A Cavemans Guide to Speed Mechanics
Prelude
Just wanted to give a big thanks to Team Instinct and a certain Ewok that published the original speed guide which led to my current understanding of speed.
PART 1 - History of speed
Back when the game was in its infancy, before the Poe nerf of February 2016, there existed an amazing speed guide posted by a member of Team Instinct that explained exactly how the speed mechanic functioned in this game. If you have not read it, please do so. It will help to provide a base understanding of what I am talking about. Just google swgoh team instinct speed guide.
Back then, speed worked in "rounds", and filled based on a toons speed. When a toons turn meter reached 1000, it got a turn and any leftover natural speed carried over into the next turn meter. Speed gained by skill or turn meter manipulation didn't carry over, and turn meter reductions only reduced a percentage of available meter.
Also, speed leader abilities did not apply to the first turn, and only kicked in after the first turn, making speed leads useless.
This led to toons clumping up into tiers, and any ties were determined by RNG as to who would go first. Toons with 143 or higher speed would tie in round 7 for first action, and RNG would decide who goes first.
This is what led to the whole Poe meta debacle. As a round 7 toon, he tied with the fastest toons in the game and had a chance to go first, reducing all enemy turn meters(wasn't resistable back then), and giving his whole team first turn advantage. This led to everyone having Poe and it the matches being decided by who's Poe goes first.
The player base went wild with cries for nerfs and for a long time nothing changed. Then one day there was a post on Reddit in which a dev argued with the community about how speed works in the game. He said that toons did not have speed tiers. He said that "turn meters fill at a constant rate". He claimed that the only way that two toons could tie for first turn was if they had the same exact speed. The players there pointed out to him that he was wrong, that toons did in fact clump into tiers. That the 7 round toons all tied for first and RNG determined who goes first. The Instinct Speed guide proved it, it worked exactly how the guide said it did.
Here is the post by the dev:
•Speed does not function in "tiers", nor is there such a thing as a speed "tick"--it's actually a continuous rate of fill; all other things being equal, a unit with 144 Speed will always get the first turn before a unit with 143 Speed. A Speed value of X means that a unit gains X% of their Turn Meter per unit time. So, when comparing two very fast units (say, Unit A with 167 Speed and Unit B with 143 Speed), when Unit A reaches 100% Turn Meter, Unit B would be at 85.6% Turn Meter. How this is relevant to Poe is, while he is quite fast, he is still going to go after anyone with higher Speed than him on the first turn--there isn't a Speed "threshold". The only time a coin toss determines turn order is when two units hit 100% Turn Meter at precisely the same time, which mostly happens with two of the exact same unit at the exact same gear.
Maybe a week or two after the Reddit post, the Poe nerf/speed change update came and changed the way speed worked in the game completely. They also nerfed Poe's turn meter reduction chance, and reduced his speed by one. Which would have dropped him out of the top tier 7th round toons, not letting him tie for first, if speed had not changed as well. But, as a consequence of changing the way speed worked, the nerfs to Poe were completely uneccesary, IMO.
After that update, no one really understood how speed works. The great Team Instinct Speed Guide no longer explained the game mechanics. Toons no longer clumped into tiers, speed was the determining factor on who goes first. Speed leader abilities actually functioned for first turn, bringing the QGJ speed meta. Turn meter reduction skills now reduced a percentage of total bar, not total available.
This is my attempt at explaining how speed works in this game. I think I have a pretty good grasp of how it works now, and I hope I can explain it in a way that makes sense.
PART 2 - How speed works - Basic rules
Irrefutable laws of speed:
1. Speed determines how fast turn meter fills.
2. Barring special abilities like Hans shoot first ability, and turn meter manipulation, faster toons will always go first.
3. In the event of more than one toon reaching 100% turn meter at the same time, RNG determines who goes first.
4. Skills that reduce turn meter, reduce a percentage of total possible, not total available
5. Turn meter gain from skills doesn't carry over and is lost, you can't go over 100% turn meter.
PART 3 - In depth Mechanics
There are a few terms I use here such as speed value, tick, round, and action. These are the terms I use and I will define them here how I use them so there is no confusion:
Speed value - the value displayed in character stats, plus any bonuses from speed leader or unique abilities.
Round - A unit of time that occurs behind the scenes. One round adds 1 speed value to turn meter
Action - when a character actually gets to take a turn, when his turn meter is at 100%.
