Storyline derived standings, I'm lost

[Suki_Vokkonen]

It’s been months since I did a storyline mission.
Here I completed a L4 Security storyline mission for Core Complexion Inc. (Minmatar Republic), called Soothe The Salvage Beast (against Drones). The standings results I get, I can’t make sense of it. Or At least specifically the derived standings (or should I say “the punition”) with Amarr. Anyone with good understanding can explain, please ?

Note: my Social skills are all at level 5, except Fast Talk and Criminal Connection.

I didn’t take a screen shot of the “before completing mission” state of my Interactions window, because I was not expecting a slap in the face. But, I saw I had above 8.x with Core Complexion, and above 6.x with both Minmatar and Amarr

Here is the numbers I got:

Core Complexion Inc. : +0.408

Minmatar Republic : +0.441

Amarr Empire : -0.723

Why is Amarr so mad at me?
My understanding was that I should have expected a derived standing of about -0.2205 because the base modifier for Amarr-Minmatar is -5.0, meaning you get a negative of 50% of what you get from Minmatar.

And in the end, to balance things out, you do some storylines with Amarr to compensate the loss, and Minamatar “punish” you with half negative on their side, and rince/repeat. And because there is a net positive overall after each storyline mission, in the course of a many Storylines on either sides like that you end up positive with both.

But here, if what I got is a new pattern where a storyline mission gives a net negative outcome, it would mean I’ll never be able to raise my overall standing with both faction using the storylines (sure I do Epic Arcs, but that is not the concern here).

So is there a bug here, or is it a new behavior from a recent patch?

[Syzygium]

From the EVE Uni wiki:

Gaining and losing standings

When standings go up or down they do so as a percentage; this is always a percentage decay towards the extreme end of the scale. For example, if someone has 1.0 standing with an NPC corporation and completes a mission that changes standing by +5%, then the current standing is increased by 5% of the difference from 1 to 10; that’s a change of +0.45 with an end result of 1.45. However, if someone else with a 4.0 standing completes the same mission under the same circumstances and also gets a 5% increase, then that’s 5% of the difference from 4 to 10; that’s a change of +0.30 with an end result of 4.30.

If something causes a standing decrease, then it’s a percentage decay towards −10. For example, if someone with 1.0 standing suffers a −5% change, then that’s 5% of the difference from 1 to −10; that’s a change of −0.55 with an end result of 0.45. If someone with 4.0 standing suffers that same −5% change, then it’s 5% of the difference from 4 to −10; that’s a change of −0.7 with an end result of 3.3.

The formula for standing increase is

 New standing=Old standing+(10−Old standing)×Standing increase

The formula for standing decrease is almost the same, just towards -10

 New standing=Old standing+(−10−Old standing)×Standing decrease

where Standing decrease is the decimal form of standing change. For example, 0.4% would be 0.004.

The consequence of this math is that the higher your standings are, the less effective standings increase become and the more dramatic penalties become. For example, a standing loss of 1% turns 9.0 standing into 8.81 but an increase of 1% would bring 9.0 standing to 9.01.

That means, if you already have +6.x towards both, any increase will only be a percentage of 4 (6 to 10.0 which would be best standing possible). But any decrease would be a percentage of 16 (6 to -10 which would be worst standing possible). You will notice that at this point, any decrease roughly hits you 4 times as hard as an increase. Now if from derived standings you lose only half of what you have gained for the opposing faction, this “half” multiplied by four still is “twice”. And thats why you lost almost twice as much derived standing than you gained, even while the gain was initially “double” the base value as the loss.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

@Imiarr_Timshae has seen multiple times and one of the last updates borked it, the standings screen and info is not right at all. We can narrow down, according to the formula, but the standings screen will be different.

[Imiarr_Timshae]

Yeah unfortunately the Havoc update broke the standings transaction window, the values it presents are no longer accurate (it was never perfect before)

[Suki_Vokkonen]

Thank you all, I guess I’m done doing Storyline misisions now. Standings are the only reason to run these, but with this formula it is a total waste of time, absolutely counter productive.
According to @Syzygium formulas, I should have seen this even at lower standings, but really I have not. Like I said in my original post, previously I could see the standing loss as (much) lower than the increase, meaning it was net positive and I could work my way up by doing a few storyline with a faction, then switch to the other faction and do a few over there, etc. Without the necessity of doing Epic Arcs. Now Epic Arcs are the only way.

[Syzygium]

Mathematically it should work up to +4.2 Standing to all empires, after that you should see a net loss.

The Base level would be +3.33 because from 3.33 to 10 it is 6.67 and to -10 it is -13.34, so if you lose 50% of a part of 13.34 it should be equal to 100% of a part of 6.67. But since the Socal skill increases all your standing gains by 25% on level V, it should work up to +4.1625.

As you can see here:
On 03 Jan 24 I finished “Covering your Tracks” for Minmatar, got +0.369, at the same time I lost -0.727 for Amarr, because my Standing there was already very high.

A few days later, the exact opposite: I finished “Blood Farm” for Amarr, got +0.489, lost -0.77 for Minmatar.

I can only recommend not to do the Storyline missions for standing if you already have above ~4.2 to the opposing empire.

[DrysonBennington]

Rookies, sometimes you must turn the manual, upside down to properly learn the course material.