Cobbian Population Model

[hcobb]

Adjusting my model to start at 30 attribute points.

Assumption is that each character starts with the basic skills for their job and gains $1000 and 100 XP per year.

Age 21: 31 attribute points, $2000
Age 22: 32 attribute points, $3000
Age 23: 33 attribute points, $4000

And so on?

If you give out XP much slower than this you get zero GMIC before they age out.

Adjusted my random squad system to use this.

http://www.hcobb.com/tft/squad.php

[Skarg]

Unless you actually want the weird examples you keep pointing out from your inferences, I'd say it's still bizarre and incorrect to assume everyone in the population is getting a steady input of XP.

Not everyone improves their abilities steadily. Certainly not at the same rate as everyone else. And in a real population, many people decline in various ways, even as children (let alone after age 50).

And no, it doesn't mean no one can do Greater Magic Item Creation, because in a real population, there is a wide variety of people, most of which are average and remain average (or their genius is not in the terms TFT adventuring stats/spells/talents measure) most of their lives. That doesn't mean there are not outstanding people.

Experts are rare. Powerful world-bending wizards even more so, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It does mean that not everyone is a high-powered person after aging enough.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Experts are rare. Powerful world-bending wizards even more so, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It does mean that not everyone is a high-powered person after aging enough.

But there does need to be some general advancement to fill those high talent posts.

[Skarg]

Of course, but not by everyone at a constant rate. Again, my point is people are different both in their gifts and what they do and learn.

I don't have any problem with saying some people gain XP at a steady rate. I just think the wizards who end up being successful enchanters are exceptional, just like the very successful scientists and academics and so on demonstrate exceptional focus and concentrated study in their field. I'm just saying such people aren't the norm, and you can't predict advancement accurately until it happens (many PhD candidates burn out, find out they aren't cut out for it, and/or change interests before completing their studies, for example).

For example, as a 32-point above-average adventurer, if I need to overpower some random 40-year old villager, I'm not going to be thinking "oh crud, not a 40-year-old! He must be at least 37 attribute points!"

[zot]

I think that, like a lot of things, XP levels would follow a pareto distribution. If you want to simulate it, you could go through several iterations, starting each character at 0 and giving each a chance to gain XP based on their current total XP.

I experimented with a few formulas for this and came up with:

xp += random() * 2000/12 * max(0.1, maxXP == 0 ? 0 : (xp / maxXP) ^ 5)

This is for one month and there's a potential payout of 2,000 XP per year but the highest XP earner only earned 1/2 of that (i.e. 50% of the max, like you would expect) and the average does work out to 100 XP / year.

Here's an example run over 9 years:

years: 9

| Name | XP INPUT | XP/year |
|------+----------+---------|
| C29  |     9177 |    1020 |
| C6   |     1020 |     113 |
| C3   |      993 |     110 |
| C16  |      976 |     108 |
| C21  |      972 |     108 |
| C15  |      972 |     108 |
| C19  |      969 |     108 |
| C7   |      961 |     107 |
| C4   |      960 |     107 |
| C11  |      948 |     105 |
| C10  |      947 |     105 |
| C12  |      938 |     104 |
| C5   |      937 |     104 |
| C1   |      932 |     104 |
| C14  |      925 |     103 |
| C26  |      924 |     103 |
| C23  |      924 |     103 |
| C9   |      922 |     102 |
| C17  |      910 |     101 |
| C22  |      907 |     101 |
| C2   |      906 |     101 |
| C18  |      900 |     100 |
| C25  |      899 |     100 |
| C0   |      898 |     100 |
| C27  |      891 |      99 |
| C8   |      887 |      99 |
| C24  |      875 |      97 |
| C20  |      850 |      94 |
| C28  |      783 |      87 |
| C13  |      749 |      83 |

The spreadsheet is here.

The JavaScript code is here.

[hcobb]

There is now random progression.

http://www.hcobb.com/tft/squad.php