Passive Income

[Lead]

I have attached an image showing Nod's credits roughly 2 hours after losing the refinery on Islands. The refinery was destroyed around 45 minutes into the game. Losing the refinery rarely seems to cause a team to go broke. Instead it leads to passive play and long drawn out games. In the example I am giving, the income without the refinery appeared to be 0.5credits/second. Here are some positives/negatives I see to passive income:

Negatives:

• Stalemates / Long Games
  • Passive income increases game duration, but worsens the overall playing experience by creating games that feel like they will never end. These long games tend to require exceptional circumstances to end. The typical ending i've seen is that both teams rush via different paths and the team that arrives at the enemy base first wins the game.  I enjoy the long epics myself, but they feel less special when they occur on a daily basis.
• Domination of the tank field is minimally rewarded and often punished.
  • A team can forfeit the field by stopping their harvester and earning additional credits by defending (often holding the LMB to repair). They are able to accumulate credits and veterancy while staying close to their structures/spawn to provide maximum defense. The team holding the field will earn more credits, but the value of these additional credits are unlikely to convert into any advantage. The team holding the field is far from their spawn and far from their structures creating significant delay to defense. The exceptions would be any map where field control provides control over infantry paths or maps where the delay to return to base is small. 

Positives: 

• Provides earning potential for players just joining.
  • This could probably be remedied in a way similar to veterancy as new players are gifted some veterancy based on team VP, maybe they can recieve a capped stipend of up to X credits.

 

I understand some players may enjoy this aspect of RenegadeX, but I think the loss of these 3+ hour epics can be replaced by more competitive play via elimination or reducion of passive income. For starters, it would create a more aggressive field battle for resources on maps where it applies. Secondly, it would punish passive play by diminishing a teams ability to stall, hopefully, this would result in urgency among a team without a refinery. Lastly, I think it lends more significance to the tank battles on most maps which are fun and generally more inclusive as many players (myself included) struggle to compete in infantry fights. I'm sure there is more to consider than what I have stated, but I write this post simply to provide feedback. 

 

 

Thanks,

[Silv]

0.5 credits per second is 150 credits per 5 minutes. That means more than 10 minutes to rebuy a hottie / tech, more than 25 minutes to rebuy a medium tank. That's way too slow to prevent a death spiral for a team.

What you're seeing is likely active income from actions. Repairing tanks for example gives quite a bit of income and VPs while the tech class doesn't cost all that much to rebuy (only 350). Shooting enemies also gives credits and for decent players that's likely to be enough to rebuy their class/vehicle. Add in a few failed rushes of the opposing team (which lead to killed enemies and thus money) and it's entirely credible for a game to drag out.

Furthermore in this game defense is often easier than offense. When defending you're closer to your spawns so if you get killed you spend less time getting back to your position while the further the enemy gets towards your base the harder it is for them to sustain their offense. Logistics matter on the battlefield. And, while present not on Islands, defensive structures further make defense easier.

A death spiral certainly is possible and is in fact quite common but if the team that lost the ref has even a little bit more combined skill / teamwork than the other team it's far from guaranteed. And that's good because if the ref would be a reliable killer of matches the entire game would devolve into ref killing. Killing the ref, like killing the power plant, gives the enemy team an edge but no more than that.

EDIT: Re-reading the above post I think I'm arguing a few things the same (rep income, defense vs offense) to support a different conclusion. I really should have written my arguments better, it's a bit confusing this way.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Silv

[Lead]

7 hours ago, Silv said:

0.5 credits per second is 150 credits per 5 minutes. That means more than 10 minutes to rebuy a hottie / tech, more than 25 minutes to rebuy a medium tank. That's way too slow to prevent a death spiral for a team.

What you're seeing is likely active income from actions. Repairing tanks for example gives quite a bit of income and VPs while the tech class doesn't cost all that much to rebuy (only 350). Shooting enemies also gives credits and for decent players that's likely to be enough to rebuy their class/vehicle. Add in a few failed rushes of the opposing team (which lead to killed enemies and thus money) and it's entirely credible for a game to drag out.

