Musings on DNA

[Kyphis the Bard]

Over the last few days I have been considering some of the applications of player DNA. The following are just some of my thoughts from these museings, and I would like to see what you can add to them. Consider this a research document.

[i][b]This is not a topic trying to change anything about the game, or add any functions or the such.[/b][/i] This is purely a thought experiment, and anything that is discussed here that gets implemented is a coincidence and should not be expected.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

Firstly, we are not discussing the already implemented Player DNA, when "DNA" is used in this instance it is referring to a similar set of data which may or may not contain all the information that Player DNA gathers as well as additional data. As can be observed from the way Player DNA is gathered, the proposed applications may make this sort of "DNA" useless for the purposes that Player DNA is to be put.

[b][u]Idea 1 - Patron Blessing[/u][/b]
This was the idea that started this line of thought, and I posted it in the mood panel for those who saw.
Essentially, the idea is that each player is capable of receiving bonuses ranging from heat multipliers, timer rates, regeneration rates, special aura's in combat (for example, 1% boost to VE), or similar things when they are an adept, and are also capable of giving the same set of bonuses when they are a protector.
In addition to this, certain actions that a person takes may add markers that change the bonuses that they are of receiving, such as Jail time or spending excessive time at one of the learning MP levels (ie you have the DNA marker for a 2% boost to briskness, but spending more than 4 months at MP3 reduces this to 1%, and 6 months prevents you from receiving it at all even though you can still give this bonus when MP6)
In this format, the bonus would be capable of applying regardless of who you where the adept of.

[b]Idea 1.2 - Patrons Blessing[/b] ([i]Heat consideration[/i])
After a fair bit of musing on the previous thought, I began considering what role Heat sacrifice may play in this, and the following is the idea I came up with.
Consider if each type of bonus has a place on a tier. For example, a straight 1% boost to a combat stats or a 3% boost to a non-combat stat is tier one; a 2% boost to combat stats or 5% boost to non-combat stats is tier 2; a combat enhancing Aura (creature type aura/token effect aura/whatever aura) is tier 3; and a timer adjusting boost (for example, faster combat or regeneration) or regeneration value adjustment is tier 4.

(These tiers are preposterous values, they are purely for example to illustrate the idea and not to be treated as what I am actually suggesting. If this would be done them a combat aura would be more of a tier 15, for example.)

In this system, the maximum tier available would be equal to the depth into MP6 that the protector has managed to reach. For example, if they are a new MP6 with only the minimum adepts and spells available, then only the first tier would be available as a bonus for their adepts. To determine what the maximum tier bonus you get would be, the amount of heat would be used to rank you.
Taking the previous example of a tier one MP6, any adept they have that has tier 1 bonus matching their tier 1 bonus receives it, regardless of how much heat they have sacc. However, if the Protector is a tier 4 MP6, then based on how much heat they have sacced the top 25% would be able to receive the tier 1 through 4 bonuses for each bonus that their DNA allows them to receive; the adepts that have sacced enough to be in the top 50% but not the top 25% are capable of receiving whatever matches from tier 3 through tier one; the adepts that have sacced enough for the top 75% but not 50% receive upto tier 2, and the rest have access to tier 1. If you have not sacced any heat you are not included in the % cutoff calculations, and only receive tier 1 bonuses if applicable.
In this format, adepts only receive bonuses if they are adepted to an MP6, are only be able to access the higher bonuses if you are also that MP6's worshiper, and also have to work for the better bonuses. The problem is that that means no-one will want to be the adept of any non-MP6 unless that person is trying to go MP6.

[u][b]Problems and Solutions[/b][/u]
This idea has a MAJOR flaw in that certain players who give very good bonuses would remain MP6 constantly, and there are not enough players to support very many MP6, preventing almost everyone from ever finding out what MP6 is like.
The simplest way to combat this is to have a maximum time that you are able to remain MP6 (for example, 6 consecutive months) before you automatically drop, and when you drop from MP6 (through time up or loss of adepts) you have to wait half as long as you where last a protector before you are able to be one again (for example, if you where a protector for 7 days you would need to wait 3 days 12 hours, and if you where auto-dropped you would have to wait for 3 months).
Personally, I think that is silly and defeats the point of MP6, since it is so hard to get those adepts in the first place loosing them like this so soon would make people less inclined to bother.
A slightly more complex way to handle this would be to have the bonuses that are granted change every two weeks, at the same time spells are re-charged. For example, say there are 4 different tier 1 bonuses, and 4 markers associated (positively) with those bonuses.
[b]Week 1/2[/b]======[b]Week 3/4[/b]======[b]Week 5/6[/b]
[b]A - 1[/b]==========[b]A - 3[/b]==========[b]A - 1[/b]
[b]B - 2[/b]==========[b]B - 2[/b]==========[b]B - 3[/b]
[b]C - 3[/b]==========[b]C - 4[/b]==========[b]C - 4[/b]
[b]D - 4[/b]==========[b]D - 1[/b]==========[b]D - 2[/b]