Speed still works in much the same way as it did originally, all that really happened is that they moved a decimal point over some.
Now we no longer round up.
Let's take the dev example above and compare the two like he did. Toon A Is 167 speed, toon B is 143 speed. Before you could find what round the toon goes by doing a little math and rounding.
1000/167 = 5.9880239
So it would be round 6 before that toon fills turn meter gets an action. 6 x 167 = 1002
Under the old system, he would go on round six and the extra 2 speed would be added to his next turn meter.
We know from the dev comments that we can't go over 100% turn meter, so rounding up isn't really an option here as that would put you over 100% turn meter. Rounding is what caused toons to clump into tiers in the first place.
Instead, we need to use that whole number.
Let's look at what the dev said again: he says that when toon A at 167 speed reaches 100% turn meter, toon B will be at 85.6% turn meter.
Let's do a little math according to our new values and see if that matches up:
We know that toon A with 167 speed reaches 100% turn meter on round 5.9880239....
We know toon B with 143 speed should be at 85.6% turn meter that same round, according to dev comments.
So we take 143 x 5.9880239... = 856.28741... Which is about 85.62% of 1000.
This matches up with what the dev said it should be, so we must be on the right track.
Let's look at two toons closer in speed and see how that works out: say toon A with 164 speed and toon B with 163 speed.
1000/164 = 6.0975609...
Toon A at 164 speed moves on round 6.0975609...
1000/163 = 6.1349693...
Toon B at 163 moves on round 6.134963...
As you can see, these toons will never tie for first action on the same round, like what would happen if we rounded the values. Toon A will always go before toon B.
Basically, the way speed was changed was by accounting for all those numbers after the decimal point instead of rounding them. This is what made turn order more accurate.
You could also look at it as turn meter being changed to 10,000 and the 167 speed toon moving on round 59. Or on a 100,000 point turn meter and the 167 speed toon moving at round 598. Or as the decimal point being moved two spots left on speed values on a 1000 pt turn meter. i.e. 1.67 speed instead of 167 and moving at round 598.
Same with the 164 speed toon, moving at round 609, and 163 speed moving at round 613. It is all relative.
This is my current model for speed mechanics in SWGOH and it seems to work. If anyone finds any errors or has anything to add, please let me know.
Just wanted to give a big thanks to Team Instinct and a certain Ewok that published the original speed guide which led to my current understanding of speed.
PART 1 - History of speed
Back when the game was in its infancy, before the Poe nerf of February 2016, there existed an amazing speed guide posted by a member of Team Instinct that explained exactly how the speed mechanic functioned in this game. If you have not read it, please do so. It will help to provide a base understanding of what I am talking about. Just google swgoh team instinct speed guide.
Back then, speed worked in "rounds", and filled based on a toons speed. When a toons turn meter reached 1000, it got a turn and any leftover natural speed carried over into the next turn meter. Speed gained by skill or turn meter manipulation didn't carry over, and turn meter reductions only reduced a percentage of available meter.
Also, speed leader abilities did not apply to the first turn, and only kicked in after the first turn, making speed leads useless.
This led to toons clumping up into tiers, and any ties were determined by RNG as to who would go first. Toons with 143 or higher speed would tie in round 7 for first action, and RNG would decide who goes first.
This is what led to the whole Poe meta debacle. As a round 7 toon, he tied with the fastest toons in the game and had a chance to go first, reducing all enemy turn meters(wasn't resistable back then), and giving his whole team first turn advantage. This led to everyone having Poe and it the matches being decided by who's Poe goes first.
The player base went wild with cries for nerfs and for a long time nothing changed. Then one day there was a post on Reddit in which a dev argued with the community about how speed works in the game. He said that toons did not have speed tiers. He said that "turn meters fill at a constant rate". He claimed that the only way that two toons could tie for first turn was if they had the same exact speed. The players there pointed out to him that he was wrong, that toons did in fact clump into tiers. That the 7 round toons all tied for first and RNG determined who goes first. The Instinct Speed guide proved it, it worked exactly how the guide said it did.
