Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

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Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

Postby Impregnable » Fri 31 May, 2019 2:46 pm

- Upkeep Standardization has been a hot potato of the balance discussion ever since it was introduced by Antandron. There were heated debate about it but the discussion had to stop because of not knowing how upkeep works. Now that we do know how it works with my post summarizing everything about it, I believe we can continue on with that discussion.
- I will state my own view and go over several of posts from the past made by Antandron and analyze and criticize logic included in each of them in order to reach a conclusion.
- I sincerely hope we can have reach a better outcome than throwing curses at each other.
- Antandron posted many different ideas but here I am strictly dealing with upkeep standardization only. I will make another post on his ideas.

1. WHY AND HOW
- Discussion regarding Upkeep Standardization can be divided into two stages which are Why and How.
- Why must be discussed before How is debated. If the argument does not pass Why stage, there is no reason to discuss How. Even when Why stage is passed, if there is a fault in How stage, the idea should not be implemented.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4625
- In his post above, Antandron is very lacking in Why department. This is the reason why he is met with hostile responses. He goes into careful details on How to do standardization but does not properly discuss Why it should be done. The discussion should have focused on Why and Antandron should have at least dedicated 2 pages worth of detailing Why first before going into How because if the former is found to have faults, the later is disregarded automatically.

For those who don’t want to read long posts by Antandron, I can summarize his How department described in that post into few simple sentences.
1) Set upkeep rate and pop rate in relation to the purchase cost of a unit.
- Power is converted to req by some arbitrary ratio.
- These rates are different per Tier.
Example
T1 - Upkeep 10% of purchase cost, pop/30req
T2 - Upkeep ?% of purchase cost, pop/?req
Sentinel = 300 req
-> 10% of purchase cost for upkeep = 30 upkeep
-> pop/30req for pop = 10 population
2) Make every unit in all roasters follow the set upkeep formulae and pop formulae and have their values readjusted.
3) From now on, do not touch pop and upkeep values when balancing a unit. When a purchase cost of a unit changes, pop and upkeep should auto change according to set ratio.
Example
T1 - Upkeep 10% of purchase cost, pop/30req
Sentinel req change 300 -> 330
-> 10% of purchase cost for upkeep = 33 upkeep
-> pop/30req for pop = 11 population
4) Set rates for squad leaders and upgrades to account for in this balance system.
- Remember power is converted to req by some arbitrary ratio? Same thing here.
- He arbitrarily set ratio to convert squad leaders and upgrade effect into purchase cost.

- Hope you guys understood How in his document. Now time to move to Why.

2. WHY - Antandron’s Argument
- Before I start, I will say this one thing. Premises are to be challenged and not to be blindly accepted when someone states it.
- So, Why should we standardize? As I have said before, he really lacks explanation in this very important question. I try my best to get that little info summarized below from his document.

1/ Upkeep should be standardized.

Why?

1) It makes balancing easier.
- What he means here is to make upkeep a CONSTANT in balance formulae.
- Currently when patching a unit, we have below balancing tools.
Stats
Purchase Cost
Rein Cost
Red/EXP
Upkeep/Pop
- After Standardization, Upkeep/Pop is a set ratio that changes according to how Purchase Cost is changed which removes Upkeep’s role as a balancing mechanism.
- Of course, if you make a factor a CONSTANT in a formulae, there are less options to go over indeed but why did he choose upkeep to be standard instead of other tools?
- So, what he truly argues for is below.

2/ I want to make balancing simpler by making one of the tools to be a CONSTANT in the balancing formulae. I choose Upkeep to be a CONSTANT and it should not be a balancing mechanism.
- Currently upkeep has two roles.
1) Catch up mechanism
2) Balancing mechanism
- He argues that upkeep should no longer be a balancing mechanism.

Why?

