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Part Three: The Model

Blogs > ChristianS
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ChristianS
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States3188 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-12-27 07:01:43
December 27 2011 05:49 GMT
#1
When experimenting with an idea, it is a good idea to construct a model. This model may or may not even look all that much like the final product; in fact, it doesn't matter all that much if it looks like the final product. The idea is to do a very simple representation the situation at hand, and figure out how that works, and once you understand that, add in complexities one by one and see how they change your simple model. So here's the model:

We are designing a race for an RTS game. RTS games generally fall in one of three categories: Human vs. Human, Human vs. Fantasy Monsters, and Human vs. Sci-Fi Monsters. For our purposes, we'll choose a Human vs. Fantasy Monsters universe. One of the fantasy races will be an evil armies race (no reason to worry about the name of the race when we're doing such a simple model. For now we'll Warcraft it up and call them the Horde).

Each player can design five unit models over the course of the game. In this case, they have a goblin, a troll, an ogre, a dragon, and a demon. More dangerous models are more expensive, as well as requiring more tech to produce.

At the start, all models are bare. Each has base characteristics, which include base hit points, base mana points (if applicable), unarmed attack damage, unarmed attack speed, and unarmed movement speed. No units start with spells, and with the exception of the dragon, all units begin with ground unit status, and all attacks are melee. At the goblin tech structure, though, there is research for a battle axe, bow and arrow, and magic staff. The battle axe has slightly longer range than unarmed and does much greater damage, but also reduces the movement speed of the goblin. The bow and arrow is longer range, and costs less, but has less dps. The magic staff costs a great deal more, but enables whatever spells are available to the goblin caster unit.

The research costs some money on its own, but also increases the cost of building each new goblin. Goblins that have already been produced when the research completes do not automatically gain the benefit of the research, although there may be a way to upgrade already-built units to take advantage of new research for some cost. Additionally, researching one weapon locks off the others, so the player must choose between goblins with battle axes, goblins with bows and arrows, or goblins with magic staves.

Weapons are not the only research available to the goblin. The goblin can also research plate metal armor, which greatly increases hit points but reduces mobility further. Light armor improves hit points less, but also increases the cost per goblin less and allows for greater mobility. Magic armor increases the mana points of the goblin in addition to an increase in hit points comparable to the light armor.

The goblin also has mobility research. Some fairly cheap leather shoes improve base movement speed. Spiked shoes enable the goblin to climb cliffs, or to climb a tree and perch there, making it immune to melee attackers. Winged shoes give the goblin flying status, but are obviously the most expensive of the three.

Each of the five models has its own weapon, armor, and mobility research available to it. This research does not update all units on the field, but rather makes all subsequent units of that model cost more, and only updates existing units by some mechanic that costs money (e.g. they enter your main base structure for a brief time, pay the difference between their original cost and the new research time, and after some build time, emerge updated). Each research also locks off the other research in its category, so a player with battle-axe winged heavy armor goblins cannot have bow and arrow tree-climbing goblins with light armor.

All upgrades to units will be visible in some obvious way. Your opponent can tell by looking at a unit of yours whether it has a battle-axe, bow and arrow, or glowing staff, as well as what kind of armor it has. Barefoot goblins are noticeably barefoot, and goblins with leather shoes will move faster than goblins with spiked shoes, so scouting them will reveal what mobility upgrades they have. Wing-shoed goblins will obviously be scoutable as having flying status.

Now that a model has been constructed, we can draw a few basic conclusions. How many possible units are there for the "Horde" (FOR THE HORDE!)? Well, 5 models * 4 weapon types (including unarmed) * 4 armor types * 4 mobility types means 320 different possible units. Aren't too many units a problem? After all, Dustin Browder often talks about how Starcraft II is approaching the number of units BW had for each race, and going much beyond that would wreck the game.

