EPTI have read many articles addressing economy issue in SCII and this to me is a really clear one with good in depth analysis.
Hope we can see some changes mentioned in the post in Beta.
LotV Economy: Worker Pairing - Page 8
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Yiome
China1687 Posts
I have read many articles addressing economy issue in SCII and this to me is a really clear one with good in depth analysis. Hope we can see some changes mentioned in the post in Beta. | ||
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ScorpSCII
Denmark499 Posts
On March 08 2015 12:11 Fanatic-Templar wrote: See, this is part of what worries me. 'Cause if you look back at SC2's history, maps have not always been designed to have three bases so easily defensible, but those maps were phased out. If this system encourages having more bases, I expect the same problems to arise: races who can't hold that much territory easily will be inclined to all-in before the game gets to that stage. With the release of LotV, balance will need tweaks anyway, so this is a very good opportunity (most probably also the last) to do such drastic changes. Each race would obviously need to be adjusted to be able to perform equally with the economic changes, but that's a minor issue in regard to the longevity of the game. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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nozemsagogo
8 Posts
and it happens I also have a life. .......how very unique of you...........it might behoove you to read the things you write. User was warned for this post | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
Frankly I think that half bases just aren't a good solution at all. There's no skill involved in choosing the right patches to mine from (worker AI prevents that past 12 workers anyway) and it's just an inevitability that half your patches will be gone in half the time. So the game punishes you for not taking more bases -- when the game punishes you that forces strategies on you rather than give you options. Of course the game is going to force strategy on you at some point, the question is where should that line be drawn relative to what we have at the moment. Because mining rates haven't changed, when you have 2 base vs 1 base there's no inherent advantage for having that second base except that you'll have more patches for a longer time (assuming worker counts are still relatively low). Meaning that the 2 base player needs to wait until the patches deplete before they win. Kinda boring, pretty much what we've had in the past two games. The solution that Uvantak is proposing in the OP rewards you for expanding. You could argue that this is another way to say punishing you for not expanding, but I disagree. Expanding with double mining means you've made a strategic concession to waste money expanding, knowing that when you reach similar worker counts you have an economic edge. This means the expansion strategically pays for itself much sooner than in the previous scenarios. What this means is the game is still on a timer, but that timer isn't as clear as 'wait for his minerals to run out', rather it's I need to get enough workers to reach economic parity while surviving his one base attack. This isn't clear, that's a good thing, it creates tension for the viewer and room for players to outplay each other. I'm not sure I've explained things as good as I possibly could have, but the jist is this. DM offers a more interesting way of promoting expanding compared to the solution proposed by Blizzard. Will Blizz's solution work? Well if they stick to their guns on this then we're stuck with it one way or another. I don't think it will have as profound as a difference as hoped, but it will make some difference. If DM were implemented I feel that we'd reach the goals that blizzard want and surpass them as the game continues to grow in strategic depth. | ||
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OtherWorld
France17333 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Quateras
Germany867 Posts
It feels like 12 workers is enough to saturation 1 base :D We both ended usually with around 50 workers on 4+ bases and had 2700 income.Games felt more scrappy for sure. Hope we could get through the thick blizzard head that changing minerals isnt the right way to go about this -_- | ||
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labbe
Sweden1456 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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OtherWorld
France17333 Posts
On March 20 2015 00:30 Barrin wrote: Not surprising at all. Knowing them, making sure things like (a) worker/patch, (b) mineral/trip, and (c) mineral/minute vs building&research time are still proportional for the expansion (so things don't feel too different from HotS -> LotV, and of course the same was true for WoL -> HotS) was a mandatory requirement to pass their Quality Assurance department. I was never going to be surprised by their reluctance to change it. Indeed, the very first thing they said in the beta announcement after "... Half the mineral patches have 1500 minerals, and the other half have 750. " was "The main goal here was to make a change that would keep the feel of resourcing rates similar to Heart of the Swarm, ...". Given that restriction, half patches @ half minerals is actually quite brilliant (and I do applaud them), but falls short in the way Plexa just explained nonetheless. edit: terrible, terrible word choices That will to keep proportionality between expansions is terrible though. I mean WC3 : RoC and SC vanilla were terrible eSports-wise, and both BroodWar and TFT made them good, because they dared to shake things up and admit their mistakes. I'm sad that they don't see the pattern here. