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Main Authors: Gao, Xinming, Li, Shangzhe, Cai, Yujin, Yu, Wenwu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11973
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author Gao, Xinming
Li, Shangzhe
Cai, Yujin
Yu, Wenwu
author_facet Gao, Xinming
Li, Shangzhe
Cai, Yujin
Yu, Wenwu
contents Offline reinforcement learning (RL) enables policy learning from fixed datasets without further environment interaction, making it particularly valuable in high-risk or costly domains. Extreme $Q$-Learning (XQL) is a recent offline RL method that models Bellman errors using the Extreme Value Theorem, yielding strong empirical performance. However, XQL and its stabilized variant MXQL suffer from notable limitations: both require extensive hyperparameter tuning specific to each dataset and domain, and also exhibit instability during training. To address these issues, we proposed a principled method to estimate the temperature coefficient $β$ via quantile regression under mild assumptions. To further improve training stability, we introduce a value regularization technique with mild generalization, inspired by recent advances in constrained value learning. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive or superior performance across a range of benchmark tasks, including D4RL and NeoRL2, while maintaining stable training dynamics and using a consistent set of hyperparameters across all datasets and domains.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_11973
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantile Q-Learning: Revisiting Offline Extreme Q-Learning with Quantile Regression
Gao, Xinming
Li, Shangzhe
Cai, Yujin
Yu, Wenwu
Machine Learning
Offline reinforcement learning (RL) enables policy learning from fixed datasets without further environment interaction, making it particularly valuable in high-risk or costly domains. Extreme $Q$-Learning (XQL) is a recent offline RL method that models Bellman errors using the Extreme Value Theorem, yielding strong empirical performance. However, XQL and its stabilized variant MXQL suffer from notable limitations: both require extensive hyperparameter tuning specific to each dataset and domain, and also exhibit instability during training. To address these issues, we proposed a principled method to estimate the temperature coefficient $β$ via quantile regression under mild assumptions. To further improve training stability, we introduce a value regularization technique with mild generalization, inspired by recent advances in constrained value learning. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive or superior performance across a range of benchmark tasks, including D4RL and NeoRL2, while maintaining stable training dynamics and using a consistent set of hyperparameters across all datasets and domains.
title Quantile Q-Learning: Revisiting Offline Extreme Q-Learning with Quantile Regression
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.11973