ㄥ𐌉𐌍𐌊𐌀 🥊

I use "min-max" a lot, and some of you asked me in DM what it really means, so I figured I would share about it here. It's a bit of a jargon, so let's wrap the week with a proper gamer-geekerie! What is min-maxing? (tl;dr) It means achieving maximal results with minimal resources invested. It's particularly relevant, for instance, in the context of a video game stats allocation (finite resource, infinite options), but it applies well to other fields too. To be well executed, a min-maxing strategy requires a deep and precise understanding of the games' mechanics, as you will see below: it's necessary to identify the threshold crossing points. What is really min-maxing (longer version)? So let's zoom in and illustrate with a real game: @LuchadoresNFT - a turn by turn fighting game with cute AF Luchadores. Those guys have 4 stats + active skills + passive skills + items. We will abstract all and focus just on two stats + one passive interaction for the explainer. - END: reduces damage taken and increase max HP - AGI: increase dodge and confuse chance + determine who hits first Zooming in on Endurance for a proper min-max scenario: if you want a super tanky Luchador, you can simply allocate massively into END. But AGI also give you dodge chances, which translate into sturdiness as well. So you quickly realize that the sturdiest Luchador is most likely made of a healthy mix of END and AGI: yes, but how much of each? We're getting on our way to a proper min-maxing question! We just need one more element - the Karma passive: Karma heals your Luchador for 2% of your max health when he dodges an attack, and thus it "connects" END and AGI. Of course, rounding is involved, which leads up to another critical notion for min-maxing: threshold crossing. ↪️This is what happens when 1 single stat point delivers outsized returns because, well, you're crossing a threshold! At 26 END, our Luchador heals for 9 HP on each dodge: Something interesting happens at 27 END as we cross a Karma/END threshold: So for 1 single END point, we get a 9 => 10 HP heal = 11.1% increases in the healed amount This leads us to a properly AGI/END+Karma passive min-maxed build: here with a Luchador level 1: - We grab that 27 END threshold for 10 HP heal/dodge - All the rest goes to AGI to maximize dodge chance Of course, this example is completely ignores STR and DEX, and tons of other things, and thus not a fully min-maxed build, but we've accounted for enough parameters to get a better understanding of what min-maxing means in practice. The true min-maxing wizards are able to account for essentially virtually all parameters of the game, and thus can potentially reach a probabilistically optimal build: min-maxing is a bit like game theory but for gaming, and in games, the mechanics can usually be precisely modelized (unlike humans who always find ways to surprise us and this is also why game theory is such an interesting field!) I hope you enjoyed reading this geekerie, at least I had fun writing it; I find the parallels with crypto insightful, and I hope you will too. I'm sure I cannot be the fonly min-maxer applying this to DeFi as well: feel free to manifest yourselves fellow nerds :) Have a great weekend!