Furthermore in this game defense is often easier than offense. When defending you're closer to your spawns so if you get killed you spend less time getting back to your position while the further the enemy gets towards your base the harder it is for them to sustain their offense. Logistics matter on the battlefield. And, while present not on Islands, defensive structures further make defense easier.

A death spiral certainly is possible and is in fact quite common but if the team that lost the ref has even a little bit more combined skill / teamwork than the other team it's far from guaranteed. And that's good because if the ref would be a reliable killer of matches the entire game would devolve into ref killing. Killing the ref, like killing the power plant, gives the enemy team an edge but no more than that.

EDIT: Re-reading the above post I think I'm arguing a few things the same (rep income, defense vs offense) to support a different conclusion. I really should have written my arguments better, it's a bit confusing this way.

Thanks for the reply. In no way have I been concise. I believe the feedback i've provided may be misplaced, but I thought i'd at least take a stab at a solution for the sake of discussion. I'll clarify that the gameplay I don't enjoy is frequent 3+ hour games where play feels diminished due to defensive posture from a team that has lost their refinery. I think this is a common circumstance as in many maps the refinery is often the first building to go as it is tall and towards the back of the base. 

I am attributing passive income as a potential cause for the extended duration and diminished gameplay. The tank discussion I included was somewhat unrelated to long games, but I felt it was a consequence of passive income. To your point, credits are earned through player actions. Supplementing that income with passive income allows someone to purchase classes that supplement their active income through higher damage/greater repairs. My current opinion is that the overall income is too high. I agree that a team can and should be able to overcome building loss with teamwork, however, I'd find it more enjoyable if it required a more exceptional effort/coordination. As you noted, defending is much easier than attacking, and I don't think this is an issue. I also don't think a reduction in active income would be beneficial to gameplay.

To summarize, my "wish" is to see more meaningful matches with greater resource battles and for the loss of refinery to spark more aggressive play from the affected team. My inclination is that passive income may be hindering my wishes by diminishing the value of the refinery and field control. Generally speaking, the game quality is pretty good as people do tend to stick around for the duration of these matches, but if there is "one" area i'd hope for change, this would be it. I also appreciate that you provided feedback as it provides evidence that some people prefer it this way. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Lead
Grammar/Spelling

[Silv]

We're in agreement about slow stalemate matches not being desirable. And I do think you're correct that losing the refinery feels like it has little impact on the game. I just don't think passive income makes all that much difference. Then again the passive income is the same as a silo and people do fight over that.

If you think about it the refinery is really two things: the refinery itself and the harvester. Losing the harvester hurts as it gives the entire enemy team VPs AND at least delays the bunch of credits from unloading. Having to park the harvester hurts as you can't get unloading credits that way. Losing the refinery hurts because it's like being forced to park the harvester without turning it back on, it gives a bunch of VPs to the enemy team (armor break + destruction) and it reduces passive income to a quarter of what it was.

I think all things considered it may actually be worse for a team to repeatedly lose the harvester than it is to lose the refinery. The constant "harvester has been destroyed" is terrible for morale and a nice boost to enemy VPs, which translate to a bigger advantage in the long run.

When comparing the refinery to the power plant I think the power plant is much more important. Assuming no advanced defense present (in which case it's not even close) the power plant "only" raises costs by 50%. For a light tank that's 300 credits more, 900 in total. A functioning refinery on purely passive income takes 450 seconds (7.5 minutes) to supply the money for this. If the power plant is up but the refinery is down it takes 1200 seconds (20 minutes) to get the 600 credits in passive income. However this ignores that for all but the most incompetent players most income is active rather than passive (except at the beginning of the map or if the harvester has a really short loop). Add in active income and losing the power plant hurts a lot more whereas the ref is sometimes "oh good, now the harvester can't get shot up anymore".

There's another effect that actually may make your suggestion, assuming it has a significant impact, counterproductive to your goals. When I'm low on money I'll play conservatively, I'll defend and stay close to spawns for refuels. When I'm high on money I'll likely play more aggressively.

My personal idea for the refinery would be to make destruction of it degrade it instead, counterintuitively making it more harmful by making it better. Keep the harvester but have each haul only bring in half the credits. And most importantly make the harvester run fully automatically without the commander being able to stop it. Scrap passive income, make the harvester the only thing that can provide money for the ref. On maps where the tib patch is outside the base this results in a steady income stream for the enemy if the team doesn't protect the harvester or a still important trickle of money if the team protect it. Problem is mainly that if the map design makes the harvester well protected this change would actually worsen the problem.

