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Your thinking is very much inline with mine here, as the manual process you've described here is essentially what the automatic force adjustment system does behind the scenes. It tries to get a good sense for what your hardest hit is, and then it automatically sets your force multiplier to make your hardest hit be what I've picked as the hardest hit I've chosen to fit my design goals for the game (substitute this for "expected force value of a real boxer").
At the same time, it tries to filter out exploitative hits (what you'll usually see me refer to as "arm whipping" or "whip punches") and tracking skips. If you turn off the automatic force adjustment, those protections are still in place, but are less reliable since the game doesn't have a good baseline to compare you to. These exploitative hits lead to easy knockdowns, and are one of the big reasons the game feels immediately different with the automatic adjustment off.
The heavy bag was actually originally added to the game specifically for the reason you mentioned. First-time players would start the game at the heavy bag with instructions to punch it, and a multiplier was recommended to them based on their reliably hardest hit. I ended up with a ton of negative reviews from players who left that screen with an improper multiplier since punching a stationary bag works out a lot differently than swinging for a moving opponent. Because of that, I prioritized a way for this to happen automatically while you fought, since that's the real data that needs to be tailored around anyway. The original plan was to have the game suggest a new multiplier to you at the end of fights, but the whole concept of the multiplier itself was confusing enough for new players that I decided to make it just happen invisibly in the background. By the time players had played the game enough to maybe notice or care about the multiplier, they'd also have more game knowledge to understand what they might be getting themselves into by changing it.
The auto-adjustment algorithm has changed a ton since I first added it, and it's had some very rough periods. Many people you see talk about it usually either played during those rough periods or read about someone else who did and think its what's causing problems they're currently experiencing. I think it works very well right now, though, and I believe that most players who don't like it have a problem with the level of force that I've chosen to adjust them to and not with the automatic adjustment system itself. It's easy to land hits on the AI, so I've picked a number that makes it hard to get a knockdown if you're not hitting their weak points. Some players don't like that they can't drop their opponents with full-force punches even if they don't hit weak points. To compensate, they tend to try to punch as absolutely hard as they possibly can to make up for it, but that just shows the auto-calibrator that they can punch harder, which makes their multiplier go lower, which just makes things worse.
You might say that's a problem with the auto-adjustment, but if I had a heavy bag that said "hit as hard as you can" and they threw that same exceptionally hard hit (which was commonly happening with the old manual heavy bag system), they'd be still be nerfing themselves in the same way. They simply don't like the top-end strength level that I'm forcing them to, and setting a manual multiplier lets them define it how they want to. Alternatively, you can use the customization menu to lower the opponents chin and achieve the same result.
Your multiplier really shouldn't change much once it's seen your hardest punches and gets dialed in. I've seen people report that if they get a knockdown, then the auto-calibrator adjusts to compensate and prevents them from getting a second knockdown, but it doesn't work that way. Your multiplier drops before the damage is applied, so if you threw a punch that resulted in a knockdown then the auto-calibrator won't stop you from throwing that same punch again.
It's possible it could make the game too easy, but there are some specific circumstances for that. You can throw exclusively weak punches, which means they'll all be seen as hard punches, but that's basically intended behavior and requires you holding back on purpose. (Note that you can't "store up" a big multiplier and then throw a high force punch to get a lethal hit - the damage of your big hit will be adjusted before its applied to the opponent). The auto-calibrator needs to see a pattern of hard hits before it adjusts, so if you're throwing weak punches most of the time and rarely throw a hard punch when you see an opportunity, then you might be accidentally "hiding" your high force punches from the calibrator. The result would be that all your punches are counting as hard instead of just your occasional hard punch. That could be a problem but I think it would be rare. Finally, the calibrator looks at all your punches over the last round and will adjust your multiplier back upward if it thinks it needs to, which means it could counteract your own real-life fatigue a bit. Generally, though, your max force should be pretty similar as you get tired - it's just your willingness to throw punches that drops.
