Lately I've been thinking if I should spend the time writing my thoughts down, because we are still in the Alpha of LotV big changes may still be made to the game, but other persons more qualified than me have done so many times before, only to be discarded, even when they supposedly quoted those discussions and threads, it has been in a wrong manner, with wrong information and points, as if the informative posts and discussions were quickly summarized by someone and sent over to someone else that quickly and disinterestedly read them, only to make a even shorter summary of that, and try those changes on internal builds of the game. Beware that I'm not saying that this is exactly what happens, but what it feels to an outsider of Blizzard like me because of the little communication that comes out regarding these specially complex topics.
I'm Kantuva/Uvantak, I'm a mapmaker and a player, and it happens I also have a life, I'm Studying Astronomy in college, and I can't afford to waste my free time because that means that I will not be able to spend that time in more important things such as making and testing my maps, honing my play and improving my game knowledge, but at the same time I know that I'll want to punch myself if at least I don't try to make change happen.
I spoke some days ago with Meavis a friend mapmaker on a Skype group, he like many other players thinks/thought that making bases 6 Mineral patches instead of 8 gives enough leverage to "fix" the economy, this blog goes into as much detail as i can spend the time with about how Worker Pairing, along other things are hurting the economy system, and how those issues can be fixed. I hope to hear different opinions about this because I find quite fun how do the economy of the game works, all the small perks and such.
Did you knew that Lalush actually spends time watching old development videos calculating the time workers take to mine a single Mineral pallet?
Economy is boring for the majority, but Economy is everything, specially in Starcraft, a good amount of issues and problems that we see nowadays, things such as the Swarm Host can be more or less be fixed with the economy of the game.
What was the whole point of the Swarm Host? To slowly chip away at highly fortified positions while being both cost and supply efficient, but there are two problems with that, first the SH is a unit that to work best it needs to exist in a good amount, just like Carriers a single Swarm Host will probably not do much at all, but eight or twelve of them will, and the second issue is why does it need to be supply and cost efficient at all? The reason for this lies in the economic system of the game, if players were allowed to make inefficient trades, not just one or two, but as many as his strategy allowed the Swarm Host would be obsolete, replaced by more mobile and DPS effective Hydra-Roach-Viper based compositions, same thing could be said of Terran Bio compositions versus Heavy Protoss Deathballs, this sounds interesting doesn't it? Now how could this be achieved? and why does the SH exist? Well the biggest reason for the existence of the Swarm Host is because of something you do in the early game but it affects you in the entire game, Worker Pairing.
The economic system of Starcraft II is build in such a way that if you want to be as supply efficient as possible while collecting resources you will need 16 workers per base mining Minerals and other 4 mining gas, this sums to 20 workers per base. In an average Starcraft game you for the most part will want to have around 80 workers in the later stages of the game, now what does this means? Well if a single bases needs 20 workers to be as supply efficient as possible, you will not want to have more than 4 bases at a time. Now if we got rid of Worker Pairing, and Worker Pairing only, meaning that the most supply efficient amount of workers per Mineral patch was 1 instead of 2, the number of bases would rise to a staggering 8, have you ever had 8 mining bases in a single Starcraft game? Just think about it a bit, just picture Life vs MMA with 8 mining bases each on Whirlwind, Frost, or Deadwing.
Now lets show a different picture, below are the mining rates for Starcraft II, there is a lower bound and a higher bound depending on the relative distance of the Mineral patches, all data courtesy of Liquipedia.
4 Workers - 114 Gas/min - Max Saturation, 4 workers are only needed on inefficient diagonal geysers
Disclaimer: For the most part we are going to be focusing on Minerals and Averages to save up time, if anyone wants he's free to make the math for every other Mineral configuration or amount.
Now that we have some numbers we can play around a bit, how much does a supply efficient base mine per minute?
2 Workers * 8 Mineral patches = 84 Min/min * 8 = 672 Minerals Per Minute
And a fully saturated Mineral line?
3 Workers * 8 Mineral patches = 102 Min/min * 8 = 816 Minerals Per Minute
Okay we have some interesting stats, we will be leaving out Vespene completely to save up time and we will think that each base has 6 workers mining gas.
Everyone says that Starcraft II suffers from a 3 base problem, but we have the math, we know better than that and we also know that players will want more or less 80 workers, but is that true about the base number? Lets play safe and say that we are Protoss players and we have 3 bases but we are scared of taking a fourth because of the map, so we save up all of our workers and fully saturate our bases, that's 30 workers per base, how much Mineral income is that? We'll straight up remove 18 gas workers from the equation, that leaves us 64 Mineral workers, which would give us an income of around (816*3) - (72-64)*18 Min/min = 2304 Min/min, that's quite a bit. Now how does our Zerg enemy fare? He's a good Zerg so he's ahead of us by a base, and he's being supply efficient with his workers (16 workers per Mineral line), he is collecting 2688 Min/min with 64 workers.
Wait a moment... Our opponent has an extra base, a whole saturated base, and he's getting slightly over 15% income from it while having the same worker count on Minerals as us? No wonder people do not expand more.
Maybe a fluke? After all SC is a complex game, what does it happen if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 3x16? Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
So what we can get from our calculations is that there is No Mineral income advantage to expanding if you can't fill all of your bases up to 16 workers each, AND the income from 3 fully saturated bases falls behind the income of 4 supply efficient bases by 384 Minerals per Minute, or 16%, this is without taking into account the 6 extra workers that the 4 basing player would need to invest into collecting gas from his 7th and 8th Vespene geysers, or the intangible inherent weakness that being covering a bigger area implies.
Okay, now that we know more or less does having Worker Pairing means how would the game work if Worker Pairing was to be removed? Well to start you wouldn't be able to pair workers so when you have 2 workers in a single mineral patch both of them mine at 100% efficiency, instead you would have 1 worker mining at 100% and the second one added to the mineral patch would mine at a lesser percentage, such as 75%, these percentages could be tweaked easily to allow for a greater or lesser worker scaling/most efficient amount of workers per base, you could want to make the ideal amount of worker be 8 or be 30, these values would be dependent in how you want the economy in a large scale to behave.
I should note that this thread is in no way saying that the maximum possible amount of workers per base (24 as it stands now in HotS) should be lowered, only that two bases with 8 workers each should mine more minerals that 1 base with 16 workers, this can be achieved without affecting much the maximum amount of possible workers that can be mining on a mineral line.
one must think of the average income per minute per worker. That graph looks something like this.
[Graph 1] This graph showcases Starbow/BW like mining vs Standard SC2 mining and a new mining system called Double Harvesting which we'll talk about later.
In our little graph things show to be the same amongst the three different systems and this is the cornerstone i want to get across before continuing, the income and as such the game would not need a extremely hardcore re-balance if a thing such as the Worker Pairing was to be removed, because the total income per base would stay more or less the same.
As it happens this graph tends to be more or less useless other than to showcase the parity between the income systems, and this is why we have the following graphs:
Benefit of 2 bases over 1.
[Graph 2]
From Double Mining Thread: Even at as few as 10 workers, adding an expo can give noticeable benefits, for both Starbow and Double Harvesting models. Starbow oscillates around constant 25% benefit, while Double Harvesting gradually grows from 10% to Starbow's levels. Standard falls behind a lot. Expo starts to kick in only at above 20 workers.
At higher worker counts (24+), second expo is a must for all models. Double Harvest however grows slower by few %.
Benefit of 3 bases over 2.
[Graph 3]
From Double Mining Thread: The decision of taking third base is probably more important. Standard gives no noticeable benefit until you reach around 40 worker count, and then grows very quickly.
Starbow has a strange peak around 25 worker count, caused by the odd behavior around 10-12 worker in single base. Apart from that, Starbow and Double Harvesting shows similar benefit of 10-15% when taking 3rd base at 20-40 worker count.
At higher worker counts 3rd is important for all models. Double Harvest however is the lowest - which is good: it penalizes the loss of such base the least.
Benefit of 4 bases over 3.
[Graph 4]
From Double Mining Thread: This is where Standard fails the most: You don't really need 4th mining base until you are really high on the worker count. In practice, given that some workers mine gas instead, you usually don't have 60 workers mining minerals.
For Starbow and Double Harvesting, the benefit starts much earlier, giving you additional 5-15% income.
What these graphs are displaying is how much income advantage do you get from taking a base, as I have previously stated in the SC2 Mining system you do not receive many economic advantages if at all from taking a base if you cannot at least fill up all of you bases up to 16 workers each, so maynarding 8 workers from your 16 workers third base to your new fourth base will not give you an economic advantage other than not mining out your third as quickly. In the case of Starbow and Double Harvesting you will receive an income advantage from doing this and depending on the way the system is put in place one can control the pacing of the game, and the rate at which players will want to take bases or respond to his opponent's new base.
Beating a dead horse?
So what in general does utilizing an income system that does not use worker pairing looks like? Well if we look at Starcraft II's income system we can see parallels with what might be a Fastest Possible Map, this would be obviously an exaggeration, but the parallels are still there, in Starcraft II given that the max supply cap is of 200 you will not want to have more than 40% to 45% of your entire supply into workers, this as i have said many times now that the max theoretical base count would be of around 4 bases with 16 workers in minerals and ~4 on gas, but given that a 4 basing player does not get that much of an incentive to expand in the first place the game revolves for the most part around a smaller base count of 3.
In general High Ground Advantage is looked down upon because it reinforces turtling, none the less this is in an environment where the Starcraft II economy reigns and 3 basing tends to be the norm. But in a place where the theoretical base cap is of 7 or 8 instead of 4 it becomes quite clear that a player that is facing a turtler will be able to out expand him fairly easily and because his workers are more efficient than his ~3 basing opponent he will be able to overcome the turtle player by sheer numbers and macro.
The premise I'm trying to make here is that in an economy where aspiring to take 8 bases is the norm, games could become very snowbally if there isn't a strong defenders advantage to counteract the economy, this was more or less the case in Broodwar and this is also more or less the case in Starbow, because of this it is important to be careful while adding economic modifications to a game, but it also means that if the homework and investigation are done you can end up with an incredibly interesting game, as i have said while showing the Income graphs, if a system were to be implemented big overarching changes in the unit stats wouldn't need to happen for the most part, but deeper considerable changes in the game mechanics or macro mechanics may be necessary to counteract the more active economy.
I have many times read about things such as using 6 Mineral patches instead of the normal 8 or using the new LotV economic system, the truth about said systems is that even when they do a better job than the current system does in Heart Of The Swarm, it is still pretty lacking compared to the Double Harvesting system or the BW mining, the 6 mineral patches per base was tested quite a bit under FRB (Fewer Resources per Base) and what it did is that instead of players ending up with 3 bases they ended up with 4, so in that regard it only shifted the income slope closer to Starbow or Double Mining systems, but the core is that as long as a strong Worker Pairing is active any system that simply reduces the Mineral patch amount per base will not fully succeed.
The case of the new LotV mining scheme is that it will force players into expanding more by being aggressive with the depleting mechanic, this is a very interesting way of trying to fix the issue the previous iteration of the LotV economy had, which is that as one expanded along the map one was leaving empty carcasses of bases without a real strategic value, and because there weren't any changes to the Worker Pairing mechanics one could see the players 3-4 mining bases shift on the map as the game progressed. Because the new LotV mining system doesn't try to alleviate the core problems of HotS economy there are still problems with the 3 base cap, but that's not everything, the design view of Starcraft II is that the game must be very easy to read, mineral patches that have 750 minerals mixed in with patches that have 1500 on a single base is something very hard to read at a quick glance, specially because mineral patches have 10 different models, and each model has 4 different states depending how much minerals there are left on the patch. Now I ask, to which patch will you land your mules? There are 7 maps in the map pool and each map and base has a different mineral setup, will Terran players need to memorize every single mineral patch for every map so they know where to land their mules?
This problem can be circumvented, nonetheless it will mean that a new colored mineral patch model be introduced to the game, but I'm afraid that there might still be other problems, such as the game becoming more punishing to new players/noobs, I have faced many times while playing custom games in the Open Games section LotV mods but without the economy changes and this is because new players naturally want to turtle up and play a NR20 game, I'm not saying that the game be shaped to fully please bronze and lower players, but a system that forces expanding, and alienates bad or new players meanwhile bringing little advantages over other systems such as BW like economies is not the route to go, the shift of mining bases that the Blizzcon build of LotV had will still be there only slower and not as sharp, a player that has 16 workers in a single base vs a player that has 16 divided on two will still get the exact same income, same thing with a player 3 basing player that has 16 workers per base vs a 6 basing player that has his 48 workers evenly split.
Removing Worker Pairing from the game will not magically "fix" everything everyone considers "broken" in the game, Worker Pairing generates very specific issues, such as players not wanting to expand over a certain threshold, meaning that without Worker Pairing players will want to take more bases and split themselves more, creating more weak points in the defense which aggressive players can take advantage of, but these scenarios will not happen when players only have two bases, they will happen when players have +4. In that regard changing the way the economy works does not affect the great majority of games, but when economy comes into play then it can be seen clearly.
Without Worker Pairing SC2 will continue to be SC2, as I said previously the removal of Worker Pairing is not a magical "fix" to everything and it will not magically transform the game to BroodWar, most timing attacks will continue to exist, same with unit compositions and such, these things are ingrained into unit design, not the economy of the game for the most part. The removal of Worker Pairing also does not mean that players will not be able to turtle, turtle strategies will continue to exist but it will allow the aggressive player to actually take more bases and get an advantage out of it by being more supply efficient with his workers than his opponent, which in turn will allow him to make supply inefficient trades, where the turtling player with his limited income of resources will need to be as efficient as possible with his units.
The removal of WP does not mean that the income per base changes drastically, a 1 fully saturated base with Double Harvesting or SC:BW based Mining will still mine around the same Minerals per minute than a SC2 fully saturated base with the same amount of harvesters, what it changes is the amount of income per supply as the number of harvesters go into the single digits. This is clearly showcased in graph nº1.
"The complete removal of Worker Pairing means the need of "dumb workers"", as the Double Harvesting system showcases this is not entirely true, it is possible to achieve a good supply/income curve without the need of BroodWar worker trains, this is the point Double Harvesting attempts to showcase, even when by SC2 standards they will be considered dumb, it must be understood that "smart workers" does not equal the existence of Worker Pairing, in the same sense that Worker Pairing does not mean smart or better workers and economics.
To allow further testing I have made a couple extension mods based on the Starbow/BW economy systems and imported the Double Harvesting system into an Extension Mod, so both systems can be tried out on any Melee map, both systems are also open to editing for anyone that wishes to know the necessary changes to remove Worker Pairing. It should be noted that for this to be achieved there is no need for the use of triggers with the necessary manpower and correct math into the data editor. This is not a blog to sell these mods, this is a blog to showcase the damage Worker Pairing is causing into the economy of StarCraft II. And basically any system where workers have a gradual decline in efficiency starting from the first worker forwards will be better than the current system where the first and second workers mine at the same 100% efficiency. Further additions to allow for better worker bouncing, or worker trains à la BW will help, but are not strictly necessary, as the Double Harvesting mod showcases.
Both Extension Mods can be found under NoWorkerPairing or NWP tag in any of the four servers. If any bug or problem is spotted just post in this thread and I'll do my best to take care of it.
It should be noted that because of the high efficiency of the first worker compared to the normal SC2 workers, players will tend to mine more minerals at the start of the game. Because of this the game will be accelerated slightly in the early game, meaning that you will need to speed up your build order by around 2 to 3 workers, like the initial steps of Brood War build orders would be.
"Maybe a fluke? After all SC is a complex game, what does it happen if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 3x16? Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
So what we can get from our calculations is that there is No Mineral income advantage to expanding if you can't fill ALL of your bases up to 16 workers each, AND the income from 3 fully saturated bases falls behind the income of 4 supply efficient bases by 384 Minerals per Minute, or 16%"
I highly recommend you to read the whole thing, there is much more than simply this, so please refrain from posting if you haven't read the whole post.
Only had time to skim it, but it looks like a quality post.
Since the very start of SC2, I have been an advocate for the considerable economic changes that have been proposed over and over again (mostly along the lines of Lalush's ideas). I doubt Blizzard will do anything with this, but I wish they did.
adding in on the quote, I much prefer an economy rework, The reason I stand behind 6m is that I believe it accomplishes the goals blizz had in mind with the current lotv eco change better than their current. optional systems describes this pretty well.
a full rework would be a lot better, but I have doubts that will be done.
I really like this thread. I skimmed it the first time and then went back through it a bit more in depth. I really like what is being suggested here and it makes even more sense with the high ground adv ideas as well. Really wish stuff like this was considered but I have my sad, sad doubts
On March 06 2015 08:50 H0i wrote: What about a different kind of high ground advantage: units on high ground have increased range when shooting at units on a lower ground?
Yeah, I think either range or armour increase for high ground or decrease for low ground or both.
H0i the way highground adv works as a context in the thread makes your question make no sense. I'm not talking about different ways to make highground adv work at all, I'm talking about how Highground adv works in the context of economy.
The thing I'm still questioning and the only reason I see why this should not be implemented is, doesn't this slow down the early game? If not then you have me totally convinced.
Well done, you resume a lot of my own thinking, although 2 points to slap on your hand:
Optimal GAS saturation is 3, not 2 as you mention a few time the 3rd either mine about 90% (144/126*100 or max linear income theoric/max saturation) of the 1st and 2nd worker or 100% even in some case leaving a "gap" of mining making a 4th worker meaningful. And you even quote vespeen gas calculation that shows linear increase of gas mined for 1st, 2nd and 3rd worker... Therefor the optimal theoric base saturation is 8*2+2*3=22, you say 20. Makes senses also since worker spend about a second less in the gas than on mineral and have roughly the same distance to travel.
For your calculation of % of advantage for extra bases, there's a little hump around 10-12ish worker on SC2 latter bottoming out around 16, I'd be interested to know if measurements have been done with the average mining income or by making the worker mine the closest patch whenever possible (latter can explain little advantage a half worker per patch).
Also question for you, sorry for the wall of text, I'm not as good for formating than you.
I've been liking the idea of mixing 50/50 blue and gold patched in a base without changing actual HoTS mining speed and total mineral value and worker pairing. Since gold patches mines faster you end up in a situation where like with different mineral amount your fully saturate bases will loose mineral in 2 intervals, also a new base will give more income that 1 even under optimal mining number because of 40% faster income from gold. The point I like the most is that it increase value of "worker micro", it was necessary in BW during the whole game, it is nice actually in SC2 but with only marginal impact (mineral distance only thing that matters, AI too good), so marginal that a small mistake and you're actually behind and people usually do it only one 1 base, exception for Terran mules drop. Since SC2 games are slow to start I much prefer gaining actual advantage by microing my workers during 5 minutes rather than boxing them and spamming control groups. Also giving an intensive to worker micro past 1 base(e.g. pairing the 3rd on gold only will give an advantage from 0-8 worker), actually rewarding the player for paying time to macro more than tedious macro mechanics put into SC2 (mules, inject, chrono) .
What do you think of it? You hint a little in your conclusion about a similar approach, but mention creating a new kind of mineral instead of utilizing one that's actually in the game.
Love the clarity of the write up. Everything is there and easy to read.
Since I fully agree, I only hope blizzard listens. In particular I want to quote this section about blizzards take on changing the economy to make sure as many people read this as possible:
... there might still be other problems, such as the game becoming more punishing to new players/noobs, I have faced many times while playing custom games in the Open Games section LotV mods but without the economy changes and this is because new players naturally want to turtle up and play a NR20 game, I'm not saying that the game be shaped to fully please bronze and lower players, but a system that forces expanding, and alienates bad or new players meanwhile bringing little advantages over other systems such as BW like economies is not the route to go, the shift of mining bases that the Blizzcon build of LotV had will still be there only slower and not as sharp, a player that has 16 workers in a single base vs a player that has 16 divided on two will still get the exact same income, same thing with a player 3 basing player that has 16 workers per base vs a 6 basing player that has his 48 workers evenly split.
