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End Communism?

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16 months ago
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)
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16 months ago
quote:
Seems to me mexxes should simply give their full payout to the player that built it until costs have been recouped.


That should be already the case.
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16 months ago
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'''
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16 months ago
"
That should be already the case."

Really? I always was under the impression you get only 50% back, and it certainly is stretched over time.


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16 months ago
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.
+3 / -0
AUrankAdminGoogleFrog thanks for your details, but i think u are missing the point.

the claim by DErankbloa is:

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

so carrying player has to do both expanding and units while someone in the back plays simcity or does his pet project which takes metal and does not benefit the frontline for the next 2 hours...

i myself rarely make energy and try both expanding and take the heat close to the front while "parasiting" energy in the earlygame. however, there is just so much you can do with the metal available via mex income. therefore, to make up for your expenses, reclaim (which is 100% personal) is your way of choice.

###

i rather would not recommend to change the communism rules, but what about bonuses on shared income, depending on army size or damage inflicted/taken based on the recent minutes? this would be an incentive to "not suck".

+3 / -0
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.
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Bad players will always find ways to put the team in a bad position, otherwise they wouldn't be bad players!

If one wants to win, discard ego and figure out the strategy that makes the team win.

If the less flexible players:
1. Stay in the backline and build eco only, go on the front and take and hold
2. Stay in the backline and build big stuff, go on the front and take and hold with no reserve for escalation
3. Go on the front line with spammy units: bring artillery to take advantage of situation, support reclaim and econ, or double down for full on breakthrough if possible
4. Go on the front with artillery: bring screening support, vision, counter assault, anti-counterbattery (cloak, shield, silo, terra), as well as counter opponent antiartillery strategy (anti-terra, placeholder, snipe "anti-arty tanks" with assault like gauss)

Alternatively, one can pursue a micro intensive combat strategy, as opposed to a metal heavy one. The metal can then go into eco or escalation.

That said, in small teams it is quite easily possible to have impossible to carry teams because the teammates choose a bad strategy. Then again, with random draws sometimes it is the other team that ends up with impossible to carry situation and one just try to win the games that is winnable.

Random team games are interesting because the right play is less obvious, there is few ways a single player can "force" the direction of the game into a well explored direction. If bad players have less influence, the game state collapses into a far fewer optimal progressions.
----------------------------------------------
I am reminded of a recent game which was won by throwing everything into dirtbags and spiders to stalling opponent off mexes until kids finished building 2 pala and hercs before moving out. It wasn't pretty but it worked.

There was also games where the entire game was helped by force firing various unspotted mexes with a few impaler and rebuilding mexes. I think that resulted in a tens of thousand extra metal by the end that enables the lower ranked players to out attrit the other side.
+1 / -0

16 months ago
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]
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16 months ago
Thx for that comprehensive answer GF.
Thats kinda what I feared, i.e. solving the problems I see just opens up another can of worms...
I also didnt really articulate myself very well. I have no problems with teamspirit, I think if youd ask around you would find that im much more lenient towards noobish behaviour thenn most. I just thought refundig mexxes right away might be inducing a more teamlike behaviour. Ill mention that this is no problemm at all with anyone who I can find on the 1v1 ladder, cause those players have much better feel of how fast mexxes pay back/how useless territory is when not building them etc..). This is pot induced behaviour, because on a 16v16 zed you simply dont need to build them... and it only really starts being problematic in smaller team games.


The other situation I frequzently find myself in that is rather annoying is this:

In big team games I like to rush to front with jumpycom... If you arrive first at a supermex you faced with a nasty choice, do i build def or mex? In a 1v1 its almost always clear to build a say +7mex immediatly, as payoff is about 12s which means the def is instantly paid for/can be built. But in teamgames payoff is much longer, therefore building the mex oftentimes leads to not being able to defend the position... You could say it is one of the many decisions to be take within the game, but i guess i get irritated by it because its not a problem in a 1v1 and therefore too my mind shouldnt be either in a 1team vs 1team scenario.

" I don't observe people leaving mexes for others to build at the moment" it isnt that much of a problem, I just get annoyed due to my playstyle and the small teams games i played in the last few days :-)

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

Yes, cause this is another thing that causes unnessary distortion of gameplay. If I decide to help out a singu it shouldnt matter whether the builder is Sab or one of the Kids and yet it does... because the return from my metal is invested wisely only in one case.

One last question, is this 50% return valid for all kinds of energy construction (what about pylons?) or just singus, or is it singu and fusions but nothing else?





+1 / -0
16 months ago
"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 :-)
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quote:
In big team games I like to rush to front with jumpycom... If you arrive first at a supermex you faced with a nasty choice, do i build def or mex?


I also usually rush super-mexes, in my exp it does not matter as for some reason I usually face around 3 full enemy-armies while my allies are just starting to move - if I am lucky - forward.

quote:
Just gotta get players to play a few 1v1 and then you "feel" it, no research even required.


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

quote:
Get your mex refund/investment back right away, after that the mex gets socialized so serve us all :-)


I am in support of this actually, I am just very uncertain if it has an effect on player-behaviour (and if it has one that it is a pure positive one). In your super-mex-example it would not help too much tho; what you lack is mostly the TIME. Even if the mex pays of directly, you might simply not get any meaningful defenses up fast enough.
Anyway, as said, atm I am in support of this proposal, but someone might easily change my mind.
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16 months ago
The single time communism actually works in all of human history (and future), and you want to end it?
+2 / -0
technically yes. we should end communism. we should have private mexes and e given to the grid comes back as overdrive to you... and you have a massive slider, where you set how much you wanna power the grid, vs how much you wanna power only own mexes, but that said. zk is based on arcade rts, where the userbase anthem is this song:



which makes this a very vibrant and diverse community, and that economy thing is entirely secondary to the whole gameplay....
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15 months ago
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
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15 months ago
Team MM is rare. It works though, and 1v1 has games if you click it.
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15 months ago
Noob question: what is MM?
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15 months ago
matchmaking
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15 months ago
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.
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15 months ago
quote:
Great thread. I'd support making the payback for mexes higher to say 75%.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/3446970998523486587
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