I guess this does not apply to RoR major bonuses and Super bonuses, correct?

correct, because a superbonus does contain all territories in there. The change that was made only applies to the exact same territories having multiple bonuses.

-999999999999

This change doesnt break anything. Really it's just aesthetics that can be worked around by mapmakers. It's extra work for them and I understand it's frustrating.

Now you guys need to understand that having hidden bonuses that are identical to already existing bonuses has huge potential to introduce bugs in future features. It happened with Idle, that's why Fizzer changed it. But if Fizzer keeps reusing the maps for different gamemodes (like Clan Wars), it will be a problem eventually.

Solution: we just need to accept that INSS maps need to work like Elitist Africa now, without bonus links. Must use features like text on top of bonuses (like in Africa) to help distinguish them, and use a color palette that doesnt disadvantage colorblind people.

+1 knyte

Edited 3/17/2021 15:20:41

Duplicate bonuses are now allowed again. It will still display the dupe when you click "Validate", however it won't block you from making the map testing or public.

Great explanation. Given yesterday's stream, I would assume that once Fizzer reads this, he'll accommodate in some manner. To be clear, it's not that we absolutely need to be able to declare 2 bonuses with the exact same territories in them, but rather we need a method to display a user-friendly bonus value to players. And there are a number of ways Fizzer could accommodate that.

2 bonuses with same territories is the easiest way to preserve the current INSS map method, but even in the description it was stated (and I agree) that it's a "hack", ie: not a great way to do it, but it's the best way (only way) using the game mechanics as they are. But it's clear that those same mechanics are breaking something else Fizzer is trying to do (in Idle) so he "fixed" it which broke INSS ... so given the overwhelming response to it being removed, I'd be surprised if he didn't fix INSS in some way.

@JK
It is a bit surprising that he isn't aware of the INSS mechanics, but not really a concern tbh. What's more concerning is that a change was made in an update that outright broke a feature of maps which while not fully understood by him was obviously intentional by map creators, and instead of proactively inquiring about it, just broke it instead. But he openly asked yesterday in the stream, "Why is this necessary?" so sounds like it's just a matter explaining it ... which knyte just expertly did, so think the ball's in Fizz's court now. He also stated (albeit on a different topic), "And I could be wrong", and "not sure if there's much demand for that" which does show that he's open to having his mind changed & is interested in what the player base wants, and I think we're showing here that this is something we want. So I'm hopeful that we'll get INSS back in some manner or another in a near future update.

- - - - - -

Update: LOL ... looks like we got them back while I was writing my last post. NICE! And thanks Fizzer. The player base smiles once more.

Edited 3/17/2021 15:27:29

Really it's just aesthetics that can be worked around by mapmakers. It's extra work for them and I understand it's frustrating.

It's not something that can be worked around. You can kinda get the same result, but it reduces the quality of the map. Being able to click a bonus to see which territories are in it, is an improvement to a map. INSS maps cannot do this anymore with this change.

Now you guys need to understand that having hidden bonuses that are identical to already existing bonuses has huge potential to introduce bugs in future features. It happened with Idle, that's why Fizzer changed it. But if Fizzer keeps reusing the maps for different gamemodes (like Clan Wars), it will be a problem eventually.

It happened once. INSS has been around for a long time. Also, the map for Clan Wars sets all bonuses to 0, so no worries there.

Edit: thanks Fizzer :)

Edited 3/17/2021 16:08:44

-999999999999

This change doesnt break anything. Really it's just aesthetics that can be worked around by mapmakers. It's extra work for them and I understand it's frustrating.

Now you guys need to understand that having hidden bonuses that are identical to already existing bonuses has huge potential to introduce bugs in future features. It happened with Idle, that's why Fizzer changed it. But if Fizzer keeps reusing the maps for different gamemodes (like Clan Wars), it will be a problem eventually.

Solution: we just need to accept that INSS maps need to work like Elitist Africa now, without bonus links. Must use features like text on top of bonuses (like in Africa) to help distinguish them, and use a color palette that doesnt disadvantage colorblind people

+999999999999
It does break it, it's not that you can't make a bonus have the same territories at all, so any hidden bonus pops up a warning.

-999999999999

This change doesnt break anything. Really it's just aesthetics that can be worked around by mapmakers. It's extra work for them and I understand it's frustrating.

