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Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

Sage Grimm posted:

Clearly my choice of wording was also poor! I meant the quote I was referencing assumed that it was a rollback from the first nerf which I didn't agree with.

And then as you mathematically pointed out, it's much, much worse than I imagined.

Oh, whoops. I fixed it. It's not that dire.

(The skill nerfs are worse. I went from 64 combat to 48 combat and it broke the poo poo out of all my loops.)

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pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Idle Loops isn't really in a released state yet, the dev considers it alpha. It's open to sweeping changes at the moment. He overhauled the prestige in nanospread at one point due to it being possible to get some run away numbers.

If he felt the problem was some people already had them vs it's going to just be a delayed problem he would have reduced the count of anyone over a certain amount by some formula and left it.

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

pixaal posted:

Idle Loops isn't really in a released state yet, the dev considers it alpha. It's open to sweeping changes at the moment. He overhauled the prestige in nanospread at one point due to it being possible to get some run away numbers.

If he felt the problem was some people already had them vs it's going to just be a delayed problem he would have reduced the count of anyone over a certain amount by some formula and left it.

(a) How would you even do that with local saves
and
(b) Listening to him in Discord, he seems to do a lot of stuff with test accounts with skill levels that simulate months, if not years of progress, but never tests them for people with days or weeks of progress, which breaks down badly as he nerfs stuff making his test accounts suddenly go to decades of stats.

Like I said, seems like a good dude, but the game is super rough right now, so I'll go spend cycles elsewhere and maybe check back later.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Toshimo posted:

(a) How would you even do that with local saves
and
(b) Listening to him in Discord, he seems to do a lot of stuff with test accounts with skill levels that simulate months, if not years of progress, but never tests them for people with days or weeks of progress, which breaks down badly as he nerfs stuff making his test accounts suddenly go to decades of stats.

Like I said, seems like a good dude, but the game is super rough right now, so I'll go spend cycles elsewhere and maybe check back later.

You can change stats with a local save easy, as long as it's version tagged, even if it's not you can add one.

If Save Version is less than 0.69 or does not exist
Change soul stones based on formula
Save Version = 0.69
else
return

edit:
I haven't checked out his discord and only really talked to him with bug reports. Most of my information is from having played several of his other games because they were linked in this thread. He seems to make some pretty sweeping changes early on then settle down, once he has a nice balance he seems to get bored with a project, tidy it up a bit and call it done. He does have a story he wants to tell with Idle Loop and it has an actual end planned, which should keep him on track of actually finishing this one.

pixaal fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Jun 19, 2018

SynthesisAlpha
Jun 19, 2007
Cyber-Monocle sporting Space Billionaire
Idle loops doesn't have that exponential scaling that most idle games have so a pure linear boost like the first soulstones iteration can make things run away pretty hard.

I think the Nerf bat was swung a little hard so I'm glad to see he toned it down.

I pulled a long loop to start exploring the forest but I went back to training. I want to nail 7 patients in one go so I can just 20 haggle for free supplies and go into the forest with a ton of Mana.

Once I open things up I'll need to test if a super long run with Max locks and quests yields more forest time than the equivalent real-time worth of short runs due to the extra Mana and stats.

I love that much like NGU, you're never truly wasting your time since you always get some talent XP over the course of your loops.

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

SynthesisAlpha posted:

I want to nail 7 patients in one go

Generally the medical board looks down on things like this.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Morpheus posted:

Generally the medical board looks down on things like this.

They don't like orgies or something?

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

I've realized what glasses are for, it's to make guided tours worthwhile. Now I just have to unlock them...

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Ignatius M. Meen posted:

I've realized what glasses are for, it's to make guided tours worthwhile. Now I just have to unlock them...

Nope, they replaced guided tours!

Also Idle Loop just got an update, skill nerf reverted soul stone recovery is quicker now too. My smash pot start is the same as 0.69, but in 0.70 I have a ton of extra Mana during locks that I can tighten up. I think it's still worse off than 0.66, but this is probably a decent balance.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

pixaal posted:

Nope, they replaced guided tours!

