, Fitness: 0.94
Formula 4, Fitness: 1.20
Formula 5, Fitness: 1.16
Formula 6, Fitness: 1.00
As you can see, Formula 6 provides very close output to all of the Goal SLXPs, which is a very good thing, while also having good, sound composition (namely, level-scaling, specials bonuses, efficiency ratios, and non-AFK measures).
For each case, here is the SL XP you would get from Formula 6, see if its acceptable to you.
Case 1: Regular Hunting Group, XP per fight: 1591
Case 2: Small Hunting Group, XP per fight: 2386
Case 3: Large Hunting Group, XP per fight: 1350
Case 4: Weak Creatures, XP per fight: 145
Case 5: Very strong Creatures, XP per fight: 4295
Case 6: Very strong squad members, XP per fight: 1193
Case 7: Additional Regular Case, XP per fight: 1670
Exploit Attempt 1: Special Spamming, XP per fight: 61
Exploit Attempt 2: Uber group powerlevelling the SL, XP per fight: 314
Exploit Attempt 3: Uber SL using weak group members, XP per fight: 562
Exploit Attempt 4: Squad Leader solos with a bunch of artisans/AFK in his group, XP per fight: 1377
Remember, thats per-fight. So while you get more XP per fight with a smaller group, its still slower XP per minute since you kill slower.
Sixth, Conclusion
I know this post is humongously long, and exceptionally technical, but check out the last section showing the XP you'd get per-fight with the new formula, and see if it seems reasonable. If anyone wants me to run a new case for them, for their hunting group size, level, or opponents, I can do so quickly. If anyone wants me to further explain with more examples how the proposed formulas actually work, let me know.
*prepares to see this thread get no responses because its way too long*
It took mea little while to work through all those formulas, but they're pretty impressive. This is well thought out, and takes a lot into account.
I think it is unfortunate that this doesn't do much to take care of the issue with AFK samplers, but I also understand it is nearly impossible to do something about.
My only question is if the SL xp should be so large. It appears that you're trying to give the SL (with a proper group and when he does his job) the same SL xp as weapons xp. I'm not sure if this is too large, based on the progression the devs want. However, this is of course simple to fix, by changing the coefficient from 1.4 to whatever else.
I hope this system, or something equally well thought out is implemented in the near future.