Now you guys need to understand that having hidden bonuses that are identical to already existing bonuses has huge potential to introduce bugs in future features. It happened with Idle, that's why Fizzer changed it. But if Fizzer keeps reusing the maps for different gamemodes (like Clan Wars), it will be a problem eventually.

Solution: we just need to accept that INSS maps need to work like Elitist Africa now, without bonus links. Must use features like text on top of bonuses (like in Africa) to help distinguish them, and use a color palette that doesnt disadvantage colorblind people

+999999999999
It does break it, it's not that you can't make a bonus have the same territories at all, so any hidden bonus pops up a warning.

Oh nice dupes are allowed again! Thank a jillion Fizzer!

It's not something that can be worked around. You can kinda get the same result, but it reduces the quality of the map. Being able to click a bonus to see which territories are in it, is an improvement to a map. INSS maps cannot do this anymore with this change.

What I said here kind of misses the point. From what I understand now, this is the problem:
You can still have a bonuslink on an INSS map that specifies the whole bonus. INSS map makers use two bonuslinks for a bonus. One to tell the player how much a bonus is worth when all territories are taken, and one that compensates for that with the underlying INSS system. It is indeed possible to just show that second bonuslink and have it select all the bonus' territories for the player. The value in that bonuslink would be incorrect though.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on this one (again).

Edited 3/17/2021 16:15:18

Duplicate bonuses are now allowed again. It will still display the dupe when you click "Validate", however it won't block you from making the map testing or public.

Thank you for looking into this and fixing the issue, Fizzer!

if Fizzer keeps reusing the maps for different gamemodes (like Clan Wars), it will be a problem eventually.

It will be incredibly confusing if Fizzer reuses INSS maps or Landria or Orannis' strategic maps for Clan Wars or Idle. Those maps all have explanations on them that only make sense for Warzone Classic, because they were only made for Warzone Classic. The requirement that they also be able to work for Idle, Clan Wars, and the upcoming first-person shooter Warzone: Call of Duty is new and it breaks creative maps. Imo, the much simpler solution here is to simply not use maps with duplicate bonuses in new game-mods. Idlers in particular will be totally thrown off by the explanation text on any INSS map.

And it should be trivial to automatically detect which maps have duplicate bonuses, since Fizzer already built that functionality as part of the 5.08 restriction.

Idle shouldn't break Classic.

Edited 3/17/2021 17:22:03

fizzer seems to be such a good developer. I don't think it would be that complex to add an extra metadata for each bonuses, being Value and DisplayValue. If DisplayValue is null, the just show Value, else show DisplayValue.
This way we don't break any existing maps, and we prevent any bug in the future on any type of games.
Would this make any sense?

+1 Jo Jo. I think some sort of longer-term technical fix that addresses the underlying reason for these INSS bonuses being weird would be useful. As far as the specific fix itself, Fizzer knows his codebase better than any of us so he can probably work it out and determine how much effort would be required. But it seems like the INSS use case is currently supported through a still fairly tedious hack to which actual support would be preferable. Then again only a handful of maps run into this problem so there's also the prioritization question, which I think Fizzer can sort out himself.

We should just continue providing useful feedback on our user experience for him to work with.

I'm mainly an idler and SP player, so take this all with a grain of salt. I like that Warzone has a lot of possibilities for map making to offer and INSS definitely is a feature some other games wouldn't even be capable to interpret. But I'm really not sure, if I understand all that protest to the latest changes (that since got reverted). I watched the Fizzer stream, but actually I came here from this week's map of the week, in particular Aseridith Islands ( https://www.warzone.com/Map/41045-Aseridith-Islands ).

I get all the math behind the scenes and I appreciate every map maker spending all this time to create and adjust all the bonuses. What I don't get is why there has to be another visual bonus next to all those hidden bonuses. Hear me out! If I use the linked map as an example, there is the table of bonus armies, then there is the actual map with the territories and the bonuses, and finally there are the visible bonus values for the completed bonuses. Other INSS maps might be "better made" so to speak, but especially Aseridith has "problems" that make duplicate bonuses unnecessary. First of, the table of bonus income is part of the background. No change you can do in the game settings will update the table. This is a point that SHOULD apply to each and every INSS map. Furthermore, for the bonuses where one or two territories grant you 0 bonus armies, there aren't any hidden bonuses at all. Other INSS map makers might have gone the extra mile and have added those 0 income bonuses as well but the islands doesn't have them.

