rep & heat?

[anvil]

I have had a few situations where it shows negative Rep and heat. But when I go to a motel, it tells me my heat is 0. Is this a bug? I waited til the new upgrade to post. So it has been this way for the last two upgrades. Thanks

[fallen]

anvil - thanks for bringing it up. Something has definitely changed that is causing some negative issues for Heat. We will check into it.

Can you provide some details on these "few situations" ? That could shave hours off our development time to fix the bug.

You got bug CK-441

[grävling]

Aug 1, 2012 13:26:36 GMT -5 anvil said:

I have had a few situations where it shows negative Rep and heat. But when I go to a motel, it tells me my heat is 0. Is this a bug? I waited til the new upgrade to post. So it has been this way for the last two upgrades. Thanks

There has been a change in what the hotel reports, in part because I asked for it. There are two things to think about here, your absolute heat and your relative heat. Your relative heat is your absolute heat minus your reputation. Your absolute heat is the heat you have all over the NBZ before any reputation modifiers get applied.

So let us say you have an absolute heat of 40. But you are in Fennian territory, at the Howling Sea Inn. The Fennians love you, and you have a rep of 60 with them. Your absolute heat is 40, but your relative heat is 40 - 60 or -20. But relative heat doesn't get lower than 0, so your relative heat is 0.

Next let us say you travel to Old Kenmore. The Streets hate your guts and you have a reputation of -25 with them. Your relative heat there is 40 - (-25) or 65. Lots more heat.

Now up until 2 releases ago, the hotels reported your relative heat in the zone. It was changed because people, including me, complained that we didn't want to read about relative heat .... it is the absolute heat we care about. After all, with a rep of 60 in Fennian land, when the Howling Sea Inn reported that we had a heat of 0, this could mean that our absolute heat was anything between 0 and 60. And what I want to know, when it comes to heat, is not what the heat is like in the zone I am in, but in zones where I might like to do some work. So if the Connector is offering a nice negotiate mission in the Tobin Street slums, what I want to know is what my heat will be in Oxland. Since I can look up my rep with the Oxen (and it happens to be 0, they are completely neutral about me) the figure I need is my absolute heat.

If my absolute heat is 0, then yes doing this mission is a good idea. If it is 55, and only my good rep in Fennian land makes it look like 0, then I should spend more time in hotels buring off my heat before heading to Oxland -- otherwise when I get there it will be encounter after encounter. But unless the hotel reports absolute heat, I have no way of knowing what a relative heat of 0 really means in terms of 'should I head over to Oxland now?' It was only after you arrived into new zones that you found out whether you made the correct decision to go there, or whether you shouldn't be there in the first place.

Changing the hotel to report absolute heat gave people like me what we wanted. But it means, yes indeed, if you are spending the night in a zone where you are hated, the hotel will indeed say that your heat is 0, when that is your absolute heat, even though in the zone where you are you have plenty of heat that is all due to your terrible reputation. And people who are more worried about their heat in the current zone they were in, and who were used to the old way of reporting wonder, like you, if there is a bug.

Fortunately, there is a way that everybody can be happy, by having the hotel report 'Your heat is <absolute value>, <relative value> in this zone.' This way of reporting has been promised for a release real soon now.

And, in addition to all of this there is some bug that occasionally makes the hotel report that your heat is negative (which should never happen). Cory has already fixed this one and it is due out in the next release.

Hope this makes sense,
Grävling

[anvil]

I see what your saying, but I can't see how it can work as you stated.
Is this correct?. Absolute heat is your heat in a particular zone, relative heat is your heat in the whole city. All heats added, then divided by total zones? If this is the case, baring dislexia on the two terms, then when offered a job in another zone, you still don't know your heat in that zone, nor what it is when it changes.

What I would like to see is my heat/Rep in the zone I am in, and under politics? See my heat/Rep for each zone,and the ability to check this out when offered a job. Perhaps, when offered a job, heat/Rep could be shown in the offer window.

For me, I would like to see my heat in the zone I am in, and when I go to politics, see what my heat is in each zone.

[anvil]

Sorry, the last line was to be deleted, dolphin is hard for me here to fix/edit posts. Other sites as well.

[grävling]

Aug 3, 2012 9:46:16 GMT -5 anvil said:

I see what your saying, but I can't see how it can work as you stated.
Is this correct?. Absolute heat is your heat in a particular zone, relative heat is your heat in the whole city. All heats added, then divided by total zones? If this is the case, baring dislexia on the two terms, then when offered a job in another zone, you still don't know your heat in that zone, nor what it is when it changes.

