mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Value-Guidance MeanFlow for Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

arXiv 2604.08174 ↗First posted 9 Apr 2026cs.LGcited by 3

On the map: Offline RL and imitation learning from data → Diffusion and flow policies for offline RL

Abstract (arXiv)

Offline multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) aims to learn the optimal joint policy from pre-collected datasets, requiring a trade-off between maximizing global returns and mitigating distribution shift from offline data. Recent studies use diffusion or flow generative models to capture complex joint policy behaviors among agents; however, they typically rely on multi-step iterative sampling, thereby reducing training and inference efficiency. Although further research improves sampling efficiency through methods like distillation, it remains sensitive to the behavior regularization coefficient. To address the above-mentioned issues, we propose Value Guidance Multi-agent MeanFlow Policy (VGM2P), a simple yet effective flow-based policy learning framework that enables efficient action generation with coefficient-insensitive conditional behavior cloning. Specifically, VGM2P uses global advantage values to guide agent collaboration, treating optimal policy learning as conditional behavior cloning. Additionally, to improve policy expressiveness and inference efficiency in multi-agent scenarios, it leverages classifier-free guidance MeanFlow for both policy training and execution. Experiments on tasks with both discrete and continuous action spaces demonstrate that, even when trained solely via conditional behavior cloning, VGM2P efficiently achieves performance comparable to state-of-the-art methods.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion and flow policies for offline RL, one of 13 directions in Offline RL and imitation learning from data. Builds on 31 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Apr 2026.

Builds on

31 of 39 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Diffusion Guidance Is a Controllable Policy Improvement Operator29 May
  2. 2025Flow Q-Learning4 Feb
  3. 2023Efficient Diffusion Policies for Offline Reinforcement Learning31 May
  4. 2022Is Conditional Generative Modeling all you need for Decision-Making?28 Nov
  5. 2022Diffusion Policies as an Expressive Policy Class for Offline Reinforcement Learning12 Aug

Other references · 26

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  2. 2022Flow Matching for Generative Modelingcited by 5,702
  3. 2020Conservative Q-Learning for Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,809
  4. 2018Off-Policy Deep Reinforcement Learning without Explorationcited by 1,241
  5. 2022Planning with Diffusion for Flexible Behavior Synthesiscited by 1,061
  6. 2021A Minimalist Approach to Offline Reinforcement Learningcited by 899
  7. 2019Advantage-Weighted Regression: Simple and Scalable Off-Policy Reinforcement Learningcited by 782
  8. 2019The StarCraft Multi-Agent Challengecited by 597
  9. 2019Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: A Selective Overview of Theories and Algorithmscited by 567
  10. 2025Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modelingcited by 561
  11. 2020Monotonic Value Function Factorisation for Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 485
  12. 2019QTRAN: Learning to Factorize with Transformation for Cooperative Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 379
14 more
  1. 2019On the Utility of Learning about Humans for Human-AI Coordinationcited by 349
  2. 2020FACMAC: Factored Multi-Agent Centralised Policy Gradientscited by 178
  3. 2018A Survey and Critique of Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 177
  4. 2021Believe What You See: Implicit Constraint Approach for Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 79
  5. 2023MADiff: Offline Multi-agent Learning with Diffusion Modelscited by 75
  6. 2021Plan Better Amid Conservatism: Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Actor Rectificationcited by 61
  7. 2023Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning with Implicit Global-to-Local Value Regularizationcited by 43
  8. 2023Improving Generalization and Data Efficiency with Diffusion in Offline Multi-agent RLcited by 15
  9. 2024Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning via In-Sample Sequential Policy Optimizationcited by 15
  10. 2023AlberDICE: Addressing Out-Of-Distribution Joint Actions in Offline Multi-Agent RL via Alternating Stationary Distribution Correction Estimationcited by 10
  11. 2025Multi-agent Coordination via Flow Matchingcited by 10
  12. 2023Off-the-Grid MARL: Datasets with Baselines for Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
  13. 2025OM2P: Offline Multi-Agent Mean-Flow Policycited by 8
  14. 2025Offline Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning via Sequential Score Decompositioncited by 4

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Flowing Faster to Coordinate: One-Step Online Multi-Agent Flow Policies
  2. 2025Guided Flow Policy: Learning from High-Value Actions in Offline Reinforcement Learning
  3. 2026From Suboptimal to Optimal: One-Step Latent Flow Policies for Offline Reinforcement Learning
  4. 2026MA-FPPO: Multi-Agent Flow-Pretrained Policy Optimization
  5. 2026Test-time Multi-agent Coordination by Decomposed Value Gradient Flow
  6. 2024Mixed Q-Functionals: Advancing Value-Based Methods in Cooperative MARL with Continuous Action Domains
  7. 2026VGFM: Expressive Robot Policies via Dense Value Guidance in Flow Matching
  8. 2026CoFlow: Coordinated Few-Step Flow for Offline Multi-Agent Decision Making