Sorry for the long-winded response. If you've made it all the way to the end here, and you would still rather turn off the automatic calibration instead of adjusting chin, then here's the best way to handle it. Make sure the automatic force adjustment is on and then play through a full bout at the intensity you want to play the game with. Then go turn it off, and the manual slider will default to the level the automatic adjustment had last set you to. Start there, and if you want to hit harder then increase your manual setting, or if the game is too easy then decrease it. You'll only need to make very small adjustments to see a noticeable difference.
As someone with like 44 recorded hours in, basically auto-calibrate+customization menu is the way to go.
What the auto calibrate does, simplified, is adjust your multiplier behind the scenes based on your current force. You get what you give.
If you're just swinging for the fences blindly, you're gonna have a bad time...
If you play it as if you were actually boxing, going for fewer, calculated punches the game will theoretically remain challenging for you*... But if you're still having issues, you're free to lower their stats to, in the custimization menu at opponent selection.
The downside of setting a manual calibration, in my opinion, is you're not always going to give it the same energy. Maybe you had a harder day at work than usual, maybe you're kinda sleepy, maybe you just want to rip someones ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ head off... Those will all affect how you play in some way or another.
*Once you "git gud" and are nailing those sweet spots, the game does get rather easy, in which case cranking up chin is generally required.
I understand it a bit better now (will have to read it again and slower, because I didn't have much time now) but I still think, that it would be more transparent if this auto-calibrator could be started manually (a guided process which tells the player to do all those things the program needs to get a good force-multiplier; for example: hit as hard as you can at a certain target-point, then again to another target-point, for example punch, upper-cut and so on, then punch with middle strength... and so on. You could force (ask for) all the patterns needed, like you do now during the real fight in the game, but in a controlled calibration-process). If the sandbag is not the best option, you could use a dummy-boxer instead. The gathered values should be saved.
Advantage of this would be IMHO:
1. It would be only an additional and optional "auto-calibration-tutorial"-feature in the menu. So the people who don't like it, like you described at the beginning and were not happy with this, just don't have to use it... They can still use the ingame "auto"-feature like it is now (maybe rename this option to "LIVE-auto-calibration")or manually change the values like they can do now. So it would only be a third option...
2. It would be more transparent. You know that NOW, during this guided calibration tutorial your inputs are being measured and you define the strength and difficulty with this, so you can concentrate on the commands to get the best experience later on in the game. It's hard to concentrate on it during a real fight and therefore it might happen that the difficulty suddenly changes in a not wanted way.
3. You could save such "profiles" and always be sure, that the difficulty and the strength-multiplier won't change automatically. So if another person (a friend or a family-member) wants to play the game it can use it's own profile or (if profile-saving is too difficult to implement) just restart the "auto-calibration-tutorial". So it won't start with a wrong multiplier from another person (who is much stronger or much weaker) and on the other hand it won't destroy a good setting, just because another person is trying the game for a short period.
4. Changing the parameters of the opponents like you write as an option is not so good IMO, because it's not possible to do so if you fight an opponent in singleplayer-campain for the first time (it unlocks only if you defeated the opponent, right?) and on the other hand it changes the way the game was meant to be played (so you can easily get a mess with the numbers and then the difficulty-level is not "correct" anymore...). But it's nice to have this option for the advanced players who want to experiment. I don't want to experiment. I want to enjoy the game like it was designed (start with easy opponent and progress to more difficult opponents). But of course the game needs to adjust the players punching strenght (because everyone is different strong/weak). So this adjustment is okay/essential ;-)
I hope you know what I mean. Thank you for your fast response. It's just my opinion and I would be happy if you could implement some ideas in your awsome game...
The biggest issue is that a controlled calibration process isn't the same as what happens in a real match. I figure what better way to collect the data than to do it with the real stuff as it happens.
In my perfect world, everyone would leave auto-calibration on and nobody would even realize its something that exists.