Furthermore I think map designs that rewards map control are important. The maps I enjoy most are those that reward being out there. Silos are the classic map design trick but I think those provide too small benefit, it's usually more of a target of opportunity (i.e. "if we have field anyway let's make sure to get it") and less of an objective ("let's take field to get the silo"). Comm centers are vital (because they spoil rushes) but can sometimes backfire because they limit the possibilities for counter-attacks, thereby making a team with strong field control very hard to beat leading to more defense. The emp cannon or equivalent on some maps is my favorite here, it rewards aggression, makes for a target that can swing the game, doesn't hurt other tactics if you don't have it and only matters part of the time (making gameplay more dynamic).

[isupreme]

I share the feeling that 3hr matches are not desirable.   

Not to derail the thread, but i do hasten to comment that:    64 players on some maps creates  some of the effects being discussed.  In particular I cite: Field and Under.    Originally maps for 40 players.

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The emp cannon or equivalent on some maps is my favorite here, it rewards aggression, makes for a target that can swing the game, doesn't hurt other tactics if you don't have it and only matters part of the time (making gameplay more dynamic).

100 %.

[Suspiria]

9 hours ago, isupreme said:

Not to derail the thread, but i do hasten to comment that:    64 players on some maps creates  some of the effects being discussed.  In particular I cite: Field and Under.    Originally maps for 40 players.

Agreed.

Past discussions on this often concluded with something akin to "more than 50p is just intrinsically bad for RenX gameplay". (but the market wants it regardless)
And we've been in the process of figuring out exactly what these effects are so as to improve 64p gameplay. (and I wouldn't rule out 80p becoming a thing, either)

For instance when it comes to credits I'd say that max. vehicles doesn't scale well with player count. (causes: challenges to map design and server performance)
Being a tanker can be doubly expensive compared to playing infantry because tankers tend to buy both inf and tank if money allows.

And since vehicles tend to get maxed on 64p, there's going to be a lot of infantry running about, each amassing a steady influx of credits.
I'd say this will be a contributing factor to there being a teamwide surplus, especially if people know how to balance each other by donating.

Part of the solution to this may be to:
1. Dynamically reduce (passive) income according to playercount (e.g. -50% while >40 players)
2. Maps that support more vehicles
3. Servers that support more vehicles (depends on CPU single core performance)
4. Under X
5. Exclude more non-X/small maps from mapvoting at high playercounts (comes at the cost of variety)

What are your thoughts on this?

Quote

balance each other by donating

Speaking of donating.. I don't think the new "auto team-donate on leave" function has been compensated for with a new credit sink yet.
Since the majority of people never cared to donate when they left, was this a necessary sink that is now gone?

[Silv]

I wonder if people really want to play on massive (with regard to player count) servers or if they want to play on sufficiently large servers but end up only playing on massive servers because only the fullest server attracts players.

The observation that more than 50 players is bad for RenX gameplay is fair. I wouldn't call it an intrinsically bad match but it becomes harder to have a fun match.

What I've noticed is that player count massively changes the nature of the game.

• Low pop count games are swingy. A single sneaker can often kill a building and a single good player can dominate the match.
• Medium pop count games are tactical. Single sneakers are unlikely to score but a small team of good players has a good chance of winning an objective. Both skill and teamwork are required to win.
• Large pop count games are blunt force tugs of war. Victory usually involves a large group of players doing the same thing, whether it's tanking or shooting rockets. Skill becomes less of a defining factor due to regression to the mean and a single player (even the likes of poi) being only able to do so much. Teamwork increases in importance but decreases in quality, that is it's all about mass something and it's difficult to pull off even a slightly complex strategy like "single shot at the obi first then fire at the hon".

Part of the problem with large pop counts is that some maps start to clog. The field side often gets traffic jams near a base both because of available space and because of bad tankers (the number of people who know how to tank well and are available to tank is usually less far than the vehicle cap). Tunnels become a standoff with two sides of advanced infantry supported by engineers. The game then becomes a stalemate that can last for hours. Under in particular is vulnerable to this, made worse by the bases being fairly easy to defend (agt/obi present, enough mines for tunnels).