The LotV economy changes DO NOT take away the need to out-turtle a turtle player. It may eliminate certain defensive playstyles to begin with, but it most certainly won't eliminate them all and that's when the opponent will still be forced into "making a better deathball" to counter the other players deathball. What the LotV economy does is that newcomers are out of money 10minutes in the game. This change is - and I hate to put it like this but it is the best way to paraphrase it - cancer for casual and new players. Watch some bronze league heroes or remember what it was back in the days they picked the game up and you will know it to.
On March 06 2015 09:04 ejozl wrote: The thing I'm still questioning and the only reason I see why this should not be implemented is, doesn't this slow down the early game? If not then you have me totally convinced.
Play the mods, this speeds up the early game to BW levels where Zerg players would want to take their naturals at 13 supply, instead of SC2 where players will want to expand at 15 supply.
This is caused because to compensate the decrease in efficiency of workers as you add more and more into a single mineral patch the first workers need to be able to have a slightly higher return of minerals, this slightly higher return of minerals x8 means that you can take your early expansion slightly earlier.
Fantastic post and exactly the issue I feel is the most important! I was very disappointed when they did not announce a mining efficiency change for the second and third worker per patch at BlizzCon. I really hope we can somehow still get this into LotV, but it does not look good :/.
Ah well, since it is in there as well. I understand the point of highground advantage, but just in general I believe that better unit design/balance will achieve just that as well. Not arguing against the highground advantage, but personally I would just prefer if players wouldn't have to take cover against non-commited playstyles to begin with. Having Protoss behind canons and forcefields instead of zoning speedlings and roaches with hellions and banshees is exactly the type of play that will make players of both sides sit back to begin with because neither can actually do anything meaningful besides building up.
On March 06 2015 09:07 varsovie wrote:What do you think of it? You hint a little in your conclusion about a similar approach, but mention creating a new kind of mineral instead of utilizing one that's actually in the game.
There were a couple problems in your math, the idea is correct, but you must try to keep the income/minute per base as equal to starcraft II as possible, since golden mineral patches give a ~+40% higher income than blues this means that you would need less mineral patches per base, the number of patches would be 6, I'm too tired to write the math down, but it was something like 50 minerals less per minute with this set up while having a fully saturated 3g3b base than a 8b/8normal base.
The theoretical base limit for 80 workers was also much much higher than even BW (~7 bases) while using this set up, it was of around 10 bases to reach the best supply efficient set up possible, with 6 workers per base mining only gold minerals (~60 workers mining minerals/~20 in gas).
On March 06 2015 09:03 Uvantak wrote: H0i the way highground adv works as a context in the thread makes your question make no sense. I'm not talking about different ways to make highground adv work at all, I'm talking about how Highground adv works in the context of economy.
-Kyo- One can hope.
As I agree with the economy topic and think people don't talk enough about the highground advantage in general, I commented on it specifically.
my concern is that a system with reduced mining for extra workers isn't very intuitive, and creates a sort of "knowledge barrier" where it's unlikely you'll learn how to mine properly through any means other than copycatting other players who figured it out first. this is already a minor issue in sc2 with "16/24", and it would be worse with "8/24"
i don't like these knowledge barriers because they contribute to making the game more arcane and telegraphed for experienced players, which results in a massive gap between the way serious players play and the way casuals or newbies play, which is based more on a sort of adaptive theoretical approach to "so, how do i kill this guy?"
i'm sure it would be good economic design in terms of competive gameplay, but it makes the game feel like a series of tricks and mysteries about economic pacing, and honestly i kind of favor the idea of bases and economy being more straightforward and level if we can have matchups that are like midgame zvt, zvp, tvt etc. like another poster said i think the problems with the game can be addressed through competent unit redesign. the economic system isn't perfect, but it's far from problematic provided you actually have good unit interactions
On March 06 2015 09:29 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Let's hope Blizzard takes a good long look at stuff like this and considers it, but let's not get our hopes up here.
Yeah i still hope they consider this, but it's blizzard after all right ... I actually think highground advantage would be almost useless in sc2 due to the pathing, it would help a little bit in easier defending, but usually armies will be able to fire all at once after moving, so it won't change enough to be worth it probably.
You know, at this point it's been 5 years. Nobody thinks this is a bad idea, everyone loves the idea of these economy mods. But after 5 years its clear the sc2 design team doesn't care to make the change.
This makes me sad. Gonna go play some Grey Goo and hope I'm wrong
There are so many ways to fix this too. Replace the 8 patches with 4 gold ones. Increase the perworker mining rate but also the build time and cost/hp of worker. But really, after 5 years, who are we kidding?
The reason we find the lotv economy so exciting is because our expectations are so low and hope so bleak.
I feel like lotv is the halfway-concessions expansion to sc2 where we kind of sort of get what we've asked for. But not really.
On March 06 2015 09:58 brickrd wrote: my concern is that a system with reduced mining for extra workers isn't very intuitive, and creates a sort of "knowledge barrier" where it's unlikely you'll learn how to mine properly through any means other than copycatting other players who figured it out first. this is already a minor issue in sc2 with "16/24", and it would be worse with "8/24"
i don't like these knowledge barriers because they contribute to making the game more arcane and telegraphed for experienced players, which results in a massive gap between the way serious players play and the way casuals or newbies play, which is based more on a sort of adaptive theoretical approach to "so, how do i kill this guy?"
i'm sure it would be good economic design in terms of competive gameplay, but it makes the game feel like a series of tricks and mysteries about economic pacing, and honestly i kind of favor the idea of bases and economy being more straightforward and level if we can have matchups that are like midgame zvt, zvp, tvt etc. like another poster said i think the problems with the game can be addressed through competent unit redesign. the economic system isn't perfect, but it's far from problematic provided you actually have good unit interactions
I really don't see your argument in the knowledge barrier, and why 16/24 is worst than 8/24, if anything needing to know that your mineral patches cap in a supply efficient manner at 2 workers per patch than a simple motto of "1 patch 1 worker".
Also I get the feeling that you did not read the OP, I clearly state that even when Economy does not mark a ends all, it does affect into good unit interactions and unit design such as the case of the Swarm Host that exists to generate a fake sense of inefficient trades and "zerginess" that is simply not allowed by the current economic system, btw to say that it is far from problematic when a player than holds 8 bases with 8 workers each compared to a player with 4 bases and 16 workers each get the same exact mineral income even when the first player is putting himself at risk is quite the understatement.
On March 06 2015 09:29 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Let's hope Blizzard takes a good long look at stuff like this and considers it, but let's not get our hopes up here.
Yeah i still hope they consider this, but it's blizzard after all right ... I actually think highground advantage would be almost useless in sc2 due to the pathing, it would help a little bit in easier defending, but usually armies will be able to fire all at once after moving, so it won't change enough to be worth it probably.
That is correct, but usually that small advantage would be enough of a efficiency boost to compensate for the defensive player to overcome the enemy player that has more bases, as I said, a scaling economy and highground advantage go hand in hand making a balanced game where there is the right amount of a "snowball" effect, without the highground adv the player that can overexpand or damage a little his opponent will get a increasing advantage as the game drags on, but the highground adv will help alleviate a bit that snowball effect, allowing the player that got behind to get back into the game and get a second chance, to if he's good enough win the game.
This is a great post and I really appreciate all of the thought that has beenput into it.
Recently I have been watching older series and I would like to recommend this one of Naniwa vs Leenock from dreamhack Stockholm 2013.
Particularly the game that starts at around 52 minutes.
Naniwa never really gets past the 3 bases worth of mining while leenock gets map control and fairly quickly goes up to 5 bases and is mining from 10 gas geysers. As mentioned in the original post there is no particular advantage to having over 3 bases worth of mineral income, however there is still a huge benefit to having more than 3 bases worth of gas income.
Although Naniwa has all of the units that he wants and needs, by constantly trading armies and re-maxing with different unit compositions, Leenock overwhelms him with his higher available resources until Naniwa can no longer keep up. This is all possible with the existing resource system, in fact sticking to the practice of having 3 bases and only taking another once the first runs out is a significant part of what led to Naniwa losing the game. (of course Leenock played excellently to the situation).
If we imagine other late game scenarios. Terran with only enough scvs for gas and nothing but mules for minerals, freeing up supply for more army. Or a Protoss with 10+ gas geysers? Try and imagine the above game with the situations reversed, Naniwa constantly pushing and trading, taking map control to allow him those 10 gas geysers at once. There is a lot of unexplored potential there.
I feel like altering mineral incomes is not the right place to focus to encourage players to be active and constantly trade armies instead of sitting back and building the 'deathball' for the one engagement to win the game.
On March 06 2015 09:09 Big J wrote: What the LotV economy does is that newcomers are out of money 10minutes in the game. This change is - and I hate to put it like this but it is the best way to paraphrase it - cancer for casual and new players.
I don't know if you saw, but the new changes now have half 750 and half 1500 so new players are no longer out of money 10 minutes into the game. This, to me, seems to be better for new players, not worse. Due to the decreased income past the 9 minute mark, it will now be easier for newer players that usually stay on fewer bases to effectively spend their money since their income will be greatly decreased.
thanks for this interesting and well thought out post.
On March 06 2015 09:29 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Let's hope Blizzard takes a good long look at stuff like this and considers it, but let's not get our hopes up here.
Browder was the lead designer in RA2. Greg Black, a guy on the LotV team was a key design guy in Red Alert 3. David Kim comes from Relic and the team that built CoH1.
also, Jason Bender works for Blizzard . he was the lead designer of C&C3:Tiberium Wars... i bet they can borrow him from the Diablo team if they needed some insights.
all 4 of these games have very different economy models.
so the SC2 team and Blizzard's design guys have a lot of experience with wildly varying economy models in RTS games.
i expect to see an economy with fewer workers in LotV. So many C&C guys on the SC2 team that believe in "base building that is not a chore"... which is a core guiding principle of C&C.
i don't think WoL or HotS have some tragic flaw that stopped them from being more popular. WoL and HotS are fine games. RTS is a niche and Blizzard has maximized its profitability. Its not like there are 10 other RTS games making a billion a year in revenue.
i have high hopes for LotV because Blizzard has decided to charge $60 for it.
if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 4x16? Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
4*16 = 64 8*6 = 48
So you conclude that having 48 workers off 4 bases brings the same income than 64 workers on 3 base am i right?
So what we can get from our calculations is that there is No Mineral income advantage to expanding
And then you say this? Feel free to correct me but it seems there is a blatant contradiction there? Or did i miss your point completely?
On March 06 2015 09:29 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Let's hope Blizzard takes a good long look at stuff like this and considers it, but let's not get our hopes up here.
if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 4x16? Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
4*16 = 64 8*6 = 48
So you conclude that having 48 workers off 4 bases brings the same income than 64 workers on 3 base am i right?
On March 06 2015 09:09 Big J wrote: What the LotV economy does is that newcomers are out of money 10minutes in the game. This change is - and I hate to put it like this but it is the best way to paraphrase it - cancer for casual and new players.
I don't know if you saw, but the new changes now have half 750 and half 1500 so new players are no longer out of money 10 minutes into the game. This, to me, seems to be better for new players, not worse. Due to the decreased income past the 9 minute mark, it will now be easier for newer players that usually stay on fewer bases to effectively spend their money since their income will be greatly decreased.
Yes, in that regard the new LotV economic system is far better than the old one, but there are still many problems with it compared to the one proposed, as I mentioned in the OP the complexity also goes through the roof, which is something Blizzard really dislikes.
if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 4x16? Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
4*16 = 64 8*6 = 48
So you conclude that having 48 workers off 4 bases brings the same income than 64 workers on 3 base am i right?
So what we can get from our calculations is that there is No Mineral income advantage to expanding
And then you say this? Feel free to correct me but it seems there is a blatant contradiction there? Or did i miss your point completely?
Oh Twiggy, thanks for that, it slipped by when I re-wrote that area, you can even see the question mark from an older paragraph that I forgot to fully delete. It should go like this:
Maybe a fluke? After all SC is a complex game, what does it happen if I had a supply efficiently saturated my 3 bases and my opponent had 6 bases with 8 workers each instead of 3x16. Well our income would be of 2016 Min/min (672*3), and the income from our Zerg opponent would be of... 8 Workers *42 Min/min * 6 Bases = 2016 Minerals per Minute.
The conclusion is that 48 workers on 6 bases does not give you any mineral income advantage over 48 workers in 3 bases (2016 Minerals/min). ---------------
Edit/ I decided to add back the question marks in the OP, I quite like the tone it gives to the paragraph.
Particularly the game that starts at around 52 minutes.
Naniwa never really gets past the 3 bases worth of mining while leenock gets map control and fairly quickly goes up to 5 bases and is mining from 10 gas geysers. As mentioned in the original post there is no particular advantage to having over 3 bases worth of mineral income, however there is still a huge benefit to having more than 3 bases worth of gas income.
Although Naniwa has all of the units that he wants and needs, by constantly trading armies and re-maxing with different unit compositions, Leenock overwhelms him with his higher available resources until Naniwa can no longer keep up. This is all possible with the existing resource system, in fact sticking to the practice of having 3 bases and only taking another once the first runs out is a significant part of what led to Naniwa losing the game. (of course Leenock played excellently to the situation).
If we imagine other late game scenarios. Terran with only enough scvs for gas and nothing but mules for minerals, freeing up supply for more army. Or a Protoss with 10+ gas geysers? Try and imagine the above game with the situations reversed, Naniwa constantly pushing and trading, taking map control to allow him those 10 gas geysers at once. There is a lot of unexplored potential there.
I feel like altering mineral incomes is not the right place to focus to encourage players to be active and constantly trade armies instead of sitting back and building the 'deathball' for the one engagement to win the game.
Yes unit design plays a very big role, your points on the gas disadvantage naniwa faced and the way the gas allowed Leenock to win the game are correct, but as stated in the OP, it is not enough this is the reason why see the SH as the staple of turtlegames, had Leenock the mineral income from the bases he took he would have been able to trade inefficiently with naniwa more than just once or twice making for a more action packed game before going into the muta switch, now days instead of seeing a a game where zerg trades with hidra/ling or roach/ling continuously we see a couple trades into SH, because zerg can't afford to do asymmetric trades exactly because they are not getting the income from the bases he takes, once protoss reaches the 3 bases then both economies are on pair in mineral income, and is the mineral income what allows the trading.
The points you bring up are correct in that regard, the extra gas allowed Leenock to make more or less inefficient trades with high tech units, but a mineral income asymmetry would allow zerg to be really zerg and do huge inefficient trades with low tech units which relay more into mineral income, an excellent example would be a lategame BW ZvT game where zerg with his mineral income and base advantage can do inefficient trades vs tank/spider mine lines.
I think the problem with a change like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
On March 06 2015 10:40 Startyr wrote: This is a great post and I really appreciate all of the thought that has beenput into it.
Recently I have been watching older series and I would like to recommend this one of Naniwa vs Leenock from dreamhack Stockholm 2013.
youtube.com/watch?v=e22rVBF2y0M
Particularly the game that starts at around 52 minutes.
Naniwa never really gets past the 3 bases worth of mining while leenock gets map control and fairly quickly goes up to 5 bases and is mining from 10 gas geysers. As mentioned in the original post there is no particular advantage to having over 3 bases worth of mineral income, however there is still a huge benefit to having more than 3 bases worth of gas income.
Although Naniwa has all of the units that he wants and needs, by constantly trading armies and re-maxing with different unit compositions, Leenock overwhelms him with his higher available resources until Naniwa can no longer keep up. This is all possible with the existing resource system, in fact sticking to the practice of having 3 bases and only taking another once the first runs out is a significant part of what led to Naniwa losing the game. (of course Leenock played excellently to the situation).
If we imagine other late game scenarios. Terran with only enough scvs for gas and nothing but mules for minerals, freeing up supply for more army. Or a Protoss with 10+ gas geysers? Try and imagine the above game with the situations reversed, Naniwa constantly pushing and trading, taking map control to allow him those 10 gas geysers at once. There is a lot of unexplored potential there.
I feel like altering mineral incomes is not the right place to focus to encourage players to be active and constantly trade armies instead of sitting back and building the 'deathball' for the one engagement to win the game.
To add to uva's response and underscore a particular point, the above example game is primarily about tech units and production capacity, not economy in quite the way uva is talking about. The similarity is that map control allows leenock to bank extra gas. The difference is that the payoff is dependent on the right trades, and it comes at once with an "all in" aspect. In fact, from protoss's point of view, your entire role is predicated on deathball play in a "macro game", and this just reinforces it. From the point of view of standard play, naniwa should have traded better, banked better, and had 6 stargates lying around to preempt muta switches.
Not that an economic imperative to "always have more bases" changes this matchup asymmetry necessarily, but it operates at a deeper level and allows broader strategic variation.
On March 06 2015 09:58 brickrd wrote: my concern is that a system with reduced mining for extra workers isn't very intuitive, and creates a sort of "knowledge barrier" where it's unlikely you'll learn how to mine properly through any means other than copycatting other players who figured it out first. this is already a minor issue in sc2 with "16/24", and it would be worse with "8/24"
i don't like these knowledge barriers because they contribute to making the game more arcane and telegraphed for experienced players, which results in a massive gap between the way serious players play and the way casuals or newbies play, which is based more on a sort of adaptive theoretical approach to "so, how do i kill this guy?"
i'm sure it would be good economic design in terms of competive gameplay, but it makes the game feel like a series of tricks and mysteries about economic pacing, and honestly i kind of favor the idea of bases and economy being more straightforward and level if we can have matchups that are like midgame zvt, zvp, tvt etc. like another poster said i think the problems with the game can be addressed through competent unit redesign. the economic system isn't perfect, but it's far from problematic provided you actually have good unit interactions
First, the common sense concept "more is better" would actually apply, so I think it would be more intuitive.
But any misapprehension is really easy to fix with proper interface design. Just add an efficiency meter below 16/24 with colorcode matching the numbers. For example, from 0-16 it goes from grey to bright green and from 16+ it goes yellowish and starts to look dimmer. For 0-8 it has a glowing white outline that goes dimmer at 8+. Visually, everything looks appealing in the 8-16 range and increasingly dismal otherwise.
It's not that much of a problem anyway. The only reason economy matters like this is for competitive play. Casual players really wouldn't notice the difference.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
On March 06 2015 09:58 brickrd wrote: my concern is that a system with reduced mining for extra workers isn't very intuitive, and creates a sort of "knowledge barrier" where it's unlikely you'll learn how to mine properly through any means other than copycatting other players who figured it out first. this is already a minor issue in sc2 with "16/24", and it would be worse with "8/24"
I'm usually a big proponent of elegant design, but in this case the price seems to be too steep. All sports have unintuitive rules that you simply have to learn by being told, or by seeing someone else do it, or else you're not going to be able to compete.
And it's not as though LoL and Dota 2 are transparent. They have plenty of obscure rules and interactions, and it doesn't seem to get in the way of their popularity.
You talked about the logic behind it though. I don't see a difference why it is more logic for new players to need a new base at 16 instead of 8 for max efficiency. Sure, mechanical it is harder the lower the worker count per base actually is. That wasn't really the point though As i said, by that logic why is it better to have 32 workers on 2 bases instead of one? The logic is the same, the worker count just changes arbitrarily. As Uvantak said, you could even argue that 8 makes a lot more sense cause there actually are 8 mineral patches per base.
Have a tip in the loading screen. "Each extra worker per mineral patch is less efficient so expand to maximize your economy."
To be honest I think this makes it more simple than it is now. Right now blizzard tells you 24/24 is a saturated base and doesn't mention the fact that 16 is much much better.
