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This is a suggestion from an observer point of view, i don't dedicate to sc2 as much as others do, although i did play and made it to masters rather easily, i prefer playing Brood War for now..
Legacy of the Void changes have me excited, at first i thought this would be nothing but the death of sc2, which saddens me, because even though i still have some feelings about the whole sc2 controversy (noLAN because they want $$, less support to KR and all the conspiracy theories that came with it) and feel like if sc2 have never happened Brood War would be an even bigger E-sport; This is irrelevant at this point... things happened and time went by, nothing will change that, therefore i want to look at a bright future and to an awesome game which WoL/HotS hasn't delivered (at least not to me and many others) Don't get me wrong.. it's a great game and if we take the BW lense out i can see the appealing..
Enough with this rant, My suggestion:
Econ changes are in the right direction, the economy is too simple in sc2, workers have 99-100% efficiency (pretty much no dead time while gathering) and the econ/macro aspect grows really/too fast. After a couple of years without playing Brood War i came back (right after a 4 months sc2 WoL/hots binge on and off) and found myself amazed when looking at my supply realizing action was happening at the 40-80 supply.. and maxing out in BW is a very odd thing, (Staying maxed out that is, you do max out rather often) 80/200 army supplies feel so strong and game ending in some situations (action everywhere), while sc2... unless you're doing some all-in cheese build to pull a fast one then that's not how it works and i dislike it, i think i speak for everyone when i say that we don't like to see 2 big balls mashing eachother and then some blurry thing happens for 1 second and the lucky one comes ahead (good widow mine shot/bad widow mine, Good baneling/bad baneling Good colossus concave vs vs convex/bad colossus convex vs concave ETC.) Especially on PvP's or TvP's, i know that many players were ¨born/introduced¨ with sc2 and they like it but they just don't know any better.
There's micro within all of the matches don't get me wrong, but it's just not very entertaining (to watch/perform) nor durable, You may think i'm going off the rails with this but bare with me.
BW had 12 mineral (with 1.5K) patches in your main and an infinite-ish 5k vespene geyser, just one, i say infinite-ish because after it was ¨Depleted¨ it started gathering 2 gas instead of 8 as long as you had workers on it, but Natural expansions and others had 8 even down to 6 (patches) on some maps and locations (naturals always had 8). While the economy worked differently since each worker could recollect up to 8 gas/mineral instead of 5/7 (gold mineral) some aspects remain the same except what i like to call ¨Mother Main¨ which gave a 12 vs 8 mineral patch and a 33% extra total minerals (not gas) in main (mother location) vs natural; This, while underlooked by many at those times, now comes to my thoughts very strongly (because LotV economy changes) and i feel like this is the way Blizzard should go with it (or something similar) I'm not saying 12 patches and 8 for expos yada yada but...
What if they kept the main the same 8 patches of 1.5k and then do what they're doing now, give 33% less minerals on the rest of the map (maybe 4 player maps could benefit with having more minerals on the other 2 main locations and taking those would add some longevity) This sounds really good to me, Just think about it the 33% (1/3) or 25% they're somewhat always present in the Starcraft economy:
From 12 patches to 8 > 4/4/4 = -33% and then from 8 to 6 2.5 = 25%
Same with the Gas from 8 (recollected) to 2 = 25%
And now the sc2 suggestion 1.5K into 1K = 1/3 - 33% Even if it's half of the patches 750 and the other half 1.5 (which i really like because it incentives a new micro aspect on the workers called ¨saturation¨ which will benefit the more ¨into the details¨ players, like Flash or Jaedong to give some examples) it's still a total of 33% less overall.
More expansions = more surface of attack, less minerals = less units (making the ones you have more valuable. (which is their thought process nevertheless)
But taking away the ¨Mother Main¨ concept is a miss from my point of view, having those extra minerals give more depth to the game (1 base all ins, They are rare unless you're protoss or a very cheeky zerg, but with these changes i don't see anyone doing them at all, the chances to fail or just trade, which wouldn't be enough anymore, are too high to take) it gives a stronger early game and a faster mid/late pace instead of a gamble from the start, and also hurt Protoss in its entirety and Terran Mech, both having a similar tendency in the way they work which is not what we want... we want more not less.
Just my 2 cents. glhf
Edit: As pointed out by ¨FabledIntegral¨ it's actually 9 (main) and 7 (natural) mineral patches, not 12>8 i don't feel like changing the numbers since the idea behind it it's the same, and the concept for SC2 is about the amount of minerals not the number of patches anyways.. kinda tired when i made the post, right now heading to bed lol, and thanks for all the thoughts/feedback <3
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There have been quite a few post on alternate economies and I would really love for blizz to try some different things during this extra long beta. I really feel that just putting a limit on resources doesn't help.