I doubt adding more vehicles in the mix will help. Vehicles are still likely to clog up and the more vehicles you add to that the worse the effect is, even if there's a lot of space elsewhere on the map. That clogging also makes repairing vehicles rather a pain as most vehicle drivers will not look whether they are displacing infantry. More vehicles would also make commanders even more likely to double down on the "push meds/ltanks" basic strategy at the expense of anything else.

Excluding maps like Under when the pop count is high is not necessarily a bad idea but Under might still be selected on a low player count and then end up a 3 hour slog fest when more people join. Rather, I think, it would be good to counteract the downsides of large games when on a map that doesn't support them well. Things like income decreases help as it likely accelerates the death spiral of a losing team but it's easy to overdo it and make a fairly common situation like being pushed to the tank field corner just outside base on Under an automatic loss. Increasing building damage based on player count above map expectations might work better, as long as the team has a fighting chance on the field (no full base lock yet) the game works as normal but any attack that reaches the base becomes much more lethal. This allows losing teams to turn the tide by rushing and winning teams to finish a wounded enemy. Of course there are some problems with this, such as sbhs becoming more powerful but that could be fixed by not applying the (full) buff to c4.

Another part of the solution may be to support better team coordination. On large player counts the team naturally divides itself into groups with particular targets (field, tunnels, base defense), with players frequently switching between them. However there's only at most a single commander for team coordination and unless the commander is really good that tends to lead to a single target getting all the focus at the expense of the other ones until there's an immediate crisis (i.e. "defend the wf"). In the military I doubt a single commander would lead 63 people directly, there will be at the very least a few sergeants in there to organize smaller groupings. The problem of course here is that even the freshest batch of conscripts on their first week of training camp will have more discipline than the average pub player. Still, having some kind of way to divide the team and share the burden of leadership might improve things.

[Suspiria]

3 hours ago, Silv said:

The observation that more than 50 players is bad for RenX gameplay is fair.

Could we keep some focus on (passive) income, please?  

My little nugget about 64p was more ment to preface how a low vehicle count relative to playercount could impact credit balance.
And why such an income calculation would work on 40p but may go out of whack with 64p.

Not at all claiming that 64p is a better RenX game btw.
I simply did not see any other way to get my point across regarding passive credit income probably not having been reassessed since the move to 64.

So what I'm trying to achieve by participating in this discussion is to gather a data point on whether anything might need changed regarding passive income.

Especially also my last comment seems relevant to the subject: the new automatic team donation when leaving the game feature.
What impact does it have? Where did the credit sink go?

Also when I look at the code it seems to trigger only after the player has left a whopping 3600 seconds ago.
So if I'm not mistaken, all of those automatic team-donations are kindof delayed with an hour. Except if they team-donate manually before exiting.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Suspiria
clarify autonomous team donation feature

[Silv]

These are questions where metrics would be good to have because right now we're mostly guestimating how much income a player has and where it comes from.

Automatic team donations upon quit likely have an impact only if A) the player quits before the game ends, B) the player has significant cash and C) the player didn't manually team donate. Quits during the game do happen but most people stay around, I know because everybody and their dog seems to have a compulsive need to write "rq" after someone quits so it's quite noticeable. I doubt they actually matter all that much in the larger scheme, even if they work.

A quick guestimation: A tech earns 4/second repairing vehicles and that's probably the highest rate of average income in the game but is unlikely to spend the whole time doing that (it's boring and you need to walk to the tanks). A single refinery that's working is 2/second. A silo adds 1/second (from observation in game, ignoring wiki). I'd say a tech, which is a big earner, might very well earn about half their income from passives. However if silo is lost and ref is down it's much less, depending on how you look at it between 1/4 and 1/6 of normal. If passive is half income of a big active earner then getting cut down to only a quarter reduces income by approximately 3/8 to 5/12. But for classes with less active income it likely hurts even more.

Removing the passive 0.5/second makes it plain approximately 1/2 loss compared to normal. But those numbers are really about how you count silo and thus differ between games.

