The Staff Auto-sorting is Flawed

[Reichsmarschall]

I wanted to put this on [Low Severity Bug General Thread], but it's not a bug, it's just a poor-constructed algorithm. I really hope devs will read this, yet I don't think puting here is gonna help. Anyway, I'll start.


Basically, when we have new staff coming, what we are having here is: "determine the highest rank of the staff"→→"determine whether that specific department(team/unit) is full"→→"if not, assign new staff in; if yes"→→"assign to other non-full department; if all full"→→"dismiss the staff with the lowest rank within that department to make space"→→"assign new staff in". Of course the actual algorithem is far more complicated than this.

Now, ideally speaking, suppose every department is full, and ALL staff are [S S S S S S] equally, except staff in Security Team, are [A++ A++ A++ A++ A++ A++].

Imagine now we gain a new staff with [S++ S+ S+ S+ S+ S+], as we know he will be assigned to the Combat Unit. Since Combat Unit is full, game will dismiss one staff in Combat Unit to make space.

However, as human we all know that, the better way is to dismiss one staff in Security Team, and move one staff from Combat Unit to Security Team, and then finally assign the new staff to Combat Unit. We can easily tell losing a staff with [A++ A++ A++ A++ A++ A++] is always better than losing one with [S S S S S S] in any circumstance, and even more now both Combat Unit and Security Team are better than before.

How to solve it in terms of algorithm? It's not hard, before dismissing a staff: "determine the second highest rank of this staff"→→"dismiss the staff with the lowest rank within that specifc department"→→"assign the first staff in that department". In some cases it will become a recurssion instruction, but it's ok since computer works really fast.

Actually, as some of you might notice, the existing algorithem does have a process to check the second highest rank of staff, but that's for existing staff (to move them between departments), it's weired that they don't have such a process when new staff are coming in and causing old staff to be dismissed.


As how the auto-sorting works, Security Team is basically a waiting room or backup team for all other departments (once you developed all of your facilities, there will be no one in the actual Waiting Room anymore). And also staff in Security Team are the ones that can be extracted in FOB mission, we all want our lower staff to just stay in Security Team, and when we gain higher rank staff, we don't want the game to dismiss our comparatively higher rank staff in other department and keep our lower rank staff. That's why this matters.

PS: The new update doesn't solve the problem, it simply gives you other options to balance your Combat Unit and Security Team, when you have new staff adding, same problem still occurs.


Let's see if anyone has an idea to get them know about it.

[Shogun]

... Yea S++ staff incoming in those numbers? how ...?

[Reichsmarschall]

Originally posted by OnTheGroundNOW:

... Yea S++ staff incoming in those numbers? how ...?

when you finish all missions, game will give you 1 or 2 S++ or S+ for each department, and also you can extract S++ from cheater's FOB.

[JustATextBox]

All the auto sorting does is make every unit as high as possible. Here's an example.

You have an S in combat and an S in medical.

You gain a new soldier, who has an S+ in combat. The game removes the S guy in combat, instead of removing an A+, because that S guy also has an S in medical. Which overall, gives you the highest level balance. If the game had moved the A+ guy, he might have only been A+ in that single skill, meaning the game just placed a B, C or lower in another unit.

S+ and A+ in combat and S in medical is significantly better than S+ in combat and an S rank and B in medical. Ofcourse, the game might just have a flaw in how it sorts things.. but I've never noticed one personally.

[Krillic]

plus you can direct contract the s-ranks you want to keep in place

[Reichsmarschall]

Originally posted by Signild:

All the auto sorting does is make every unit as high as possible. Here's an example.

You have an S in combat and an S in medical.

You gain a new soldier, who has an S+ in combat. The game removes the S guy in combat, instead of removing an A+, because that S guy also has an S in medical. Which overall, gives you the highest level balance. If the game had moved the A+ guy, he might have only been A+ in that single skill, meaning the game just placed a B, C or lower in another unit.

S+ and A+ in combat and S in medical is significantly better than S+ in combat and an S rank and B in medical. Ofcourse, the game might just have a flaw in how it sorts things.. but I've never noticed one personally.

I know how it works, but there's a flaw in it.

I was saying that: If the number of your staff reaches the max, and ALL of your staff are [S S S S S S] except those in Security, are [A++ A++ A++ A++ A++ A++] (I am just ideally saying to show the flaw). Imagine now you gain a new one with [S++ S+ S+ S+ S+ S+], as we know he will be assigned to the Combat Team. And this is how the game sorts for you: it will remove one staff with all S in Combat team to make space, while we all know as human, the better way is to remove one staff with all A++ in Security Team, and move one with all S from Combat Team to Security Team, and then finally assign the new one to the Combat team.

That is the flaw I pointed out.

[Reichsmarschall]

Originally posted by Krillic Silverfang:

plus you can direct contract the s-ranks you want to keep in place

No I literaly have 1800+ S and I am farming for S++ from those cheaters' FOBs, there's no way I direct contract all those I wanna keep. Read #5 and you know what I was talking about. :)

[supertrooper225]

Never depend on any automatic sorting in any video game for things like this. They are never perfect. Besides, if it were any more automated there would be no point in getting involved with staff management at all and that would make having it relatively pointless.

[Reichsmarschall]

Great! After the update you now can randomly find staff with S+ at least. Dunno about S++

[Wicked Spectre]

From the new update patch notes: "Also, for auto-assigning staff to units, an option for prioritizing the Security Team has been added"

Should help with this issue. I know it will for me. I know I'm not the only one with all lv.90 units except for a lv.50 security team.

[Reichsmarschall]

Originally posted by wicked:

From the new update patch notes: "Also, for auto-assigning staff to units, an option for prioritizing the Security Team has been added"

Should help with this issue. I know it will for me. I know I'm not the only one with all lv.90 units except for a lv.50 security team.

Nope, I've tested.

This update simply added 2 new priority choices: "all staff[Combat prioritized]", "all staff[Security prioritized]" and "all staff".
The first one is actually how the "all staff" works on priovious version of the game. Now the new "all staff" is kinda between [Combat prioritized] and [Security prioritized]. It balances a little between Combat Team and Security Team but it doesn't solve the fundamental algorithm flaw I mentioned in this discussion.
So, the flaw still exists and adding those choices is just like a temponary action to me.

[docvalentine]

I don't know why a maxed base doesn't still have room in the waiting room. It seems to me that it would be nice to have some reserve guys anyway, plus things like this wouldn't be so bad because the staff in question would be put in the waiting room instread of just dismissed.

[Sagekun]

Originally posted by Harpsichord:

Great! After the update you now can randomly find staff with S+ at least. Dunno about S++

We can find S+'s out in the wild?

[Reichsmarschall]

Originally posted by Sagekun:

Originally posted by Harpsichord:

Great! After the update you now can randomly find staff with S+ at least. Dunno about S++

We can find S+'s out in the wild?

yes

[Wicked Spectre]

Well Combat Deployment success rate isn't really a big deal for me. I got my lv.89 security team now and that's good enough for me. /shrug

[Sagekun]

Originally posted by Harpsichord:

Originally posted by Sagekun:

We can find S+'s out in the wild?

yes

People have been saying that the Boaster skill now works properly and that's why it looks like S+'s exist when they actually don't. Oh well, someone will probly datamine the troop availability rates again soon for the patch to see if they really are around.