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On April 10 2004 19:29 STIMEY d okgm fish wrote:
266: level 1 upgrades
298: level 2 upgrades
330: level 3 upgrades
context: most upgrades/research things are 80. the longest things besides these level upgrades are singularity charge 166, robo upgrades 166, energy upgrades 166, ocular implants 166, scout upgrades 166, arbiter 160, ventral sacs 160, carrier 140. also for context, hatch 120, cc 120, nexus 120, spire 120, greater spire morph 120. ok, now, the point:
these are the build times staredit will tell you, btw, which supposedly translate to 1 second in NORMAL speed. so i dont know what it is in fast speed. so basically, a level 1 upgrade takes over 3 times longer than most upgrades.
just seems weird, i guess they didnt like how fast people upgraded in war2, and figured that sc had more units, so upgrades were more significant. but did they go a little overboard making level 1 266 build time?
you miss the point here. these 'research upgrades' that you are talking about apply to 1 unit. upgrades(weapons/armor/shield) apply to ALL units under the respective catagory(ground/air/infantry/etc) so thats why it takes longer.
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I think anyone who doesnt like the upgrade system doesnt know how yo play the game very well or understand finer concepts of the game. I'll just add one quick example. Lets say they make upgrades quicker. Terran lets say get 2-0 marines. We know about the power of drops and how fast marines can kill an expo especially at 3-0. It diminishes the earlier parts of the game to be removed from the game entirely in certain circumstances. sunkens for zerg as an example against faster upgrades will make them significantly less useful. I just don't believe changing the upgrades speed will add anything other than a less balanced game. I can't be bothered thinking this argument through either because the upgrades at the current speed as you can see from progamers are very effective and used in certain strategies. Faster upgrades will remove the aspect of having the early part of non upgraded units and a slow transition to half upgraded units style of game. I think thats a hugely enjoyable part of the game personally.
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On April 11 2004 08:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
stimey there's no good reason why the upgrades should cost less. and there are plenty of strats involving fast upgrades, it's very common both tvz and pvz.. I probably forge before core in ~40% of my pvz games, because I want +1 attack.
in warcraft 2, the upgrades were far too significant and fast, it kinda broke the game.
sure, but ONLY pvz and tvz, first of all, and second, you only get it because you think you can afford to give up that 150 + 100/100 or 125 + 100/100 without losing any significant ground, it's not a very strategic decision; either you can spare the res so you have the bonus way the hell down the road, or you can't. if it's not a "rush" matchup where everything gets delayed because of unit pressure, then upgrades seem ridiculously too slow. even if they were cut in half, they wouldn't be like war2, and i don't think they need to be cut in half. if you've ever tried some crazy fast upgrade strategy, you probably noticed that the upgrades just don't quite seem to come in time, they take at least 25-33% too damn long. i don't think such a reduction would do anything but add a little more strategy to the game.
and as for the rest of you, you aren't specifying how fast you are talking about. are you assuming i want upgrades to be 80, 100, 120? or are you saying anyone who wants them lower than 266+++ wants them to be part of build orders and rushes to always be worth it? or are you just vaguely generalizing in a demeaning and useless manner?
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Norway28675 Posts
like I said, if it was ORIGINALLY like 25% faster, I'm sure I would be happy about that and not want it to change. but NOT any more happy than I currently am with how it is now. it's not in any way broken, and there's no reason to fix it. you really can't make any that significant changes with a 6 year old and very well balanced game.
in addition terran would rape toss harder, as they benefit from upgrades far more tvp than toss does pvt. in fact zerg probably would as well, as 3/3 costs much less money than 3/3/3. (and toss can only get that kind of money (well gas) very late in the game)
changing anything NOW would just be downright silly, as it would potentially break the game and screw up everyone's timing. having a debate about whether or not blizzard should have made them 25% faster 6 years ago is downright useless, as it does not matter in any way whatsoever.
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it would matter for implications of future RTS design ... it's a theoretical discussion. comparing upgrades systems, resource gathering systems, tech systems, etc. between war2, sc, bw, and all the patches, with war3, etc. is not useless at all.
i dont know why everyone thinks bw is the result of 6 years of tough balancing anyways. if you look at the actual changes that have been made, you'll see most of it is just random and just as many people have argued that every version was the perfect balance as now argue the current one is perfect.
ppl always assume the current version is perfect. if you asked them if we should change the zealot, the sunken, the photon, the academy, the scan, the larva rate, the hydralisk build time, the spire build time, the speed of upgraded overlords, these same ppl would have most likely said the same thing "no, it's perfect, we can't change anything now, it will ruin the game", but all these changes, and many more, happened, and the game miraculously survived
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wc3 upgrades cost shitloads though it almost never goes beyond the second upgrade... normally not even the first..
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
On April 11 2004 10:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
having a debate about whether or not blizzard should have made them 25% faster 6 years ago is downright useless, as it does not matter in any way whatsoever.
Well I, for one, find it interesting and useful  . For some people, knowing and analysing history can yield useful and important information for the future.
Anyway, my view is this: if upgrades were faster, than other aspects of the game would have to be a little different to balance it out again, but ultimately the game would still be balanced and would probably be just as fun -- just with different strategies.
If there was enough interest (i.e. enough people who'd want to play on it), someone could probably make a UMS map that's just as balanced as normal SC, but with different upgrade times. If the changes were big enough, it would probably result in a game with different optimal strategies.
(I've actually been working slowly on a UMS like that myself ^^;; which is one reason why I found this topic's info useful  )
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well bill, i agree.. and i wish i could see u more. u raent on bnet much.. i dont have ur icq/aim whatever. :-( i dont doubt some things would be better off changed if upggrades were different. right now upgrades seem more or less wasted, you could take them out of the game and no one should complain. so i think a balance where upgrades are slightly more significant would actually be more interesting, not less so. if you could take something out of the game and no one should complain, that's a sign the balance is leaning on the wrong side (from a development standpoint).
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i didnt say they wouldn't complain. i said they shouldn't 
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Netherlands1301 Posts
I don't think upgrades are that slow.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
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nuclear made a good point. all other upgrades are very specialized while unit upgrades are very general things that help a shitload. And besides, I dont see any convincing arguments why faster upgrades would benefit brood war.
however, i do think ultra +2 should be a bit longer.
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Netherlands1301 Posts
ultra +2 shouldn't be longer, it sucks if you finally get ultra's and you have to wait so long before being able to use them properly.
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You think too much.
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I read through the whole thread, still don't see why you think it's such a big deal. Your argument seems similar to this one: bw would be a lot more fun if you could use queens and/or scouts effectively in "rush strats." It's obvious that upgrades take a long ass time to research, but so what? Do you feel that there are too few variables in bw's early game and that some more immediate ones need to be added so that players have more strategic options?
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i didnt say it was a big deal. in fact, it's a trivial observation, but that's beside the point. if you find a thread is trivial, it's probably better to not participate it than to post just to say how trivial it is, as >30% of the responses have been.
queens and scouts are further up in the tech tree than level 1 upgrades. you could actually build an evo/ebay/forge before your pool/rax/gate if you wanted to, so the comparison is not fair. however, these do have something in common as it seems queens and scouts also seem to have an undersized place in the way people currently play this game (for whatever reason).
yes, i do feel there are too few variables in the early game of many matchups when it comes to building and economy decisions. i don't think adding one more would wreck anything, if it fit into the game.
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EPT
. I'm almost never on AIM, but I'll be on later today 
. There's no doubt in my mind that upgrades add a lot to the game as they are now. I think the question is whether or not they would add more if they were different 