So, if I wanted to make use of custom bonus values, I'd have to edit the map file (the vector graphic) or the background wouldn't match the actual game settings. If I wanted to change e.g. "Grassland 2 Territory" to 1, I'd have to edit the map file and add new hidden bonuses (as well as editing existing bonus values and updating the table). Finally, those bonus values on the map are fine, but they don't serve any purpose because a) players new to INSS might misinterpret them, because sure, having the whole bonus grants you x armies but having the bonus partially isn't represented in the value at all, and b) advanced players will know about the different levels of income and won't need the values (mostly). Everything you might want to do to the map, immediately breaks the map in some way. To the point so, that it is almost better to make a new level with the same map but another income table and game settings. The ONLY advantage I can see is to have the bonus clickable! And that's it. Having the bonus value as part of the background image would (for the game play and income calculation) serve the exact same purpose. Especially because - as I said - changing any bonus values already breaks the map.

As a software engineer myself, I'd go a step further and even suggest to not put the bonus values on the map at all. If you want to change the values of some bonus constellations this is one more bonus value to screw up. For the map maker this is also one more value to screw up. Less points of potential failure is always better. If you would instead label (as part of the background) each bonus with its size (number of territories), the bonus would still not be clickable (unfortunately) but in order to update the bonus values you'd only have to update the table and the actual bonus values. Changing income can't change the size of a bonus so this label could be kept as is.

And if you need a clickable bonus, why not put small icons somewhere on the income table? So, on the Aseridith map you have three mining site bonuses and there is a 1 bonus income for having all three mining site bonuses. Just put three smaller dots next to the bigger "1 income for all mining sites" dot that are linked to each mining site bonus that is just associated with the calculated bonus of each bonus (even it if is negative). The income table already "warns" you that income might be off, so seeing odd numbers there wouldn't be that bad. And after all, you can't hide all those magic entirely: If you inspect a territory of such a bonus, you will always see those odd numbers.

TL;DR: If there weren't any visible bonuses on the map but labels as part of the map image (and potentially the hidden negative ones made visible to keep the bonus clickable) experienced players wouldn't bother, and new players would still need their time to comprehend the system. And changing anything will break the maps because part of the "rule set" of INSS maps is part of the background image. As long as you can't create/update INSS maps with some sort of mod that also updates the whole income table and visible bonus values, you don't have any benefits in having duplicate bonuses. At least, I think so.

Edited 3/26/2021 14:40:17

@Phoenix

It's as simple as this ... having the visible, clickable bonus link that represents the actual final value of capturing the bonus, makes it easy to figure out how much the bonus you're looking at is worth. It means you can look at the territories themselves, and have a quick visual method to know which category it falls under without having to look to the charts and/or links on the top.

If the map design forces players to constantly refer to the charts and links, we spend most of our time correlating what the heck territories we're trying to capture.

ALSO ... there are tools to update INSS maps, and these would update the visible bonuses. So yes, the graphical charts on the sides would then be incorrect and that's the trade-off you take when modifying INSS bonuses, but all the visible bonuses would be accurate.

Hey Phoenix! I appreciate the detailed analysis that you've given here and I'd like to address some of the points you made. (To add a little context, I'm the one that made the Aseridith Islands map and also the one that 'led the charge' to have the duplicate bonus link issue reverted.

First of all - I'd say this is a pretty moot point by now, since the change has been reverted. But for the sake of discussion, I don't mind explaining some of my (and other INSS players') perspective. I'm also surprised that anyone would take issue with the reversion, since I can't really see any downsides to maintaining a mechanic that doesn't have any adverse effects.

I'm mainly an idler and SP player, so take this all with a grain of salt.

Understood.

First of, the table of bonus income is part of the background. No change you can do in the game settings will update the table.

You're exactly right. But this is a non-issue since nobody in the history of the game, as far as I know, has attempted to override INSS bonus values. It's just simply too effort-prohibitive. For the sake of example, let's say you wanted to change the "Settlement 2 Territories" from a 1 to a 2. That requires overriding 132 bonuses just for that one change. Nobody is doing that. INSS mapmaking is such a precise exercise that changing bonus values after the fact just isn't something worth doing. There's too much balancing that goes into it.

For the map maker this is also one more value to screw up. Less points of potential failure is always better.

