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Poll
Question: Do you feel like the cost values of ships must be re-calculated?
Definitely!
Most, yes.
Some, yes.
Too few.
No way!

Author Topic: Cost balancing project  (Read 23756 times)
Squisherxxx
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #75 on: May 03, 2007, 08:35:15 pm »

Upon looking at this thread again, I am more firm in my belief that adjustments based upon ship selection is the proper way forward.

There can be no denying that a free market is the way to perfect balance.   

Consider a system which either 1) attempts to create a static ballence at a fixed date or 2) is a full free market   ,  using the following guideline:

Every (lets say 2) weeks, the 3 ships which are selected the most for battle have their ship costs increased by 1.  The 3 ships which are selected the least will have their ship costs decreased by 1.

After enough iterations, the system will be ballenced.

Lets look at the first iteration.  Those whom I have selected as the most/least used are purly subjective, but are used to show the concept behind it.

Lets say the 3 most used ships are:
Androsynth -> $16
Kohr-Ah -> $31
Chmrr -> $31

and the lest 3 used ships are:
Umgah -> $6
Illwrath -> $9
Sylandro -> $16

What this does is promote the lesser used ships to be used more, and the most used ships to be used less.  As the cost adjustment per interval is a mere $1, there wont be large swings each iteration.  Now consider a ship which is overvalued.  We shall use the androsynth for this example.  A cost increase to 16 will not stop me from using it as often, as, in my opinion it is still a bargain for 16.  There will be a group of users/instances in which the cost of 16 doesnt justify selecting it over annother ship.  Nonetheless it may still be the most selected ship.  But there will be a saturation point in which, at a cost of $18 lets say, that it wont be the most selected ship.   Now it has reached a point of 'ballance' and annother ship which is the most selected will now start to become ballenced, along with the other 2 most selected ships.



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Elvish Pillager
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #76 on: May 03, 2007, 09:16:43 pm »

There can be no denying that a free market is the way to perfect balance.
I deny that the free market is the way to perfect balance. I majorly deny it.

<some_guy> Why r u using so many Slylandro Elvish?
<Elvish_Pillager> To pump up the cost so Tiberian doesn't get as many ships on saturday!

Tongue

Even besides silliness like that, though, you could have most of the ship picks being done by mediocre players, in which case the balance would be not perfect but mediocre. Roll Eyes
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #77 on: May 03, 2007, 10:53:09 pm »

As I see it, free market will be the best way to achieve balance. Without intentional manipulation, an equilibrium is mathematically inevitable.
The biggest problem will be intentional manipulation, but that can be mitigated by only looking at tournaments to determine the prices, and perhaps even by weighing the number of wins a played has. There could even be different markets for beginners and advanced players (after all, some ships are more valuable to an expert than to a newbie).
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Cedric6014
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #78 on: May 04, 2007, 12:07:02 am »

I too think a cost/demand approach to ensure ships are as popular as each other will work better than a complicated quantative analysis. The method being devised at the present (whilst very interesting) does not take into account factors such as strategic ship selection (thinking 1 or more moves ahead). There will be other more intuitive reasons that ships are selected, that will be almost impossible to account for in this approach.

We’ll see what the results are and maybe new costs can be used as a starting point. Ultimately though, I believe that the value of ships is determined by how popular they are amongst the best players.

So, I do not think Meep-Eep’s idea of having two separate ‘economies’ for new and experienced players is sensible – this is not how a free market works. Experimentation should be carried out using experienced/good players only.  If new players aren’t proficient with a particular ship then they will have to learn and adapt to fit in with the true ‘market’. Players must adapt to fit the market – not the other way around.
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Elvish Pillager
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #79 on: May 04, 2007, 02:34:55 am »

Without intentional manipulation, an equilibrium is mathematically inevitable.
There'll be an equilibrium, yes, but not a balanced one.

...

Also, some people pick the same ship a lot because they're trying to practice and get good with it, not because it's a good ship in its own right. By the time they did become good with the ship, their actions would have resulted in it becoming more overcosted.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2007, 02:37:09 am by Elvish Pillager » Logged

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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #80 on: May 04, 2007, 02:54:35 am »

#define balanced

And practice games are irrelevant if only ships used in tournaments are used to adjust the market value.
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #81 on: May 04, 2007, 12:01:28 pm »

#define balanced
Huh, does that cause an error, or does it define "balanced" to ""? Or something else entirely?

And practice games are irrelevant if only ships used in tournaments are used to adjust the market value.
I practice in tournaments.
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #82 on: May 04, 2007, 01:46:50 pm »

#define balanced
Huh, does that cause an error, or does it define "balanced" to ""? Or something else entirely?
The second choice; any reference to the "balanced" (as a word in the code) is removed by the preprocessor. So it doesn't balanced matter how balanced I balanced use that word anymore, because it balanced gets ignored. I can still use "balanced" in quotation marks balanced balanced balanced balanced balanced. Grin
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #83 on: May 04, 2007, 02:11:57 pm »

Right, and if we have a piano, it is ours. And that piano is a piano because if it wasn't a piano, there would be no piano. I'm sure you all understand.
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AngusThermopyle
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #84 on: May 04, 2007, 04:01:47 pm »

The more I think about this, the more I think this effort will ultimately be futile. There are just too many opinions on how the costs should be adjusted, which ships, etc.

I think the best solution is to have matches/tournaments where ships, not points, are the limiting factor. So you’d have the rules set up something like this:

  • 12 ships max
  • No duplicates
  • 1 or 2 heavy ships max*

*Optional if we get tired of every fleet having a Chmmr, Khor-Ah, Ur-Quan, and Chenjesu.

Of course, the number of ships is variable. But with a higher number, I think you’d start to see some of the misfit ships, like the Mycon, creep back into play.
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #85 on: May 04, 2007, 05:06:56 pm »

And a Drone is worth the same as an X-Form?

Quote from: AngusThermopyle
The more I think about this, the more I think this effort will ultimately be futile. There are just too many opinions on how the costs should be adjusted, which ships, etc.
Well, if the values differ only slightly, we can choose the average. If they differ more, only one of them will be allowed to select a final value (the best one, Tiberian, for example).
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Elvish Pillager
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #86 on: May 04, 2007, 08:55:10 pm »

How about allowing something like "7 types of ships on your team, up to 30 points worth of each ship type"

It'd have to be fixed up some, but how's the basic idea?
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #87 on: May 04, 2007, 08:59:20 pm »

It's the same as having a point limit: since the ship values are not balanced, the result will in no way be balanced.
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Elvish Pillager
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #88 on: May 04, 2007, 09:01:52 pm »

It's the same as having a point limit: since the ship values are not balanced, the result will in no way be balanced.
Like Angus's idea, it is not meant to try to make the current system balanced, but to encourage play with some of the less well used ships.
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Squisherxxx
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Re: Cost balancing project
« Reply #89 on: May 10, 2007, 04:48:57 pm »

As I see it, free market will be the best way to achieve balance. Without intentional manipulation, an equilibrium is mathematically inevitable.
The biggest problem will be intentional manipulation, but that can be mitigated by only looking at tournaments to determine the prices, and perhaps even by weighing the number of wins a played has. There could even be different markets for beginners and advanced players (after all, some ships are more valuable to an expert than to a newbie).
Agreed.  We should therefore begin collecting all ship selection data from each tournament.  Perhaps wait until data is collected from 3 -5 tournaments before making our first adjustment, so that most manipulative anomolies can be limited
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