And so on. The more bonuses or tiers you have the more combinations possible. Another thing to consider is multiple markers may be used for each bonus, meaning that you might need say markers ADE for bonus 1 while markers ABE give bonus 6. Using this method, it is possible to still have a low variety of bonuses and markers and still have an extremely high degree of combinations, preventing people from flocking to individual players for MP6 and having say 4 MP6 forever and no-one else able to try it.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

If you have any ideas for how a DNA system that factors in player choices may be used please leave a post, do not worry if it isn't as fleshed out as the above idea as this is a research document and anything that plants a thought seed is valuable.
Please also leave any ideas for what sort of actions might be factored into such a DNA system, and if possible why, as that is likely to spark off more ideas. If doing so, remember that these would need to be factors that can apply to anyone (ie "[i]Spent 28 days in jail[/i]" would be valid, while "[i]Spent 28 days in jail for stealing creatures from Demo Account[/i]" would not, as it is too specific)
If you can think of any aspect that might have been neglected in an idea, either a problem with it or something that it could also be applied to, please leave a comment. However, if illuminating an overlooked problem with an idea, please illustrate it clearly and try to suggest a possible solution if you are able to think of one.

Edited January 2, 2011 by Kyphis the Bard

[phantasm]

the main thing about it as of now, is the fact that practically no one match in DNA. DNA as of now is based solely off the "IQ" choices that most all of us reading this have completed. In all the DNA's out there I have only heard of one match so far. So any benefit to DNA, would have to call for an overhaul of how the DNA system works. Otherwise 1 in a 1000 ratio would ever benefit from such a use. This of course is from my perspective, and I know little about DNA. Perhaps it would be good to start with trying to find people who match in DNA structures, and see what kind of a ratio there really is with DNA matching as of now.

I was told that Sparrhawk had a match with someone. As to their name of if it is true or not I do not know. I haven't talked with Spar for some time

Edited January 2, 2011 by phantasm

[Chewett]

[quote name='phantasm' timestamp='1293989709' post='76644']
the main thing about it as of now, is the fact that practically no one match in DNA. DNA as of now is based solely off the "IQ" choices that most all of us reading this have completed. In all the DNA's out there I have only heard of one match so far. So any benefit to DNA, would have to call for an overhaul of how the DNA system works. Otherwise 1 in a 1000 ratio would ever benefit from such a use. This of course is from my perspective, and I know little about DNA. Perhaps it would be good to start with trying to find people who match in DNA structures, and see what kind of a ratio there really is with DNA matching as of now.
[/quote]

Someones dna matches? Who?

Also i think he wasnt nesscarily talking about if it matches, but if you have certain DNA parts. If it was based on matching dna then its prettymuch pointless

[Kafuuka]

I don't get why you link adepts and worshippers.
If you get up to 15 tiers, there's room to let adepts of mp5s get tier one, adepts of mp6 get tier 2+ depending on the mp6' level. Or you could leave it worshipper only. People to being adept and worshipper could be used to give a 'synergy' bonus or something. They all seem equally programmable options to me.

Instead of player DNA or a new DNA, I think principles are the natural choice for characteristics?
You could even have funny effects like someone with high cyclicity score would have his boons cycle over time whereas someone with high entropy would see his boons diminish in effect (tier) but multiply in number. Let it be influenced by the characteristics of the worshippers too and you get a chaotic system. I vaguely remember some multi person combat influence principle proposal/idea being posted loooong ago, maybe this can be linked with that?

[quote name='Kyphis the Bard' timestamp='1293955306' post='76619']
This idea has a MAJOR flaw in that certain players who give very good bonuses would remain MP6 constantly, and there are not enough players to support very many MP6, preventing almost everyone from ever finding out what MP6 is like.
[/quote]
In your idea, more than 25% of an mp6's worshippers don't have any reason not to change to a newer protector. The sooner you can start praying, the more chance you'll reach the top 25% donors with better advantages albeit of a different nature. As such I don't think it changes much to the frequency of mp6 turnover.
Of course the same % system favours people who don't have a life outside of MD. Not certain if that is a problem or intended. If you want to remedy it, impose a pray/day limit.

[Kyphis the Bard]

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1293989920' post='76646']
Also i think he wasnt nesscarily talking about if it matches, but if you have certain DNA parts. If it was based on matching dna then its prettymuch pointless
[/quote]
Aye, this is what I mean't when talking about "markers". For example, my Player DNA is: 10110111010011001101101111010101011

Say the marker A constituted the DNA from position 5 until position 8. That means anyone with the first 8 DNA of XXXX0111 would have a synergy with me.