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On the topic of half patches, it's definitely an improvement for the game but I don't understand why they'd use an inferior version of so many equivalently transparent and gameplay-preserving options. For example, gradated patches that go from 1500 to 750 so you lose mining capacity over time just seems so much better in all ways, but I surmise this wasn't even tested at any point. To say nothing of other setups like 6m1hyg, map designs incorporating multiple base styles, etc etc. LCD design choices are really making me grate my teeth. | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
On March 20 2015 00:30 Barrin wrote: Not surprising at all. Knowing them, making sure things like (a) worker/patch, (b) mineral/trip, and (c) mineral/minute vs building&research time are still proportional for the expansion (so things don't feel too different from HotS -> LotV, and of course the same was true for WoL -> HotS) was a mandatory requirement to pass their Quality Assurance department. I was never going to be surprised by their reluctance to change it. Indeed, the very first thing they said in the beta announcement after "... Half the mineral patches have 1500 minerals, and the other half have 750. " was "The main goal here was to make a change that would keep the feel of resourcing rates similar to Heart of the Swarm, ...". Given that restriction, half patches @ half minerals is actually quite brilliant (and I do applaud them), but falls short in the way Plexa just explained nonetheless. edit: terrible, terrible word choices It's not brilliant. The least I expect from a game designer is to test the options instead of automatically jumping to conclusions. Most alternate mining systems don't produce any significant resource rate differences in the first 5-10 minutes of a game. Worker numbers and base numbers are low in those stages of a game. At most the early-mid builds will be shifted by a couple hundred minerals. Everything will essentially be the same, except in the case of big base number and/or worker discrepancies. I personally don't think the new economy system will lead to more expanding. I think once optimal builds get figured out it's going to lead to even less expanding than what you currently see in HotS. Worker numbers will drop even quicker than in HotS because the lategame will arrive sooner. I predict the 15th minute will be where games will deflate and collapse completely economically. That's when main base and natural expo will be mining out in quick succession, and any 3rd base will be close to losing its 750-patches. You simply will not see full 24 mineral-patch-economies maintained beyond that point. That'll be when games completely lose steam. Starting with 12 workers instead of 6 just makes it even worse (natural gets up faster, and losing two income sources in quick succession will in practice become an econ-shock-treatment). I highly doubt professional games will reflect Blizzard's inhouse testing. | ||
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LaLuSh
Sweden2358 Posts
Adding to that: more quickly depleting bases increase the system wide risk in the game. In LotV players will have to take more risks for less value. It's not going to happen. They just won't expand at the rate which will be required of them. | ||
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On March 20 2015 05:46 LaLuSh wrote: I like how plexa explains it. 750 mineral patches decreases the value of an expansion/base. Adding to that: more quickly depleting bases increase the system wide risk in the game. In LotV players will have to take more risks for less value. It's not going to happen. They just won't expand at the rate which will be required of them. Short/mid-term, yes. Players will rely on "all-in" builds powered by your first 16-24 patches (dropping to 8-12... but that's why you're trying to end the game). However, in the long term -- possibly years -- players will learn to counter the various 3base strategies as the metagame settles in, which will lead to an increased representation of "macro" play. This is always the attractor in RTS, it just might be a very slow convergence. Map design will have a huge effect on this as well, but overdoing it to compensate could lead to a pretty bad 4base stultifying metagame like the 3base WoL era. | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Plexa
Aotearoa39261 Posts
I will say that there's an argument to be made around lower league players not expanding or not wanting to expand as often as higher league players. HM punishes lower league players for not expanding, particularly when you still have 4 mining patches left, making a less fun experience  but that's debatable. The point is, in the face of an obvious solution that addresses the same concerns but from a better perspective (this is DM) why choose the inferior HM solution? | ||
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Daeracon
Sweden199 Posts
I agree that both ways will get players to expand more. But I think that it is much more elegant that a player holding higher number of bases has a clear economy advantage, from the get go, not from when the small patches dry out. So it will happen in both cases, but there is a lag until the player on fewer bases is punished for it. | ||
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