Well, no. Dustin Browder might be right about too many units being bad for Starcraft, but that is partially because Blizzard aims to make every Starcraft unit distinct and serve a different function. Our model doesn't have too many units, because there is so much overlap in their roles. If anything, our model has too few (which is fine, because it's a model, and not intended to have the complexity of a fully fleshed-out game). In addition to overlapping roles, Many units cannot exist simultaneously; at any given time, a player can only have 5 models, and any units on the field that are not their most updated model are less-upgraded versions of their model.

The beauty of models is that even simple models can give a lot of conclusions. As such, I won't attempt to exhaust the information that the above model can provide. Rather, I will attempt to deal with some of these conclusions in future posts on this blog.

**
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." -Robert J. Hanlon
TG Manny
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
United States325 Posts
December 27 2011 06:40 GMT
#2
This seems like a very interesting concept and you do very well to realize that your model is almost impossible to align to the starcraft universe game without massively overhauling the dynamics established by SC1, BW, and WoL (and further expansions too).

You also don't factor in the combination formula, with that many options per tree and X amount of trees there are a lot of options for unit compositions that easily surpasses 1000. Knit picky, but you don't see how far 5 base unit + specific upgrades can go as far as unit compositions are concerned.

The model can almost serve as the basis of a whole new RTS game that may or may not become popular based on balance. Blizzard has a model of fairly small number of units who all have distinct roles so if X matchup in Y situation is extremely favored toward one side (IE BFH drops eating mineral lines at around 9 minutes with easy transitions and light losses), with so many combinations of units and how to get to their upgrades and how resources are placed can all severely affect balance. In the early game it would always be a mirror matchup, essentially, and maybe even the first 10 minutes could be next to nothing except resource collecting, building, and scouting. No major threats. With so many options you have to allot a lot of time for scouting (otherwise flying, fast, or otherwise "kitey" units would dominate the game and make it so there is no mid/late game).

I am reading a lot into the model and you see a very intriguing idea that I'd like to see developed further by someone who studys game theory and a few game designers (even if it is only 2 units with weapon and armor tech choices). Realistically the game would be hard to balance while keeping the fun factor in (without waiting 10 minutes to do anything remotely non-standard)
Singularity is at hand...
ChristianS
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States3188 Posts
December 27 2011 07:34 GMT
#3
This model is not intended to be a part of the Starcraft universe; Starcraft is already too invested in having a large number of units with very little customization. As such, there are limitations to thinking of it as a version of Starcraft. However:

There are 4*4*4=64 possibilities for each unit. That means there are 64 different types of goblins you can make, 64 types of trolls, etc. That means 5*64=320 different possible individual units. You are right, however, that this number doesn't account for different types of unit compositions. Assuming you use all five models to form a composition, there are 5*4*3*2*1*64=7680 possible unit compositions. For comparison, the Protoss have 12 non-summon units that actually do damage, the Terran have 11, and the Zerg have 10 (not counting workers). That means that theoretically, there are 12*11*10*9*8=95040 unit combinations for Protoss, 11*10*9*8*7=55440 unit combinations for Terran, and 10*9*8*7*6=30240 unit combinations, assuming each race forms 5-unit compositions. But obviously those numbers aren't very useful; when was the last time you saw queen-ultralisk-broodlord-roach-hydra?

The actually viable compositions depend on details of resources and economy that don't exist yet in this model (I have yet to say a word about what the money looks like and how you obtain it in this game). Assuming it works something like Starcraft, though, most expensive compositions would be ruled out until very late-game. Given that none of the numbers exist yet, it's impossible to say how to balance such a game, but all things considered, the model in its current state is much simpler than Starcraft. Turning this model into a real game would involve adding a lot more complexities, obviously, so it easily might surpass Starcraft in complexity by the time it was completed. Would that be so bad, though? A good game should be hard to balance. The more interesting and complex and, well, awesome a game is, the more difficult it will be to make sure all sides have fair chances. But that's no reason to shy away from awesomeness in the development stages. If an idea isn't working and is too hard to make fit with the rest of the game, then playtesting will reveal that. but in the early stages, it seems far preferable to aim high and make concessions later than fear difficulty in the later stages and aim for mediocrity from the start.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." -Robert J. Hanlon
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