I honestly doubt removing the passive income is going to have a major effect.

[Lead]

On 11/3/2022 at 6:36 AM, Silv said:

We're in agreement about slow stalemate matches not being desirable. And I do think you're correct that losing the refinery feels like it has little impact on the game. I just don't think passive income makes all that much difference. Then again the passive income is the same as a silo and people do fight over that.

If you think about it the refinery is really two things: the refinery itself and the harvester. Losing the harvester hurts as it gives the entire enemy team VPs AND at least delays the bunch of credits from unloading. Having to park the harvester hurts as you can't get unloading credits that way. Losing the refinery hurts because it's like being forced to park the harvester without turning it back on, it gives a bunch of VPs to the enemy team (armor break + destruction) and it reduces passive income to a quarter of what it was.

I think all things considered it may actually be worse for a team to repeatedly lose the harvester than it is to lose the refinery. The constant "harvester has been destroyed" is terrible for morale and a nice boost to enemy VPs, which translate to a bigger advantage in the long run.

When comparing the refinery to the power plant I think the power plant is much more important. Assuming no advanced defense present (in which case it's not even close) the power plant "only" raises costs by 50%. For a light tank that's 300 credits more, 900 in total. A functioning refinery on purely passive income takes 450 seconds (7.5 minutes) to supply the money for this. If the power plant is up but the refinery is down it takes 1200 seconds (20 minutes) to get the 600 credits in passive income. However this ignores that for all but the most incompetent players most income is active rather than passive (except at the beginning of the map or if the harvester has a really short loop). Add in active income and losing the power plant hurts a lot more whereas the ref is sometimes "oh good, now the harvester can't get shot up anymore".

There's another effect that actually may make your suggestion, assuming it has a significant impact, counterproductive to your goals. When I'm low on money I'll play conservatively, I'll defend and stay close to spawns for refuels. When I'm high on money I'll likely play more aggressively.

My personal idea for the refinery would be to make destruction of it degrade it instead, counterintuitively making it more harmful by making it better. Keep the harvester but have each haul only bring in half the credits. And most importantly make the harvester run fully automatically without the commander being able to stop it. Scrap passive income, make the harvester the only thing that can provide money for the ref. On maps where the tib patch is outside the base this results in a steady income stream for the enemy if the team doesn't protect the harvester or a still important trickle of money if the team protect it. Problem is mainly that if the map design makes the harvester well protected this change would actually worsen the problem.

Furthermore I think map designs that rewards map control are important. The maps I enjoy most are those that reward being out there. Silos are the classic map design trick but I think those provide too small benefit, it's usually more of a target of opportunity (i.e. "if we have field anyway let's make sure to get it") and less of an objective ("let's take field to get the silo"). Comm centers are vital (because they spoil rushes) but can sometimes backfire because they limit the possibilities for counter-attacks, thereby making a team with strong field control very hard to beat leading to more defense. The emp cannon or equivalent on some maps is my favorite here, it rewards aggression, makes for a target that can swing the game, doesn't hurt other tactics if you don't have it and only matters part of the time (making gameplay more dynamic).

I agree with everything you’ve stated. I think your idea about the diminished refinery is interesting. Assuming all existing mechanics are overcome (e.g. harvester blocking) this would increase the slope of VP disparity which may promote strategic play. However, one thing I have observed is an increase in VP for killing higher VP tier units. If this is true, it acts as a damper for VP disparity and might cap separation between teams because VP beyond heroic is capped. I think that VP is an outstanding improvement made by TA to the original game, but like everything, it has subjective imperfections. I do like your idea, I think you could also explore alternatives such as making the harvester move at 1/4 speed.

Edit: The nostalgia goggles would probably smudge at this. This may be a roadblock for many ideas, but for a game  unburdened like firestorm, I wonder if the developers will have more freedom to explore 20+ years of restricted innovation. 

Edit #2: The reason I was focused on passive income is that I believed it to be a contributing factor to the problems I stated. The other advantage and probably the reason I targeted it mentally is that it is a “tweak-able” mechanic and therefore allows for subtle experimentation. If I were to be trying to make this change myself, I would try to come up with metrics. For instance, in Chess(FIDE) there is rule that 50 moves without a piece being captured (or fwd pawn movement? I don’t recall) will result in an automatic draw. I feel this way about building destruction as well, but I think the idea of a team fighting for a draw would be unappreciated in RenX.