Here is the post by the dev:
•Speed does not function in "tiers", nor is there such a thing as a speed "tick"--it's actually a continuous rate of fill; all other things being equal, a unit with 144 Speed will always get the first turn before a unit with 143 Speed. A Speed value of X means that a unit gains X% of their Turn Meter per unit time. So, when comparing two very fast units (say, Unit A with 167 Speed and Unit B with 143 Speed), when Unit A reaches 100% Turn Meter, Unit B would be at 85.6% Turn Meter. How this is relevant to Poe is, while he is quite fast, he is still going to go after anyone with higher Speed than him on the first turn--there isn't a Speed "threshold". The only time a coin toss determines turn order is when two units hit 100% Turn Meter at precisely the same time, which mostly happens with two of the exact same unit at the exact same gear.
Maybe a week or two after the Reddit post, the Poe nerf/speed change update came and changed the way speed worked in the game completely. They also nerfed Poe's turn meter reduction chance, and reduced his speed by one. Which would have dropped him out of the top tier 7th round toons, not letting him tie for first, if speed had not changed as well. But, as a consequence of changing the way speed worked, the nerfs to Poe were completely uneccesary, IMO.
After that update, no one really understood how speed works. The great Team Instinct Speed Guide no longer explained the game mechanics. Toons no longer clumped into tiers, speed was the determining factor on who goes first. Speed leader abilities actually functioned for first turn, bringing the QGJ speed meta. Turn meter reduction skills now reduced a percentage of total bar, not total available.
This is my attempt at explaining how speed works in this game. I think I have a pretty good grasp of how it works now, and I hope I can explain it in a way that makes sense.
PART 2 - How speed works - Basic rules
Irrefutable laws of speed:
1. Speed determines how fast turn meter fills.
2. Barring special abilities like Hans shoot first ability, and turn meter manipulation, faster toons will always go first.
3. In the event of more than one toon reaching 100% turn meter at the same time, RNG determines who goes first.
4. Skills that reduce turn meter, reduce a percentage of total possible, not total available
5. Turn meter gain from skills doesn't carry over and is lost, you can't go over 100% turn meter.
PART 3 - In depth Mechanics
There are a few terms I use here such as speed value, tick, round, and action. These are the terms I use and I will define them here how I use them so there is no confusion:
Speed value - the value displayed in character stats, plus any bonuses from speed leader or unique abilities.
Round - A unit of time that occurs behind the scenes. One round adds 1 speed value to turn meter
Action - when a character actually gets to take a turn, when his turn meter is at 100%.
Speed still works in much the same way as it did originally, all that really happened is that they moved a decimal point over some.
Now we no longer round up.
Let's take the dev example above and compare the two like he did. Toon A Is 167 speed, toon B is 143 speed. Before you could find what round the toon goes by doing a little math and rounding.
1000/167 = 5.9880239
So it would be round 6 before that toon fills turn meter gets an action. 6 x 167 = 1002
Under the old system, he would go on round six and the extra 2 speed would be added to his next turn meter.
We know from the dev comments that we can't go over 100% turn meter, so rounding up isn't really an option here as that would put you over 100% turn meter. Rounding is what caused toons to clump into tiers in the first place.
Instead, we need to use that whole number.
Let's look at what the dev said again: he says that when toon A at 167 speed reaches 100% turn meter, toon B will be at 85.6% turn meter.
Let's do a little math according to our new values and see if that matches up:
We know that toon A with 167 speed reaches 100% turn meter on round 5.9880239....
We know toon B with 143 speed should be at 85.6% turn meter that same round, according to dev comments.
So we take 143 x 5.9880239... = 856.28741... Which is about 85.62% of 1000.
This matches up with what the dev said it should be, so we must be on the right track.
Let's look at two toons closer in speed and see how that works out: say toon A with 164 speed and toon B with 163 speed.
1000/164 = 6.0975609...
Toon A at 164 speed moves on round 6.0975609...
1000/163 = 6.1349693...
Toon B at 163 moves on round 6.134963...
As you can see, these toons will never tie for first action on the same round, like what would happen if we rounded the values. Toon A will always go before toon B.
Basically, the way speed was changed was by accounting for all those numbers after the decimal point instead of rounding them. This is what made turn order more accurate.
You could also look at it as turn meter being changed to 10,000 and the 167 speed toon moving on round 59. Or on a 100,000 point turn meter and the 167 speed toon moving at round 598. Or as the decimal point being moved two spots left on speed values on a 1000 pt turn meter. i.e. 1.67 speed instead of 167 and moving at round 598.
Same with the 164 speed toon, moving at round 609, and 163 speed moving at round 613. It is all relative.
This is my current model for speed mechanics in SWGOH and it seems to work. If anyone finds any errors or has anything to add, please let me know.
