End Communism?

Surely this has been discussed earlier, so I dont expect much to come out of this, but it seems to me current payback mode for building mexxes (and to a lesser extent E) is encouraging bad gameplay. It doesnt matter that much in a 16v16, though it discourages early expansion somewhat. But in small games ive had mutiple instances where i have the choice to either build mexxes and not have an army or just let my team fall behind economically, because most players dont build mexxes aside from their starting one, sometimes not even that.
Thats not an issue in 1v1 where payback is rather quick, in teamgames it leads to "rewarding" the players that play the most egotistical, giving anyone trying to play a teamgame the bad option of either supporting their pala before mex colleages and not having an army, or trying to get some units early on and falling behind on expansion.
Seems to me mexxes should simply give their full payout to the player that built it until costs have been recouped.

Building Energy has a similar problem though more so in larger games. Building E, even though very much viable for the Team as whole is not a viable strategy for anyone blue and up cause it effectivly subsidizes lower ranked players withh the metal of the higher ranked ones...

Of course this problem wouldnt go away completly with 100% payback, cause earlymetal>latemetal, but itd help quite a bit(especially with the mexxes and early game play)

blu fight gold make eco but lots of gold dont get that blu can make eco but gold cant fight so problem is in self image of some ppl'''

The correct payback will fall somewhere between 0% and 100%. Currently mexes and energy payback at 50%.

We know that 100% is incorrect for energy because this led to the "egotistical" players spamming energy which ultimately just went into making more energy, starving the rest of their team of overdrive. The energy would eventually be used for a nuke or something, but too late to be helpful. The correct rate for mexes is also certainly not over 100%. I recall having mexes that cost 75 metal give a refund of 90 metal to encourage construction. People would fight over mexes. Both metal and energy payback was changed to 50% some time in 2015.

On payback rate, I think a gradual falloff is better than 100% payback for X seconds followed by full sharing. This is just to cut down on shocks to players economies.

I think the most useful question is something like "how long should the average mex take to pay back its builder?" All mexes eventually pay back their builder simply because their builder receives a share of the metal. A reasonable lower bound would be the 100% payback system, although crazier systems could pay people even faster to encourage mexes (which we've seen leads to bad behaviour).

Some rough calculations suggest that the current system pays back the builder of a mex in a 10v10 in about four minutes (233.75 seconds).

• A +2 mex makes 467.5 metal in 233.75 seconds.
• The builder is paid 42.5 of that metal directly. I forget the payback rate, but I recall it being able to pay this part back within four minutes.
• 467.5 - 42.5 = 425, which is split 10 ways by the team.
• The builder receives their split, which makes up the 85 metal.

Sure, you could argue that everyone else on the team just sees pure profit - that the builder is always 42.5 metal down compared to the rest of the team. I just think that a teamgame has to be founded on some degree of cooperation, that we can't simulate a team via purely selfish incentives. I'm wary about jumping all the way to 100% because we tried this before and it had to be toned down. Something like 80% refund sounds safer to try.

Economically speaking the refund just determines the payback time. It's a simple equation assuming that the payback rate is fast enough to complete by the theoretical payback time.

• At 100% a +2 mex pays for itself in 42.5 seconds.
• At 80% a +2 mex in a 10v10 pays for itself in 119 seconds.
• At 50% a +2 mex in a 10v10 pays for itself in 233.75 seconds.
• At 0% a +2 mex in a 10v10 pays for itself in 425 seconds.

Halving the personal payback down to two minutes already seems like a lot. I don't observe people leaving mexes for others to build at the moment, but it could depend on timezone.

Energy is an extra step of complexity. The way overdrive can be attributed and refunded ends up being very complex in real-game situations so it is hard to estimate timings. We know it didn't work at 100% and maybe it is working at 50%. Determining the outcome of changes here probably takes years. I suppose we could try something like 66% if there aren't objections. The danger point is when teams become vulnerable to players just spamming energy without the rest of the team seeing enough of an overdrive boost. "Enough" is very much a subjective thing. It is possible for the personal payback time for energy to actually be less than the time it takes for the structure to make its own cost in raw overdrive.

I would also want some system in place to give people shared payback for shared construction before trying any of this.

The correct payback for mex kinda has to be capped at 50% as long as they can be reclaimed alive, 60% as long as friendly fire exists, and 80% as long as mex self-destruct is permitted.

quote: in teamgames, parasites are allowed to drain metal while not contributing.

... because otherwise, they will reclaim (destroy, selfd) and rebuild the same mex over and over again.

Hm, I am pretty sure that 90% of the "I-sit-in-base-behaviour" is NOT based on knowledge of the game-mechanics, rather the opposite.

1. "I am bad at playing front, so I want to help the team by making eco (+1) or prepare backstab/cloak/drop-shenanigans (-2) [Those shenanigans would be totally fine AFTER your team got at least around half the map, and ofc you suck at front-play if you never do it - seriously, there are some individuals that are near star-level or above like that...]
1b. "I am bad at playing front and I do not care actually, I just want to build my pala/detri/nuke and have fun with it." Depending on the individual this ranges from not very teamplay-oriented to simply anti-social.
2. "I am lagging so hard that I am more useful if I do backline-stuff." Understandable.
3. "What, mexes are important??? Why?" I actually do not even want to know how many players do not understand the eco-mechanics, and let`s be honest: Researching the mechanics of a game is more an exeptional trait with players than the norm.

[Spoiler]

"3. "What, mexes are important??? Why?" I actually do not even want to know how many players do not understand the eco-mechanics, and let`s be honest: Researching the mechanics of a game is more an exeptional trait with players than the norm."

Just gotta get players to play a few 1v1 and then you "feel" it, no research even required.
Thats the ultimate problem with communism isnt it(and thats a lefty saying this) if you get something for nothing frequently, there is no incentive to do anything. Thats why I wanted to advocate for a social market economy instead. Get your mex refund/investment back right away, after that the mex gets socialized so serve us all :-)

The single time communism actually works in all of human history (and future), and you want to end it?

quote: Agree, now look at how many players have an mm-rating...

Isn't MM giga broken? Any time we try playing there are 0 players in every single category

Noob question: what is MM?

Great thread. I'd support making the payback for mexes higher to say 75%. It means when I rush forward to capture map that somebody will take the time to cap all the mexes in the controlled territory asap. Maybe another possibility is to make the builder of a resource receive a slightly higher proportion of team metal than the others. Not a huge amount but enough to make it worthwhile in the long run.