Also Idle Loop just got an update, skill nerf reverted soul stone recovery is quicker now too. My smash pot start is the same as 0.69, but in 0.70 I have a ton of extra Mana during locks that I can tighten up. I think it's still worse off than 0.66, but this is probably a decent balance.

For low levels, the combat skill formula under 0.69 was actually a buff. After 0.70 I can't run dungeon any more (though I do have some soul stones still)

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Devor posted:

For low levels, the combat skill formula under 0.69 was actually a buff. After 0.70 I can't run dungeon any more (though I do have some soul stones still)

I don't know if you need 1 skill level of practical magic or not but 0.70 is broken as all hell, it's giving the max bonus (so 3x gold) from everything with 2 skill levels in that. I'm getting some hilarious mana numbers.

Ignoranus
Jun 3, 2006

HAPPY MORNING
In NGU, could you guys clarify the interaction between the general loot settings and the Advanced Loot Filter settings? Does one supersede the other? Is there a toggle somewhere to swap between the two? Will it only filter items that fit into categories I've activated?

The Ninth Layer
Jun 20, 2007

If you have an item greyed out in the item catalog you won't see it drop at all. If you have its category greyed out in the regular loot filter and you turned loot filter on then you also will not see it drop.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Ignoranus posted:

In NGU, could you guys clarify the interaction between the general loot settings and the Advanced Loot Filter settings? Does one supersede the other? Is there a toggle somewhere to swap between the two? Will it only filter items that fit into categories I've activated?

Once you get Advanced you can just turn the regular filter off. It can be useful to have a simple toggle to turn boosts off and have the standard filter set to turn boosts off. You can now farm whatever you want overnight and have filtered boosts go right into your cube (note: filtered boosts don't get recycle bonus, while auto boosted ones do, so this isn't exactly optimal).

SynthesisAlpha
Jun 19, 2007
Cyber-Monocle sporting Space Billionaire

Ignoranus posted:

In NGU, could you guys clarify the interaction between the general loot settings and the Advanced Loot Filter settings? Does one supersede the other? Is there a toggle somewhere to swap between the two? Will it only filter items that fit into categories I've activated?

I think the general settings override the advanced filter. So you can turn off forest ring and leave forest pendant on in advanced, but if you shut off accessories im the settings you won't see pendants at all.

Once you get the advanced filter you should just whitelist every category and shut off the items in the advanced filter so you don't miss anything new or unexpected.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...



There, now I can get done progressively faster.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Ignatius M. Meen posted:



There, now I can get done progressively faster.

You have to buy mana using the gold you got from picking locks, otherwise it’s just wasted

Edit, forgot glasses

Samuringa
Mar 27, 2017

Best advice I was ever given?

"Ticker, you'll be a lot happier once you stop caring about the opinions of a culture that is beneath you."

I learned my worth, learned the places and people that matter.

Opened my eyes.
I'm taking a break from Idle Loops until the dev sort their poo poo, there's not even a week since I began playing and I already woke up twice trying to figure out what changed and having to rethink my routine

Ignoranus
Jun 3, 2006

HAPPY MORNING

The Ninth Layer posted:

If you have an item greyed out in the item catalog you won't see it drop at all. If you have its category greyed out in the regular loot filter and you turned loot filter on then you also will not see it drop.

pixaal posted:

Once you get Advanced you can just turn the regular filter off. It can be useful to have a simple toggle to turn boosts off and have the standard filter set to turn boosts off. You can now farm whatever you want overnight and have filtered boosts go right into your cube (note: filtered boosts don't get recycle bonus, while auto boosted ones do, so this isn't exactly optimal).

SynthesisAlpha posted:

I think the general settings override the advanced filter. So you can turn off forest ring and leave forest pendant on in advanced, but if you shut off accessories im the settings you won't see pendants at all.

Once you get the advanced filter you should just whitelist every category and shut off the items in the advanced filter so you don't miss anything new or unexpected.

These answers were all super-helpful, thanks!