However, as I said before, while I use a similar name I am not talking about Player DNA, but "DNA" meaning something similar. For example, my "DNA" string might look like: 101C1011SR10100110F01101101Y11101010A1011; or it might look like 10110111010011001101101111010101011CSRFYA; or potentially just: CSRFYA.

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1293994775' post='76653']
I don't get why you link adepts and worshippers.
If you get up to 15 tiers, there's room to let adepts of mp5s get tier one, adepts of mp6 get tier 2+ depending on the mp6' level. Or you could leave it worshipper only. People to being adept and worshipper could be used to give a 'synergy' bonus or something. They all seem equally programmable options to me.
[/quote]
I'm not completely sure what you mean here, perhaps if you elucidate further?

From what I understand, you mean why not just leave out adepts entirely and just have the bonus qualification to worshippers, however if a person is also the adept of someone increase the potency of their bonuses?
The reason I elected to use adepts initially rather than worshippers is that it allows MP3 to participate, albiet at the minimum boost. However, your suggestion certainly has merit, in that:
MP3 have no need for this as MP3 is mean't as a learning stage, and not being able to access it until MP4 would prove an incentive for people to advance.
It's simpler and more elegant (And most likely, where it to ever be used, easier to code and less prone to bugs)

This all said, do not forget this is not a topic trying to actually get something likes this implemented, just brainstorming the sort of uses and issues something like this may have.

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1293994775' post='76653']
Instead of player DNA or a new DNA, I think principles are the natural choice for characteristics?
You could even have funny effects like someone with high cyclicity score would have his boons cycle over time whereas someone with high entropy would see his boons diminish in effect (tier) but multiply in number. Let it be influenced by the characteristics of the worshippers too and you get a chaotic system. I vaguely remember some multi person combat influence principle proposal/idea being posted loooong ago, maybe this can be linked with that?
[/quote]
I have to agree here, that for the above example Principles would be a logical candidate for determining these sort of boosts. For example, tier 1 could be qualified for by having a single Principle Match, tier 2 by two, and so on. Considering the wide number of combinations available for principles, this would allow for a lot of different bonuses as well, and would allow players a fair bit more control over what they would receive.

The reason that I didn't suggest Principles is that the DNA format is able to form the backbone of far more ideas than just the above.

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1293994775' post='76653']
In your idea, more than 25% of an mp6's worshippers don't have any reason not to change to a newer protector. The sooner you can start praying, the more chance you'll reach the top 25% donors with better advantages albeit of a different nature. As such I don't think it changes much to the frequency of mp6 turnover.
Of course the same % system favours people who don't have a life outside of MD. Not certain if that is a problem or intended. If you want to remedy it, impose a pray/day limit.
[/quote]
Aye, it was intended. While if it where implemented you would indeed find a lot of people competing for top worshiper status and boosts, the people on the bottom would always be looking for fresh MP6 that they might be able to become the top with. After a few months (about 8, by my estimation) the hype and excitement of the boosts will have worn off for almost everyone, and only a handful of players would still act as competitively for the top positions.
However, in all likely hood, these players would be the same ones who already sacc insane amounts of heat.
Another point to consider with this is that there is only so much competition worth pursuing, for example if you are already the top % and the next lowest person is 50K behind you, you can relax for a bit. Then of course, you may be the top of a highly advanced MP6 (say tier 6 for example) and wish to access the next tier up, you are going to spend as much time trying to get adepts for your protector as they might, carrying out a further sort of role for a "worshiper"

Considering there is currently no such boost for worshiping, yet people still act competitively in it, I doubt that in the long term any change would be significant behavior wise.

Although, the "pray/day" limit would be interesting, it would defeat the point of having the tiers accessible like that as you would always have the competitive group at identical heat values, and it would be extremely difficult to rank them for tiering. The only way I could think of to do it would be based on who reached the limit first each day, however this favors those in certain timezones and would result in people who have identical heat but not identical tier boosts, and would just cause far more hassle.

Interesting observation about the way this suggestion would also not impact MP6 turn-over, I had not considered that aspect. It also means you will get intensely loyal worshipers who compete for the higher end heat values, and the newer worshipers who flit from place to place looking for one they are either comfortable with or able to compete within, de-stabilizing the top competers and causing them to join the lower ranks once more.