The intent is that it doesn't matter if you know your inputs are being measured or not - it should work either way. You shouldn't have to concentrate on it during a real fight, as you shouldn't be acting any differently than you would otherwise. If that's not working, then it's a problem with my auto-adjustment algorithm that I'd like to fix.
I think this is a good point, and I would definitely consider this a benefit. Since it's just me working on the game and my hands are already full, I'm really stingy about what I spend time working on, and a profile system like this would require a huge amount of development time for me. I think having the auto-adjustment algorithm be able to adjust quickly to a new player is a good way to handle it. Currently, if the new player can throw stronger punches than the auto-calibrator will adjust after just a few swings. If the new player throws weaker punches then they'll have to play through just one whole round at most before their proper multiplier is set.
I think the "proper" solution to this would be for me to add in difficulty presets (i.e., easy, normal, and hard). For now what I've done is to just try to make the default fights challenging but achievable with some practice for the average person - basically what I would consider "normal" mode or maybe even "easy" mode if there were difficulty settings. The next opponent will come before Joe and be an easier fight, so it should help with the initial difficulty curve, too.
If you're a longer term player or a naturally talented player (maybe bringing in real-world boxing skills) then you'll unlock the customize menu for all opponents very quickly, and can tailor the game to your taste. Since there are only 7 opponents, the longer-term gameplay is really about customizing the match options and opponent stats to find a routine you like. For example, I'm never going to require a 12 round bout as a default option, but that might be something some players (like Turbatus) are interested in.
The game is designed to be played with the auto-adjustment turned on and without you having to think about it. Your strength should naturally be adjusted to exactly where I want you in terms of difficulty. The manual multiplier is for people who don't want to play the game as designed.
Your punch strength is not intended determine the game's difficulty or say anything about your skill. (But of course, having too high or low of a multiplier will naturally make the game harder or easier)
I very much appreciate the feedback! The force multiplier and how I handle players of different strength levels is a very important focus of mine, so I love to hear all I can about how players are experiencing it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, and please don't hesitate to share more. I'd especially love to hear more about you finding the game sometimes too easy and sometimes too hard with the auto-adjustment on, so we can narrow down what might be making it that way.
Therefore I started to turn it OFF and was asking myself what multiplier I should use:
- should 1.0 = 100% be the „normal value“ and every higher multiplier is only for weak persons who need to „cheat“?
- Which force value should I reach when punching the sandbag as hard as possible?
- What is a good force value and what not? I simply have no comparison but would like to have some...
- Which value would a real boxer (or at least a good player of this game) achieve with „default/normal“1.0 multiplier? Would you be so kind and tell me your force value with your strongest punch? Because I could also try to achieve a higher force value not only by setting a higher multiplier but by real training in real life ;-) I want to know a good average force value, then punch at the sandbag as hard as I can, then read my force value and then I would know how hard I can punch compared to others... (a challenge like using a box machine at the funfair)
Therefore I started to think about the system behind it and therefore I opened this thread in the forum...
What I still don‘t understand with the current auto-calibration system which seems to survey every punch during the whole fight:
how can the system know if a player WANTS the multiplier to be raised or not??
Some examples:
- Player WANTS intentionally to throw a lot of weak punches just to maybe „surprise“ with a very hard punch later on (the multiplier should NOT be raised automatically during the fight!)
- Player is so exhausted that he isn‘t able to make hard punches (which would be okay and realistic: the multiplier should NOT be raised during fight!)
- Player plays for the first time, of course he wants to be competitive and therefore a multiplier is needed for weaker persons to be able to enjoy the game (in this case the multiplier should be raised)
- How is my very first punch calculated (with which multiplier?) The first punch could be a slow beginning with not so much power, or it could be the lucky punch with maximum power which could end a fight after this one punch theoretically... With the current method of permanently live-adjusting the multiplier (and with the fact that different players could have played the game) the system can NEVER have the correct force multiplier suited for a specific player for the first punches!