Edit #3: Sorry I got distracted mid-update. I didn’t mean an automatic stalemate as a feature, but I would consider large gaps between building destruction as a candidate metric for unwelcome stalemates.

Edit #4: I had only read Silv’s second reply as of writing this. Since then, I have noticed additional replies. I think my example metric is terrible, but I agree with Silv. I believe there are likely good “fun” metrics to be found. I’m sure the RenX team is quite sophisticated, and maybe aware of some good ones, but I agree, I would ultimately rely on those for insight.

 

 

 

I strongly agree with your comments on power plants. On a map like X-Mountain where there is a power plant and no base defense I think the power plant is still a better target than the refinery. I recall the increase in price being double in the original game, but even at 1.5 I think its more impactful.

 

Alas, I have moved on from RenX for now, as I find several members of the player base to be extremely toxic without repercussion. I have enjoyed playing with most of the players, but I am not here to be the entertainment for these sorry bozos. With that said, thanks for the replies, I will not be posting anymore on this thread. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Lead

[Silv]

Sorry to hear you're leaving this game over the behavior of some people, though I kind of understand why.

Still I think this is a good topic to discuss so I'll continue posting as long as there are people that keep responding.

I've been thinking more about this and I'm no longer sure the power plant (in the absence of advanced defenses) is actually more important than the refinery. Not only can the passive income from the refinery easily make up about half the income of a player, the bonus from a working harvester adds quite a bit more. A harvester that produces 300 in a 5 minute cycle (which is fairly slow I think) adds 1 credit/second. If the cycle is 2:30 it's 2 credits/second, as much as the refinery passive income. Assuming a player makes 2 credits/second from active income, the harvester is on a 2:30 cycle and there's no other sources of income active income all three main categories (active, harvester, refinery passive) account for a third of the total income each. So if the harv needs to be stopped or (worse) gets shot down repeatedly that's 1/3 less, if the refinery gets destroyed that's an additional 1/3 less plus that first 1/3 of the becomes is permanent. Power plant being active can be seen as a 1/3 cost reduction on all purchases, equivalent to 1/3 more income. The remaining passive income from the ref makes it slightly less harmful to be destroyed but only slightly.

I'd say that in the absence of advanced defenses losing refinery hurts much much harder than losing the power plant if the harvester was running (e.g. because of a rush or sneak) and only slightly harder if the harvester had to be stopped with no real chance of it restarting soon.

All that said maybe we're looking at the problem wrong. Reducing passive income is about making a losing team lose quicker. But the real problem with long matches is that the winning team doesn't actually finish winning. I suspect that's because it's doable to score some objectives without teamwork but once the other team starts heavily defending / repairing buildings it will take a concerted effort to break through the blockade. This mostly happens when the losing team is down a single building relative to the other team, once you're behind two buildings it's very hard to still hang on, both for practical gameplay reasons and due to morale.

The winning team, once it has a baselock, can afford to just play "shoot tanks, shoot infantry" without much regard for objectives. If the other team has a better chance of fighting back the winning team is more incentivized to actually complete their push. Of course that's about baselock and doesn't apply to plain rushes. Unfortunately base lock is pretty hard to detect programmatically and doing something that aids a losing team in order to break base lock or force the winning time to push through is likely to backfire if a building is destroyed due to rushes (forcing the game back into a stalemate).

The devs already have implemented some mechanism for this in that losing buildings increases the rate of CP generation which in turn aids counterattacks. I'm not sure if this is not working as intended or the effect isn't strong enough to break the gridlock.

[roweboat]

I think until Beta 3, the game didn't have passive income at all.

 

It became a real slog. And playing with the values at this point to find a better "sweet spot", is beyond the scope of what the team wants for RenX at this time.

[Silv]

Yeah, I can understand you folks not wanting to do anything about RenX beside urgent bugfixing with a major new game almost ready. Hopefully Firestorm won't have these problems as much because the gameplay (from what little I understand about it) is much less static.