3/ "The various game length makes it impossible to do properly as lowered upkeep has little effect if the unit in on the map for only a few minutes and higher upkeep becomes very expensive if the game is 30 minutes long."
- This is what he said but it is very unclear and I was very unsatisfied with this answer and posted a better version in this post. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4351
- What he should have argued for is as below.

3/ I chose Upkeep to be a CONSTANT because it is the most unreliable balancing mechanism in the entire game. Thus, upkeep should only function as a catch up mechanism.

What do you mean by unreliable?

1) There are too many factors that make upkeep’s effect vary greatly for each unit. All other balancing tools have very few or no factors that affect their effect on units.
Stats
- Takes effect when you are using the unit.
- Effect varies according to how well the unit is used by the player or countered by the opponent.
Purchase Cost
- Takes effect when you purchase a unit.
- All prices are paid the moment it arrives. No other variables.
Rein Cost
- Takes effect when you reinforce a unit. All prices are paid the moment it arrives.
- Effect varies depending on how frequently the player loses model.
Red/EXP
- Takes effect when a model dies. All effects takes place the moment the model falls.
- Effect varies depending on how frequently the player loses model.
Upkeep
- Affected by 30 free population.
- Effect varies depending on when the player purchase unit and how long he keeps it.
- Effect varies depending on Tier of the unit.
- Effect varies depending on how well the enemy can kill models.
- Effect changes if player cheats upkeep by keeping certain squads not at full force.
- Affected by Upkeep Surplus and Upkeep Deficit effects.
- Effect varies depending on how durable a unit is and whether the faction can have options to support it.
- Can be dodged by throwing away units that don’t scale into late tiers.

- As shown in the above explanation, upkeep has the most tags attached to it and its effect will vary the most among balancing tools we have.
- Surprisingly, this is the end of his Why part. Too short? You are right. It is very lacking.

3. WHY NO
- Before we get into this section, I would like to tell you that Atlas, Torpid and Antandron have two different ideas on upkeep standardization. You will notice the difference if you read the post.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4625

Antandron
- Upkeep/Pop should proportionately change with Purchase Cost of a unit.
- The rate is arbitrarily decided.
- The power to req conversion rate is arbitrarily decided.
- Squad leaders and upgrades are accounted in formulae using arbitrary conversion ratio.
- Upkeep is no longer a balancing tool.

Atlas/Torpid
- Standard Upkeep/Pop ratio should be set to 2.55 upkeep/pop as given by Relic.
- There should be different Upkeep/Pop rates for vehicles, sub commanders and Tyranid units.
- Exceptions can be made for certain units regarding upkeep rate for balancing purposes.
- Upkeep’s role as a balancing tool is greatly diminished but in certain cases, it will be used as a balancing tool.

- What I am trying to refute here is Antandron’s argument. I support Atlas/Torpid’s approach.
- Also, the word strength used in Antandron’s document is a very misleading term. Strength in relation to what? Strong vs Who? In what situation? A unit’s strength changes depending on myriad of external factors. I would rather use the word Value in this case.

3.1 Balancing is easier
1/ Why should players suffer for the ease of balance team?
- Players over many years formed their style and the way of playing things according to what options they were given. Every time there was a balance change, those options changed but they could still adapt because it did not change drastically, and the overall flow stayed the same.
- However, what Antandron suggests will completely uproot overall flow of the game.
- He argued that his way should be implemented to make balancing easier. What he does not mention is who is it good for?
- It makes life easier for balancing team, yes but what of all the inconvenienced that will be caused for players who must adapt to a complete overhaul of the flow of the game?
- He says making upkeep CONSTANT will make balancing easier which will lead to better balance which will ultimately compensate for inconvenience caused in between.
- “12 different players can hold 12 different opinions on what a units stats, cost, upkeep or pop value should be”. So lets make one of it a CONSTANT.
- However, the rest of it will remain the same. 12 different players will still hold 12 different opinions on what a units stats, cost should be regardless of whether Upkeep is made a CONSTANT or not.
- This is too much price to pay for players for the little gain of balance team. One factor disappearing does not change the fact that rest of balancing will still be arbitrarily decided.

