There is a real problem here with the very idea that keeping the formula (partially) secret is a good way to reduce bug reports. If your primary goal is to reduce the number in the spreadsheet cell showing the number of bugs reported, there is of course some basic practicality in the fact that if people donāt know how itās supposed to work they canāt point out when itās not working as intended. However you have to wonder if the goal is to improve the game or just to hide the evidence by sweeping it under the carpet.
The lack of transparency in rules and scoring is itself a bug. This thread and the many others like it seem to indicate that itās a bug with a much bigger impact on gameplay than this or that math error. Again, if the goal is simply to reduce the number of bugs regardless of their severity, then congratulations, youāve managed to cover a wide swath of actual problems under one big umbrella bug.
In the grand scheme of things, we really donāt care (as much) if you need to tweak the values in your formula, as long as you remember to update the documentation along with the change you shouldnāt spawn an unreasonable number of bug reports outside of actual math errors.
If part of the problem is that someone knowing the formula would be able to use it to their advantage, then either thereās something very fundamentally wrong with your formula or itās something that should really be known to all the players so they can use strategy and not just luck to try and win their battles.
Iām perfectly fine with PRNG being an explicit part of the game. For example, when a troop says it has X% chance to trigger some effect I can take that into account when deciding whether to use that troop on my team. On the other hand unknown mystery factors of scoring donāt allow for any decisions to be made about them. GoW becomes a lot less interesting or fun if it devolves into a fantasy themed slot machine.
In a nutshell, a clearly documented well thought out set of scoring rules will make for a better game. And if we canāt have that then just a clearly documented set would be the next best thing.
apart from the devs stated clearly that they got hundreds of bug reports for the original scoring when there was no bug and the player stuffed up the mathsā¦
they were are not concerned about real bugs, the issue was that the transparency resulted in hundreds of false bug reports because the player base stuffed up the maths.
I have trouble with this justification as well.
The formulae are not once presented in-game, at all. Thus, the only people to whom the exact details are given are forum-goers. It would surprise me if the divulgence of the exact values would really generate the support calls as asserted (unless the calculations themselves are bugged, but Iād argue that reporting bugged calculations is good for the game).
The other reasons given may be valid, but all in all I dislike the lack of transparency here. I have no skin in the game, as I donāt do GW, but if I did Iād be much more vocally opposed to the secrecy.
the funny thing is that it is not that secret. Based off my gut feel for the game I can predict my score within 20 points