What I would like to see is my heat/Rep in the zone I am in, and under politics? See my heat/Rep for each zone,and the ability to check this out when offered a job. Perhaps, when offered a job, heat/Rep could be shown in the offer window.

For me, I would like to see my heat in the zone I am in, and when I go to politics, see what my heat is in each zone.

No, you misunderstand what I am saying.

Let us say that there was no reputation in this game, only heat. Then, every time you did a job, you would generate heat. This heat would be the same in every zone. It wouldn't matter what faction you did the job for, and who was harmed by it, because those things effect reputation directly, not heat, and since we are saying there is no reputation, then the only things that would change is that every time your did a job, or had an encounter that turned violnet, your heat would get worse, and every time you slept in a hotel your heat would get better. (Unless you slept in the same hotel as the night before, let us ignore this possibility.)

Some jobs, like assasinations would add more heat than other ones like package delivery, but they all would add heat. And whatever total of heat you are carrying would be the same in every zone. This is the figure I am calling absolute heat.

When it comes to the graphics you see below your portrait, you would always see your heat minus your reputation, and since your reputation is always 0, that would work out to your heat -- so you might see no yellow or red bands, or just some yellow, or some yellow and red bands. Your reputation would be fixed at 0, so no red or green bands for you as reputation. Your heat graphic is showing your relative heat, but since there is no reputation there is no difference between your relative heat and your absolute heat.

Then we add a reputation system. The way we do this is to give you a starting reputation of 0 with every faction. Now when you do jobs, in addition to generating absolute heat precisely as described above, you also generate reputation. So if you do a job for Los V, against the Fennians, then Los V likes you a bit more and Fennians like you a bit less.

Let us assume that you do a bunch of jobs and end up with an absolute heat of 50. How will this be displayed in various zones? Well, in zones where your reputation is 0, your starting neutral position, your relative heat is 50 -0 or 50 -- so it has remained the same as your absolute heat.

But if Los V loves you a lot, say a reputation of 50, and your heat is 50 then your reputation and your heat precisely cancel. Your relative heat in the Los V neighbourhoods is 0. And if the Fennians hate you a lot, say a reputation of -50 then your heat there is 50 - (-50) or 100. You have lots more heat in Fennian neighbourhoods due to 50 points of it coming from your very bad reputation with them. And what if the Blue Oxen love you even more than the Los V do? and you have a reputation of 100 with them? Then your relative heat is 50 - (-100) or -50. Except that heat is always greater than or equal to 0. There are no green bars in the heat graphic, only the reputation graphic. So your relative heat is 0 in Oxland as well.

And therein lies the problem. If your relative heat is 0 in a zone where you have positive rep, you have no way of knowing if this means that your absolute heat is 0, or any figure up to the number of your reputation. In the case above, you could take an additional 50 points of heat on, and in Oxland it would still be 0. In Los V it would now be 50, and in Fennian lands a 150. (This assumes that your rep with all three did not change -- so say you only did jobs for Mars against Aztek to get those extra 50 points).

Now, the question is what would you like the hotels to display when you stay in them? From my point of view, what I want is the absolute heat. Given that figure, and a list of my reputation with each faction, which I also have, I can calculate my relative heat anywhere. But given my relative heat in one zone, I cannot calculate my absolute heat if my reputation is positive in the zone, and my relative heat is 0. This could mean that my absolute heat is anything from 0 to the number of my rep in the zone. It was only by going to other places that I could find out whether there was any absolute heat -- if it stays 0 in a place where I have rep 0, I know it is absolutely 0. If it goes to 15, then I know my absolute heat is 15. And it is your absolute heat that you carry around with you from zone to zone.

What you are proposing is for the reputation screen to not show reputation, but heat in other zones. We could invent another screen to do this, but it would be a bad idea to get rid of the reputation screen because it effects other things besides heat -- your success in negotiate and threaten jobs, for one.

Since your original bug report -- why does the hotel say I have heat 0 in zones where I have negative reputation? -- is about hotels, I think we can fix your problem there. The hotels will be changed to say "Your heat is 0, 15 in this zone." in places where you have negative reps, like this hypothetical one where your rep is -15. If your rep is positive or 0 they will say, "Your heat is 0, 0 in this zone." and when you have heat, but you are in a place where you are loved and your reputation cancels it? The hotel will say "Your heat is 15, 0 in this zone."

Thus you will have to read the "in this zone" heat figure in the hotel to find out what you want to know, and I read the other figure to find out what I want to know, and everybody is happy.

Does this make any more sense?