[Kafuuka]

[quote name='Kyphis the Bard' timestamp='1294007966' post='76669']
The reason that I didn't suggest Principles is that the DNA format is able to form the backbone of far more ideas than just the above.
[/quote]
You can write down the principles in alphabetic order and put a 0 if you don't have it, a 1 if you do have it and you have the same setup as the DNA format, except the number of bits is lower and there's currently a limit on the number of ones a person can have. If you'd need a higher number of bits, you can easily double them by adding the sequence of bits with 1 if the principle has the highest number of points, 0 otherwise. Repeat for second highest etc...
I can't see many advantages of DNA format. I would guess it is less predictable and hence less likely someone would try to minmax into the right DNA especially because that would only work for a fresh account. On the other hand it is more difficult to balance. The fact that there is a limited number of ones in the principle byte is an advantage for balancing imo. The DNA format is slightly bigger, but I doubt you need that large a string for anything. On the other hand, principles are the foundation of MD. They are intuitively linked to certain concepts and will thus provide more natural selection of feats. (Who will select the markers and how? How many people do we want to have 0, 1, 2 .. 10? valid markers?).

[quote]
Although, the "pray/day" limit would be interesting, it would defeat the point of having the tiers accessible like that as you would always have the competitive group at identical heat values, and it would be extremely difficult to rank them for tiering. The only way I could think of to do it would be based on who reached the limit first each day, however this favors those in certain timezones and would result in people who have identical heat but not identical tier boosts, and would just cause far more hassle.
[/quote]
I doubt that. Even if many people are easily able to get max pray/day each day, some people will have started to worship earlier than others and there would not be this erratic behavior. In the more balanced situation, the limit is large enough so that only a few people would actually bother to reach the daily limit every day. Suppose you are the n°1 worshipper out of 50, you don't want it technically to be possible to be booted out of place if your isp breaks down for only a day, would you?


As for worshipper vs adept: I think worshipper only is more elegant too. I added the other ideas mainly because they were more in tune with the first post.

[Kyphis the Bard]

[quote name='Kafuuka' timestamp='1294010165' post='76670']
You can write down the principles in alphabetic order and put a 0 if you don't have it, a 1 if you do have it and you have the same setup as the DNA format, except the number of bits is lower and there's currently a limit on the number of ones a person can have. If you'd need a higher number of bits, you can easily double them by adding the sequence of bits with 1 if the principle has the highest number of points, 0 otherwise. Repeat for second highest etc...
[/quote]
That's... essential what I mean when I say a DNA type system, different to Player DNA >.>
But thankyou for the suggestion of a way to generate such a DNA <.<

(I'm now considering going through my posts and change it from DNA to RNA, to make sure people know I mean something similar, yet different to, Player DNA)



Anyone have any other ideas for how a system like this might be used?

Edited January 5, 2011 by Kyphis the Bard

[Muratus del Mur]

when designing a feature that cant be finished untill it has actual data, priority is to gather the data. Current dna is exactly that, the RAW gathered data. The fact that there are almost no matches is beyond my espectations and tells me the gathered data is quite interesting. The matching, when that part will be complete, will not look for identical dna as it doeas now (its pointless, shows maybe luck only) , but will do grouping by subgroups. For exemple the color to number association is a totally separated part of the dna string and within that part certain color associations could be also grouped together and people compared by those subgroups.

The purpose is more wild than you might think. It is not to profile the person behind the player, or the player account itself, but to profile the person to player integration. There is something i can best associate with a "dictionary" that each person (not player) has, and that dictionary of perspectives applies in certain ways when someone isolates a part of himself into a player account. I might be wrong, but i think the choices in the dna questions are made as per account not per person.

The later uses within the game world are wild. In a few words it *could* add options to the game engine such as :

prediction of someones actions in a given situation
why: a certain situation could be profiled in a similar way and then compared to player dna to see tendency of choices

a certain automated sense of group cohesion
why: the dna choices describe how a personality connects to its surroundings, based on that some cases are incompatible while others are likely to fit well together

ability to adjust a role to an individual and achieve things otherwise impossible
example: what would you say the shade sentinel could actualy make you fear it in the most real, out of game way, and without doing anything explicit in that regard... scarry but possible.

the other uses i can think of i am not sure if they are..ummm.. legal, lol, so i will stop here for now.

In any case, the big big problem is the rate of suitable subjects. Only some people are suited for the color association tests and only some for the symbol tests. It covers just 60% (raw) of the population , based on a survey made in md long ago. It will not be possible to create a general valid mechanism, but if the accuracy is detected then it can be used only in those cases that fit 80-90% , for role specific actions.


Consider this research and not a pending feature, because there are two cases in wich i might shut it down...it works too good, or it doesn't work at all.


Sadly i have no psychology background and i also couldn't find anything similar documented anywhere so i am probably stepping in the dark here and i will discover thigs that others found other better ways to discover...but... there is also a chance that a new way will discover very new things also, don't you think?