On March 06 2015 12:16 The_Red_Viper wrote: You talked about the logic behind it though. I don't see a difference why it is more logic for new players to need a new base at 16 instead of 8 for max efficiency. Sure, mechanical it is harder the lower the worker count per base actually is. That wasn't really the point though As i said, by that logic why is it better to have 32 workers on 2 bases instead of one? The logic is the same, the worker count just changes arbitrarily. As Uvantak said, you could even argue that 8 makes a lot more sense cause there actually are 8 mineral patches per base.
It was really intuitive in BW based on the fact that you see your workers bouncing around at a semisaturated base not working. Anyone with half a brain who puts thought into it will come to the conclusion that another base would be better even with the same worker count.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3+ bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently. Not going over 16 workers is already a challenge for new players, 8 just gives you less time until you reach the point where you have to change your base rally points.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
/Edit Oh Hi Barrin, nice to see you around.
Okay, so as an example: My natural expansion finishes, let's say I have, I don't know 14 workers. Currently, all I do is move my main rally point to my natural once that number hits 16. If the efficiency is 8, now the best thing to do is transfer 6 workers, rally both to the natural, then once your natural hits 8 you move your main rally back to your main. That's just a small example of how it requires more babysitting. Another example is: if you have several bases, say 3 or more, and you lose enough workers to where you cannot have more than 8 per base, it now becomes a situation where you want to manually re-rally every base and redistribute your workers accordingly. It's just inherently easier to manage your workers in this regard when the efficiency per base is higher.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
/Edit Oh Hi Barrin, nice to see you around.
Okay, so as an example: My natural expansion finishes, let's say I have, I don't know 14 workers. Currently, all I do is move my main rally point to my natural once that number hits 16. If the efficiency is 8, now the best thing to do is transfer 6 workers, rally both to the natural, then once your natural hits 8 you move your main rally back to your main. That's just a small example of how it requires more babysitting. Another example is: if you have several bases, say 3 or more, and you lose enough workers to where you cannot have more than 8 per base, it now becomes a situation where you want to manually re-rally every base and redistribute your workers accordingly. It's just inherently easier to manage your workers in this regard when the efficiency per base is higher.
Yes and no, the actual number of worker to rally would depend of the distance because there's actually mining lost during the transfer and the extra % of efficiency might not cover that gap of not mining. More so if the extra income gets really low, which happen with a soft cap (one "extra" worker might mine only 95% as fast, compared to only 50-60% for SC2 right now).
Would the re-rally be more frequent? Of course if you wish to get MOAR bases, but if your more turtle style then it doesn't changes much. And a soft cap of "more worker than 1 per patch mines less and less" is probably more intuitive to new players than showing a nice big X/24 and no telling them they're loosing there time and winrate over 16 anyway. Hard newbs struggle enough to keep constant worker production for it to matter much IMHO.
On March 06 2015 07:52 Uvantak wrote:The economic system of Starcraft II is build in such a way that if you want to be as supply efficient as possible while collecting resources you will need 16 workers per base mining Minerals and other 4 mining gas, this sums to 20 workers per base
I don't think this was mentioned in the replies; I thought everybody put 6 workers mining gas instead of 4? That would make 22 workers per base. I get that from a sheer numbers perspective having 2 workers/gas is more efficient than 3 (37.5 gas per minute per worker vs. 32.5) but I've never seen a progamer, or even builds suggested/discussed on TL, keep only 2 workers per geyser after the early stages of the game. This seems like a case where the theory is pretty much irrelevant when compared to what actually happens in practice.
Hmm. As someone who prefers low-econ games and actually wishes it were harder to take your natural and third than it currently is, I'm not sure how to feel about this.
That aside though, while I'd love to see Swarm Hosts and Colossus deathballs disappear as much as anyone, and can definitely agree that a higher base count would achieve this, is there actually anything to replace them? Terran Medivac-bio is amazingly mobile and powerful in small groups, and adapts perfectly to this situation, but unsupported Gateway units are trash, Zerglings are mobile but really weak and vulnerable to good positioning, and Hydra/Roach is both slow and expensive. When you mentioned a game going on eight bases, it sounded like a complete nightmare.
This may have been mentioned somewhere in the thread, but I didn't see it while attempting to speed-read, so I'll state it now and hope I'm not repeating anyone.
One nice side-benefit of having workers mine for 3 times as long and return 3 times as many minerals is that sniping bases while ignoring the workers escaping won't be nearly as effective of a decapitation of an opponents economy, since long-distance mining will be proportionately so much more efficient than it is in the current model of SC2.
I'd also really like to see some more options for map makers, such as super high-yield mineral patches, super high-yield vespene geysers, low-yield mineral patches, and low-yield geysers. I don't think every map would use them, but I'd definitely incorporate them in certain situations. Like maybe having an extremely well-defended backdoor expansion that has just 5 low-yield mineral patches and 1 low-yield geyser or having a base that's literally right in the middle of the map that has 10 super high-yield mineral patches and 2 super high-yield refineries. As much as people love to hate on browderisms, I think they can make for amazing map-specific elements when used sparingly.
On March 06 2015 07:52 Uvantak wrote:The economic system of Starcraft II is build in such a way that if you want to be as supply efficient as possible while collecting resources you will need 16 workers per base mining Minerals and other 4 mining gas, this sums to 20 workers per base
I don't think this was mentioned in the replies; I thought everybody put 6 workers mining gas instead of 4? That would make 22 workers per base. I get that from a sheer numbers perspective having 2 workers/gas is more efficient than 3 (37.5 gas per minute per worker vs. 32.5) but I've never seen a progamer, or even builds suggested/discussed on TL, keep only 2 workers per geyser after the early stages of the game. This seems like a case where the theory is pretty much irrelevant when compared to what actually happens in practice.
I think this was a typo. Uva mentions 3 workers per gas elsewhere.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
/Edit Oh Hi Barrin, nice to see you around.
Okay, so as an example: My natural expansion finishes, let's say I have, I don't know 14 workers. Currently, all I do is move my main rally point to my natural once that number hits 16. If the efficiency is 8, now the best thing to do is transfer 6 workers, rally both to the natural, then once your natural hits 8 you move your main rally back to your main. That's just a small example of how it requires more babysitting. Another example is: if you have several bases, say 3 or more, and you lose enough workers to where you cannot have more than 8 per base, it now becomes a situation where you want to manually re-rally every base and redistribute your workers accordingly. It's just inherently easier to manage your workers in this regard when the efficiency per base is higher.
Yoooo, what? lol O.o There is no point to re-rally, and in that situation it is no different than the current system once u hit saturation on each base. If either base hits saturation, as was mentioned, if you make anymore workers they are ideally going towards another base. It doesn't matter which of the 2 bases they go to before that point because their return is, obviously, lower than the other 8 you already have. So, re setting rallys would be more of a 'spam apm' thing than anything else. Maybe you're trying to explain something but maybe just not getting it out right? Idk because your example here doesn't really make any sense/work as an argument against what has been provided. Perhaps you just don't like the system? xD
Regardless... The system we're using doesn't really matter if you lose workers because you're going to have to re-rally stuff either way. It happens quite often in PvT before u hit saturation and even after saturation.. the system wouldn't matter at all. O.o ... I really don't understand either of your points. and edit: having more 'total' workers doesn't necessarily mean it's in effect easier because if you are over producing workers in the first place they are either 1. ineffective in supply or mining or 2. going to a new base and u were making them anyway (which would be the case regardless of the system). so..
On March 06 2015 07:52 Uvantak wrote:The economic system of Starcraft II is build in such a way that if you want to be as supply efficient as possible while collecting resources you will need 16 workers per base mining Minerals and other 4 mining gas, this sums to 20 workers per base
I don't think this was mentioned in the replies; I thought everybody put 6 workers mining gas instead of 4? That would make 22 workers per base. I get that from a sheer numbers perspective having 2 workers/gas is more efficient than 3 (37.5 gas per minute per worker vs. 32.5) but I've never seen a progamer, or even builds suggested/discussed on TL, keep only 2 workers per geyser after the early stages of the game. This seems like a case where the theory is pretty much irrelevant when compared to what actually happens in practice.
Because I vespene geyser positioning asymmetries I left all vespene incomes out because I would need to write a complete annex talking about it, but for a complete cardinal or vertical vespene positions you will want to have 2 workers per geyser mining for a total of 84 gas/min per geyser, if you added a third harvester this worker would mine at a lesser efficiency than the first 2 (30 gas/min instead of 42) meaning that it would not be supply efficient, but as I said vespene geysers are complex and asymmetric regarding the income they give based on their position in relation to the town hall, so in general they are a pain to work with.
For the most part I just tried to disregard vespene income as much as possible, and round the numbers of workers and incomes to make everything easier to understand sacrificing as less as possible the precision of the calculations, but as I said in the OP if anyone wants to get into the work of counting the exact vespene income for each of the 48 possible geyser spots is free to do so, I would love to have that math.
On March 06 2015 14:22 Fanatic-Templar wrote: Hmm. As someone who prefers low-econ games and actually wishes it were harder to take your natural and third than it currently is, I'm not sure how to feel about this.
That aside though, while I'd love to see Swarm Hosts and Colossus deathballs disappear as much as anyone, and can definitely agree that a higher base count would achieve this, is there actually anything to replace them? Terran Medivac-bio is amazingly mobile and powerful in small groups, and adapts perfectly to this situation, but unsupported Gateway units are trash, Zerglings are mobile but really weak and vulnerable to good positioning, and Hydra/Roach is both slow and expensive. When you mentioned a game going on eight bases, it sounded like a complete nightmare.
Well at the time of writing I was thinking of a "normal" TvZ of Bio/mine/thor vs Ling/bling/muta/ultra comp, this would be only theory, I'm really not expecting players to actually reach said amount of bases, It could perfectly happen, I'm only not expecting it, as you said it would be a multitask nightmare for both players, but for spectators, it would be heaven.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
/Edit Oh Hi Barrin, nice to see you around.
Okay, so as an example: My natural expansion finishes, let's say I have, I don't know 14 workers. Currently, all I do is move my main rally point to my natural once that number hits 16. If the efficiency is 8, now the best thing to do is transfer 6 workers, rally both to the natural, then once your natural hits 8 you move your main rally back to your main. That's just a small example of how it requires more babysitting. Another example is: if you have several bases, say 3 or more, and you lose enough workers to where you cannot have more than 8 per base, it now becomes a situation where you want to manually re-rally every base and redistribute your workers accordingly. It's just inherently easier to manage your workers in this regard when the efficiency per base is higher.
Maynarding, is FAR from being hard, I do not know if you are doing this on purpose, but if you have 14 workers on your main what you would do is to take 7 and send them to your natural, any income loss would be offset by the higher worker efficiency, then you would continue to make workers normally. Regarding the multi-base scenario, that's something that already happens when you are in that many bases, I don't understand your point, this is Starcraft not Farmville or a Moba, it IS supposed to be hard because you are doing it yourself, not an automated AI, if you don't agree with that there is not much that I can say to you.
A simple emulation of the BW economy (porting adequately to SC2) would do it. Losing a 15% of the mining efficiency for second worker and much more for the third. When I started in the game half and a year ago, I also thought that more bases provided some mining advantage (I had not played SC:BW before, but I had played AoE, AoM and RoN quite a bit). In many strategy games it's common to have an advantage for the expanding player, like proximity to resources, vision or map domination (frontier system in RoN).
I've always liked this kind of threads explaining this economy-related things which are the in the core design of the game. Also less workers mean more army and less bases mean more harass/multi play.
However, anything that makes economy less efficient calls for reviewing how MULEs work too. Hope the LotV devs get the idea. But I have to say that I don't really dislike the decision of making some patches have less minerals, because that , in the end, gets people having 8 workers per base instead of 16. However, the idea of making expanding critical and accelerating the macro needs doesn't seem a very good idea.
Uvantak being awesome as always d: I haven't read the post yet but I'll make sure to do so, it looks interesting and it would be nice if we'd get something else than the shitty changes BLizzard has shown us for LotV.
this topic has been brought up so much before and Blizzard never really did anything about it... embrace yourselves for 1,5k mineral patches and 16 workers/base Really wish we could get BW economy or anything close to it back though.
This is a very nice and in-depth post, really well done! I hope someone from Blizzard notices this.
Regarding the topic, I think that making expansions more valuable than now (this is basically the goal, right?) is a much better way to encourage expanding than making the minerals deplete faster and forcing players to expand (and I also really dislike the idea of half of the mineral patches having less resources). Even considering high ground advantage as a factor in a topic that is clearly about something totally different speaks of a very well thought-out idea. I think that the current high ground advantage system is kind of bad anyway, so some changes couldn't hurt (increasing the range of units seems a very good idea to me). However, I think even with all these changes, you would very rarely see 8 bases in a game, maybe if the opponent turtles very heavily, because it is very hard to defend so many bases at once. The idea to encourage players to expand is nice though, and is in line with Blizzard's intentions.
Amazing post, I really do think Blizzard isn't approaching mining the way they should in LotV and instead of adopting a true BW economy are taking some awkward steps to somewhat emulate it but isn't taking it properly. I'm not a fan of the concept that mining out bases quickly will encourage more expansions when it feels forced instead of a risk. Plus the need for 16+6 workers per base to be mining quickly means 3-4 bases is only efficient and reduces supply for army as well.
I would really want to see some big names playing the mod and show some matches. imo you cannot really talk about mineral income and ignore gas income simply because more mineral (new base) = more gas mining possible.
I mean afterall with the production/race mechanics difference, we keep talking as if 3 base is enough economy, we keep seeing players taking more bases than just 3, especially zerg, because of the gas difference.
and then add in race mechanics, we keep seeing zerg going beyond the so called optimal level of workers as well and terran lowering the workers because they replace with mules.
These changes sounds convincing enough but how it works in the real matches is my concern
If I read it correctly, applying the changes you described, it would more or less solve the same problems, Blizzard has tried to fix in LotV alpha.
In the current state of LotV alpha they start us off on 12 workers, which accelerates the early game. With the worker pair changes, the early game would also be sped up.
With lower mineral/base counts and making the mineral patches have different amounts, they increase the need for expanding, because your bases mine out quicker. I used to think that having the different amounts on patches within the same base, would result in you being more efficient if you have more bases, but all it actually does is give you half a base that is still being mined from with the same efficiency. With a worker efficiency in single digits change, it would encourage people to take more bases.
Blizzard has tried to fix the turtle problem by altering units that are used to turtle. (Ravens, SH's) Using the data supplied in the post, more expanding would be encouraged and even beneficial. Turtling on a lower base count would be in an economic view, be sub-optimal, while in the current HotS SC2, turtling on 3base is pretty close to optimal income anyways.
To think that changing how worker pairing works, could affect all these things. I hope all of this gets taken in to consideration.
I must be the only guy not impressed by this, maybe because I didn't play BW so all these "let's copy BW economy and we'll be happy" leave me unphased...
I mean I don't see anything super fun in having MMA vs Life on 8 mining bases instead of 4, sorry. (Not mentionning that it would be impossible for them to do so : they're too good at harassing/droping to let the other guy so spread out. but that's another story)
The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
Making bases last less longer as Blizzard is trying to do is a much better idea imho, forcing the turtle out of its carapace is the way to go.
On March 07 2015 00:06 Gwavajuice wrote: I must be the only guy not impressed by this, maybe because I didn't play BW so all these "let's copy BW economy and we'll be happy" leave me unphased...
I mean I don't see anything super fun in having MMA vs Life on 8 mining bases instead of 4, sorry. (Not mentionning that it would be impossible for them to do so : they're too good at harassing/droping to let the other guy so spread out. but that's another story)
The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
Making bases last less longer as Blizzard is trying to do is a much better idea imho, forcing the turtle out of its carapace is the way to go.
soO could maintain a big army supply lead (and keep flooding units). Mech vs Zerg is actually a very good example where it would help.
On March 06 2015 23:42 ETisME wrote: I would really want to see some big names playing the mod and show some matches.
I cannot say for double harvester mod or BW mod, but Starbow which has a very BWesque econ system, with suboptimal worker AI has multiple matches available to watch/study. They often have newbies matches with silver-diamond level of players and some more high ranked play with progamers (axium guys, Arthur) and some non-pro that are/were GM on ladder and very good at SB (franscar, myrault, TRB).
You can get the VOD here and more like the test maps on Twitch. I would recommend you trying Starbow in the newb tournament next monday and try it yourself or just log in the twitch chat and ask some questions directly to the casters/devs/players/trolls.
It really showcases how you can get more income with same worker OR same income with less worker via more expansions, how oversaturating remains (temporally) viable because the 1st extra worker isn't that much worse than the others, how highground advantage makes army positioning matters and defending those streched bases possible, how resources looses can be vastly different in some game (up to three time more for one player, and that's without free units) while still being an even match because of different game approaches.
Just to take an example, I've literally seen 2base protoss nearly mining out and beating 5-6 base zerg because he had better army composition and micro and positioning, and in the other game over expoing the zerg and defending it via heavy gateway pressure to get zerg on the defence.
Sure this wouldn't translate that well to SC2 because some unit adjustment would've to be made, but the general principle is that a non-linear income scheme does bring variety and fun to the game. (e.g. I do think marauders drops are way to effective to take out expos)
On March 06 2015 23:07 ChapatiyaqPTSM wrote: All these Liquidpedia links... Quintuple kitten kill
Hehe fixed
On March 06 2015 23:25 Sholip wrote: This is a very nice and in-depth post, really well done! I hope someone from Blizzard notices this.
Regarding the topic, I think that making expansions more valuable than now (this is basically the goal, right?) is a much better way to encourage expanding than making the minerals deplete faster and forcing players to expand (and I also really dislike the idea of half of the mineral patches having less resources).
Yes and no, bases are very valuable as they are now, the problem is that you can't take advantage of new bases without going over 80 workers because of worker pairing, with the changes I'm pretty much not forcing players to expand, I'm rewarding them for doing so, and by that I'm talking about highly increasing their income by allowing their limited workers to be more efficient than his opponent.
On March 07 2015 00:06 Gwavajuice wrote: The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
Making bases last less longer as Blizzard is trying to do is a much better idea imho, forcing the turtle out of its carapace is the way to go.
Actually It would have helped immensely, like I clearly stated in the OP. soO had around 90 workers entering the late game, in the little snippets where the observer shows soO's bases you can see that even when he had 90 workers and around 8 total bases he wasn't getting an income advantage over his opponent because many of his mining bases weren't saturated up to 16, which is the point where you can start sending workers to other expansions and get a supply positive/efficient return from them, as I have said previously, it doesn't matter of you have 12 or 24 bases, if you have 48 workers and your opponent also has 48 workers but on 3 bases both players will mine have the same mineral income.
The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
The reason why soO has 17k/11k is that neither he nor Yoda do anything meaningful against each other for like 15mins (starting around 12mins). soO goes for 100drones and mines out the map as good as possible to get a bank. Yoda takes a 4th and later a 5th base. This is hardly exciting.
Removing worker pairing would massively influence the game, because soO could get the same amount of money from the same amount of bases with only 60-70workers, while Yoda would probably not even go to 70workers to begin with.
As with any economical change (also the blizzard one), balance&design changes need to be made. A very logical one for the scaling economy would be that zerg's free unit and similar siege mechanics (BLs, Infestors, Swarm Hosts) could be toned down, removed or redesigned. Instead of using swarm hosts to trade for free, you could use "more roaches" to trade for a cheap price because you'd get more money.
My question would be... Even though this would open up other possibilities that the current maps don't have, wouldn't it also restric the maps in other ways? Like the maps needs to have this design because zerg needs this number of bases and protosss this, and terran isn't good at defending muktilple positions and so on. I know this article is about the economy itself, but wouldn't it be possible that it has hum..unintended consecuencses?
Also wouldn't harrass units would need to be rebalanced completely? I know you mentioned in your post other changes would need to be made, but those changes are exactly why this isn't happening.. There would need to be a lot of changes, and although it would be "better" ask yourself blizzard really benefit for doing all those changes? That's an important question. I hope when you work with blizz you will be able to give some ideas to them, and they give you some insight of why some things are doable and some aren't.