[Ahab]

You have it backward. Absolute heat is your heat in the entire city, disregarding any modifications by local reputation. Relative heat is your heat as seen in a particular zone, with reputation mods. Hotels used to show Relative heat, making it difficult to know what your heat would be in a different zone. Now hotels show Absolute heat, so you can calculate your Relative heat in any zone if you know your reputation in that zone. One remaining problem is that your reputation can shift a little while in a hotel, plus the fact that you might not remember your reputation, which is why Gravling has suggested putting both Absolute heat, and Relative Heat Within This Zone into the hotel text.

Aug 3, 2012 9:46:16 GMT -5 anvil said:

I see what your saying, but I can't see how it can work as you stated.
Is this correct?. Absolute heat is your heat in a particular zone, relative heat is your heat in the whole city. All heats added, then divided by total zones? If this is the case, baring dislexia on the two terms, then when offered a job in another zone, you still don't know your heat in that zone, nor what it is when it changes.

What I would like to see is my heat/Rep in the zone I am in, and under politics? See my heat/Rep for each zone,and the ability to check this out when offered a job. Perhaps, when offered a job, heat/Rep could be shown in the offer window.

For me, I would like to see my heat in the zone I am in, and when I go to politics, see what my heat is in each zone.

[grävling]

Aug 3, 2012 9:49:29 GMT -5 anvil said:

Sorry, the last line was to be deleted, dolphin is hard for me here to fix/edit posts. Other sites as well.

I switched from Dolphin to Opera Mini for that reason.

[anvil]

I may give opera a try.

I did not realize that generated heat was across the board. I thought it was per zone. The spy in the sky basically Monitors all citizens etc and assigns heat due to their global actions, and clans determine Rep depending on local actions. Is this right?

Or is heat changed within a zone as well as Rep on a per clan basis? Thus both changed by clan? I am now officially confused.

When you sleep, this changes your absolute heat(that is constant across the board) ? And has no effect on Rep. Rep can only be changed by actions for or against a specific clan?

On the present hotel screen, it can tell me my present heat is zero, meaning global(absolute) heat (-) local Rep. If I continue to sleep, is my absolute heat decreased, or am I spending time & money for no reason? I have some more thoughts, but need more clarification so will end this for now. Thanks for all

[anvil]

Ahab, thanks,I do understand this. I feel that hotels should show relative heat,as the reason I am there is to increase my situation there. As it is now it is not possible, or very difficult and or counterintuitive to know my local situation.

[anvil]

So there are in fact two different situations here, and perhaps this is where the/my confusion comes from.

1) selecting missions
2) sleeping to improve my local situation.

So perhaps under my avatar, I should see my global heat and local Rep.

When I bid a job, the job bid screen should show my local heat and Rep at the jobzitd.

When I sleep, the hotel screen should show my local heat at the hotel site.

This separates the two situations, and gives the needed data where needed.

[Ahab]

I think you have it mostly figured out, though a couple questions in here are not quite correct (you may have figured it out by the time of your later posts).

Yeah, when you generate heat during a mission, it is global, which is why we've been calling it Absolute heat. In any particular zone, that heat is modified by your reputation, so you have a local or Relative heat. Every action you take can affect your reputation with various factions, and not always in the way that you expect.

Currently, hotels will tell you your Absolute heat, but won't tell you your local reputation so you can't tell what your Relative heat will be locally unless you have some idea what your reputation is. If the hotel says your heat is zero, then sleeping isn't going to change your Absolute heat any further.

But it is not quite true that sleeping does not change your local reputation. I believe that where you sleep is one of the things that can affect your reputation with various factions, though this is only a slight effect. In addition, reputation with every faction will decay towards zero over time. The closer your reputation is to zero, the faster it will approach zero. And every time you sleep is another twelve hours of time passing in the game, so every time you sleep, all reputations (positive and negative) will be slightly closer to zero. But this is probably not the most efficient way of getting rid of a negative reputation.

There have been debates over whether hotels should show global Absolute heat or local Relative heat. Due to player feedback, it was changed to the current Absolute heat display, but that could still change. I like knowing my absolute heat, but Gravling's suggestion of showing both is good.

Aug 3, 2012 18:53:56 GMT -5 anvil said:

I may give opera a try.

I did not realize that generated heat was across the board. I thought it was per zone. The spy in the sky basically Monitors all citizens etc and assigns heat due to their global actions, and clans determine Rep depending on local actions. Is this right?

Or is heat changed within a zone as well as Rep on a per clan basis? Thus both changed by clan? I am now officially confused.

When you sleep, this changes your absolute heat(that is constant across the board) ? And has no effect on Rep. Rep can only be changed by actions for or against a specific clan?