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Devor posted:

You have to buy mana using the gold you got from picking locks, otherwise it’s just wasted

Edit, forgot glasses

The pots make the mana for picking the lock, buying the glasses and wandering. There's no need to pick more than one lock for the gold to buy the glasses and I'm up to doing 8 wanders per run for only 4527 mana which with the glasses gives 32x wanders worth of progress. Basically the glasses pay off as soon as you can afford the mana to pick a lock, buy the glasses and wander twice - total unmodified mana cost for that is 1900 vs. 2000 for the same time spent wandering as a single action.

e: Should say 'was' because I got 100% exploration way faster than the first time around.

Ignatius M. Meen fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jun 19, 2018

StupidSexyMothman
Aug 9, 2010

NGU: I really like the hover-over-adventure-for-Titan-timers addition. Happy NGU development birthday!

ungulateman
Apr 18, 2012

pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is
realm grinder sure is fun, getting stuck in two back-to-back gem walls right before all the new shiny overpowered content becomes available :thunk:

(if you've stopped playing for a while i recommend idling in a faction that isn't angel so you can come back and get a bonus of however many thousands of percent when you actually want to progress)

Edly
Jun 1, 2007
Yeah the last few Realm Grinder expansions have been pretty disappointing to me. Usually each patch introduces new trophies and buffs that make the previous bleeding-edge content more accessible, while introducing new bleeding-edge content for people who want to grind and leave the game running 24/7 for months on end. But the last few patches have just done the second part, so you still have to go through the huge grinds to get to any new content.

shs
Feb 14, 2012
edit

shs fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jul 12, 2018

Raimondo
Apr 29, 2010
Idle Loopes:
When you unlock Heal The Sick and Fight Monsters, are these supposed to be the most efficient way you get rep and mana?

Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!

Raimondo posted:

Idle Loopes:
When you unlock Heal The Sick and Fight Monsters, are these supposed to be the most efficient way you get rep and mana?

No. Heal the sick becomes efficient when you start healing multiple patients, but only if you need to spend 6+rep. Fight Monsters becomes Mana efficient when you can clear 3 segments. Either way, their efficiency improves with more completions.

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

shs posted:

If anyone played the initial version I posted and found the UI unremarkable, some updates I've made over the last few days have improved the top menu, side panels and inventory.

The sheer volume of information and mechanics will still crush the unprepared, but navigating the labyrinth of menus is more bearable now.

what engine/toolset are you using?

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.
I really liked the basic idea of Idle Loops, but the dev seems pretty clear that he's trying to prevent exponential scaling - everything that would be a linear boost seems to get reverted to geometric or exponential decreases in effectiveness. Huge bummer for an idle game.

SynthesisAlpha
Jun 19, 2007
Cyber-Monocle sporting Space Billionaire
The thing is, idle loops is linear at its core, rather than expnential like most idle games.

When you click cookies and buildings start costing quadrillions and so on, something that scales linearly quickly falls off.

In Idle Loops all your costs are static and the XP to level stats is linear. To maintain a similar progression you need that fractional exponent to avoid things spiraling out of control. Otherwise that linear increase starts triggering further increases and actually is an exponential scaling method.

I for one am really interested in the future of the game because it stands out in the sea of clones that is the genre. Hopefully the underlying math works out to make it fun, but so far the concept and execution are really interesting.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


SynthesisAlpha posted:

The thing is, idle loops is linear at its core, rather than expnential like most idle games.

When you click cookies and buildings start costing quadrillions and so on, something that scales linearly quickly falls off.

In Idle Loops all your costs are static and the XP to level stats is linear. To maintain a similar progression you need that fractional exponent to avoid things spiraling out of control. Otherwise that linear increase starts triggering further increases and actually is an exponential scaling method.

I for one am really interested in the future of the game because it stands out in the sea of clones that is the genre. Hopefully the underlying math works out to make it fun, but so far the concept and execution are really interesting.

If you remove all of that you basically just spiral into making longer and longer loops that would end in the weeks with stuff being 1 mana. I mean that's the end game no matter what in Idle Loops, but you should be able to hit that point in a matter of weeks.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

SynthesisAlpha posted:

The thing is, idle loops is linear at its core, rather than expnential like most idle games.