This argument is tenuous at best. Is it really another point of failure? Aseridith Islands has 779 bonuses. Adding a few more is well worth it for the increase in readability. Being able to quickly see what a full bonus is worth is extremely important. You mentioned that you're mostly into SP and Idle. If you've played Elitist Africa and Biomes, you'd immediately see the value in clickable bonuses. It's a night-and-day difference. Showing bonus values isn't just for decoration.

The ONLY advantage I can see is to have the bonus clickable! And that's it.

Without clickable bonuses:
- There is inconsistency to the look-and-feel of maps within WZ.
- Bonuses cannot be linked in chat. This is especially detrimental for team games.
- Bonuses cannot be clicked/tapped to see which territories are included.
- Bonus names are irrelevant, since they cannot be selected anyway.

Having the bonus value as part of the background image would (for the game play and income calculation) serve the exact same purpose.

But why make that a requirement? There's no problem with your opinion that they don't add value. But why restrict it for the people that do?

So I guess my rebuttal to you is just the question: Why not? There is a reason that a large portion of very experienced players were upset about this change. I can't see any positives to restricting duplicate bonuses and multiple people have outlined why they're crucial for INSS maps.

Okay, I guess today I have a tendency to slightly miss the point in several forums. So, let's try to get this straight. First of, why I care at all for duplicate bonuses is that I was one of the players reporting odd behavior in idle map bonuses because some of the idle maps had duplicate bonuses. This is definitely no problem that was related to INSS because no INSS maps are used for idle, afaict. And this problem never caused me any difficulties to play these idle maps, so, at its core I'm neither for nor against duplicate bonuses. But as it is often the case if you hear someone argue for one side first, you tend to stick with this opinion even if you also hear opposing arguments later on, and the first argument I heard was Fizzer's in the stream. So, I might sound more like I'm against duplicate bonuses while actually I like freedom. When I then today was "confronted" with an INSS map in the map of the week voting, I wanted to learn more on this topic because after the Fizzer live-stream I mostly ignored the issue for once.

Given what I thought was right, I've read the description and comments that players have collected here and thought to myself, where the actual conflict is. I like to (over)analyze things from time to time and to try to get to a problem's core as good as I can to challenge my logical thinking.

Because, having visual bonus values isn't the core problem, right? Having them as part of the background image wouldn't - at least visually - change the map. A dozen more svg elements wouldn't be more effort or problem. And as you said yourself, INSS maps aren't intended to be used with overridden bonus values. So if the visible bonus values were static, the map wouldn't lose any (non-existing) flexibility. Or in other words: Because the bonus table is part of the static background, no INSS bonuses should be changed and therefore, the visual bonus values should never have to change, either.

What my next conclusion would be then, is that if Fizzer would introduce ways to click and highlight sets of territories that aren't tied to some bonus value, all of the duplicate bonuses in INSS maps would be "fixable". Meaning, you wouldn't need duplicate bonuses if there were things just like bonuses that could never grant any income benefits (or penalties) but that would otherwise behave like bonuses. While playing idle, I came across the issue that you can't at the moment highlight all territories that are affected by a hospital. This issue could be solved by something similar to a bonus, too. So, perhaps that was the route I subconsciously wanted to take here, too. If we weren't locked to just "Territories" and "Bonuses" but were more flexible, there would be no need for the same set of territories in several bonuses.

Honestly, I can't think of many use cases for such a feature, so I guess there wouldn't be enough benefit for the necessary time to implement something like that. Still, more flexible highlights could potentially be used for more than just INSS and idle. But given that they don't exist, I respect the necessity of duplicate bonuses for INSS. The only problem that arises from the current situation with a note in the map editor but without an enforcement on duplicate bonuses is that anyone can submit maps with obscure bonuses, not just INSS map makers. And if (new) map makers can make mistakes, then they will. A somewhat better approach (in my eyes) would be to have a checkbox that you must check in order to being allowed to use duplicate bonuses (or other obscure features) that mark the map unsuitable for certain situations. But, who would set this marker for already submitted maps that are widely in use? Or having INSS officially supported by WZ with all the bells and whistles, such that the bonus table would dynamically change, too.

If you've played Elitist Africa and Biomes, you'd immediately see the value in clickable bonuses. It's a night-and-day difference.

