Definition (HR). I will call Nepster's proposal 1, using values 1 slow through 50 fast,
HR, half-rate. This name would obviously suck long-term, feel free to rename.
Switching to spawn interval means that existing levels where a round number was chosen no longer have one.
Both HR and SI un-round a round RR. For example, RR 50 becomes HR 26 and SI 28.
Any time a precise calculation [from RR to HR] is wanted, it's very simple: divide by 2.
No, it's complicated.
RR 99 = HR 50 = SI 4
RR 98 = HR 50 = SI 4
RR 97 = HR 49 = SI 5
...
RR 51 = HR 26 = SI 28
RR 50 = HR 26 = SI 28
...
RR 3 = HR 2 = SI 52
RR 2 = HR 2 = SI 52
RR 1 = HR 1 = SI 53
Whether you round your divisions up or down, you'll always have to offset:
RR n = HR (1 + floor(n/2)) = HR ceil((n+1) / 2).
Restricting ourselves to only the even RR, or only the odd RR, we must offset still to convert between HR and RR:
HR n = RR (2n - 2) = RR (2n - 1).
For convenience, here are the formulae with all of RR, HR, SI:
RR n = HR (1 + floor(n/2)) = HR ceil((n+1) / 2) = SI (53 - floor(n/2)),
HR n = RR (2n - 1) = SI (54 - n),
SI n = RR (107 - 2n) = HR (54 - n).
New players are confused at why the maximum is the weird number 53.
Indeed, SI 53 is awkward. You can choose a rounder slowest value as you wish. That's a 100 % backwards-compatible change.
But SI 4 as the fastest value remains weird. There is no reason why it shouldn't go faster. RR 99 or HR 50 won't have this problem.
The only disadvantage I can see for 1-50 is that players used to the 1-99 system have to adjust.
Ambiguity seems dangerous. New player comes and talks about RR 50, what does it mean? I could only accept HR if we don't call it "release rate".
Reviewing options:
0) Keep RR with duplicates.
1) HR. This doesn't preserve round values and replaces a weird abstraction with another arbitrary abstraction. I don't see the merit behind this this?
2) Randomly poke holes in the RR 1-99 range. You wouldn't do this in a new design, it's interesting still by tradition.
3) Or switch to SI, ditching any fragile abstraction painted over the truth. This seems cleanest? möbius and Icho like the paint layer over SI though (displayed = constant - SI) and you must redesign the "+" and "-" buttons.
4) If faster values should be bigger numbers, maybe display spawn frequency from 1/53 to 1/4? <_<;
5) Is HR shifted by 1 sensible? RR 50 becomes HR' 25, RR 60 becomes HR' 30, and the extremal values are HR' 0 and HR' 49? Preserves round values from RR levels, but has 0. Spawning at a something-rate of zero?
6) <Simon> you can have a weird RR system that generally steps by 2, but every value ending in a decimal 4 gets an ending in 5 instead
<SimonN> then Dullstar gets the round values, newbs get no duplicates, and everybody gets thoroughly confused
<Proxima> :D
I don't see huge downsides in keeping RR, then switching to another system next year. The level format would have to parse two possible lines that set SI.
Bikeshedding-- Simon