On March 07 2015 01:30 [Phantom] wrote: My question would be... Even though this would open up other possibilities that the current maps don't have, wouldn't it also restric the maps in other ways? Like the maps needs to have this design because zerg needs this number of bases and protosss this, and terran isn't good at defending muktilple positions and so on. I know this article is about the economy itself, but wouldn't it be possible that it has hum..unintended consecuencses?
Also wouldn't harrass units would need to be rebalanced completely? I know you mentioned in your post other changes would need to be made, but those changes are exactly why this isn't happening.. There would need to be a lot of changes, and although it would be "better" ask yourself blizzard really benefit for doing all those changes? That's an important question. I hope when you work with blizz you will be able to give some ideas to them, and they give you some insight of why some things are doable and some aren't.
To be honest it's the mapmaker's job to make maps that are not out of phase with the game design, not the opposite.
On March 07 2015 01:30 [Phantom] wrote: My question would be... Even though this would open up other possibilities that the current maps don't have, wouldn't it also restric the maps in other ways? Like the maps needs to have this design because zerg needs this number of bases and protosss this, and terran isn't good at defending muktilple positions and so on. I know this article is about the economy itself, but wouldn't it be possible that it has hum..unintended consecuencses?
Also wouldn't harrass units would need to be rebalanced completely? I know you mentioned in your post other changes would need to be made, but those changes are exactly why this isn't happening.. There would need to be a lot of changes, and although it would be "better" ask yourself blizzard really benefit for doing all those changes? That's an important question. I hope when you work with blizz you will be able to give some ideas to them, and they give you some insight of why some things are doable and some aren't.
The only way to keep the balance and maps close to what we have is that they aren't changing the economy to begin with. But they do so greatly. And the start into the game which completely overthrows build orders to begin with.
The question is not, which are the greater changes at this point. Both will have dramatic effects on the balance and the maps. The question is which end result do we want from economic changes. I'm afraid that blizzard's solution will neither lead to much improved gameplay (1year in when the game gets somewhat figured out; at the beginning every change will make the game look fresh) while already destroying the game that we know.
You should post this in the Blizzard forums as well if you want to catch someone's attention over there.
Video demonstrations that show a timelapse of a standard vs non-pairing mining configuration would illustrate the concept much better, but aside from that, this was a great writeup!
If you and the other mapmakers are serious about pushing this concept, show Blizzard the proof in action, and try to get some reputable players who believe in it as well on board. Show it of on Reddit, try to get it as much exposure as possible, and maybe, just maybe, something might click.
Also, to respond specifically to your point about being spread out, I'd just like to say that it sounds like an overall improvement, for all races. At the center of each race, there are strengths that this spread-base play really enhances. Take Warp-ins for example. If your main target is almost always an opponent's third or main and either is taken out, you will most likely issue another Warp-in and move on the the natural, in which case the game ends. Sure, MsC recalls can salvage a botched Warp-in, but to be honest, the crowd reactions to that kind of play is usually met with a bad taste. If you are Warping-in at an opponent's 5th, you're slamming dents in them instead of scooping out their vitals. Suddenly, you're getting ahead and not outright killing an opponent with a successful Warp-in attack. This kind of thing can be applied to things like drops and air harass, run-bys, and also Nydus play.
It sounds like it would create less "all or nothing" scenarios, and getting outplayed would be something that would be much more easily identified. A side effect of all this could very well be that game lengths become extended, but I don't know..Long, scrappy, "neck-and-neck" games are exciting and are typically regarded as some of the greats.
On March 07 2015 01:30 [Phantom] wrote: My question would be... Even though this would open up other possibilities that the current maps don't have, wouldn't it also restric the maps in other ways? Like the maps needs to have this design because zerg needs this number of bases and protosss this, and terran isn't good at defending muktilple positions and so on. I know this article is about the economy itself, but wouldn't it be possible that it has hum..unintended consecuencses?
Also wouldn't harrass units would need to be rebalanced completely? I know you mentioned in your post other changes would need to be made, but those changes are exactly why this isn't happening.. There would need to be a lot of changes, and although it would be "better" ask yourself blizzard really benefit for doing all those changes? That's an important question. I hope when you work with blizz you will be able to give some ideas to them, and they give you some insight of why some things are doable and some aren't.
To be honest it's the mapmaker's job to make maps that are not out of phase with the game design, not the opposite.
I think the game should be designed with certain features in mind. Map features are just a design aspect of the game too. Telling mapmakers to make boring maps because the unit design doesn't allow for better ones is just as bad as letting all maps through and creating a game around it that plays the same regardless of map features.
On March 06 2015 09:29 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Let's hope Blizzard takes a good long look at stuff like this and considers it, but let's not get our hopes up here.
Yeah i still hope they consider this, but it's blizzard after all right ... I actually think highground advantage would be almost useless in sc2 due to the pathing, it would help a little bit in easier defending, but usually armies will be able to fire all at once after moving, so it won't change enough to be worth it probably.
It probably does some unexpected balance changes, but i think the game balance should be based on game design. And in that perspecitve "No worker pairing" is imo the better design as it benefits a more risky and stategic style of play.
On March 06 2015 23:25 Sholip wrote: This is a very nice and in-depth post, really well done! I hope someone from Blizzard notices this.
Regarding the topic, I think that making expansions more valuable than now (this is basically the goal, right?) is a much better way to encourage expanding than making the minerals deplete faster and forcing players to expand (and I also really dislike the idea of half of the mineral patches having less resources).
Yes and no, bases are very valuable as they are now, the problem is that you can't take advantage of new bases without going over 80 workers because of worker pairing, with the changes I'm pretty much not forcing players to expand, I'm rewarding them for doing so, and by that I'm talking about highly increasing their income by allowing their limited workers to be more efficient than his opponent.
On March 07 2015 00:06 Gwavajuice wrote: The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
Making bases last less longer as Blizzard is trying to do is a much better idea imho, forcing the turtle out of its carapace is the way to go.
Actually It would have helped immensely, like I clearly stated in the OP. soO had around 90 workers entering the late game, in the little snippets where the observer shows soO's bases you can see that even when he had 90 workers and around 8 total bases he wasn't getting an income advantage over his opponent because many of his mining bases weren't saturated up to 16, which is the point where you can start sending workers to other expansions and get a supply positive/efficient return from them, as I have said previously, it doesn't matter of you have 12 or 24 bases, if you have 48 workers and your opponent also has 48 workers but on 3 bases both players will mine have the same mineral income.
Of course he did had an income advantage seriously you can't possibly say otherwise, oh yes it was gaz income soO wanted but you discarded gaz mining from the problem . anyway soO had the biggest bank ever and it didn't save him.
Removing worker pairing wouldn't have changed how Yoda slowly built his late game mech, if anything he could just have built faster. soO couldn't break him, he thought that having a max income to rebuilt his air army 3 times in a row was a cool idea but it was not, your could have tripled his income, with his strategic choices he would have lost nonetheless.
Anyway, there is so much things to say.
First your graphs are off. sorry by you need to rework them to include mineral depletion. And this will only be possible if your X axis somehow include time. It's not the same thing to build a 4th base at 12 minutes and a 4th base at 20 minutes. You can't just say "DH model increase 4th base benefit by 7.5% at 35 workers" This model needs to be dynamic. For instance stadard model lead to stay longer on 3 base if you only have 48 drones on mineral but 48 drones on 3 mineral lines will clear the patches faster than on 4 if I'm not mistaken (according to your graph it's pretty much the same for every model : 12 drones = 480 Min/min => base empty in 25 minutes to compare with 16min 45 with 16 drones)
I'm not trying to be a smart ass here but as it now, the main reason why a terran need to get a 4th is not the mineral income which is good anyway thx to mules (I ll get back to this) but the fact that his main will be empty at 15 minutes or so.
Second and most importantly, simply forgeting about gaz makes the whole thing much less relevant. Minerals are only important when you build your economy but quickly enough it's the gaz that is the most important thing. Why zergs want a 4th? for minerals or for gaz? What do Protoss want? flood even more chargelots or get templars?
Third your graphs doesn't take mules into account, and that's a big deal actually, it would be cool to have the same graphs for P and Z and one for T with as many mules as bases in the model. But maybe I'm in the details here. That's why I won't talk about the fact a scv building a CC is not mining for 100 seconds and that a drone does disappear each time a hatchery is build, I won't talk about worker travelling time either
All that said, my point is I see what you're trying to do there but I think there are plenty of shortcuts you take that make the whole thing unaccurate economically.
I think a better method might be to think about a target economy (like 2000 minerals 720 gaz per minute for example) and see how each model gives a different optimal solution to reach that point (with a somewhat dynamic model that takes in game time into account) and how it would actually impact the game.
And then try to see what real benefit it would create when compared to Blizz current solution of lowering ressources per base.
On March 06 2015 07:52 Uvantak wrote:The economic system of Starcraft II is build in such a way that if you want to be as supply efficient as possible while collecting resources you will need 16 workers per base mining Minerals and other 4 mining gas, this sums to 20 workers per base
I don't think this was mentioned in the replies; I thought everybody put 6 workers mining gas instead of 4? That would make 22 workers per base. I get that from a sheer numbers perspective having 2 workers/gas is more efficient than 3 (37.5 gas per minute per worker vs. 32.5) but I've never seen a progamer, or even builds suggested/discussed on TL, keep only 2 workers per geyser after the early stages of the game. This seems like a case where the theory is pretty much irrelevant when compared to what actually happens in practice.
Because I vespene geyser positioning asymmetries I left all vespene incomes out because I would need to write a complete annex talking about it, but for a complete cardinal or vertical vespene positions you will want to have 2 workers per geyser mining for a total of 84 gas/min per geyser, if you added a third harvester this worker would mine at a lesser efficiency than the first 2 (30 gas/min instead of 42) meaning that it would not be supply efficient, but as I said vespene geysers are complex and asymmetric regarding the income they give based on their position in relation to the town hall, so in general they are a pain to work with.
For the most part I just tried to disregard vespene income as much as possible, and round the numbers of workers and incomes to make everything easier to understand sacrificing as less as possible the precision of the calculations, but as I said in the OP if anyone wants to get into the work of counting the exact vespene income for each of the 48 possible geyser spots is free to do so, I would love to have that math.
On March 06 2015 14:22 Fanatic-Templar wrote: Hmm. As someone who prefers low-econ games and actually wishes it were harder to take your natural and third than it currently is, I'm not sure how to feel about this.
That aside though, while I'd love to see Swarm Hosts and Colossus deathballs disappear as much as anyone, and can definitely agree that a higher base count would achieve this, is there actually anything to replace them? Terran Medivac-bio is amazingly mobile and powerful in small groups, and adapts perfectly to this situation, but unsupported Gateway units are trash, Zerglings are mobile but really weak and vulnerable to good positioning, and Hydra/Roach is both slow and expensive. When you mentioned a game going on eight bases, it sounded like a complete nightmare.
Well at the time of writing I was thinking of a "normal" TvZ of Bio/mine/thor vs Ling/bling/muta/ultra comp, this would be only theory, I'm really not expecting players to actually reach said amount of bases, It could perfectly happen, I'm only not expecting it, as you said it would be a multitask nightmare for both players, but for spectators, it would be heaven.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with changes like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Well by that logic, you shouldn't reach a cap at 16 either. It's arbitrary to say that 8 is worse than 16 in that regard
I disagree, managing 16 workers per base is a lot easier than 8. The lower the number for maximum efficiency, the more you have to baby sit your workers to play at maximum efficiency.
This is simply incorrect, from a single base point of view, a worker on a far patch will mine at 45Min/min, meanwhile a worker on a close patch will mine at 39Min/min, this is a 6 mineral change, with worker pairing and a 16 worker supply efficiency cap you will want to have 2 workers stacked in the closer mineral patches and 1 or 0 in the far away patches, meanwhile with a with a system where players can't really stack workers there is no managing to be had because you simply can't pair workers in the closer patches, making the system simpler for the newer players, which as it happens is not something I'm a fan of, a player that's willing to put work into manually managing his economy should get a small return for it, but if this means the huge problems that worker pairing brings into the table then there is no choice to be had.
Also as a second point, Starcraft II is an E-Sport and even when the game shouldn't be completely designed to be balanced and fun at the highest levels only, the game should not be fully designed to be fun for casual players only either, as I just said, StarCraft II is an E-Sport and worker pairing brings huge problems into the game. The new system will be far more confusing than the current HotS mining scheme and basically any other good economic system, you would know this if you had put attention to the OP.
/edit I'm starting to miss entire words here and there instead of silly typos, I'll probably go to sleep soon, I'm too tired.
The thing is, when stacking workers in the early game, there is nothing else going on. The point I'm trying to make is that when you are at 2 or 3 bases, and the workers are more efficient at 8 per base, you would re-rally your workers more frequently.
I really don't see/understand your point, why would you re-rally/stack your workers while on 2-3 bases? Can you be more precise? Why would you have only 8 workers per base when you are in 2-3 bases already? By Re-rally you mean maynarding your workers to empty bases or something else? Also you must understand that the 8 workers per base is not hard cap at all, only a supply efficient cap, you can perfectly have 30 workers per base if you want and mine more minerals than with 8, but by each worker you add this worker will work with a lesser efficiency than the first one.
/Edit Oh Hi Barrin, nice to see you around.
Okay, so as an example: My natural expansion finishes, let's say I have, I don't know 14 workers. Currently, all I do is move my main rally point to my natural once that number hits 16. If the efficiency is 8, now the best thing to do is transfer 6 workers, rally both to the natural, then once your natural hits 8 you move your main rally back to your main. That's just a small example of how it requires more babysitting. Another example is: if you have several bases, say 3 or more, and you lose enough workers to where you cannot have more than 8 per base, it now becomes a situation where you want to manually re-rally every base and redistribute your workers accordingly. It's just inherently easier to manage your workers in this regard when the efficiency per base is higher.
Maynarding, is FAR from being hard, I do not know if you are doing this on purpose, but if you have 14 workers on your main what you would do is to take 7 and send them to your natural, any income loss would be offset by the higher worker efficiency, then you would continue to make workers normally. Regarding the multi-base scenario, that's something that already happens when you are in that many bases, I don't understand your point, this is Starcraft not Farmville or a Moba, it IS supposed to be hard because you are doing it yourself, not an automated AI, if you don't agree with that there is not much that I can say to you.
Here is the fundamental difference, I don't think the game should be any harder with regards to macro. Maynarding is not hard but it can be a chore to maintain 16 workers on each base, trying to keep each base as close to 8 as possible is that much harder because you still want to go over 8 workers (I assume), but you also want to make sure that each base has the same amount of workers roughly, whereas with 16 workers you simply move your rally point and stop populating that base once you hit that point, and you do not have to worry about maintaining equal numbers on each base. This change would increase the skill cap indeed, but in a way that does not make the game more interesting or fun. Luckily this change has 0% chance of actually going through.
On March 06 2015 23:07 ChapatiyaqPTSM wrote: All these Liquidpedia links... Quintuple kitten kill
Hehe fixed
On March 06 2015 23:25 Sholip wrote: This is a very nice and in-depth post, really well done! I hope someone from Blizzard notices this.
Regarding the topic, I think that making expansions more valuable than now (this is basically the goal, right?) is a much better way to encourage expanding than making the minerals deplete faster and forcing players to expand (and I also really dislike the idea of half of the mineral patches having less resources).
Yes and no, bases are very valuable as they are now, the problem is that you can't take advantage of new bases without going over 80 workers because of worker pairing, with the changes I'm pretty much not forcing players to expand, I'm rewarding them for doing so, and by that I'm talking about highly increasing their income by allowing their limited workers to be more efficient than his opponent.
On March 07 2015 00:06 Gwavajuice wrote: The income per minute per worker is not causing much issue atm. For instance take soO vs yoDa in this week's proleague :
soO had 8 f'ing bases on king sejong and a f'ing 17k mins and 11 k gaz bank ...and he lost miseralbly to ravens and turrets with tanks runbyes.
Removing worker pairing would have no consequence on this kind of games.
Making bases last less longer as Blizzard is trying to do is a much better idea imho, forcing the turtle out of its carapace is the way to go.
Actually It would have helped immensely, like I clearly stated in the OP. soO had around 90 workers entering the late game, in the little snippets where the observer shows soO's bases you can see that even when he had 90 workers and around 8 total bases he wasn't getting an income advantage over his opponent because many of his mining bases weren't saturated up to 16, which is the point where you can start sending workers to other expansions and get a supply positive/efficient return from them, as I have said previously, it doesn't matter of you have 12 or 24 bases, if you have 48 workers and your opponent also has 48 workers but on 3 bases both players will mine have the same mineral income.
Of course he did had an income advantage seriously you can't possibly say otherwise, oh yes it was gaz income soO wanted but you discarded gaz mining from the problem . anyway soO had the biggest bank ever and it didn't save him.
Removing worker pairing wouldn't have changed how Yoda slowly built his late game mech, if anything he could just have built faster. soO couldn't break him, he thought that having a max income to rebuilt his air army 3 times in a row was a cool idea but it was not, your could have tripled his income, with his strategic choices he would have lost nonetheless.
Anyway, there is so much things to say.
First your graphs are off. sorry by you need to rework them to include mineral depletion. And this will only be possible if your X axis somehow include time. It's not the same thing to build a 4th base at 12 minutes and a 4th base at 20 minutes. You can't just say "DH model increase 4th base benefit by 7.5% at 35 workers" This model needs to be dynamic. For instance stadard model lead to stay longer on 3 base if you only have 48 drones on mineral but 48 drones on 3 mineral lines will clear the patches faster than on 4 if I'm not mistaken (according to your graph it's pretty much the same for every model : 12 drones = 480 Min/min => base empty in 25 minutes to compare with 16min 45 with 16 drones)
I'm not trying to be a smart ass here but as it now, the main reason why a terran need to get a 4th is not the mineral income which is good anyway thx to mules (I ll get back to this) but the fact that his main will be empty at 15 minutes or so.
Second and most importantly, simply forgeting about gaz makes the whole thing much less relevant. Minerals are only important when you build your economy but quickly enough it's the gaz that is the most important thing. Why zergs want a 4th? for minerals or for gaz? What do Protoss want? flood even more chargelots or get templars?
Third your graphs doesn't take mules into account, and that's a big deal actually, it would be cool to have the same graphs for P and Z and one for T with as many mules as bases in the model. But maybe I'm in the details here. That's why I won't talk about the fact a scv building a CC is not mining for 100 seconds and that a drone does disappear each time a hatchery is build, I won't talk about worker travelling time either
All that said, my point is I see what you're trying to do there but I think there are plenty of shortcuts you take that make the whole thing unaccurate economically.
I think a better method might be to think about a target economy (like 2000 minerals 720 gaz per minute for example) and see how each model gives a different optimal solution to reach that point (with a somewhat dynamic model that takes in game time into account) and how it would actually impact the game.
And then try to see what real benefit it would create when compared to Blizz current solution of lowering ressources per base.
Oh for sure, you are correct that the post is incomplete in some regards, specially when including timeframes for expansion depletion, but as I stated in OP, this is because I'm not getting anything out of writing this down, I simply do not have the time to do all the measurements, check and re-check the data, make the graphs, make animations so the graphs can be easily understood and all. If you want the high resolution/high quality data for things like gas asymmetries or mules affecting income you will have or to trust Liquipedia or do it yourself, I left an open invitation to anyone that's willing to put the time into collecting said data, so anyone that has the time and will can add to the discussion. As I have said previously I would love to have that data, the problem is that I simply do not have the time to get to it.
