Antandron wrote:boss wrote:Just great thinking that you can somehow standardize stuff in warhammer
Q. If you have two units which are identical, with identical purchase costs, how do you set upkeep so that the cost of both of them, in terms of purchase cost + upkeep, remains identical at all times?
boss wrote:...some units had less upkeep to show that they bleed more or just not very good...
Units that are just not very good cost less to buy and to reinforce (as reinforce is 1/2 the purchase cost).
Bleeding more indicates or suggests that they are not very good so it doesn't need to be considered.
I explained this all carefully and uploaded a document. It even had premises, logic and conclusions that followed from the premises. Or at least I think it did. Did you read it?
I think better explanation is along the line of let us not use upkeep as a balance tool because it is not a reliable mechanic to use for balancing. There are several tools that can be used for balancing from unit stats, reinforcement cost, purchase cost to upkeep-pop(these two are hard rigged to be together. you can alter upkeep rate per 1 pop value but not separately changed each value to have 0 pop upkeep value).
However, upkeep is the most unreliable of all of them because it is affected by too many factors and is very not consistent as a buff or a nerf. This is due to how upkeep nerf or buff a unit. It takes time to affect eco and during that time different effects occur according to how a unit functions.
1. A unit that does not have to be at full strength to be effective
- Units such as artillery spotters and rangers are not easily affected by member loses. They function very well at 2 or even 1 member left. Effect of upkeep nerf or buff can be lessened and also be exploited by purposefully keeping their member count low.
2. Survival capability of a unit
- More survival wise able a unit is more penalized upkeep wise. Units that bleed less gets more punished by upkeep.
- In 1v1, very well managed subcommanders and vehicles are very difficult to kill. As they won't bleed and survival wise good, they stay until the end and makes your eco suffer more so than other units.
3. Tiers
- Each unit comes out at different Tiers so earlier the unit comes out more you are penalized by having it. Also, tier 3 unit upkeep don't affect 1v1 much because most matches end so quickly after they come out before their upkeep takes full effect.
4. Units that can be thrown away after a certain timing
- Some units scale badly into late tiers and against certain combinations. Sometimes it is even better to just let them die after a certain point to free up upkeep. If we tried to penalize such units by increasing upkeep, it won't have much effect because it will be thrown away in the middle.
In conclusion, upkeep affects each unit differently according to how it functions and effect of upkeep varies according to different situations that occur. This is due to upkeep being payed per model and because it takes long time to take effect and not out of gate at once. Thus, it is a bad balance mechanic when used for nerfing and buffing.
So rather than trying to use upkeep as a balance tool, make it a constant in formula for balance and not change it to keep a unreliable factor a constant. Of course, some units can have a different standardization rate such as sub-commanders and vehicles. Tyranids units can also have different standardization due to how synapse works.
Step 1
If units were balanced before like below
Unit 1 A(30) + B(50) + C(40) + D(25) + Upkeep(20) = 165
Unit 2 A(55) + B(25) + C(70) + D(5) + Upkeep(10) = 155
Unit 3 A(60) + B(30) + C(20) + D(10) + Upkeep(15) = 120
Step 2
and standardized upkeep changes work as Upkeep(5) across the board, it should result in below.
Unit 1 A(30) + B(50) + C(40) + D(25) + Upkeep(5) = 150
Unit 2 A(55) + B(25) + C(70) + D(5) + Upkeep(5) = 145
Unit 3 A(60) + B(30) + C(20) + D(10) + Upkeep(5) = 105
The catch here is Factors, A, B, C and D must change accordingly to ensure that result of effectiveness of a unit is same even after upkeep change.
So unit 1 must receive buffs from increasing ABCD to cover up lose of 15 while Unit 2 and 3 must each receive a buff of 10 and 15 in order to have exact same effectiveness as before the upkeep design change.