Standardise Red?

Issues dealing with gameplay balance.
Antandron
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Standardise Red?

Postby Antandron » Wed 15 May, 2019 2:49 pm

It makes sense to me that the red gained from killing units is proportional to the strength of the unit killed. Relic probably intended this to be the case since many of the red values are higher for stronger units than for weaker units. It's not even an important issue unless red is related to XP. Even if it isn't, standardising red is the ideal solution imo.

e.g. Super Units = 120 Tank = 50 Walkers = 50 Transports =40ish Terminators = 25 Tacs =14 and so on

However, in T1 many units have 'incorrect' red values from this perspective. It doesn't make much difference overall, except in MUs where one side has the better globals, for if they are gaining red at an above average rate, they can use globals more frequently than otherwise.

e.g. on a large map, Ravener tunnels can be farmed for 15red each time and converted into Warp Gates or Noxious Clouds.

Using Tacs as a standard value of 14 red, so that the red is about req/11 for T1 units, this would mean GM=3 Rippers=1 Hormas =4 Scouts =6 Sents =32. ASM should give more red than Tacs but they don't, same with Raptors and Raveners iirc.
Last edited by Antandron on Tue 21 May, 2019 8:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Sex - Murder - Art
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby Sex - Murder - Art » Tue 21 May, 2019 12:09 am

Do you know what's your real problem? You think that math should work everywhere. In realy / practice, it just does not.

Lets say it takes about 32.000 seconds for a worker to build a wall. According to math / you, 32.000 workers should be able to build that wall in a second.

See? Math calculations are not always practical. Practice is always better than the theory. So please, stop trying to turn things into numbers...
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Timevir
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby Timevir » Sat 27 Jul, 2019 12:57 pm

Sex - Murder - Art wrote:Do you know what's your real problem? You think that math should work everywhere. In realy / practice, it just does not.

Lets say it takes about 32.000 seconds for a worker to build a wall. According to math / you, 32.000 workers should be able to build that wall in a second.

See? Math calculations are not always practical. Practice is always better than the theory. So please, stop trying to turn things into numbers...


"According to math" <- Not really, mathematics yields perfect outputs for properly defined problems. The issue with using the calculation you described is that it is solving a problem that isn't accurate of the actual game. As human beings we aren't smart enough to properly define such a problem.

The simple reason red shouldn't be standardized is that you have to account for a unit's difficulty. It isn't something that can be calculated easily because human behavior is part of the model and that requires experimental measurement to yield accurate results. The reason ASM and Tac can justifiably be similar in red yields is that ASM aren't just simply "stronger", they have extra strength at the cost of multiple forms of difficulty (tech gating due to power cost, difficult mechanical use, etc).

Also, standardization implies there would be an exact way to calculate the red rate based on other factors, but if you tried there'd be tons of debate because there aren't simple strict patterns in how units cost, do damage, have health, etc.
hiveminion
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby hiveminion » Sat 27 Jul, 2019 2:54 pm

Melee units bleed more than ranged units and therefore yield comparatively less red.
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ShowMeMagik
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby ShowMeMagik » Sat 27 Jul, 2019 11:08 pm

Is this an old thread or am I having de javu?
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Torpid
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby Torpid » Sun 28 Jul, 2019 10:46 am

Well it's from May.

The only change I'd like to make for red is reducing the yield to the person who LOSES their units from 75% of the red value to 50%.
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Antandron
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby Antandron » Tue 27 Aug, 2019 8:10 am

Standardising red might not be a perfect idea, but at least it is an approach backed by some reason. How is red decided now? An educated guess by whoever is the mod at the time. 5 different players will come up with 5 different numbers! How is that a sound approach to the problem?

Regarding micro, this is already accounted for in my method of pricing. e.g. Tacs cost 450/0. Let's say CSM are exactly the same as Tacs. How much should they cost to achieve balance? I'd suggest 450/0. This is probably incorrect, it could be 440/0 or 460/0 because of unit-hero synergies. Important to note that each hero has synergies and some are better than others. The price of the unit should be the average of the possible unit-hero-other unit combinations. For example:

CSM when (CL+CSM+other units) = 440/0
CSM when (PC+CSM+other units) = 460/0
CSM when (Sorc+CSM+other units) = 450/0
Average = 450/0

With red standardisation, both a Tac model and a CSM model would yield the same red upon death. They would also have the same pop and upkeep where possible. This means the only decision necessary is the unit stats and unit cost, making the whole decision-making process much simpler and less prone to error. The greater the number of decisions that need to be made the greater the likelihood of errors being made. Standardisation solves this by removing the need to make decisions about upkeep, pop and red.

In addition, the micro-intensiveness of a unit is included in its cost. If in this example, the CSM were controlled by proAI playing perfectly, and required no micro at all, then they would cost more than the Tacs. Because they cost more, they would have slightly higher pop, upkeep and red values. That answers Timevir's objection. Hiveminion's objection can be answered by reference to the fact that a units susceptibility to bleed is also factored into its cost.

The result of this would be that all heroes would yield the same red value of, say, 30red upon death. At the moment some yield 30 and others 23 which makes no sense. If you spend some time observing red values you'll see some more bizarre values like RA tunnels yielding 15red.

edit: changed "guess" to "educated guess" in 1st line.
Last edited by Antandron on Tue 27 Aug, 2019 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Schepp himself
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Re: Standardise Red?

Postby Schepp himself » Tue 27 Aug, 2019 11:53 am

Antandron wrote: Talk about standardization


I wanted to note that I support the idea of aiming for more standardization. With a million heroes and wargear and synergies that evolve from that it would make a lot of sense imo to standardize as much as possible. Let's play with the rest.

Greets
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