Aussie math is different than everywhere else?

I’m looking at it from the perspective of math… math says .5 gets rounded up except for the one fkd up method above that no one was taught in school…

There is no way to make everyone happy. Let me explain the rounding techniques available to the developers and how the players will hate each one.

Floor()

This rounding technique is also called “truncation”. The “floor” of a number always rounds down. 10.1 is 10, 10.9 is 10, etc.

  • Floor() favors dealing less damage overall.
  • Players like it if Floor() is used for the CPU because less damage is done with this rounding technique.
  • Players hate if if Floor() is used for their damage for the same reason.

Ceiling()

This technique always rounds up. 10.1 is 11. 10.9 is 11.

  • Ceiling() favors doing more damage overall.
  • Players hate it if Ceiling() is used for the CPU because more damage is done.
  • Players like it if Ceiling() is used for player damage for the same reason.

Nearest Integer

This technique is what we do in casual math. Any number with a decimal place 5 or greater rounds up, 4 or lower rounds down. This means roughly 51% of values will round up.

  • Nearest integer rounding slightly favors dealing more damage overall.
  • Players like it because it ‘makes sense’.
  • Stats players hate it because it is analagous to Ceiling() and isn’t “fair” because it means, in aggregate, the CPU will do more damage to players than it could if another technique was used.

Banker’s Rounding

We’ve explained this one already.

  • This is the most fair rounding algorithm, it has no bias towards “more” or “less” damage.
  • Players hate it because it’s “not math”.
  • Stats players like it because it is “the most fair”.

All of this is math. You were taught one way to round in school because schools have to make sure everyone can pass, and it’s wiser to stick to one methodology if you get fired for failing students. People who study “math” and know what it means understand there are many forms of rounding, and selecting the right one is an important part of performing calculations that will use rounding.

That math says your “round up at .5” has a very slight bias towards rounding up, thus favors “doing more damage” in more cases. Math says your rounding is wrong. You are not looking at it from the perspective of math. It’s more like “what I learned in school has to be the totality of all human knowledge”. That’s hubris.

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So your whole point is driven by this argument, and you try make it look like a huge deal working yourself up for no reason outside of not liking a rounding method used in programs/games, such as this one, just because it’s not teached in basic schoolarship.

It’s the math that EVERYONE learned though… so why use something different.

Because it is statistically more fair, and you are arguing the CPU should on average do more damage to you “because school told me so”.

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Maybe because it works better depending of the “enviroment”, in this case as it was already pointed out by Slypenslyde:

Its the math that everyone learned in grade school. This statement is correct however some people actually advanced their education further than that. Had you done so as well you might have seen that rounding can change depending on many factors such as situation or preferences. Either way you have chosen a very strange hill to die on.

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As a coding and math geek, your entire post made me giddy. Thank you for bringing sanity to this thread.

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You’re phenomenal. Just thought you should know. :slight_smile:

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@Slypenslyde made the points I was going to raise and blew it out if the park.

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Which number gets rounded up or down? The damage suffered or the damage reduction?

Stoneskin says ‘reduce damage from skulls by 50%’. In your example of 21 Attack, this gets reduced by 10.5 rounded up (everyone with basic math knows that rounds up, right?) to 11, so the damage is 10. I’d say that’s doing what it says it should, and the Aussie maths is just fine.

Perhaps the descriptions could be clearer. But let’s not assume you’re right, or that you’re looking clever by putting people down.

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Forget maths.
This is clearly beneficial for the end user.

If I see a skull resistant front troop I am much less likely to take skull matches. I change my behaviour and kill the front troop with spells and this means the extra damage reduction does not impact me that much

The AI does not respond accordingly so when I have a skull resistant front troop I get relatively more benefit from the reduced damage.

When traits first came in I thought the floor rounding was a conscious decision by the devs and I was pretty happy with it and exploited it accordingly

I see truncate is the word of the day, saves me typing…

Truncating, or always rounding down, is the norm for stats in rpg games.

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they should let the percentages ingame,mostly just because i want to see myself hitting .5 damage to stonehammer xD

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Just to include some thought or thoughts. Rounding at .5 can either be floor or ceiling. (Real terms not me making a house)

A short definition for clarity :
In mathematics and computer science, the floor and ceiling functions map a real number to the largest previous or the smallest following integer, respectively. More precisely, floor(x) = is the largest integer less than or equal to x and ceiling(x) = is the smallest integer greater than or equal to x.

Both are respectfully used in programming. It really just comes down to the developers and what they wish to do.

Now when it comes to things such as .6 it is usually rounded up not down. And .4 is rounded down not up. Though when it becomes .5 it can be decided to do up or down. It would be more odd if it was .8 and they rounded down (floor). Then you’d have more to note.

As with some businesses I used to work with in the past did not do their numbers in favorable ways. For example in my old job something like 15.8, was simply just 15, not 16. Even 15.9 was 15 … And this was with real life figures, not even a game.

Just read that it was noted that nearest integer was more casual math. I’ve been a part of businesses that use it regularly as well. So I wouldn’t exactly call it ‘casual’. But that’s neither here nor there. I just wouldn’t call it casual.

A very simple example from some old code of mine.

float num=c*grids/seed;
mod=c/num;
adjust=strand((mod*num)+z);
real=adjust;

Just if you feel their numbers are unfair, you would have hated my work.

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The only things that matter here are:

  • The same rule applies every time.
  • We know what the rule is.

It rounds down every time and we know that. Next…

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Also?

Not as important as the boss Stonehammer having 100% damage reduction from skulls and still taking 1 and 2 from 4- and 5-matches.

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None of these points keep me awake at night…

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Lol can’t believe this thread is still going. Oh well back to far cry 5.

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Monster hunter world is better then far cry 5. Lol, IMO.

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