3.2 Upkeep should be proportional to the strength of a unit
2/ Premise 3. The cost of a unit in req/power is closely related to its strength.
Conclusion 1. For upkeep to be a ”fair and balanced” tax it should be a fixed percentage of the unit’s cost for all units in all factions. Stronger units in the same tier should have more upkeep than weaker units; units of similar strength, and therefore similar cost, should have similar upkeep.

- A BIG FAT NO. This is the worst hole in his entire logic. No, cost of a unit is not closely related to its strength. Before we go into further details I want to introduce a useful comment by Crewfinity. He says exactly what I am trying to point out.

Population/Purchase Cost
I don't think its a good idea nor feasible to rebalance population values based on a unit's initial requisition cost.
I think that upkeep should be standardized to be X rate per population, and population values could use some review, but I think that Upkeep/Population vs Purchase/Upgrade Costs should be different balance levers since they cover different metrics:
Upkeep/Population: This should be a metric of how powerful/impactful a unit is on the field and how much ongoing value they provide
Purchase/Upgrade Cost: This should be a metric of how much a player needs to invest to field a unit/upgrades.

1) Purchase cost of a unit is very vaguely proportional to the value it provides.
- It is true that more expensive units tend to be more valuable however it is only vaguely proportional.
- The main purpose of the purchase cost is to govern the timing of the purchase.

2) Value of a unit is not fixed. Purchase cost can never account for the value.
- Value of a unit depends on the player’s action and the opponents response. Certain units are trash vs certain builds. More often than not, it is a roll of a dice for counter builds.
- Without even seeing the enemy purchase, you bought AV purchases judging from enemy playstyle from previous games and hidden the purchase. If the opponent buys vehicles, value of your av weapons will sky rocket, if not the value drops to nigh 0.
- Value of a unit changes over time. Certain units do not scale well into late tiers. Depending on when you buy a unit, the value of a unit changes and there are so called timing units for this reason.
- Value of a unit changes hugely with upgrades. Certain units completely changes their role with upgrades. Antandron’ said “One problem I've found it that upkeep can only apply to the base unit and not to upgrades given to a unit. So two identical base units, but one with no upgrades and the other upgraded with a plasma gun, missile launcher and flamer, have the same upkeep. Relic don't make this easy!”
- This is not a simple matter to look over. The availability of an upgrade or two and how good they are hugely change a unit’s value.
- Value of a unit changes according to which hero you choose and which faction you face.
- Along the same line, the value of a unit drastically changes depending on your build and enemy respond. It even changes mid game through mind games.
- Value of a unit is also affected by various RNGs on the field of battle.
- How well a unit can be supported, also changes value. Some factions are not given options while picking different builds makes one unable to bring such supports.
- Purchase cost of a unit can never ever uphold all those values at the same time. Some of the parameters are inversely proportional. If one side goes down, the other side has to go up and vice versa. There can be no fixed right choice for inversely proportional parameters.

3) Power and Requisition holds different values for different factions on different tiers.
- Nerfing req cost of units on a requisition heavy faction will cause huge nerfing effect as opposed to when power cost nerf is done.
- In similar sense, nerfing power cost on tiers that that faction needs most power purchase on will cause huge nerfing effect as opposed to when it is done to a different tier.
- Another indicator that purchase cost do not represent a fixed value of a unit.

3.3 Pop should be proportional to the strength of a unit
3/ Premise1. Pop values are designed to cap the max strength of each army.
Premise2. For pop values to be useful, 100pop of each faction should be approximately equal strength to 100pop of every other faction.
Conclusion1. Pop values should be proportional to the strength of the units.
Premise4. The cost of a unit represents its strength.