On March 07 2015 02:42 Gwavajuice wrote: Removing worker pairing wouldn't have changed how Yoda slowly built his late game mech, if anything he could just have built faster. soO couldn't break him, he thought that having a max income to rebuilt his air army 3 times in a row was a cool idea but it was not, your could have tripled his income, with his strategic choices he would have lost nonetheless.
I fail to see how it would have been faster than it was done, the one that would have had the min income advantage would have been soO, because he would have been able to be more efficient with his workers than Yoda. You mention gas income and this is correct, this is the reason why players tend to take a fourth base, but this line of thinking is heavily based on StarCraft II constrains. As stated in the OP a higher mineral income advantage allows for players to be able to make more low tier units to trade inefficiently vs what in this case is a gas expensive Mech army, instead of needing to invest a high amount of vespene into higher tech units that spawn free units that achieve the same thing roach, zerglings and hidras would do in a economy that allows of asymmetric trades. This is why I'm saying that thinking of needing gas to be able to fight your opponent heavy gas units by making units that give a false sense of asymmetry is not a good way to go about it, because the same thing can be achieved by correcting the economy.
I highly recommend you to mess around with the BW/Starbow economy mod in specific, so you can see how much of an effect it has, let me repeat myself what I said in the OP, I'm not saying that changing the economy is a end all and that we all will be happy, there are many things I disagree with respecting unit design which I think could be improved, but changing the economy to allow for asymmetric mineral vs vespene fights is a huge step forward.
What you're asking for is to solve the metagame in a new environment with different economic settings. Multiple times over, no less, for comparison. Of hypothetical changes. Surely we don't have to go that far, if it were even possible.
I think the point your post is driving at is "why do I care about getting minerals more efficiently?" There are two simple answers:
1. You need less workers to build your army. 2. You need less workers to build your army.
Let me explain. On the one hand, by spreading your workers to more bases (a privilege you've won through map control or pinning the opponent or superior multitask and positioning or... etc.) you get more money than you would otherwise which means you can ramp up production and churn out units faster. Taking more bases beyond your 3rd is an economic accelerator, not just an imperative on a timer.
On the other hand, the economy you gain by using more base locations frees up supply in workers you don't have because your base count makes up for it. This lets you build a larger army which in all cases increases your efficiency in exchanging material, which is the whole purpose of a strategy based on superior economy.
In short, it's not about getting more minerals to burn, it's about increasing efficiency. The point is not that the economy cap is higher (although functionally that's probably true, and your discussion of expansion timing has some bearing here); the point is that the economic system allows different styles of play that can reward skillful management of more assets, liabilities, threats and defenses, which incidentally is also more fun to see in action. That, and it makes for a deeper game.
I'm not trying to be a smart ass here but as it now, the main reason why a terran need to get a 4th is not the mineral income which is good anyway thx to mules (I ll get back to this) but the fact that his main will be empty at 15 minutes or so.
Second and most importantly, simply forgeting about gaz makes the whole thing much less relevant. Minerals are only important when you build your economy but quickly enough it's the gaz that is the most important thing. Why zergs want a 4th? for minerals or for gaz? What do Protoss want? flood even more chargelots or get templars?
Third your graphs doesn't take mules into account, and that's a big deal actually, it would be cool to have the same graphs for P and Z and one for T with as many mules as bases in the model. But maybe I'm in the details here. That's why I won't talk about the fact a scv building a CC is not mining for 100 seconds and that a drone does disappear each time a hatchery is build, I won't talk about worker travelling time either
We're actually talking about base econ, not empty bases. A Terran taking a 4th or 5th because his main/nat mines out is simply taking another 3rd ECON base. The point of changing the mining paradygme is so Terran (or any other race) actually gets an incentive to take 4th or 5th while there is still mineral left in the main and nat. Right now it only makes is harder to defend with no benefit at all unless you're willing to make more worker and therefor have a weaker army. Of course they can get extra gas if needed, but that's another issue than mineral mining.
MULES aren't into the graph because it doesn't matter with the number of base saturation (unless you manage to overstack 2 mules per patch), same for worker time investment in buildings since the graphs do not take account time but just worker/base. As for race differences it wouldn't matter since workers and base template are symetric in SC2 unlike BW.
On March 06 2015 11:43 coolman123123 wrote: I think the problem with a change like this, in Blizzard's eyes, is that it is confusing to new players. The current system, where 1 base 16 workers = 2 base 8 workers, is a lot more straightforward. It is the default mode of thinking. As a new player, it would make very little sense to me why it's better to have 2 bases 8 workers as opposed to one base 16. Additionally, this change would mean you are spending MORE time babysitting your workers and how they are distributed, something that obviously is not very fun. With the LotV change, Blizzzard is, in essence, trying to achieve a similar outcome with a simpler solution. I'm not saying the LotV econ will be better, or that these changes wouldn't be positive, but I believe this is why something like this will not happen.
Who cares about new players? It is about the longlevity of the game and not some casuals who buy the game, cannon rush and then leave it again. Having a stable economy system should be the basic of any RTS game. First you design economy, then macromechanics, buildings, techs and then you build units on top of that. Having a clearly inferior economy system just for sake of "not confusing" new players who dont understand anything anyways and balance whine non-stop is really bad for the game. You cannot build an RTS to please every single person. Especially when it comes to these details, no newcomer will notice, and even if they do, GRATZ for them! They learned something. I am sick of dumbing down games to handfeed them to people who call themselves "gamers", but dont want to actually learn to play a game decently.
On March 07 2015 02:42 Gwavajuice wrote: Of course he did had an income advantage seriously you can't possibly say otherwise, oh yes it was gaz income soO wanted but you discarded gaz mining from the problem . anyway soO had the biggest bank ever and it didn't save him.
Yes, he had an income advantage because he went unorthodoxly high in drones. 90-100drones is not normal. And even with that amount of drones he had roughly like 10% more minerals mined. Not sure about the gas, but it should not be much more than 20% more gas mined either (and Yoda would have caught up in that regard if the game had gone longer).
The whole point is that if you go for extra bases and saturate them (like soO) you have a small army that cannot attack, even though you have more income. If you don't saturate extra bases, you can max once and go, but afterwards you are dead. Both options don't make for good gameplay against a turtling opponent.
On March 07 2015 04:05 EatThePath wrote: @gwavajuice:
What you're asking for is to solve the metagame in a new environment with different economic settings. Multiple times over, no less, for comparison. Of hypothetical changes. Surely we don't have to go that far, if it were even possible.
I think the point your post is driving at is "why do I care about getting minerals more efficiently?" There are two simple answers:
1. You need less workers to build your army. 2. You need less workers to build your army.
Let me explain. On the one hand, by spreading your workers to more bases (a privilege you've won through map control or pinning the opponent or superior multitask and positioning or... etc.) you get more money than you would otherwise which means you can ramp up production and churn out units faster. Taking more bases beyond your 3rd is an economic accelerator, not just an imperative on a timer.
On the other hand, the economy you gain by using more base locations frees up supply in workers you don't have because your base count makes up for it. This lets you build a larger army which in all cases increases your efficiency in exchanging material, which is the whole purpose of a strategy based on superior economy.
In short, it's not about getting more minerals to burn, it's about increasing efficiency. The point is not that the economy cap is higher (although functionally that's probably true, and your discussion of expansion timing has some bearing here); the point is that the economic system allows different styles of play that can reward skillful management of more assets, liabilities, threats and defenses, which incidentally is also more fun to see in action. That, and it makes for a deeper game.
Cool story except nothing in the OP prooves DH or starbow would do that (sorry btw I didn't realize it was just copy past from an existing post) because the data used are imho badly used if not incorrect. The way the "N base vs N+1 bases" graphs are built seems inaccurate to me and doesn't describe properly the incentive of making the decision to build an extra base.
all it comes down to is : do I want to spend the money to build a base and if I do so how long will take to get my rmoney back? the graphs provided here don't answer this question.
I'm not trying to be a smart ass here but as it now, the main reason why a terran need to get a 4th is not the mineral income which is good anyway thx to mules (I ll get back to this) but the fact that his main will be empty at 15 minutes or so.
Second and most importantly, simply forgeting about gaz makes the whole thing much less relevant. Minerals are only important when you build your economy but quickly enough it's the gaz that is the most important thing. Why zergs want a 4th? for minerals or for gaz? What do Protoss want? flood even more chargelots or get templars?
Third your graphs doesn't take mules into account, and that's a big deal actually, it would be cool to have the same graphs for P and Z and one for T with as many mules as bases in the model. But maybe I'm in the details here. That's why I won't talk about the fact a scv building a CC is not mining for 100 seconds and that a drone does disappear each time a hatchery is build, I won't talk about worker travelling time either
We're actually talking about base econ, not empty bases. A Terran taking a 4th or 5th because his main/nat mines out is simply taking another 3rd ECON base. The point of changing the mining paradygme is so Terran (or any other race) actually gets an incentive to take 4th or 5th while there is still mineral left in the main and nat. Right now it only makes is harder to defend with no benefit at all unless you're willing to make more worker and therefor have a weaker army. Of course they can get extra gas if needed, but that's another issue than mineral mining.
MULES aren't into the graph because it doesn't matter with the number of base saturation (unless you manage to overstack 2 mules per patch), same for worker time investment in buildings since the graphs do not take account time but just worker/base. As for race differences it wouldn't matter since workers and base template are symetric in SC2 unlike BW.
Mules do count cause the graphs are base on an income ratio (income on N+1 bases / income on N bases), mules add income and math laws tell you that if something is added on both part of a ratio, you can't just discard it (eg : 2/3 is not 3/4)
As for the incentive I still believe the calculation displayed in the OP are very misleading and don't show the real stuff. I take a very simple example :
48 workers.
3 bases standard (16 workers each) : income is 1920 Min/min 3 base double harvest : 1860 (if I read correctly these graphs)
4 base standard (12 workers) : income is still 1920 4 base DH : 2000 (it seems)
conclusion : incentive = 0% for standard and 7.5% for DH. yeah! I m gonna take a 4th base
but even if I don't t think about mules, mineral depletion, workers travel time to the new base and everything, the 4th base is not free nor appearing instantly.
so it's 400 minerals and 100 sec (assumption : I'm protoss and my probe can go back to mining instantly). for a gain of 140 Min/min. I ll need 2min51 to get my 400 mins back, add the 100 seconds and you have 4 min 31 before I simply get my investment back.
So suddenly even if I'm ultra simplistic (unrealistic I dare say) the incentive is not so wonderfull...
I don't want to throw stones at anyone, I just want to say the benefits brought by such a change seems at first very minor to :
a - reducing the amount of mins per base b - (really my favorite but that's just me) better design of units and maps.
Or I just totally missed the point which happens when my dumbness attacks...
Ok so I finally read it and yeah it's what SC2 needs, but sadly I think the chances of this happening with LotV are very slim. But I definitely support the idea of encouraging players to expand more instead of forcing them to expand more like what we'll see in LotV. Thanks for the read Uvantak, although it could use less commas and more periods.
Love the very thorough write up! It brings a nice perspective on looking at economy changes. Hopefully it is given attention by Blizzard... not saying that this is THE solution to the issues seen in sc2 atm, but this definitely adds a lot of value in terms of discussion and ideas.
I played the extent ion mod (the worker pairing one) with Z and you reach full mineral line saturation on a new base so quickly (each inject round lol). The current maps are definitely not ideal for this type of economy but me being forced to go up to 6+ bases before my main even ran out was very interesting and I could see how there could be potentially a lot more action and epic 'all-over-the-map' battles with this type of set up.
I think however, swinging the income advantage to a player which takes more bases so heavily will heavily favor mobility based play styles and units (bio terran, ling-muta zerg) and the game may need to be heavily rebalanced to address this which could be a lot of work and introduce many not fully tested factors into the game.
On March 07 2015 07:55 joshie0808 wrote: Love the very thorough write up! It brings a nice perspective on looking at economy changes. Hopefully it is given attention by Blizzard... not saying that this is THE solution to the issues seen in sc2 atm, but this definitely adds a lot of value in terms of discussion and ideas.
I played the extent ion mod (the worker pairing one) with Z and you reach full mineral line saturation on a new base so quickly (each inject round lol). The current maps are definitely not ideal for this type of economy but me being forced to go up to 6+ bases before my main even ran out was very interesting and I could see how there could be potentially a lot more action and epic 'all-over-the-map' battles with this type of set up.
I think however, swinging the income advantage to a player which takes more bases so heavily will heavily favor mobility based play styles and units (bio terran, ling-muta zerg) and the game may need to be heavily rebalanced to address this which could be a lot of work and introduce many not fully tested factors into the game.
Hence the need for units that actually zone out areas without requiring critical mass and in addition.. high ground advantage! ^^
Honestly, I didnt have a ton of time and mainly looked at the graphs, but to me it seems like the starbow economy should just be copied and used for LoTV
In order to make this system (which I strongly support) viable from a noob perspective I think you would have to include a mining efficiency display below the current saturation number (eg. 0/24) that is displayed over the Nexus/etc.
I'm doing everything I can to try and get blizzard's attention so that they will look at this. Its a drastic change so I'm afraid they won't even consider it, but I hope they will. There are a lot of wishes we have for LotV, to me, there is nothing more important than this.
This brings up a few questions, are econ boosters necessary then? (mule, inject, chrono)
The Double Harvest and BW econ, jump your econ the more bases you take?
SC2 econ boosters boost your econ with out needing more bases
If we make changes to the econ, don't the boosters contradict these changes? or conflict/compound the problem?
In the Starbow econ, to make the econ changes smoother, the econ boosters have been tweaked, e.g. mule drop is an scv drop, produces 1 real scv instantly that takes up supply and money?) I'm not sure if the Starbow econ would flow so well if it kept the same values from sc2 for Larvae inject, mules and chrono boost.
I also wonder if all these graphs on worker/expand/eco values factor in perfect mules, inject/drone production, chronod workers, etc or if the stats are based purely on raw worker mining values. Do these stats in the OP take into account instantly dropping 3 mules? or producing 10 drones at once off of 3 bases?
On March 07 2015 15:11 Armada Vega wrote: This brings up a few questions, are econ boosters necessary then? (mule, inject, chrono)
The Double Harvest and BW econ, jump your econ the more bases you take?
SC2 econ boosters boost your econ with out needing more bases
If we make changes to the econ, don't the boosters contradict these changes? or conflict/compound the problem?
In the Starbow econ, to make the econ changes smoother, the econ boosters have been tweaked, e.g. mule drop is an scv drop, produces 1 real scv instantly that takes up supply and money?) I'm not sure if the Starbow econ would flow so well if it kept the same values from sc2 for Larvae inject, mules and chrono boost.
I also wonder if all these graphs on worker/expand/eco values factor in perfect mules, inject/drone production, chronod workers, etc or if the stats are based purely on raw worker mining values. Do these stats in the OP take into account instantly dropping 3 mules? or producing 10 drones at once off of 3 bases?
At last someone asking the real questions
No they don't, but even if you don't take these factors in a very simplified vision of things these graphes are "lying" in the sense that they are not measuring what they say they measure, it's just a bunch value thrown into a graph that have no economical relevance.
For instance, they don't say that in DH eco at 48 workers the return on investment for building a 4th base is 4min31, they simply say "hey look 4th base is an 7.5% gain in mineral income" which is not true at all.
Serious analyse would be needed here and it would be extremely surprising that it would be as cool as people think it would.
I sincerly hope Blizzard has a much beeter inderstanding of the ingame economics, else we gonna have a bad time
I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
I think the concept would be a great improvement for sc2: making the income from a base as function of workers have less of a corner. Ie, not have the first N workers be about equally valuable, and then later workers quickly becoming decreasingly useful, but a smoother transition where adding more workers more slowly drop efficiency.
A lot of methods have been prosed, starbow, part gold patches, your double harvest thing. Problably more (what about having larger spread in the distance from the hatchery to the minerals?) ways are possible. Whichever method is fine to me, but I think the bliz dev team should have long serious meetings about this, followed by extensive testing.
Their new system of having some patches run out faster isn't really changing the corner-curve problem, and FRB doesnt either, but both encourage faster expanding.
On March 07 2015 15:11 Armada Vega wrote: This brings up a few questions, are econ boosters necessary then? (mule, inject, chrono)
The Double Harvest and BW econ, jump your econ the more bases you take?
SC2 econ boosters boost your econ with out needing more bases
If we make changes to the econ, don't the boosters contradict these changes? or conflict/compound the problem?
In the Starbow econ, to make the econ changes smoother, the econ boosters have been tweaked, e.g. mule drop is an scv drop, produces 1 real scv instantly that takes up supply and money?) I'm not sure if the Starbow econ would flow so well if it kept the same values from sc2 for Larvae inject, mules and chrono boost.
I also wonder if all these graphs on worker/expand/eco values factor in perfect mules, inject/drone production, chronod workers, etc or if the stats are based purely on raw worker mining values. Do these stats in the OP take into account instantly dropping 3 mules? or producing 10 drones at once off of 3 bases?
At last someone asking the real questions
No they don't, but even if you don't take these factors in a very simplified vision of things these graphes are "lying" in the sense that they are not measuring what they say they measure, it's just a bunch value thrown into a graph that have no economical relevance.
For instance, they don't say that in DH eco at 48 workers the return on investment for building a 4th base is 4min31, they simply say "hey look 4th base is an 7.5% gain in mineral income" which is not true at all.
Serious analyse would be needed here and it would be extremely surprising that it would be as cool as people think it would.
I sincerly hope Blizzard has a much beeter inderstanding of the ingame economics, else we gonna have a bad time
I don't know why we should care about the time factor here though. If I understand well the point of the OP can be summarized that way :
SC2 suffers from a "3-bases syndrome", which is expressed in game by players rushing to 3 bases and then staying on three bases until one of their bases mine out. Since said 3 bases are close to each other, defending them is not very difficult, which discourages harass and can lead to boring games.
Another effect of this 3-bases syndrome (and that's where shit is getting interesting) is that since there is no incentive to have workers spread out on several bases (ie 80 workers on 5 bases instead of 3 bases, since they'd get you the same amount of minerals), we cannot have balanced games in which one army is extremely cost-efficient while the other army is not. Thus the need for Swarm Hosts and free units.
I'll go deeper here : imagine a mech vs Zerg game. The mech army is primarily defined by two things : immobility and cost-efficiency. Now, once the meching Terran reaches three bases (not hard nowadays with maps allowing EZ 3 bases), he has reached his "optimal point" : extreme cost-efficiency of his units, optimal economic conditions, and even if he's immobile as fuck, it's enough to defend these optimal economic conditions. On the other hand, the Zerg is traditionally defined as not cost-efficient but very mobile. This is where we reach the main issue : considering that taking more bases (that is, using his mobility as an advantage while the mech player's immobility means that he cannot do the same) for the Zerg would not lead to more income than his opponent, the Zerg CANNOT play on the second traditional Zerg strenght, massive swarms of units that are not cost-efficient at all but who keep coming wave after wave. This is why the Swarm Host was created in the first place : to "fix" this issue. Ever wondered why Blizzard's dev team once said that free units make Zerg feel "swarmy"? Yeah, that's why. Because the current system is so bad that it does not allow the Swarm to truly feel swarmy without using free units.
Now you may ask why is this a problem. After all, both armies being equally cost-efficient could still lead to exciting games. Well, SoulKey vs Reality or FireCake vs ForGG are some interesting answers to this question.
So if we admit that the issue is that a mobile but cost-inneficient "race" cannot use its stenghts against an immobile but cost-efficient "race", how can we fix it? By giving to the mobile player the opportunity to use its mobility to have more bases which give him more ressources, to make up for his cost-inefficiency. Meanwhile, the immobile player will be cost-efficient but won't be able to hold as many bases as the mobile player.
What is one way to achieve this? By reducing efficiency, for example by removing worker pairing. If, say, 1 worker/patch is at 100% efficiency, but if you add a second worker this new worker only mines at 50% efficiency, then there is incentive for the mobile player to expand more, and thus to use cost-inefficient units to outpowers the immobile player. And magic happens, no free units needed.
