Tuesday 17 October 2017

The ultimate training post

Based on the post about CSR (see it here) I have addressed the topic of training. There are several questions to be answered:
  1. What is the effect of Youth Academy training  over CSR?
  2. What is the gain of a senior's training session in terms of CSR? and 10 sessions?
  3. Is the training in the Youth Academy more efficient than the training in the seniors? When is it more efficient?

Assumptions

The starting point for this study is this thread in the NZ Offsite. This means that we assume as true:
  • A level 3 session in the Youth Academy represents 0.20 of a pop.
  • The skill levels in the seniors raise as per donkeysaint's table summarizing Tabac's study.
  • Multiple sessions in the seniors don't reduce efficiency of training
  • The CSR formula given in the previous post in this blog is true.

Training in the Youth Academy

What is the increase in CSR given a certain skill level?Let us illustrate this with an example:

A junior player has a stamina value of 12(12.00) and receives a training session; By how much his CSR is increased?

Answer: The CSR contribution of a skill at 12.2 - the contribution of a skill at 12.0 = 595

This is the increase in CSR of a single session in the Youth Academy:

Level 1: +1.4 CSR per training session
Level 2: +5.4 CSR per training session
Level 3: +14.8 CSR per training session
Level 4: +31 CSR per training session
Level 5: +56.2 CSR per training session
Level 6: +92.8 CSR per training session
Level 7: +142.4  CSR per training session
Level 8: +207.2 CSR per training session
Level 9:  +288.8 CSR per training session
Level 10: +389.8 CSR per training session
Level 11: +512.0 CSR per training session
Level 12: +657.4 CSR per training session
Level 13: +827.8 CSR per training session

As there are 4 training sessions with level 3 facilities and level 3 coach, that means the CSR increase of a weekly training in the YA is at most, 4 times the given figure.

Maximum CSR gain in the YA: +3300 (for 4 different skills at level 13)

Training in the seniors 


Using the CSR formula and having access to several players training 10 level 5 sessions, I have calculated the increases in CSR for a skill in the range 3-16 produced by a single level 5 session.
I express it in terms of fraction of a pop, to contrast with Tabac's table:

Level 3: 0.096 of a pop
Level 4: 0.091 of a pop
Level 5: 0.087 of a pop
Level 6: 0.082 of a pop
Level 7: 0.078 of a pop
Level 8: 0.072 of a pop
Level 9:  0.070 of a pop
Level 10: 0.065 of a pop
Level 11: 0.057 of a pop
Level 12: 0.054 of a pop
Level 13: 0.048 of a pop
Level 14: 0.043 of a pop
Level 15: 0.033 of a pop
Level 16: 0.030 of a pop

Comparing both trainings 


The following graph sums up this study



The conclusion is obvious: as long as the player is training skills above level 10, the Youth Academy training is more efficient than the senior's training.

Saturday 14 October 2017

My formula for CSR

CSR is an important stat in Blackout Rugby. It is the most important stat. If you were not allowed to see anything from a player and you were to assess that player based on only one stat, we would 100% of the times choose CSR.
Experience is important, discipline is important, height, weight, age, skill values... but CSR is an aggregation of stats, and a useful one. Therefore, there is more information in that stat than in any other.

The only problem is, of course, we don't know what CSR is made of :)

This is an attempt to explain how my formula for CSR works.

Note: I don't claim this is the right formula. I don't know the right formula. When we say Energy equals mass times light speed square, we don't know either. Just like Nature does not tell us "that is the right formula, good job", neither does Blackout Rugby (I emailed Jeremy. He didn't give anything away :)). All I can do is test the formula and see if I can get a good value.

The Formula
 where skill_i = stamina, handling...

The limitations 

The problem to test the formula is that in most cases we don't know the right values for skills. We see 12 whereas the real value might be anywhere between 12.00 and 12.99. If you plug these two values in the formula you get that the range of this uncertainty results in 3000 CSR drift.


How I came up with this formula 

The above made the determination of the formula extremely difficult.

However, there is a case in the game where this limitation was reduced to almost no limitation at all. I thank strutt84 for sharing his experiences with Youth Academy players. They have provided a lot of useful information to deduce the formula.


Skills in the Youth Academy can't be trained passed 13.99. That means all 14 values for Youth Academy players come from IGT, and that means that when a player coming from the Youth Academy has a skill value at 14, it probably is a 14.00 or very close to that.

Test the formula

I am going to provide three examples: two coming from the Trade Market (the best source to test any CSR formula) and one using strutt84's player.

Player 1:  Alois SemerĂ¡k

sta:13.5  han:14.0 att:14.0 def:14.0 tech:14.0 str:14.0 jmp:10.5 spe:13.5 agi:14.0 kck:4.5
real CSR: 131,518
predicted CSR: 129,986 (please note that the uncertainty introduced by stamina and speed might well account for the difference between the real and the predicted values)

Player 2: Jared Tough

sta:19.5  han:19.5 att:19.5 def:19.5 tech:19.5 str:19.5 jmp:17.5 spe:17.5 agi:11.5 kck:3.5
real CSR:446,969
predicted CSR:452,473

Player 3: Blazej Makarewicz

sta:17.5  han:17.5 att:16.5 def:17.5 tech:16.5 str:17.5 jmp:18.5 spe:7.5 agi:7.5 kck:2.5
real CSR:278,395
predicted CSR:273,103

What the formula can be used for 

There is a debate regarding the training of u20 players. What is more efficient? YA training? senior training?

Training in the YA provides 0.20 of a pop per session in the right circumstances. That 0.20 of a pop has a different translation to CSR depending in its value:

  1. Going from 12.0 to 12.2 represents +595 CSR increase
  2. Going from 10.8 to 11.0 represents +435 CSR increase
  3. Going from 13.0 to 13.2 represents +757 CSR increase
4 weekly sessions in the Youth Academy can range from +1700 CSR to +3000 CSR depending on your junior's skills.

Based on this, you can conclude that it probably is a good idea to keep players in the Academy when their skills range between 12 and 14, as the increase in the weekly training is  higher than what they usually get in the senior's training.

Final notes 

This formula aims to be an approximation.  Only an approximation. You are free to use it as you like, but there is no guarantee that the precision it provides will match any possible needs.