Therefore I think that the current algorithm may be good of course but I don‘t think it can differentiate between all cases (see the aboves for example).
I think that the guided individual auto-calibration would solve all these problems. It would determine the strength and abilities of a specific player at the beginning and that‘s it. All other problems solved: when I want to punch weak or I’m too exhausted for harder punch it would be weak, when I want to punch hard and I can reach the maximum power I had during my calibration process it would be a hard punch with maximum force. Simple as that and understandable for me.
And even some remaining problems could be solved with this:
- a weaker friend wants to play: with my saved settings from my calibration it would be too tough for him: solution: he can run the calibration process again and the multiplier will be suited for him. If he could save his own profile the better. If not, I will have to run the calibration feature for me again, otherwise it would be too easy for me, playing right after a weaker friend (or I could reload my own saved problem). Not a big deal...
- I become stronger and better in real life because of physical training (and playing your game ;-)) but my multiplier stays the same since I run the auto-calibration in the very beginning: what will happen: the game would become too easy because I am so strong now in real life; solution: I run the calibration app again and will get a lower multiplier... Not a big deal....
Don‘t know if my thoughts are correct or can convince you, but you wanted to hear more :-)
Would be nice if I could give me some comparison values concerning force value from hardest punch, maybe also from other players ( haha, a worldranking- leaderboard would be interesting: who has the hardest punch? Without multipliers of course....)
This could be a matter of you nailing the weak points some times and not others. If you've been playing for awhile, it might have been caused by updates to the game changing the difficulty (especially the beta which has had major difficulty changes with most of each of the recent updates). Your personal style might just be a worst-case scenario for the auto-calibrator and might be causing it trouble, in which case the manual adjustment option is still there as a last resort.
There really is no "normal" value, as I'll explain as I answer your other questions.
The game is balanced around you maxing out somewhere around 3600. The heavy bag factors in some bonuses and penalties that the auto-calibration does not, but that will put you close at least.
This is kind of a trick question, which causes a lot of confusion.
An Olympic or pro boxer will probably throw straight punches somewhere in the 8m/s to 12m/s range and hooks somewhere in the 10m/s to 16m/s range. This will put their heavy bag result somewhere between 2900 to 4300.
Where it gets backwards is that heavier weight class boxers are more likely to hit with less force in TotF than lighter weight class boxers despite them hitting for more force than lighter class boxers in real life. This is because both the heavy and light weight boxers would have the same virtual mass in TotF, so speed would be a differentiating factor. Heavier weight class boxers tend to have a slightly slower fist speed, but their extra mass ultimately makes their punches more damaging.
Another problem is that its very easy to add extra speed to your punch that doesn't have much mass behind it (through an arm whip or just an extra flick of your wrist as you punch), and the game has a hard time knowing that this is happening. The auto-calibrator has some additional ways to deal with it, but the heavy bag results don't use your force multiplier or the auto-calibrator data.
The game also has no real way to measure your muscle tension or skeletal linkage, and it's very hard to read the body mass you've contributed to the punch.
There are a ton of other reasons players might have different strengths. For some people its as simple as not wanting to throw full-force while being effectively blindfolded. Hardware and tracking differences can affect your force read-out as well.
All of this makes it very hard to meaningfully compare your punch results to anyone else's. The strength of your hits is still extremely important, but only relative to your own personal force range.
A "good" force value is how hard you are able to hit, whatever that may be.
When I've checked, the calibrator usually has mine set at 1.3x or 1.4x.
The multiplier will only increase if you go an entire full round without throwing your very hard punch. However, your damage is adjusted instantly when you throw your hard punch. The calibrator needs to see multiple hard punches to actually change your multiplier, but hard punches in the meantime will only count as hard as the hardest punch your multiplier is currently set for.
I mentioned in my first reply that this can be a problem if this behavior is all you do - throwing only light punches and then rarely throwing a single very hard punch. In that case, all of your hits will count as hard hits, and the very hard hit you throw will be adjusted to be the same as the light hits that are counting as hard hits.