So yeah I don't really see what you're arguing here ; we don't care about the time it takes to build a townhall and get your ROI because values can be tweaked and tested easily and infinitely. I feel that this thread is about a concept more than about pure numbers.
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
OK then, it's mainly just the "worker pairing" title that is misleading. The TL:DR I did not found very helpful, but your explanation makes it clear for me. I would suggest that in the OP a better structure would be such that the information "it's about having the second worker mine at smaller efficiency" is made more prominent instead of the whole reasoning and "marketing".
That said, I think it is a potentially good direction, but with probably unimaginable balance impacts. Different units will have their practical value changed. SC2 is a game where economy and combat are very tied. When I take a base, I don't think about "it will get me X minerals per minute", but "it will allow me to produce Y units and that will be enough to defend it". Similarly, when I choose not to expand but make units, I think "I must do Z damage with these to make it worth that I got less economy". These relationships will change quickly requiring probably changes in strength or costs of units, mainly those used for base harass and those used to defend locations (which in some races are almost all units, admittedly).
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
Yeah I have complained this income-design for years. First 8 workers collect 100%, 9-16 workers collect ~70% income per trip.
Another problem is the "too big" importance of main building (Nexus, CC, Hatch). Larvas, Chrono, MSC, MULES, Scans are essential. If you have 3 Mainbuilding, you are fine. Are you losing one of the first 3 Mainbuilding, it is very crucial even its not mining. Thats why Terran prefer to have 8 CC at Main base do not lose one of them.
edit: in other words, taking the 4th spot is scary because of the "too big" importance of main building.
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
See my big ass post on last page. Basically fewer mineral patches per base would force the players into expanding more often to maintain their income (it's also what Blizzard's current system for LotV does) ; but it doesn't allow for an assymetric game (as in in, mobile and cost-inefficient vs immobile and cost-efficient), making things like Swarm Hosts and/or free units necessary once Zerg reaches the late game (among other things, there are other cconsequences). While reduced efficiency/no worker pairing allows these kinds of assymetrical scenarii, because it doesn't force players into expanding but only encourages them to do so, while leaving the possibility not to expand a lot if you can compensate that by having a cost-efficient army. Basically, fewer ressources per base would probably turn your standard ZvP into the exact same game with more harass (zealot warp-ins, runbies) and more static D, while reduced efficiency would turn it into the P having a strong defensive, cost-efficient and mostly immobile army, defending his 3 bases while harassing with warp prisms around the map, while the Z, instead of spamming static D and SH/Viper/Corruptor, would probably be able to use a highly mobile and cost-inefficient army (think something like roach/hydra/viper core with zerglings and/or nyduses for quick defense of his 5/6/7 bases against the P's harass) without insta-dying like currently just because his army is cost-inefficient.
As for maps, while I'm not the most qualified person to answer here, it illustrates my point very well : with fewer ressources per base, we would probably see easier fourth and fifth bbecause it would become necessary to have relatively easy 4/5 bases ; the game would only shift from "3-bases syndrome" to "5-bases syndrome". While with reduced efficiency, it would not be necessary to have easy fourth and fifth, because the idea is that you have to be mobile enough if you want dem additional % of efficiency, while if you don't want to spread your defenses too much you can just sit on your easy 3 bases with a slightly reduced efficiency.
getting rid of WP may be a good solution, however i am very worried about how much it'll boost zerg income. (i am playing toss atm) it's a tricky scenario because if you up income for 2nd base, zerg is happy, terran is happy(or happy is terran ? :p) and toss....oups
i think WP can be a good improvement but it need to be coupled with a boost of vespene income in order to prevent the difficulties we already known about (marine vs banneling yeaa...)
This vespene boost will be good for protoss in early-mid game but especially will reinforce the need of expand, for zerg too. Even terran can be happy if they want to go mech. It'll also reduce the time before harass come (banshee/oracle).
In addition, i think T3 zerg should be more easily reachable and that you must have another reason than upgrades to invest gas in it. With a boost in vespene income, we should see more infestor (when they have been up with a -50% time delay for the missile of fungal) and vyper (plz blizzard up aoe!!)
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
See my big ass post on last page. Basically fewer mineral patches per base would force the players into expanding more often to maintain their income (it's also what Blizzard's current system for LotV does) ; but it doesn't allow for an assymetric game (as in in, mobile and cost-inefficient vs immobile and cost-efficient), making things like Swarm Hosts and/or free units necessary once Zerg reaches the late game (among other things, there are other cconsequences). While reduced efficiency/no worker pairing allows these kinds of assymetrical scenarii, because it doesn't force players into expanding but only encourages them to do so, while leaving the possibility not to expand a lot if you can compensate that by having a cost-efficient army. Basically, fewer ressources per base would probably turn your standard ZvP into the exact same game with more harass (zealot warp-ins, runbies) and more static D, while reduced efficiency would turn it into the P having a strong defensive, cost-efficient and mostly immobile army, defending his 3 bases while harassing with warp prisms around the map, while the Z, instead of spamming static D and SH/Viper/Corruptor, would probably be able to use a highly mobile and cost-inefficient army (think something like roach/hydra/viper core with zerglings and/or nyduses for quick defense of his 5/6/7 bases against the P's harass) without insta-dying like currently just because his army is cost-inefficient.
As for maps, while I'm not the most qualified person to answer here, it illustrates my point very well : with fewer ressources per base, we would probably see easier fourth and fifth bbecause it would become necessary to have relatively easy 4/5 bases ; the game would only shift from "3-bases syndrome" to "5-bases syndrome". While with reduced efficiency, it would not be necessary to have easy fourth and fifth, because the idea is that you have to be mobile enough if you want dem additional % of efficiency, while if you don't want to spread your defenses too much you can just sit on your easy 3 bases with a slightly reduced efficiency.
Ah, so the 3 base 80 workers would still be viable but have a nerfed/reduced income rate. This would make a 4th mining base more optimal/rewarding to non-turtling/mobile play styles. Would a similar change be required for gas mining as well?
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
See my big ass post on last page. Basically fewer mineral patches per base would force the players into expanding more often to maintain their income (it's also what Blizzard's current system for LotV does) ; but it doesn't allow for an assymetric game (as in in, mobile and cost-inefficient vs immobile and cost-efficient), making things like Swarm Hosts and/or free units necessary once Zerg reaches the late game (among other things, there are other cconsequences). While reduced efficiency/no worker pairing allows these kinds of assymetrical scenarii, because it doesn't force players into expanding but only encourages them to do so, while leaving the possibility not to expand a lot if you can compensate that by having a cost-efficient army. Basically, fewer ressources per base would probably turn your standard ZvP into the exact same game with more harass (zealot warp-ins, runbies) and more static D, while reduced efficiency would turn it into the P having a strong defensive, cost-efficient and mostly immobile army, defending his 3 bases while harassing with warp prisms around the map, while the Z, instead of spamming static D and SH/Viper/Corruptor, would probably be able to use a highly mobile and cost-inefficient army (think something like roach/hydra/viper core with zerglings and/or nyduses for quick defense of his 5/6/7 bases against the P's harass) without insta-dying like currently just because his army is cost-inefficient.
As for maps, while I'm not the most qualified person to answer here, it illustrates my point very well : with fewer ressources per base, we would probably see easier fourth and fifth bbecause it would become necessary to have relatively easy 4/5 bases ; the game would only shift from "3-bases syndrome" to "5-bases syndrome". While with reduced efficiency, it would not be necessary to have easy fourth and fifth, because the idea is that you have to be mobile enough if you want dem additional % of efficiency, while if you don't want to spread your defenses too much you can just sit on your easy 3 bases with a slightly reduced efficiency.
Ah, so the 3 base 80 workers would still be viable but have a nerfed/reduced income rate. This would make a 4th mining base more optimal/rewarding to non-turtling/mobile play styles. Would a similar change be required for gas mining as well?
I don't think so, you see people already expand a ton sometimes ONLY to saturate gas (as you don't have enough workers for minerals). For example muta/corruptor ZvP or Protoss vs SH
Heavy shit, me like! Tho i dont know why he wrote that if u wanna be the most supply efficient you want to have 16 workers at mineral and 4? at Gas per base, what i've learned thru the years it should be 3 in each gas.
On March 08 2015 00:30 MidnightZL wrote: Heavy shit, me like! Tho i dont know why he wrote that if u wanna be the most supply efficient you want to have 16 workers at mineral and 4? at Gas per base, what i've learned thru the years it should be 3 in each gas.
I wasn't quite sure, but I think what he means is that 2workers per gas is more efficient than 3workers per gas. For a close vespene geyser (the ones that are usually used on all maps) you get like ~40gas/min per worker for the first two, but adding a third will only give you another ~30. This is actually used in some Protoss builds, when they build 2geysers and then put 2+2 workers on them, instead of 3+1 or just one gas with 3. Because that gives ~160gas/min, compared to 150 if you do 3+1 or 110 if you only build one with 3harvesters on it.
What you say that you want 3 in gas is true, but that is usually because you just want the maximum gas income and not the most efficient one.
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
See my big ass post on last page. Basically fewer mineral patches per base would force the players into expanding more often to maintain their income (it's also what Blizzard's current system for LotV does) ; but it doesn't allow for an assymetric game (as in in, mobile and cost-inefficient vs immobile and cost-efficient), making things like Swarm Hosts and/or free units necessary once Zerg reaches the late game (among other things, there are other cconsequences). While reduced efficiency/no worker pairing allows these kinds of assymetrical scenarii, because it doesn't force players into expanding but only encourages them to do so, while leaving the possibility not to expand a lot if you can compensate that by having a cost-efficient army. Basically, fewer ressources per base would probably turn your standard ZvP into the exact same game with more harass (zealot warp-ins, runbies) and more static D, while reduced efficiency would turn it into the P having a strong defensive, cost-efficient and mostly immobile army, defending his 3 bases while harassing with warp prisms around the map, while the Z, instead of spamming static D and SH/Viper/Corruptor, would probably be able to use a highly mobile and cost-inefficient army (think something like roach/hydra/viper core with zerglings and/or nyduses for quick defense of his 5/6/7 bases against the P's harass) without insta-dying like currently just because his army is cost-inefficient.
As for maps, while I'm not the most qualified person to answer here, it illustrates my point very well : with fewer ressources per base, we would probably see easier fourth and fifth bbecause it would become necessary to have relatively easy 4/5 bases ; the game would only shift from "3-bases syndrome" to "5-bases syndrome". While with reduced efficiency, it would not be necessary to have easy fourth and fifth, because the idea is that you have to be mobile enough if you want dem additional % of efficiency, while if you don't want to spread your defenses too much you can just sit on your easy 3 bases with a slightly reduced efficiency.
Ah, so the 3 base 80 workers would still be viable but have a nerfed/reduced income rate. This would make a 4th mining base more optimal/rewarding to non-turtling/mobile play styles. Would a similar change be required for gas mining as well?
I don't think so, you see people already expand a ton sometimes ONLY to saturate gas (as you don't have enough workers for minerals). For example muta/corruptor ZvP or Protoss vs SH
On March 07 2015 18:56 opisska wrote: I still don't get it. What is the practical difference between halving the number of probes needed to mine the patches and halving the amount of patches without changing anything about the mining itself? The only difference I see is MULE and if that is kept as it is, it much much better in the "half workers" scenario than in the "half patches" scenario, giving a huge advantage to terran.
Then I suggest you reread everything.
Then I suggest that if anyone wants people to take this seriously, a concise and readable summary of the proposed change is produced, clearly describing how it works.
There's a TLDR at the end of the OP. Short story is this : there's no interest for a player to have 4/5/6/7 bases over 3. Proposed change is to make it so that there is interest in having 5 bases over 3 ; how is to be tested and discussed, but the worker pairing thing is that instead of 2 workers on a mineral patch mining at full efficiency (100 Min/min), the second worker would mine at a reduced efficiency (so you'd get less than 100 Min/min). It allows players with fast and mobile army comp that are able to defend many bases to have a higher mineral income than players with a slow and immobile army comp, without forcing the players to expand (which would make immobile comps heavily UP), because a turtling player can certainly afford to mine at reduced efficiency while his opponent is mining at full efficiency.
That still doesn't make it clear to me why this would be superior to just having fewer mineral patches. (Both reduce 1 base income and optimal mining which should encourage expanding and discourage turtling.)
Further, how would an economic change such as this affect map making? Wouldn't the 4th (and 5th) bases need to be easier to take to avoid the same issues that current maps with hard to take 3rd bases face?
See my big ass post on last page. Basically fewer mineral patches per base would force the players into expanding more often to maintain their income (it's also what Blizzard's current system for LotV does) ; but it doesn't allow for an assymetric game (as in in, mobile and cost-inefficient vs immobile and cost-efficient), making things like Swarm Hosts and/or free units necessary once Zerg reaches the late game (among other things, there are other cconsequences). While reduced efficiency/no worker pairing allows these kinds of assymetrical scenarii, because it doesn't force players into expanding but only encourages them to do so, while leaving the possibility not to expand a lot if you can compensate that by having a cost-efficient army. Basically, fewer ressources per base would probably turn your standard ZvP into the exact same game with more harass (zealot warp-ins, runbies) and more static D, while reduced efficiency would turn it into the P having a strong defensive, cost-efficient and mostly immobile army, defending his 3 bases while harassing with warp prisms around the map, while the Z, instead of spamming static D and SH/Viper/Corruptor, would probably be able to use a highly mobile and cost-inefficient army (think something like roach/hydra/viper core with zerglings and/or nyduses for quick defense of his 5/6/7 bases against the P's harass) without insta-dying like currently just because his army is cost-inefficient.
As for maps, while I'm not the most qualified person to answer here, it illustrates my point very well : with fewer ressources per base, we would probably see easier fourth and fifth bbecause it would become necessary to have relatively easy 4/5 bases ; the game would only shift from "3-bases syndrome" to "5-bases syndrome". While with reduced efficiency, it would not be necessary to have easy fourth and fifth, because the idea is that you have to be mobile enough if you want dem additional % of efficiency, while if you don't want to spread your defenses too much you can just sit on your easy 3 bases with a slightly reduced efficiency.
Ah, so the 3 base 80 workers would still be viable but have a nerfed/reduced income rate. This would make a 4th mining base more optimal/rewarding to non-turtling/mobile play styles. Would a similar change be required for gas mining as well?
Gas already provides a income asymmetry as of now, but making it so players instead of 4~6 workers to supply efficiently saturate their gases needed only 2 (one geyser instead with corrected income) it would be an improvement in that sense.
On March 06 2015 23:07 ChapatiyaqPTSM wrote: All these Liquidpedia links... Quintuple kitten kill
Hehe fixed
On March 06 2015 23:25 Sholip wrote: This is a very nice and in-depth post, really well done! I hope someone from Blizzard notices this.
Regarding the topic, I think that making expansions more valuable than now (this is basically the goal, right?) is a much better way to encourage expanding than making the minerals deplete faster and forcing players to expand (and I also really dislike the idea of half of the mineral patches having less resources).
Yes and no, bases are very valuable as they are now, the problem is that you can't take advantage of new bases without going over 80 workers because of worker pairing, with the changes I'm pretty much not forcing players to expand, I'm rewarding them for doing so, and by that I'm talking about highly increasing their income by allowing their limited workers to be more efficient than his opponent.
On March 07 2015 05:46 Gwavajuice wrote:
On March 07 2015 04:05 EatThePath wrote: @gwavajuice:
What you're asking for is to solve the metagame in a new environment with different economic settings. Multiple times over, no less, for comparison. Of hypothetical changes. Surely we don't have to go that far, if it were even possible.
I think the point your post is driving at is "why do I care about getting minerals more efficiently?" There are two simple answers:
1. You need less workers to build your army. 2. You need less workers to build your army.
Let me explain. On the one hand, by spreading your workers to more bases (a privilege you've won through map control or pinning the opponent or superior multitask and positioning or... etc.) you get more money than you would otherwise which means you can ramp up production and churn out units faster. Taking more bases beyond your 3rd is an economic accelerator, not just an imperative on a timer.
On the other hand, the economy you gain by using more base locations frees up supply in workers you don't have because your base count makes up for it. This lets you build a larger army which in all cases increases your efficiency in exchanging material, which is the whole purpose of a strategy based on superior economy.
In short, it's not about getting more minerals to burn, it's about increasing efficiency. The point is not that the economy cap is higher (although functionally that's probably true, and your discussion of expansion timing has some bearing here); the point is that the economic system allows different styles of play that can reward skillful management of more assets, liabilities, threats and defenses, which incidentally is also more fun to see in action. That, and it makes for a deeper game.
Cool story except nothing in the OP prooves DH or starbow would do that (sorry btw I didn't realize it was just copy past from an existing post) because the data used are imho badly used if not incorrect. The way the "N base vs N+1 bases" graphs are built seems inaccurate to me and doesn't describe properly the incentive of making the decision to build an extra base.
all it comes down to is : do I want to spend the money to build a base and if I do so how long will take to get my rmoney back? the graphs provided here don't answer this question.
On March 07 2015 04:07 varsovie wrote:
On March 07 2015 02:42 Gwavajuice wrote:
I'm not trying to be a smart ass here but as it now, the main reason why a terran need to get a 4th is not the mineral income which is good anyway thx to mules (I ll get back to this) but the fact that his main will be empty at 15 minutes or so.
Second and most importantly, simply forgeting about gaz makes the whole thing much less relevant. Minerals are only important when you build your economy but quickly enough it's the gaz that is the most important thing. Why zergs want a 4th? for minerals or for gaz? What do Protoss want? flood even more chargelots or get templars?
Third your graphs doesn't take mules into account, and that's a big deal actually, it would be cool to have the same graphs for P and Z and one for T with as many mules as bases in the model. But maybe I'm in the details here. That's why I won't talk about the fact a scv building a CC is not mining for 100 seconds and that a drone does disappear each time a hatchery is build, I won't talk about worker travelling time either
We're actually talking about base econ, not empty bases. A Terran taking a 4th or 5th because his main/nat mines out is simply taking another 3rd ECON base. The point of changing the mining paradygme is so Terran (or any other race) actually gets an incentive to take 4th or 5th while there is still mineral left in the main and nat. Right now it only makes is harder to defend with no benefit at all unless you're willing to make more worker and therefor have a weaker army. Of course they can get extra gas if needed, but that's another issue than mineral mining.
MULES aren't into the graph because it doesn't matter with the number of base saturation (unless you manage to overstack 2 mules per patch), same for worker time investment in buildings since the graphs do not take account time but just worker/base. As for race differences it wouldn't matter since workers and base template are symetric in SC2 unlike BW.
Mules do count cause the graphs are base on an income ratio (income on N+1 bases / income on N bases), mules add income and math laws tell you that if something is added on both part of a ratio, you can't just discard it (eg : 2/3 is not 3/4)
As for the incentive I still believe the calculation displayed in the OP are very misleading and don't show the real stuff. I take a very simple example :
48 workers.
3 bases standard (16 workers each) : income is 1920 Min/min 3 base double harvest : 1860 (if I read correctly these graphs)
4 base standard (12 workers) : income is still 1920 4 base DH : 2000 (it seems)
conclusion : incentive = 0% for standard and 7.5% for DH. yeah! I m gonna take a 4th base
but even if I don't t think about mules, mineral depletion, workers travel time to the new base and everything, the 4th base is not free nor appearing instantly.
so it's 400 minerals and 100 sec (assumption : I'm protoss and my probe can go back to mining instantly). for a gain of 140 Min/min. I ll need 2min51 to get my 400 mins back, add the 100 seconds and you have 4 min 31 before I simply get my investment back.
So suddenly even if I'm ultra simplistic (unrealistic I dare say) the incentive is not so wonderfull...
