Warrior General Games

I noticed my pass blocking SA on my run blocking guard says penalty in parentheses. Is there no effect for points on that SA or does it actually make him worse? TIA

There is a penalty applied to points in the SA but they still have an effect

^
Correct.

If it helps you to think about it, think of every point as a 0.7 or 0.6 or whatever.

Like, if you put 5 points in a red, it's like having a 3 to 4 or so.

No one knows the exact penalty, just sort of assumed to be in the 20% to 40% range.

Fwiw, when building, I always assume the worst.

T.J is pretty spot on mostly. Basically there is a bonus applied to every point you put into a SA. Either that bonus is static (meaning you get like .5 bonus for every point put in)... or it diminishes the more you put into it. I'm not sure which it is. Bort might have a quote on it somewhere as the question has been asked plenty.
I (believe) think it's static for the 1st 10 points... then it likely diminishes past that point. We do know there are diminishing returns in SA's taken past 10. Not that you don't get any benefit... just that it's less effect and costs more.
If a SA is preferred then it gets a small 'boost'... likely also static so if you have Pancake with 5 in it vs Pancake with 10 in it then the "boost" is the same but the effect is less (because you have less in it if you only have 5).
Same for penalized SA's. There's a small "penalty" applied to it but you still get the effect of having whatever points into it you have... just less than a dot with no penalty on same SA with same points into it.

Theo:

Points 1->11 in an SA each do the same thing. note this can still be linear (ie +0.5 spd/agi per pt), or can be exponential (+5% fake strength & +5% change to fire per point).

Points 12+ in a SA get increased diminishing returns per point. There's a bort quote that it's "not much difference past the 13th point so probably not worth it" or something like that. Though imho this applies more to linear SA's and possibly my logic is there may be some exception on exponential SA's).

It is worth noting that Bort has stated that the bonus/penalty itself, is not subject to diminishing returns.

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To the OP, as TJ stated it has been the popular belief that this bonus/penalty is between 20% and 40%. I've always head cannon'd it at around 30%. I think popular belief used to be 20% to 30% but then a disgruntled employee catch22 made a weird website after he got fired and claimed it was 40%, which Bort refuted but still caused the assumed range to widen.

To take a step back, there's a pretty strong chance that the bonus/penalty for every SA is not exactly the same (ie there's no reason some SA's can't be 20% and others 40%).

Thanks Wise. I didn't wanna go pouring through my old notes but that's pretty spot on with my vague memories. I always said it (diminishing returns) was more than just about a smaller gain... that the COST to raise things up another point also gave you diminished returns on the value of the SP's spent.

As for the penalty side, you still get a bonus... just not as much as if it wasn't penalized. I'm using some old thread notes on my WR and even though he's a Speed base, he's getting 'Route Running' and 'Sticky Hands'. If those old notes are half right he oughta get some decent help from those 'penalized' SA's.

Thanks for all the info!!