When you click cookies and buildings start costing quadrillions and so on, something that scales linearly quickly falls off.

In Idle Loops all your costs are static and the XP to level stats is linear. To maintain a similar progression you need that fractional exponent to avoid things spiraling out of control. Otherwise that linear increase starts triggering further increases and actually is an exponential scaling method.

I for one am really interested in the future of the game because it stands out in the sea of clones that is the genre. Hopefully the underlying math works out to make it fun, but so far the concept and execution are really interesting.

I would say that progression costs for Talent and Combat/Magic Skill are both Geometric (in a bad way) - level 2 costs 200, level 3 costs 300, etc - while 'production' never increases - mana speed is static. What I would call 'linear' would be if Level 1 cost 100, Level 2 cost 100, etc...

In each of these cases, the benefit that each level conveys drops off - Level 2 of combat is 100% better than Level 1. But Level 3 is only 50% better, level 4 only 33% better, etc. So even if costs didn't scale up, your improvement is slowing down.

BUT he has costs going up with rewards going down, so everything feels terrible, and he's only going more towards terrible. He's making the math worse, not better.

I suspect what's going on is that the end-game test is quickly trivializing his edits - so instead of putting soft caps on skills/soulstones/talents (ala NGU) he adds a negative exponent starting from Level 2 onwards.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin
In NGU, is it intended that I can't level up two of the same item in parallel in the Item Daycare?

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





NGU Idle doesn't work in the background like other idle games. I've been waiting on this 3 hour upgrade thing for like 4+ hours

Klungar
Feb 12, 2008

Klungo make bessst ever video game, 'Hero Klungo Sssavesss Teh World.'

Cowman posted:

NGU Idle doesn't work in the background like other idle games. I've been waiting on this 3 hour upgrade thing for like 4+ hours

It's actually the opposite, most idle games these days don't work in the background and need to reside in their own window.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Klungar posted:

It's actually the opposite, most idle games these days don't work in the background and need to reside in their own window.

Also, make sure you don't minimize the window it's in. The browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Edge all do this, I'm sure others do as well) take minimize and non active tab to mean you aren't looking at it and don't need it to be processed right now. It will get very little CPU time. A dedicated Window that you just have other things over is fine and how you should run every browser game. You might want to turn off stacking multiple windows from the same program so you can have a spot for each idle game on your task bar.

Feline Mind Meld
Jun 14, 2007

I'm pretty creeped out
In monies squared, if I close the dream window will I have to refill to get it back? I don't have the currency to buy right now (and no real reason not to leave it open until I do considering it's the rocket dream), but I'm curious what happens if I mash that big red X

Cowman
Feb 14, 2006

Beware the Cow





pixaal posted:

Also, make sure you don't minimize the window it's in. The browser (Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Edge all do this, I'm sure others do as well) take minimize and non active tab to mean you aren't looking at it and don't need it to be processed right now. It will get very little CPU time. A dedicated Window that you just have other things over is fine and how you should run every browser game. You might want to turn off stacking multiple windows from the same program so you can have a spot for each idle game on your task bar.

I don't minimize the window. I just go to another tab and it just stops going.

pixaal
Jan 8, 2004

All ice cream is now for all beings, no matter how many legs.


Cowman posted:

I don't minimize the window. I just go to another tab and it just stops going.

You can't go to another tab in the same window. It's the same as minimizing to the browser

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.
I've developed a helpful picture to show what 'window' means in this context



Edit: you can put the NGU window behind other windows, but do not minimize it, don't switch tabs, and don't close the window, and don't browse away from NGU to different idle games, and don't use Microsoft Edge or whatever IE is called these days but that last one is mostly just my personal preference

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Sage Grimm
Feb 18, 2013

Let's go explorin' little dude!

Eldercain posted:

In monies squared, if I close the dream window will I have to refill to get it back? I don't have the currency to buy right now (and no real reason not to leave it open until I do considering it's the rocket dream), but I'm curious what happens if I mash that big red X

You can close it without losing the current dream and upgrade.

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