I don't think this is a common situation, though. Your multiplier will only increase at the end of a full round if you have not shown the auto-calibrator that you can hit at a certain level of force. Your hard hits would have to be thrown very rarely for that to happen.
I also mentioned this in my first reply. This is certainly something that can happen.
For the most part, I don't think your maximum strength drops much as you get fatigued. You just won't be hitting at your highest strength as much as you were in earlier rounds, and your number of punches will be lower in general. Still, I imagine your multiplier does go up very slightly in later rounds, but it shouldn't make a huge difference.
The game is designed such that small changes like this don't have a major effect on the game. Landing hits to weak points is going to be much more important than squeezing out a little extra force.
If the game is being played for the first time, your multiplier defaults to a pretty high number, but will decrease quickly to match the player's force level. If the game has already been played by one player and a weaker player jumping in, they will have to suffer through just one round before the multiplier is increased to where it should be for the new player.
The multiplier will be based off of the last round that was played. If you were the last player, then it will be right at or very close to where it needs to be. If you are switching players, then it will adjust quickly if it needs to be lower and will adjust after one full round if it needs to increase.
Keep in mind that if your multiplier is too high for a hit you throw, your damage will be reduced for that hit as if your multiplier had been reduced. The multiplier just won't actually be reduced (important for your other punches) until you "prove" to the game you can hit that hard reliably. This makes it not much of an issue if your multiplier is higher than it should be, unless you refrain from throwing a hard hit for long period of time.
The goal isn't to make it perfect all the time, but to make it work so well that its unnoticeable under practical play conditions. Frequently switching out players of very different strength levels and throwing only soft punches with a hard punch rarely mixed in is the absolute worst case scenario for the auto-calibrator. The most common use of the game is a single player throwing a good mix of punches each round.
On a related note, I have a launch option intended for arcades that resets the multiplier to the initial high value at the start of each fight, so that way nobody gets stuck at too low of a multiplier for their first round. This is because players swapping in and out is going to be exclusively how the game is played in arcades.
I don't think it's a bad idea, but it introduces user error. As I mentioned, it used to work very similar to this, but people would end up giving themself an improper setting and leaving a negative review based on it. I would much rather players not even know about the force multiplier at all and use the chin setting to make themselves stronger or weaker. If you don't want the game to increase the multiplier if you start throwing weaker when you get tired, just switch off the automatic adjustment and leave it at the setting you were last calibrated to. By doing so, you have effectively gone through the calibration steps you're outlining by playing an actual match.
This is definitely a weakness of the current auto-adjustment system. Another way I could handle this under the current system is by adding a "reset" option that cleared the current calibration. You can emulate this by switching over to manual, increasing the multiplier to some high number, and then turning the auto-calibrator back on. You could also have your friend play a quick match against the sparring partner, which would cause the auto-calibrator to adjust (and is a 1 round 60 second match by default).
If the multiplier gets set too high, it adjusts itself downward very quickly under real match conditions.
If you left the auto-calibrator on, it would always correct for your current level of strength. If the game is getting easier because you're improving, then it's because you're hitting weak points more accurately, finding openings more easily, and consistently hitting hard. The max force you can get the heavy bag to show isn't meant to be the primary determiner of the game's difficulty.
I absolutely love to hear them. This gives me a chance to double check my thinking on the game's mechanics. I'm not disagreeing with you, and I've had your same thoughts before. The auto-calibrator has just been the way I've chosen to solve this problem that I feel is best when considering context of what my goals for the game are, what my own development capabilities and timelines are, and how I see most players reacting to the game.
That's an interesting concept, but I think it puts people in the wrong mode of thought. Your hardest hit is a fun novelty, but it's not what the game is balanced around. Your multiplier is meaningless compared to others for the reasons mentioned above, and I think it puts players in the wrong mindset to think about it at all. People are naturally drawn to seeing big numbers for their punch force and comparing it to others (like the funfair game you mentioned).