I don't want to throw stones at anyone, I just want to say the benefits brought by such a change seems at first very minor to :
a - reducing the amount of mins per base b - (really my favorite but that's just me) better design of units and maps.
Or I just totally missed the point which happens when my dumbness attacks...
Sorry for the delay in the answer and stuff you probably saw that I posted the thread to reddit.
Well the whole point I'm displaying DoubleMining is not because it is a perfect economic system, but because it showcases that dumb workers are not needed to achieve a good income curve, if you are concerned about numbers, I suggest you to check the original thread that I left linked in the sources and further reading area, the graphs in the OP are from that thread, sadly it seems that BlackLilium doesn't post here anymore (doesn't answer to PM sadly).
If you want to see the real potential of a good economy I then suggest you to compare SC2/LotV economy to Starbow, which uses every nook and cranny to achieve an excellent system without WP.
On March 07 2015 20:29 opisska wrote: OK then, it's mainly just the "worker pairing" title that is misleading. The TL:DR I did not found very helpful, but your explanation makes it clear for me. I would suggest that in the OP a better structure would be such that the information "it's about having the second worker mine at smaller efficiency" is made more prominent instead of the whole reasoning and "marketing".
That said, I think it is a potentially good direction, but with probably unimaginable balance impacts. Different units will have their practical value changed. SC2 is a game where economy and combat are very tied. When I take a base, I don't think about "it will get me X minerals per minute", but "it will allow me to produce Y units and that will be enough to defend it". Similarly, when I choose not to expand but make units, I think "I must do Z damage with these to make it worth that I got less economy". These relationships will change quickly requiring probably changes in strength or costs of units, mainly those used for base harass and those used to defend locations (which in some races are almost all units, admittedly).
I think this is the only real issue in trying to graft a different economy model onto SC2 gameplay. Well said.
I don't think there will be big problems here though.
As has been touched on previously. We do have to think about how it affects each match up.
Both zerg and protoss generally will not benefit from excess minerals and taking extra bases for the gas is of far more importance. On the other side, Terran which absolutely needs minerals already has an incredibly strong way to gain a mineral income advantage (mules).
For example terran bio vs ling/baneling muta. Zerg needs the gas far more than extra minerals, in this sense it is already extremely beneficial to have more that 3 bases. For terran, if they were on say 5 bases of mineral mining with the double harvesting system plus mules, how many gases would zerg need to keep up?
That is if it is possible to gain an even higher mineral income than currently without building a ridiculous number of workers wont terran benefit from it far more than the other races?
On March 08 2015 03:20 Startyr wrote: As has been touched on previously. We do have to think about how it affects each match up.
Both zerg and protoss generally will not benefit from excess minerals and taking extra bases for the gas is of far more importance. On the other side, Terran which absolutely needs minerals already has an incredibly strong way to gain a mineral income advantage (mules).
For example terran bio vs ling/baneling muta. Zerg needs the gas far more than extra minerals, in this sense it is already extremely beneficial to have more that 3 bases. For terran, if they were on say 5 bases of mineral mining with the double harvesting system plus mules, how many gases would zerg need to keep up?
That is if it is possible to gain an even higher mineral income than currently without building a ridiculous number of workers wont terran benefit from it far more than the other races?
Yes, and that is one of the main concerns Gwavajuice is airing, specially with terrans having PF's which can shutdown harass easily, injects and mules, nonetheless LotV is already doing changes to the economy already, so any concern such as that one will show up no matter what and balance tweaks will need to happen anyways no matter the system that gets in place.
Maybe naive, but I would think Uvantak has a bit more cred than the average forum warrior, given his prolific contributions to the map pool and consequent knowledge of the game. That hardly guarantees a reaction though.
On March 08 2015 05:19 gh0st wrote: Maybe naive, but I would think Uvantak has a bit more cred than the average forum warrior, given his prolific contributions to the map pool and consequent knowledge of the game. That hardly guarantees a reaction though.
Yeah for sure, but I wouldn't qualify guys like LaLush as "average forum warriors".
On March 07 2015 15:11 Armada Vega wrote: This brings up a few questions, are econ boosters necessary then? (mule, inject, chrono)
The Double Harvest and BW econ, jump your econ the more bases you take?
SC2 econ boosters boost your econ with out needing more bases
If we make changes to the econ, don't the boosters contradict these changes? or conflict/compound the problem?
In the Starbow econ, to make the econ changes smoother, the econ boosters have been tweaked, e.g. mule drop is an scv drop, produces 1 real scv instantly that takes up supply and money?) I'm not sure if the Starbow econ would flow so well if it kept the same values from sc2 for Larvae inject, mules and chrono boost.
I also wonder if all these graphs on worker/expand/eco values factor in perfect mules, inject/drone production, chronod workers, etc or if the stats are based purely on raw worker mining values. Do these stats in the OP take into account instantly dropping 3 mules? or producing 10 drones at once off of 3 bases?
At last someone asking the real questions
No they don't, but even if you don't take these factors in a very simplified vision of things these graphes are "lying" in the sense that they are not measuring what they say they measure, it's just a bunch value thrown into a graph that have no economical relevance.
For instance, they don't say that in DH eco at 48 workers the return on investment for building a 4th base is 4min31, they simply say "hey look 4th base is an 7.5% gain in mineral income" which is not true at all.
Serious analyse would be needed here and it would be extremely surprising that it would be as cool as people think it would.
I sincerly hope Blizzard has a much beeter inderstanding of the ingame economics, else we gonna have a bad time
I don't know why we should care about the time factor here though. ....
because all the graphs are about mineral per minutes comparison, so it seems obvious taht the main factor we're talking about here is time, doesn't it?
On March 07 2015 15:11 Armada Vega wrote: This brings up a few questions, are econ boosters necessary then? (mule, inject, chrono)
The Double Harvest and BW econ, jump your econ the more bases you take?
SC2 econ boosters boost your econ with out needing more bases
If we make changes to the econ, don't the boosters contradict these changes? or conflict/compound the problem?
In the Starbow econ, to make the econ changes smoother, the econ boosters have been tweaked, e.g. mule drop is an scv drop, produces 1 real scv instantly that takes up supply and money?) I'm not sure if the Starbow econ would flow so well if it kept the same values from sc2 for Larvae inject, mules and chrono boost.
I also wonder if all these graphs on worker/expand/eco values factor in perfect mules, inject/drone production, chronod workers, etc or if the stats are based purely on raw worker mining values. Do these stats in the OP take into account instantly dropping 3 mules? or producing 10 drones at once off of 3 bases?
At last someone asking the real questions
No they don't, but even if you don't take these factors in a very simplified vision of things these graphes are "lying" in the sense that they are not measuring what they say they measure, it's just a bunch value thrown into a graph that have no economical relevance.
For instance, they don't say that in DH eco at 48 workers the return on investment for building a 4th base is 4min31, they simply say "hey look 4th base is an 7.5% gain in mineral income" which is not true at all.
Serious analyse would be needed here and it would be extremely surprising that it would be as cool as people think it would.
I sincerly hope Blizzard has a much beeter inderstanding of the ingame economics, else we gonna have a bad time
I think I have missed this post of you Gwava.
The thing is that with DH you would not a higher income per base, that is not the point, the whole idea is to keep the income per base equal to the one in SC2 because that way there is little need to do big overarching balance changes, what it happens is that in your example of a 4th, bases will pay themselves faster when they are in a state of fewer workers, compared to sc2, that is the point.
On March 07 2015 19:41 OtherWorld wrote: [*]SC2 suffers from a "3-bases syndrome", which is expressed in game by players rushing to 3 bases and then staying on three bases until one of their bases mine out. Since said 3 bases are close to each other, defending them is not very difficult, which discourages harass and can lead to boring games.
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.
On March 07 2015 19:41 OtherWorld wrote: [*]SC2 suffers from a "3-bases syndrome", which is expressed in game by players rushing to 3 bases and then staying on three bases until one of their bases mine out. Since said 3 bases are close to each other, defending them is not very difficult, which discourages harass and can lead to boring games.
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.
This is one of my worries too, specially with Protoss and "weak" gateway units, but one must remember that these economic changes will not happen in HotS, but LotV, where Toss will get new toys to play with and Stimmed Marauders won't be as strong, balance can be figured out in basically any RTS game, but solid design is more important.
Also regarding maps, worker pairing and the ~80 worker supply limit are amongst many many other reasons why maps "must have" the easy 3 base set up, a more active economy (BW levels) paired with a stronger highground adv would allow for more different layouts, but simply having a more active economy, maybe not on BW levels and therefore without the need of a very strong highground adv would also allow a little more leeway for maps on certain layouts, which would be excellent.
On March 07 2015 19:41 OtherWorld wrote: [*]SC2 suffers from a "3-bases syndrome", which is expressed in game by players rushing to 3 bases and then staying on three bases until one of their bases mine out. Since said 3 bases are close to each other, defending them is not very difficult, which discourages harass and can lead to boring games.
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.
This is one of my worries too, specially with Protoss and "weak" gateway units,
Thanks for the post. 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.
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.
Half patch mineral nodes don't change anything about the mining rates cited in the OP. They encourage people to expand by decreasing the overall value of expansions. 750 node patches aren't a bad idea, low yield minerals or lower value minerals are a feature mappers have wanted for a long ass time as you're well aware. (Blizzard's stubbornness regarding 6m1g bases only to support 750 node patches is a bit perplexing as well). But I think their value is in adding strategy to a map, not promoting expanding artificially.
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.
Holy fck i recently played the NWP mods with a Diamond friend of mine and the double (triple really) worker income and scv mining time makes a big difference o.O Definetely surprised.
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 -_-
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.
It's not utterly impossible that we could get their ear on this mining issue. If anything, at least they have shown that they realize a change is needed on SC2 economy. And the express intent with the longer beta is to test things. Sadly, it's overwhelmingly likely that their new half patches style -- WHOA THE INNOVATION -- will come out as "acceptable", which seems to be the bar for "major changes".
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.
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.
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.
I'm not going to bother replying to all of your points because I don't think it's necessary to. You said it yourself, DM > HM, because of the changing mining rate. When the game gets balanced around a FRB scenario you probably end up with something similar, but arguably better. I'm not going to contest that.
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?
It would be so cool if they actually used the beta to test the other possible economy tweaks. Professionals, map makers and enthusiasts call for a reduction in worker efficiency as a preferred option to the current economy change.
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.
Let me try to explain why I think DM (and other solutions that have diminished return on efficiency at lower miners/patch ratios than today limit 2) is better than what blizzard is doing or FRB. It is partially overlapping with what others have said, but I haven't seen this exact argument, or I haven't read properly enough (sorry).
Out of the 200 supply, people will not have more than about a third dedicated for mining. It varies a bit ofc, but let's say around a third, ie 66 workers.
In todays SC2, 66 workers can reach maximum mining efficiency on three bases. Having access to more bases does not increase your income (let's ignore gas for now). This will be true in LotV as well. At first, there is no reason to expand above 3 bases. When the first half of your main and nat are up, you need to get a fourth base, but once you got your forth base, you again will not gain anything from a fifth base. Point being, there is a at any point in time a set number of bases that you really need (anything less and you are essentially all-in), but more bases above that will give you nothing.
In DM and other related solutions, there is no strict limit on how many bases you benefit from, or it is at least much higher. As mentioned, with your optimal 66 workers, you mine decently on three bases, but you mine increasingly faster from 4, 5 or 6 bases (as is seen in graph 4 in the OP).
I actually feel that another very revealing graph would be the income as function of number of bases for fix number of workers (say 66, or 80 or so). It'd look something like this
So what does this do to gameplay?
In today SC2, the strategy is to go up to 3 bases with 66 workers asap while defending all-ins, or stop before 3 bases and 66 workers and thus go all-in yourself. Very little advantage of map-control apart from the fact that you can easier scout all-in, and deny your opponent the same scout. If both players get to their three bases up and defended, it is essentially only a matter of composition, positioning and micro after that.
With DM or similar systems, map control is very valuable, as you can go up to any number of bases you want, giving you more income with your 66 workers. This creates a way to improve your economy even after your first three bases and 66 workers are built, not through more workers, but through spreading your workers over more bases. Then the game will continue to be a struggle to maintain map control and improve your economy through map control all the way through lategame. It'll always be important to maintain control of your half of the map to allow you to get more bases, and it'll always be important to harass your opponent from taking additional bases.
I think i'm getting the point of the latest changes to the mineral values in LotV. Indeed the total amount of minerals in an expansion will be lower but the main thing to pay attention to is the difference of income per expansion through time.
At first there won't be any difference in income when all mineral patches are still up. But once the 750 patches are mined out, the income will be halved and then you will be encouraged to expand.
This idea would be more optimal and interesting if the total amount of ressources of would stay the same. That would be done with 2250 mineral patches instead of the current 1500 ones. The expansions would be up much longer and expanding would be rewarding because of the initial boost to the income.
On March 25 2015 21:25 Cascade wrote: With DM or similar systems, map control is very valuable, as you can go up to any number of bases you want, giving you more income with your 66 workers. This creates a way to improve your economy even after your first three bases and 66 workers are built, not through more workers, but through spreading your workers over more bases. Then the game will continue to be a struggle to maintain map control and improve your economy through map control all the way through lategame. It'll always be important to maintain control of your half of the map to allow you to get more bases, and it'll always be important to harass your opponent from taking additional bases.
Wow, how did I not see this thread earlier? (I guess that says a lot about my current interest in SC2)
Outstanding job OP. You did the math and put it into an easy to read an look at post. It all makes so much sense. I'm not so sure though if Blizzard is able to swallow their pride and try a community idea they couldn't think of. Just look at their sorry attempt of "making battles last longer". They tried a shitty implementation and I got the feeling that was deliberate just so they can now say "Look, we tried to listen to you, it was garbage. Now let's throw it into the bin and be done with it."
On March 25 2015 23:25 Superouman wrote: I think i'm getting the point of the latest changes to the mineral values in LotV. Indeed the total amount of minerals in an expansion will be lower but the main thing to pay attention to is the difference of income per expansion through time.
At first there won't be any difference in income when all mineral patches are still up. But once the 750 patches are mined out, the income will be halved and then you will be encouraged to expand.
This idea would be more optimal and interesting if the total amount of ressources of would stay the same. That would be done with 2250 mineral patches instead of the current 1500 ones. The expansions would be up much longer and expanding would be rewarding because of the initial boost to the income.
That's an interesting and faithful solution. However, I feel that there would be far more value gained in a system that gives a much more immediate income benefit from expanding. Furthermore, when contained on two bases, you will still run out of the 750 patches just as quickly and be severely crippled on mineral income, even though you'll remain able to technically survive to tech up for longer. Basically, your solution works pretty well in a long term game that's structured similarly to how current LotV games go, but would still fail to encourage more ambitious expansion in order to fuel a cost-inefficient army designed to trade offensively with a turtling player.
In other words, it wouldn't actually change much about the way the games play, it would merely reduce the chances of a deny-the-third metagame being excessively prevalent. Yes, that's a big problem in LotV, but that's not the only issue at hand.
If they keep the current system in place(which i do think is an upgrade with respect to HOTS), i would like something slightly more gradual, maybe 1 patch on 75% and 1 on 50%, making the income drop off over time more gradual.
On March 25 2015 23:25 Superouman wrote: I think i'm getting the point of the latest changes to the mineral values in LotV. Indeed the total amount of minerals in an expansion will be lower but the main thing to pay attention to is the difference of income per expansion through time.
At first there won't be any difference in income when all mineral patches are still up. But once the 750 patches are mined out, the income will be halved and then you will be encouraged to expand.
This idea would be more optimal and interesting if the total amount of ressources of would stay the same. That would be done with 2250 mineral patches instead of the current 1500 ones. The expansions would be up much longer and expanding would be rewarding because of the initial boost to the income.
This was my initial thought, too. It's not as elegant as some of the solutions proposed here but I think it's a step up from the current model.
Love this idea. Agree that this is the ideal economy model. As others have said, the current LotV economy punishes you if you don't take an expansion. Hope Blizzard implements this
The premise I'm trying to make here is that in an economy where aspiring to take 8 bases is the norm, games could become very snowbally if there isn't a strong defenders advantage to counteract the economy, this was more or less the case in Broodwar and this is also more or less the case in Starbow, because of this it is important to be careful while adding economic modifications to a game, but it also means that if the homework and investigation are done you can end up with an incredibly interesting game, as i have said while showing the Income graphs, if a system were to be implemented big overarching changes in the unit stats wouldn't need to happen for the most part, but deeper considerable changes in the game mechanics or macro mechanics may be necessary to counteract the more active economy.
In this context, its very important to seperate between a "force bases"- economy a BW'sih economy. In BW, you can take bases when you have a decent army count or when you have map control --> Your not forced out of your comfort zone + you can fall back on 2 base if you lose your 3rd--> The snowball effect is already minimized.
However, with a "force bases"-economy (like LOTV and FRB) you will often be forced to take bases before you really can. That is unless the game is designed around all units being mobile and doing decently in small numbers (e.g. Siege Tank drops + Cyclones accomplishes that).
You could then argue that high ground advatange function as an alternative to "everything must be mobile" in a "force bases"-econ, but thats most likely wrong.
The reason is that the high ground advantage isn't a magical thing that automatically makes you hold off a big army but makes it holder to off a smaller army. No it just creates an advantage for the defender in every single way.
In a world where you don't have the mobile Cyclone, you can't both harass and acquire bases fast at the same time. Since your so heavily punished for taking bases at a slow pace, your always gonna prefer to go heavy on Siege Tanks and light on dropships/banshees/hellions in a "force-bases econ with low mobility".
So the optimal playstyle as mech with such an econ is to go for the most cost effective composition as that allow you to take bases as fast as possible. But here is the issue: Why should mech ever attack? He is spread out so thinly with an immobile army. There is just no way he can actually group up and attack as it leaves him too exposed to counterattack.
So instead of what mech was in BW (where it was pretty timing-attack foccused in the midgame with decent harass options), this type of econ is gonna result in mech being turtle-forever... Especially if you add in a high ground advantage.
It is therefore important to understand that the high ground advantage doens't make it possible for you to have siege tanks in 7 diffierent locations and be able to defend all locations at once while attacking with your main army. Rather High ground avantage is instead something that makes a defensive army somewhat better, and that "somewhat" is completely pointless with such an economy.
TLDR: "Force bases"-econ has two outcomes: (1) More action in the midgame if all units are strong and mobile or (2) Less action if the defensive army is the most cost efficient. Regardless, a force-base econ is incredibly snowbally. BW is still the easiest econ to get right, but people in general vastly overrate the importance of the econ. Its not a magical solution, but rather something that must be accomdated by proper unit design.
And FYI; Barrin is wrong when it comes to almost all his theories about the economy.
For example? You literally said "He uses so many claims with no arguments or real reasoning" in your other post in another thread. Where is your argument? Where is your reasoning?
Should probably keep it to just one thread (I choose the other).
Maybe it was unfair for me to say you don't argue, but some time ago I reread your Breadth of Gameplay-article in order to fully understand what your key argument were. All I remembered was the "more spread out --> more vulnerable to attack --> more action", but I figured that since the article was so long, there had to be more. But when I reread it, there really wasn't that much more to it. Let me give some examples below:
When your army is smaller, each individual micro move you make has a greater effect as a % of the whole. Properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 20 units against an army of 20 units is going to have a much greater effect on the whole than properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 100 units against an army of 100 units. Smaller armies equals more easily reached higher micro effectiveness potential.] (More on this below)
Yes, it matters more to micro one unit in a ball of 20 units than 1 units in a ball of 100. But micro potential? Do you imply that its more interesting/skillful to watch 2 marines vs 1 banelings or 60 marines vs 40 banelings? The latter definitely has more potential when it comes to rewarding skilled microplayers. But if you wanna see fewer units in the game, that's fine, but you do not provide any argument for why its "objectively" better. Morever no FRB-change economy is needed for such a change (I mean just look at WC3).