1) Two of the premises at the top should actually be effects. The proper way of setting logic should be like this.
Premise1. The cost of a unit represents its strength.
Conclusion1. Pop values should be proportional to the strength of the units.
If this were to happen below two will be achieved
Effect1. Pop values cap the max strength of each army.
Effect2. 100pop of each faction is approximately equal strength to 100pop of every other faction.

2) Pop values are designed to cap the max strength of each army.
- No. In normal 1v1, one can never reach max 100 pop. In order for this to happen in 1v1, current pop value of all squads must rise by 2 times or the purchase cost of units and upgrades should all be reduced by half.
- It is designed this way so that you don’t have to capture points like in COH1 in order to gain population. Snowballing effect in COH1 was greater in this aspect compared to DOW2.

3) Premise2. For pop values to be useful, 100pop of each faction should be approximately equal strength to 100pop of every other faction.
- In Antadron’s system, more pop equals more upkeep. Upkeep means having more units but having more units do not mean you have stronger army. Value of an army depends on the player’s unit composition and the enemy’s not the total upkeep. And as I said above, purchase cost of a unit does not represent its value.

3.4 Should not patch using Upkeep because it is unreliable
4/ There are units and situations that cannot be patched by Stats, Purchase Cost, Rein Cost, Red/EXP.
- There are situations where you don’t want to use any other tool beside upkeep to nerf or buff a unit.
- Stats will straight away take huge effect even if it is small change.
- Purchase Cost will change timing of a unit purchase.
- Rein Cost cannot be applied to single entities and is superbly less effective for durable units that do not bleed easily.
- RED/EXP is superbly less effective for durable units that do not bleed easily. Single entity units don’t bleed.

- This kind of situation sound familiar right? What are you going to do to nerf or buff a unit when you don’t want to touch other tools beside upkeep values?
- Single entities are like this. Vehicles, sub commanders, super units are extremely hard to kill in high skilled range in 1V1. Especially, well supported transports are almost unkillable.
- Basically, there comes a time you want to penalize a player for keeping a valuable unit for longer. Upkeep is the only way to do this.

- Also, it is as Crewfinity said before. "Previously, if a squad was more efficient than they should be relative to their population (ex a unit has 8 pop but was performing at ~10 pop level) then we could just nerf their upkeep so that they were taxed at a fair rate. population values don't change as easily as upkeep does, so now if an 8 pop unit is performing at a 10 pop level, your only option is to reduce their performance."

3.5 Standardization will make upkeep to work properly as a catch up mechanism
5/ Standardization harms catch up mechanism of Upkeep.
- As you may remember, upkeep as a catch up mechanism works like below
1) Bigger and more valuable army you have and longer you keep those army, more penalized you are.
2) When you suddenly lose a bunch of valuable unit, you are compensated in req income.
- As I have shown in my upkeep finding post. If you standardize every unit to be of same Upkeep rate, there can be no Upkeep Surplus or Deficit.
- More valuable a unit is, higher rate of upkeep it should have and you should be penalized more for keeping it longer. This makes snowballing effect lesser.
- Losing a valuable unit set back the player even more so you should be compensated even more for losing them for this upkeep comeback mechanism to work as intended.
- Standardizing upkeep would make coming back from losing situations harder because it will remove Upkeep Surplus mechanic.

4. Conclusion
- No to Antandron’s style of standardization.
1. Players should not suffer for the slight ease of balance team. Benefit is too small and the players have to suffer too much. Making upkeep a CONSTANT won’t change the arbitrary nature of balancing.
- Too much price to pay to remove a single variable from the balancing formulae.
2. Purchase cost do not reflect value of a unit because a value of a unit is not fixed.
- A flaw in the logic.
3. Pop values are not designed to cap the max strength of each army nor to reflect its strength.
- A flaw in the logic.
4. There are units and situations that cannot be patched by Stats, Purchase Cost, Rein Cost, Red/EXP. Sometimes, you want to penalize a player for keeping a valuable unit for longer. Upkeep is the only way to do this.
- Unreliable or not, upkeep has its uses and should not be completely removed as a balance tool.
- Crewfinity's comment shed more light on this.
"Previously, if a squad was more efficient than they should be relative to their population (ex a unit has 8 pop but was performing at ~10 pop level) then we could just nerf their upkeep so that they were taxed at a fair rate. population values don't change as easily as upkeep does, so now if an 8 pop unit is performing at a 10 pop level, your only option is to reduce their performance."
5. Standardization harms catch up mechanism of Upkeep.
- On the contrary to Antandron’s document, current upkeep system with over stand rate of upkeep actually helps player to come back better not harm them.
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Re: Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