I guess this is a general problem that on some maps it isn't THAT clear which territories belong together or which territories share a border. And I understand that this sometimes isn't the map maker's fault. Some maps just ARE complex/complicated by design (actual country borders). And there is no general consensus on things like: if four territories meet in one point, do territories "diagonally" to each other share a border? You have to check this for each map individually. The thing is, that regardless of the game mode (INSS, idle, ...) you could spend hours with studying a map and all its details. Depending on the mood I either spend six clicks to capture a territory in idle, or just one; either I check all borders and bonuses, or I don't. And I assume INSS players will do the same if they want to play properly. So, yes, I in fact see the benefits of clickable bonuses. (And I wish there was a more convenient inspection method in idle, too.)

I can't see any positives to restricting duplicate bonuses

With that I can help. It's the same you want to accomplish in INSS with duplicate bonuses. It's about readability and convenience. If I can be sure that there are no duplicate bonuses in a map, I don't have to search for hidden bonuses that might surprise me with effects I haven't anticipated. Especially, because there don't has to be a visible bonus value for every bonus (otherwise hidden INSS bonuses wouldn't be hidden anymore).

Edited 3/26/2021 23:20:50

What my next conclusion would be then, is that if Fizzer would introduce ways to click and highlight sets of territories that aren't tied to some bonus value, all of the duplicate bonuses in INSS maps would be "fixable".

This would solve the problem for INSS for sure. The status quo is definitely not optimal because INSS maps require considerably more effort to make than normal maps and more or less "hack" a system that was designed around conventional bonus systems- even though the bonus system in INSS is not that much more complex (in terms of units of information required to express the concept).

Having some sort of native support for unconventional bonus systems would be likely preferable as a long-term solution. Until then, duplicate bonuses solve a major user experience pain point in INSS maps (the first INSS map, Elitist Africa, didn't use these duplicate bonuses for bonus links; consequently, Elitist Africa is called Elitist Africa because its reputation was that only elite players were able to figure it out).

If we could just soft-decouple bonus mechanics from communicating information to users via bonus-links, that alone would fix the issue here. That said, this is most likely a pipe dream because all these ideas will get roadmapped.

For now, a more realistic solution seems to be to simply keep not using INSS maps in Idle and SP. It's also worth remembering that almost all maps on this site (possibly actually all) were built with Classic in mind, not Idle, so mismatches like that are to be expected and a reasonable short-term workaround should just be to filter out maps that don't support Idle from being in Idle, instead of breaking or blocking them entirely. If you can build automated detection mechanisms to block maps from being created with duplicate bonuses, you can make automated detection mechanisms to simply filter out (from Idle and/or SP) maps that have duplicate bonuses. Classic never ran into this issue, and imo the demands imposed by Idle shouldn't break or interfere with how things work for Classic.

Edited 3/27/2021 02:54:55

@Phoenix, thanks for the great explanation on where you were coming from and why you're invested. I definitely understand your perspective much better and I believe we agree on nearly everything. I too would much prefer that bonus links had a more graceful way to handle certain mechanics rather than the current unfortunate setup wherein 'hacks' like this are necessary.

if Fizzer would introduce ways to click and highlight sets of territories that aren't tied to some bonus value

I think is an absolutely fantastic idea. It has great benefits in classic as well as idle. The ability to highlight territories within a hospital's range is a perfect use-case. There are also plenty of maps in classic that (used to) benefit from 0-value bonuses being clickable (despite being invisible). Unfortunately, this was also removed in a recent update. If that were still possible, I would have loved to use it for the "bonus type" superbonuses that are linked in the chart. The fact that I needed to leave the superbonus at +1 income is annoying but trivial. I dislike that a mechanic is visible but meant to be ignored (considering that functionally, those superbonuses serve no purpose). I would love to see some like what @l4v.r0v mentioned with decoupling the bonus system from the territory highlight system.

Depending on the mood I either spend six clicks to capture a territory in idle, or just one; either I check all borders and bonuses, or I don't. And I assume INSS players will do the same if they want to play properly.

Yes, exactly. Given the much higher complexity of INSS maps, a thorough review of the map is basically essential to play effectively. This is obviously handicapped if the links aren't clickable.

I guess this is a general problem that on some maps it isn't THAT clear which territories belong together or which territories share a border. And I understand that this sometimes isn't the map maker's fault. Some maps just ARE complex/complicated by design

This is certainly true. Good mapmaking should make things as clear as possible but in some cases, complexity can't be reduced. I haven't seen comments in the past from someone with colorblindness, but I imagine that being able to highlight bonuses would be a dealbreaker for some colors.