[It's important to understand that armies can sort-of behave differently depending on the scale. I am talking about something known as "critical mass". 20 zerglings generally wont have a problem with 10 marines, but 100 marines can take on 200 zerglings with flying colors. There's actually a bunch of related examples, and I'm sure I don't know them all. It's really not simple at all. But from what I do know it seems that changing this would be good (simply to increase the window where one type of unit can overcome another).]
This seems to be an argument that was added to have a long list of pros.
In other words, there is more time between each "stage" of the game (often denominated into "early", "mid", and "late" game). What this does is gives each player more opportunity - more time - to find and exploit a weakness in the opponent. Even though the armies are smaller, they are more likely to do something. This translates into more action, more back and forth.
Your logic is basically like this: "Because A is true and B is true, therefore F is true". No, there are a lot more factors that goes into whether F (more action) is true than the duration of early mid and late game. If midgame contains mostly passive units, then your going to see a stale gameplay at this point in time.
This also means more time for mind games to happen and develop
Remember, your forcing players to take bases really fast. There is no option as we saw in BW. Mind-games in this context is such a vague concept that you could use it to support any type of economy you want.
This also sort-of means that there's more time to build huge units like ultralisks, bc's, carriers. But it also means that you have to invest more % of your overall income to build one, so the effect is only minor but still there.
You have longer early game and migame --> Later lategame. So unless game duration is hugely increased --> Fewer tier 3 units. Besides, its not hard to reward tier 3 units in the game without touching the econ at all.
Less resources per base makes saturating an expansion take less time, which in turn generally makes the punishable window of opportunity smaller (more defender's advantage). However, remember that it will also be more frequent
First of all, I dislike the excessive focus on defenders advantage when you don't take context into account. In some situations defenders advantage is productive for rewarding back-and-fourth play, in order stiautions it results in more stale gameplay. The way you use defenders advantage makes it more of a buzzword (something that provides positive vibes).
Secondly, an FRB economy significantly reduces defenders advantage as it means you have to take bases a ton faster --> Leaving you more exposed to all types of attacks. (Remember that is main reason why you think FRB rewards more aggression in the first place).
Anyways so the way the classic 3-lane moba map style works essentially gives all the right tools for action/fighting to happen all over the map commonly. Pretty cool IMO.
MOBAs are different here. They have a super strong defenders advantage combined with an incentive to be out on the map. In LOL that incentive is last-hitting or being able to roam. In Heroes that is the objectice focus. Having a significant defenders advantage with no good reasoning to engage the opponent isn't a receipe for success.
When you need more bases (spreading yourself out) to reach desired economy, it opens more opportunities for aggression (especially harass-type aggression -
This is the keystone in the FRB-argument, and you should have focussed all you attention on understanding this issue in detail. But as it is, the FRB-argument ignores the fact that taking more bases also implies that it becomes harder for you to attack your enemy. You can't just take a base, defend it and invest the same amount into an attack or harass as you would have done had you not secured an extra base.
On top of that, I also think your wrong when it comes to "especially harass-type agression". Even if we assumed that it didn't become harder for player 1 to invest into aggression when spreading him selv out over extra bases (which too some extent is true for the mobile race) --> There is no reason to expect that Player 2 spreading him self out further rewards harassplay over big army attacks.
Imagine a PvT where you have 2-3 Siege tanks at 6 different locations + a wall off and 2-3 turrets. Good luck trying to break that with DT or other forms of light harass. On the other hand breaking it with a big ball is much more efficient. It is ofc true that a strong defenders advantage as we see at the 3rd in Fighting Spirit means you that need a bit more finesse to efficiently break a defensive tank positioning (like dropping warp prism on top of tanks). However, harass isn't further rewarded than big army play here.
Static defenses tend to scale poorly against larger armies (due to bulkiness). Smaller armies means generally more efficient static defenses.]
I guess that quote was a bit unfortunate in hindsight. Some months later we learned that strong static defense (end of WOL) isn't a good thing per definition (and again, you don't need to touch the econ to buff static defense).
When you have FRB economy instead of BW, its a ton harder to attack as immobile race. In BW the mobile race took lots of bases in the midgame while the immobile took fewer. That meant that you could easier harass the mobile race or that you could make a timing attack and only leave minimal defenses at home. On the other hand, FRB makes it really hard to do anything offensively when you the immobile race.
TLDR; You tested the economy, and I don't know if you know it, but you inspired Starbow to develop a similar type of econ as well. FRB didn't work and Starbow didn't work. In fact, Starbow even had a huge high ground advantage w/ strong defensive Siege Tanks.
It seems to me that you were so into the idea that FRB can do all kinds of good things, but I think a discussion on the economy should be focussed on how it impacts incentives. When you try to bring in stuff like casual-friendly, micro and terrible terrible damage it really takes the essence away.
Can you please repost this with an explanation for your axes? Graph 1 is very clear--the x axis is increasing count of workers and the y axis are minerals. But the rest of the graphs confuse me. I don't know what the % on the y axis stands for and how that relates to your methodology (are you including a maynarding period or is the presumption with a 3 base graph that you are building probes at a constant rate out of the 3 nexus's and rallying directly to the closes mineral patches).
On March 25 2015 23:25 Superouman wrote: I think i'm getting the point of the latest changes to the mineral values in LotV. Indeed the total amount of minerals in an expansion will be lower but the main thing to pay attention to is the difference of income per expansion through time.
At first there won't be any difference in income when all mineral patches are still up. But once the 750 patches are mined out, the income will be halved and then you will be encouraged to expand.
This idea would be more optimal and interesting if the total amount of resources of would stay the same. That would be done with 2250 mineral patches instead of the current 1500 ones. The expansions would be up much longer and expanding would be rewarding because of the initial boost to the income.
With the system we are currently testing, wouldn't it be worthwhile to try a more advanced version of what you are saying?
Currently we have: 4x 1500 Mineral Patch 4x 750 Mineral Patch (Total of 9000 Minerals) 2x 1700 Gas Geyser (have to double check this number) (Total of 3400 Gas)
This means that indeed, the efficiency of your mining base is reduced to 50% when it comes to minerals once you mine out the 4x 750 patches and a 100% reduction for Gas a lot earlier, this in turn forces you to expand or run on half the economy until you run out. Some of the following issues occur:
1) If you have or want to play defensively, you are on a timer when it comes to becoming disadvantaged. If it's because you are playing tech-based (e.g. depending on crucial upgrades or AOE units to survive the midgame), you are now handicapped more than in HotS if you slightly delay expanding. 2) If you go for a 2 base timing but fail to deal critical damage, there is a much smaller window of opportunity to try and transition out of it into a normal macro game. You get punished harder compared to the HotS economy model, so comebacks or exciting moments through this manner will be severely reduced in number. In other words the "viable" range of options you have to play the game while putting your own style on display diminishes. It becomes a more binary system than in HotS. 3) If Gas runs out earlier than in HotS, any play relying on gas heavy units is indirectly nerfed even harder than a less gas-reliant composition. Options are reduced once again and you are punished for not expanding while the new system does not take into account other factors like the ones mentioned in 1 and 2.
Now with Superouman suggesting 4 patches of 2250 minerals to have a longer half-value base to reduce the punishment got me thinking. With 4x 750 and 4x 2250 (Total of 12000 minerals) you would still be severely punished for not expanding as fast as you can. The efficient mining done at a base running out of the 750 mineral patches is reduced to 50% quite early on so there is a big timer but less severe than before, after the income of a base is reduced by 50%.
Based on the suggestion above, here is my take on it. * (Minerals) We stick to the original total of HotS/Superouman, 12000 Minerals per base * (Gas) We stick to the original total of HotS, 5000 Gas per base
In order to give more benefits to a player taking extra bases while reducing the punishment players take for not expanding while trying to lessen some of the issues that come with half-value base times, we could distribute the mineral and gas totals differently:
* Let Mineral fields run from a range where instead of 4 nodes depleting at a similar time, they deplete one by one. So you could have a 1.7k node, a 1.5k node all the way down to 750 with a total of 12000 still. You will still get more benefits than a player delaying his expansions, but not to the point where they almost lose by default. You can also take more risks like going for a 2 base play or tech-heavy play without having such a severe timer. * Do the same with Gas geysers, with one having 3000 and the other 2000 as an example.
Furthermore, if we take into account that some of us advocate a more BW style economic model where you gain more mining efficiency and benefits from expanding at a lower active worker count on that expansion, we may be able to use this system in combination with High Yield Geysers and Gold Mineral Patches. If we would place gold patches and high yield geysers starting from everything outside of the natural or 3rd (to prevent race mechanics from overpowering macro too soon), with the added system of each patch having less, you can still have a better incentive to expand while not completely punishing players delaying their expansion.
These are just some initial swift thoughts I jotted down here. Note that I am trying to figure out a way to get a more balanced and entertaining system within what Blizzard currently has. I think this stands a better chance of being tested than different mining rates since you'd have to rework a lot more areas of the game to make it all fit with that.
On April 08 2015 23:58 People_0f_Color wrote: Can you please repost this with an explanation for your axes? Graph 1 is very clear--the x axis is increasing count of workers and the y axis are minerals. But the rest of the graphs confuse me. I don't know what the % on the y axis stands for and how that relates to your methodology (are you including a maynarding period or is the presumption with a 3 base graph that you are building probes at a constant rate out of the 3 nexus's and rallying directly to the closes mineral patches).
These graphs are the income difference between X and X+1 bases and represent worker pairing (two workers maining at 100% eff) affecting the income rate of players, a quick way to look at it.
On the graph we are taking the income of 2 bases at X workers as a baseline and from that income baseline we compare it to the income we would have on 3 bases with the same amount of workers, these differences are showcased on % for ease of read.
On this particular graph you can see that you won't really get a mineral income advantage from taking 3 bases over 2 until you have at least 32 workers. 16x2 is the limit where workers mine at a 100% efficiency on 2 bases, therefore taking a third when you have less than 33 workers won't mean anything from a sheer income perspective. These graphs are also not accounting for maynarding or anything, just sheer raw income data, on a real game scenario the advantage of taking a 3rd base over two would be even less if you are not accounting for things such as probe/Mule/SCV/larva production.
Also sorry guys for not being as active on the thread, I have been reading the comments, but can't really take the time to respond to everyone.
No offense to uvantak or anyone else, but I can't get rid of a feeling that people don't want and don't care about the new things which LotV can bring, all you guys want is BW in SC2 just with widescreen res and maybe modern textures. But that's it.
Btw Starbow died for a reason which is not worth to respond , but nice effort for making the game LotBWHD
On April 09 2015 06:16 PharaphobiaSC2 wrote: No offense to uvantak or anyone else, but I can't get rid of a feeling that people don't want and don't care about the new things which LotV can bring, all you guys want is BW in SC2 just with widescreen res and maybe modern textures. But that's it.
Btw Starbow died for a reason which is not worth to respond , but nice effort for making the game LotBWHD
That's the same sort of comment that circles around all of these discussions. It isn't true that everything about bw is worth replicating, but it's not true that the arguments for implementing some of the things from bw only boil down to nostalgia. LotV is bringing a lot to the table, but the economy changes feel clumsy and reverberate through literally every aspect of the game so getting the right is important. The economy in bw had a lot of flexibility, it didn't punish a player for not expanding so much as it punished them for falling behind, and Blizzard has already told us they don't think they got it right in WoL or HotS. So what do you do from there? Look at successful models for inspiration. The one successful model we have to look at is bw, so naturally that's where the conversation goes.
And just to clear the air, Starbow was never going to enjoy large scale success unless Blizzard sanctioned it and implemented it into the UI. People are only just now jazzed as fuck about Archon mode despite the fact that it's been in the arcade since WoL. I don't understand all the reasons, but a good number of players (myself included) are not very interested in doing something that doesn't involve hitting a find match button.
On April 09 2015 06:16 PharaphobiaSC2 wrote: No offense to uvantak or anyone else, but I can't get rid of a feeling that people don't want and don't care about the new things which LotV can bring, all you guys want is BW in SC2 just with widescreen res and maybe modern textures. But that's it.
Btw Starbow died for a reason which is not worth to respond , but nice effort for making the game LotBWHD
This is not true. I couldn't care less about what Broodwar did with the economy. What I care about is that in my eyes an economy system for an RTS game should have two core traits: 1) economy is exclusively capped by your opponent restricting you or you restricting yourself. 2) diminishing returns on base/workercounts
SC2 caps you artificially on 3-4bases and the diminishing returns are very weakly implemented within saturating a base and not at all when saturating more bases. The economy isn't a smooth thing. You are either on the 2base or on the 3base end of things, and that's literally all there is to it.
I think this is the crux why we eventually always end up with "stale metagame". There are easy quantizations to be made which makes strategies easy to replicate regardless of opponent and map.
On April 09 2015 06:16 PharaphobiaSC2 wrote: No offense to uvantak or anyone else, but I can't get rid of a feeling that people don't want and don't care about the new things which LotV can bring, all you guys want is BW in SC2 just with widescreen res and maybe modern textures. But that's it.
Btw Starbow died for a reason which is not worth to respond , but nice effort for making the game LotBWHD
* Let Mineral fields run from a range where instead of 4 nodes depleting at a similar time, they deplete one by one. So you could have a 1.7k node, a 1.5k node all the way down to 750 with a total of 12000 still. You will still get more benefits than a player delaying his expansions, but not to the point where they almost lose by default. You can also take more risks like going for a 2 base play or tech-heavy play without having such a severe timer. * Do the same with Gas geysers, with one having 3000 and the other 2000 as an example.
That is a great solution if simply making all the nodes 1.5k is harmful.
It was just my feeling I don't need explanation why do you think that they are not doing it. But just imagine scenarion that they would announce something like "Brood War new engine HD blablabla" none of these posts would ever happen....
And maybe thats the reason why none of these changes were never shown or pushed in the sc2 development. Because they don't want to be pushed into copy pasting their own game.
P.S: SC2 matchmaking bringed down certail level of ladder anxienty while on BW u just played custom games and looked on your letter and MMR ...
The great thing about the nostalgia argument, is now that SC2 is 5 years old, dismissive SC2 fans can be accused of not listening to arguments due to nostalgia. Because in 2011, the nostalgia thing was thrown into the face of any argument, whereas I had only started playing BW in 2007... which was only 4 years.
An argument should be looked at on its own terms- is it a good idea and would it work in X new game matters much more than guessing a poster's psychological motivation for wanting a feature or guessing Blizzard's motivation for not implementing something.
I just had another idea: what if instead of reducing individual patches, the mining rate on all patches was altered via timer. If the mineral count of a patch drops to, say 750, a harvester will only be able to collect 3 minerals per trip instead of 5. It would be similar to the way gas depletion in BW worked (except you still wouldn't be able to harvest indefinitely).
This would (theoretically) produce the following results: -Decaying mineral income for each base, similar to current LotV model. Note that the decayed rate does not affect saturation; 16 workers will still be able to mine out the base efficiently instead of suddenly over-saturating the base. -Total mineral count per base unchanged; total value of base is not lowered. -Total time to deplete mineral patch increased; turtling player has a longer window to sustain his economy on fewer bases. -Assuming a player's current base is already mined to 750 min/patch or lower, taking a new expansion would provide an immediate boost to income without requiring a high number of workers. There is a timing window where each new base has "increased" mineral income before it decays to a lower rate.
The threshold for lowering the mining rate per patch, as well as the mining rates before/after, could be tweaked to optimize the timing window for increased income for taking a new base, as well as the total time to completely mine out a base.
I think you missed a vital point, why is it important to have more bases? More bases doesn't inherently give more interesting games, it is acquiring and defense of said bases that does. Of course more bases provide more openings to your opponent for harass/pushes which could create such moments however that is uncertain.
Another thought: With this change will big army plays be possible? What made bw great is because it had a wider strategic spectrum and sc2 feels more narrow, and I am afraid that this will encourage just the harassment types of play and we will still have a narrow spectrum of strategies possible.
Ps, what makes the current system bad is that aqcuiring new bases and getting to a point where you have "max" satuartion doesn't take much thought or strategy. You early expand -> makes some units to not die -> take third. While bw were more like you early expanded -> made some units to prevent your opponent from doing some type of strategy or harass -> build up army/tech to defend expansion -> expand. To me the fact that you have max satuaration on three bases isn't the problem the fact that you don't really have to play in a certain way or make strategic choices to get to three bases is.
Another thought: With this change will big army plays be possible? What made bw great is because it had a wider strategic spectrum and sc2 feels more narrow, and I am afraid that this will encourage just the harassment types of play and we will still have a narrow spectrum of strategies possible.
I think this is an important point. If all you want in a game is more harassplay, then you don't need to touch the econ at all. Instead you just buff harass units.
What you should look for in an econ is an immobile player being spread out all over the map and cost efficeintly battling it out against a mobile player who constantly army trades. That was what BW TvZ and TvP late game was about and it was awesome. This effect can too an extent be replicated by unit design, but its not as easy as just forcing more bases.
Ps, what makes the current system bad is that aqcuiring new bases and getting to a point where you have "max" satuartion doesn't take much thought or strategy. You early expand -> makes some units to not die -> take third
People need to stay overusing phrases as strategy or decisionmaking/thinking. Each time a change in a game occurs people look at options that are taken away from then and complain about lack of strategy, when in reality they ignore new options and possibliites. (Just look at this ignorant thread from LOL reddit. Riot makes a champion require more skill by adding counterplay and the reddit user complaints about less strategy. http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/3229w4/on_the_ryze_qrework_and_the_importance_of_point/ - what about also complaining that with the removal of hardened shield, immortals no longer hardcounters tanks so there is less strategy there? You can go on and on here with this nonsense)
In BW zerg also took lots of bases all the time. Do you call that lack of strategy? No its more complicated than that, and the only thing that is currently changed is that a defensive style isn't viable in the midgame.
While bw were more like you early expanded -> made some units to prevent your opponent from doing some type of strategy or harass -> build up army/tech to defend expansion -> expand.
No it wasn't. BwPvZ = Forge fast expand into corsair 99% of the time. Then you would stay on 2 base for a while. Bw TvZ = 2 base aggression 90%+ of the time w/ bio. Zerg = always took bases really fast (exception ZvZ). The diference here was that you took bases at very different rate dependant on your gameplay style. The BW economy made it possible for different styles to be viable while LOTV is all about mobility in the midgame.
To me the fact that you have max satuaration on three bases isn't the problem the fact that you don't really have to play in a certain way or make strategic choices to get to three bases is.
People are definitely overfocussing on 3-base max saturation, but income rate does matter. With BW income rate, it resulted in 5 bases > 4 bases > 3 bases > 2 bases.
Hence you could be on 5 to 3 bases as the mobile race against the immobile. This reduced the defenders advantage of the mobile race and thus opened up for aggression in the midgame while the immobile race could invest into aggressive options.
Late game there would also be income-assymetry which meant that the mobile race could make cost ineffective trades against the immobile race in order to break him down. This effect is what most people who want BW economy focus on. I do, however, think the actual effect here is slightly overrated. In a LOTV economy, it seems unlikely that an immobile player always can have 3-base saturation in the late game, so I do think it can replicate BW in that regard. This means that the real difference is in the midgame.
On April 09 2015 06:16 PharaphobiaSC2 wrote: No offense to uvantak or anyone else, but I can't get rid of a feeling that people don't want and don't care about the new things which LotV can bring, all you guys want is BW in SC2 just with widescreen res and maybe modern textures. But that's it.
Btw Starbow died for a reason which is not worth to respond , but nice effort for making the game LotBWHD
I think you completely missed the whole point of the thread.
This is not a thread to claim for a full on BW economy, because BW economy even when it's "better" than the LotV economy it still can be improved upon. This thread is to raise awareness about the problems Worker Pairing brings on the game.
Stop deluding yourself with that "Us vs Them" mentality.
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