Postby Reg9678 » Fri 31 May, 2019 4:22 pm

Impregnable wrote:Atlas/Torpid
- Standard Upkeep/Pop ratio should be set to 2.55 upkeep/pop as given by Relic.
- There should be different Upkeep/Pop rates for vehicles, sub commanders and Tyranid units.
- Exceptions can be made for certain units regarding upkeep rate for balancing purposes.
- Upkeep’s role as a balancing tool is greatly diminished but in certain cases, it will be used as a balancing tool.


I agree with you here as it seems to be the most fair option and going to deep into the matter of upkeep may leave a lot of room for further imbalance and also is probably more prone for technical diffculties trying to implement this. As things stand now it's quite good. If I remember correctly not too long ago CSM used to be at a lot less upkeep than Tacs which basically made no sense so it's great that these kinds of things were adjusted.

Though I think Antandron is aiming at factions with a very advantageous economy like IG and Eldar with his concept. While Antandron's idea is too far-reaching we probably need a more narrow approach for this problem.

Edit: I couldn't read your thread "Upkeep Findings & Implications(Long Post)" completely right now, but I feel that it shows us the upkeep system is very sensitive and too many changes may have unexpected consequences.
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Re: Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

Postby Antandron » Fri 31 May, 2019 6:46 pm

Image

My lawyer will be releasing a statement shortly.

Update:

No comment. I'm not getting involved in this again.
Last edited by Antandron on Fri 31 May, 2019 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Atlas

Re: Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

Postby Atlas » Fri 31 May, 2019 7:56 pm

Antandron wrote:Image

My lawyer will be releasing a statement shortly.


Image
Oh boi, I pop onto my computer today and see this sitting in new posts.
Dis gun be gud going with my morning coffee.
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Re: Upkeep Standardization Analysis/Criticisms(Super Long Post)

Postby Antandron » Sun 02 Jun, 2019 4:32 pm

I feel my argument hasn’t been understood for whatever reason, here is my attempt to clarify. Let me know if I’ve not understood something you wrote Impregnable; I don’t play any more and am not really that interested in this subject to read everything twice. Do you think that I only want to standardise upkeep? I support standardising everything but in a way which changes the current values as little as possible.

Why standardise?

If there are 100 units, each being balanced using purchase cost, reinforce cost, upkeep, pop and red, that’s 100x5 variables. 500 variables! If only purchase cost is used, and reinforce cost, upkeep, pop and red are proportional to purchase cost, that’s 100 variables and five times easier to balance.

(Also note how already, the reinforce cost, pop, upkeep and red of units are almost consistently proportional to the units cost. Maybe relic knew what they were doing?)

e.g. decide purchase cost. set reinforce as 0.5 x purchase cost, set pop as req/30, set upkeep as 2.55 x pop, set red as req cost/10. (or whatever numbers you wish).

So Tacs are 150 req/model, 150/30 = 5 pop, 5x2.55 upkeep per model, 15 red. done. easy.

Lets make an imaginary unit that is 10% worse than tacs (whatever 10% worse is, idk) and call them CSM, with 3 models of HInf:
150-10% = 135 req/model. 135/30 = 4.5 pop, 4.5 x 2.55 upkeep per model, 135/10 red. I know that pop has to be either 4 or 5 which doesn’t help, and that upkeep is being fixed at 2.55 because of the upkeep mechanics. Adjusting squad leader pop slightly can be used to balance this.