I feel that as you expand there should be a risk/reward for securing other bases that give you a better income at the risk of being more spread out. Or stay on a few bases and build up a strong attack vs a stronger eco player. Right now its more of a mine out and move on like in HOTS but just happens faster with a drop in efficiency when the small nodes mine out.
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I also like the "mother main" concept because it gives you a choice in third when you start looking outside your nat. The first thing that comes to my head is in Python. If you spawn, say, at the 2 o'clock position, your natural is at 3 o'clock. But then your third can either be close by at 4:30 but harder to defend, or you could take one of the other mains like 7 or 1. It's harder to reach but more easily defensible, but also a big bonus of taking a farther away base like that is you get 9 mineral patches instead of 7 or 8, meaning you have a slightly larger economic bonus on that base as well.
So we could have risk vs. reward introduced that way, with players choosing to take a farther away and more defensible empty main, but also have it easier to harass and isolate than the third next to their base with a bigger ramp and less minerals.
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United States4883 Posts
Interesting idea. A lot of the feedback I've seen so far is that the main mines out way to fast, and that it's absolutely necessary to take a 3rd just to not lose, which is especially hard in the early game for certain compositions or races (*COUGH PROTOSS*); the "mother main" concept does well assist those races having trouble securing such an early third by giving them a little more time.
HOWEVER, the drawback I see to this concept is that some races (*COUGH ZERG*) technically end up with more resources earlier on because they are mining from more patches and create stronger basic armies, which further irritates the original problem of the compositions and races that were having difficulty securing a 3rd in the first place. Added onto this, it also creates an asymmetry of bases in which the reward for taking another main is so huge that it's worth the risk, especially for a race like Terran that can easily hide a base; this is mitigated somewhat by smaller maps that are easy to scout, but definitely becomes a lot more influential on larger maps or in late game scenarios where each race has practically split the map.
All in all, interesting ideas, but I'm not fully confident it's the way to go because it doesn't actually encourage and reward expanding, it's just a band-aid fix for the issues at hand. TL Strategy is currently talking a lot about the economy and proposing a lot of ideas, and we're planning to write an article soon. In the meantime, Lalush and Uvantak are doing some really nice work with worker pairing ideas. I highly recommend visiting this thread if you're really interested in economy discussions: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/479750-lotv-economy-worker-pairing .
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Even without setting the mineral patches all to 1.5k, 12 mineral patches in the main would make a lot of sense in LotV, considering that you start with 12 workers. Hell, maybe main bases could have a unique spread of 4 patches at 500, 4 at 1000, and 4 at 2000, to give it more of a curve while being mined out.
Of course, I still prefer double harvesting, low-yield cooldown, or just straight-up Starbow mining.
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On April 08 2015 05:07 SC2John wrote:Interesting idea. A lot of the feedback I've seen so far is that the main mines out way to fast, and that it's absolutely necessary to take a 3rd just to not lose, which is especially hard in the early game for certain compositions or races (*COUGH PROTOSS*); the "mother main" concept does well assist those races having trouble securing such an early third by giving them a little more time. HOWEVER, the drawback I see to this concept is that some races (*COUGH ZERG*) technically end up with more resources earlier on because they are mining from more patches and create stronger basic armies, which further irritates the original problem of the compositions and races that were having difficulty securing a 3rd in the first place. Added onto this, it also creates an asymmetry of bases in which the reward for taking another main is so huge that it's worth the risk, especially for a race like Terran that can easily hide a base; this is mitigated somewhat by smaller maps that are easy to scout, but definitely becomes a lot more influential on larger maps or in late game scenarios where each race has practically split the map. All in all, interesting ideas, but I'm not fully confident it's the way to go because it doesn't actually encourage and reward expanding, it's just a band-aid fix for the issues at hand. TL Strategy is currently talking a lot about the economy and proposing a lot of ideas, and we're planning to write an article soon. In the meantime, Lalush and Uvantak are doing some really nice work with worker pairing ideas. I highly recommend visiting this thread if you're really interested in economy discussions: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/479750-lotv-economy-worker-pairing .
I love the double harvesting idea best too I think. It seems to be a very simple way of rewarding the risk of expanding expanding while not putting the non expanding player on so much of a clock. I think it is really elegant and makes sense that your first set of workers gets full efficiency and from then on it goes downhill.
Would love to see blizzard try something like this.