On the present hotel screen, it can tell me my present heat is zero, meaning global(absolute) heat (-) local Rep. If I continue to sleep, is my absolute heat decreased, or am I spending time & money for no reason? I have some more thoughts, but need more clarification so will end this for now. Thanks for all

[grävling]

Aug 3, 2012 18:53:56 GMT -5 anvil said:

I did not realize that generated heat was across the board. I thought it was per zone. The spy in the sky basically Monitors all citizens etc and assigns heat due to their global actions, and clans determine Rep depending on local actions. Is this right?

This is mostly correct. You have the spy-in-the-sky part correct. But the clans hand out rep depending on that you do jobs for them, or against them, wherever you do them. For instance, if you get Victor's chip for the Blue Ox faction, you will find that he practically never gives out jobs in Oxland. You call him (from outside of Oxland) and he wants you to, for instance, work against Yakashima by delivering a message to the Yakuza. You go to the Yakuza and deliver it. Your rep with the Oxen is increased. Your rep with Yakashima is decreased. The increase is more than the decrease -- the Oxen like you more than the Yakashima dislike you over this. And the Yakuza, in whose zone this happened -- well they don't care one way or another.

Unless --- you get into a fight along the way. Fights always effect your reputation in the zone you are in. So if you had to kill 5 Yakuza members in order to get the message delivered, then the Yakuza will dislike you a lot more. Indeed, they likely dislike you a whole lot more than Yakashima does over this mission.

This is the basic outline. Whenever you do a mission there is also the chance that it will effect your reputation in ways that you did not anticipate, albeit very slightly. Sometimes missions that officially benefit faction X also benefit faction Y, so your rep goes up a bit with them too. But this effect is never large.

Also if you say you will do a job for somebody faction, and then you cancel it, well you lose a bit of rep for that. But it is nowhere near the rep you lose if you say you will do a job and then let it expire undone. That can cost you a lot of reputation.

Or is heat changed within a zone as well as Rep on a per clan basis? Thus both changed by clan? I am now officially confused.

This is incorrect. But what is displayed is heat - reputation.

When you sleep, this changes your absolute heat(that is constant across the board) ? And has no effect on Rep. Rep can only be changed by actions for or against a specific clan?

This is almost correct. Rep also declines towards 0 over time. But the effect is much smaller than the heat effect. Resting actively removes heat. The passing of time, whether spent in a hotel or elsewhere sends your rep towards 0. But if your rep is serously positive or seriously negative, then the effect is almost nothing. It is only when your rep is very close to 0 one way or the other already that staying in a hotel could result in a rep change -- it might end up at 0. From then on it doesn't move due to staying in a hotel.

On the present hotel screen, it can tell me my present heat is zero, meaning global(absolute) heat (-) local Rep.

Completely false. This is what the past hotel screens used to say. What the current hotel screen says is that your heat is X, meaning that your global heat is X, before any rep modifications take place.

If I continue to sleep, is my absolute heat decreased, or am I spending time & money for no reason? I have some more thoughts, but need more clarification so will end this for now. Thanks for all

If you continiue to sleep in the same place your global heat wiill not change. If you want to change your global heat you need to sleep in a _different_ hotel or safehouse.

[grävling]

Aug 3, 2012 18:58:53 GMT -5 anvil said:

Ahab, thanks,I do understand this. I feel that hotels should show relative heat,as the reason I am there is to increase my situation there. As it is now it is not possible, or very difficult and or counterintuitive to know my local situation.

As it stands now, it is dirt simple to know your local situation., All you have to do is leave the hotel. Then you look up your faction rep for this zone. You remember what the hotel told you. You say my local rep is 'what the hotel told me - my local rep'. If that number is negative, then you say, aha, my local heat is 0. Then you take a look at your heat bars and see, yes indeed, this is what is being displayed -- what the hotel told me - local rep.

So the hard way to find out is to calculate it, and it is an easy calculation. The easy way is to just look.

But the terrific thing about what we have now is that it lets you find out what your heat will be someplace else. There it will be what the hotel told me, - my rep wtih some ofther faction.
You can go visit there and verify that your math was correct and you got the heat you expected. The calculation is just as easy. And when you go there you can just look.

The thing is that there is absolutely nothing you can do in a hotel that you have already spent the night in to improve your heat. Knowing how hot it is going to be when you step out the hotel door would only matter if sleeping an extra 12 hours would effect your heat, and it won't. But knowing whether or not it is safe to leave a zone is something we all would like to know, and without the numbers on our global heat, we couldn't calculate it. We could only find out by going there. And sometimes when we went places, the answer we got was 'way too much heat, I should never have gone here in the first place'. The change has stopped this.

[Cory Trese]

Adding local /global heat to both the HUD's details when you tap the heat bar and to the hotel text.