Why fix upkeep? Back to Tacs and CSM, we know that CSM are about 10% worse, and so they cost 10% less to purchase. By fixing upkeep to be proportional to purchase cost, this happens.

For all x where x is time on field, Tacs will cost 10% more than CSM.
1 minutes: Tac = 150 + 5*2.55 = 162.75 CSM = 135 + 4.5*2.55 = 146.475 (which is 90% of a tac model)
5 minutes: Tac = 150 + 5*(5*2.55) = 213.75 CSM = 135 + 5*(4.5*2.55) = 192.375 (which is 90% of 213.75
10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes it’s always the case that tacs are 10% more than CSM, which doesn’t break the rule of “better units cost more”.

You say “No, cost of a unit is not closely related to its strength”. I don’t understand how any game, in which units are bought for a price, can possibly be balanced if unit strength is not proportional to cost. Why is a GUO 800/200 and GM 35/0 otherwise? Why do CSM cost less than Tacs? Why are ASM more expensive than stormboyz? Why do the SM and CSM predators cost the same? I could go on...

“Also, the word strength used in Antandron’s document is a very misleading term. Strength in relation to what? Strong vs Who? In what situation?”

I went into a crazy hypothetical involving ProAI playing infinite games to clarify what I meant and I doubt I can do any better than that in explaining what “strength” means. Maybe “value” is a better word?

“Why should players suffer for the ease of the balance team?”
As I said above, Relic designed the game using the principles I am advocating for and the current values are nearly all consistent with what I am saying. Any changes would be minor and “inconvenience” is an exaggeration. Currently OP units would cease to be OP and currently UP units would cease to be UP.

Section 3.1 “completely uproot” is hyperbole.

Section 3.2 “Purchase cost of a unit is very vaguely proportional to the value it provides.” Really? Here’s what happens when units are too cheap. Players buy them every game, even two, or three, or even four! See Purgation. What happens when units are too expensive? Players don’t buy them.

Section 3.2 part 2)
“Value of a unit is not fixed. Purchase cost can never account for the value.”
That is what the ProAI playing infinite games was supposed to demonstrate. Units have different values in different situations. The purchase cost represents the AVERAGE value of a unit vs the meta. Otherwise there would be different costs for units for every MU and each units would have 17 different costs.

“3) Power and Requisition holds different values for different factions on different tiers.”
This causes more problems than it solves. e.g. IG T1 power light into T2>Chimera>Bash abuse in last patches. I would prefer some standardisation of this so that Tankbustas and Stormtroopers cost power.

3.3 “2) Pop values are designed to cap the max strength of each army.
- No. In normal 1v1, one can never reach max 100 pop. In order for this to happen in 1v1, current pop value of all squads must rise by 2 times or the purchase cost of units and upgrades should all be reduced by half.”

I don’t understand. Are you saying that no player in 1v1 has every come close to 100 pop?

3.3.3) “In Antadron’s system, more pop equals more upkeep. Upkeep means having more units but having more units do not mean you have stronger army. Value of an army depends on the player’s unit composition and the enemy’s not the total upkeep. And as I said above, purchase cost of a unit does not represent its value.”

Two players play each other, one has 100pop, the other has 50, vps are tied, who wins more often?

3.4.4 About durable units that bleed less effectively. Because they are durable they are “better” or have more “value” and therefore they cost more. Because they cost more, they have more upkeep, because they are “better” and they give more red. All this is factored into the purchase cost, which is proportional to strength/value.

About timings of units, 5 power is worth about 5 seconds assuming +60power/minute. Not a big deal imo.

Why penalise a player for keeping their units alive for longer? They’ve already paid for the unit and are paying upkeep for the unit. If the unit is unkillable then presumable it costs a lot to purchase and a lot of upkeep.

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