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Canada13379 Posts
On April 08 2015 06:22 MrMatt wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2015 05:07 SC2John wrote:Interesting idea. A lot of the feedback I've seen so far is that the main mines out way to fast, and that it's absolutely necessary to take a 3rd just to not lose, which is especially hard in the early game for certain compositions or races (*COUGH PROTOSS*); the "mother main" concept does well assist those races having trouble securing such an early third by giving them a little more time. HOWEVER, the drawback I see to this concept is that some races (*COUGH ZERG*) technically end up with more resources earlier on because they are mining from more patches and create stronger basic armies, which further irritates the original problem of the compositions and races that were having difficulty securing a 3rd in the first place. Added onto this, it also creates an asymmetry of bases in which the reward for taking another main is so huge that it's worth the risk, especially for a race like Terran that can easily hide a base; this is mitigated somewhat by smaller maps that are easy to scout, but definitely becomes a lot more influential on larger maps or in late game scenarios where each race has practically split the map. All in all, interesting ideas, but I'm not fully confident it's the way to go because it doesn't actually encourage and reward expanding, it's just a band-aid fix for the issues at hand. TL Strategy is currently talking a lot about the economy and proposing a lot of ideas, and we're planning to write an article soon. In the meantime, Lalush and Uvantak are doing some really nice work with worker pairing ideas. I highly recommend visiting this thread if you're really interested in economy discussions: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/479750-lotv-economy-worker-pairing . I love the double harvesting idea best too I think. It seems to be a very simple way of rewarding the risk of expanding expanding while not putting the non expanding player on so much of a clock. I think it is really elegant and makes sense that your first set of workers gets full efficiency and from then on it goes downhill. Would love to see blizzard try something like this.
Patience dear friend. I hear someone's been researching all this stuff in detail recently ...
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Can't wait to hear the article, I think it's definitely going to have a lot of influence on where Blizz goes with the economy!
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Canada13379 Posts
On April 08 2015 07:02 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
Can't wait to hear the article, I think it's definitely going to have a lot of influence on where Blizz goes with the economy!
Don't go this far, thats way too much pressure on me 
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Taking extra expansions should be a risk/reward type deal, instead Blizzard has just made in so you have to do it more often. I really think this doesn't benefit the game at all, the more I think about it.
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So jus a little rant here.
The subject of economy is so complicated because it invovles two areas:
(1) How do we reward expanding
(2) What is the effect of rewarding expanding
Almost the whole discussion is focussed on the former, and very little on the latter. Apparently people think its enough to say "BW rewards expansions and LOTV forces it" in order to explain how BW was better.
But it just doesn't end there. Nonono the really interesting and complicated areas begins when we look at the effect on gameplay under different economc models in different scenarios.
It doesn't matter if you reward more expansion if it results in more boring gameplay. So any type of discussion must seriously discuss the latter as well.
Reading Barrins comments, he uses so many claims with no arguments or real reasoning behind and all of his empirical testing have gone wrong (it was the same in his old FRB thread - long and professional OP, but very little substance to be frank).
LIke why doesn't high ground result in turtling? If your forced to take expansions and the defender has super strong tools to defend them, wouldn't it make a ton of sense that you see more turtling? When all types of tests with an FRB'ish economy hasn't worked out and it is based on extremely shaky fundamentals, perhaps its time to reevaluate your beliefs.
LOTV economy does exactly the opposite: Makes it super easy for you to attack with the majority of the units in the game (terran and zerg at least). This is why we do see action in economy, but ofc its also snowbally as hell.
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On April 08 2015 05:07 SC2John wrote:
Interesting idea. A lot of the feedback I've seen so far is that the main mines out way to fast, and that it's absolutely necessary to take a 3rd just to not lose, which is especially hard in the early game for certain compositions or races (*COUGH PROTOSS*); the "mother main" concept does well assist those races having trouble securing such an early third by giving them a little more time.
HOWEVER, the drawback I see to this concept is that some races (*COUGH ZERG*) technically end up with more resources earlier on because they are mining from more patches and create stronger basic armies, which further irritates the original problem of the compositions and races that were having difficulty securing a 3rd in the first place. Added onto this, it also creates an asymmetry of bases in which the reward for taking another main is so huge that it's worth the risk, especially for a race like Terran that can easily hide a base; this is mitigated somewhat by smaller maps that are easy to scout, but definitely becomes a lot more influential on larger maps or in late game scenarios where each race has practically split the map.
Just to clarify the 12 Mineral patches are a Brood War thing (sc1) which gave 1/3 extra minerals to your main because your natural always had 8 patches. I never said 12 patches for SC2.
I'll quote myself..
¨What if they kept the main the same 8 patches of 1.5k and then do what they're doing now, give 33% less minerals on the rest of the map (maybe 4 player maps could benefit with having more minerals on the other 2 main locations and taking those would add some longevity)¨
However if you add 12 patches it would be the same thing because you would be adding 4 patches which adds the 33% missing, but then you have the point about Zerg being able to have so many early larva/workers (unlike brood war which was 3 maximum 4 in Lair tech, if you knew how to do it) Therefore i prefer having 8 patches with a total of 12K minerals for your main in order to add some longevity to your starting game and then forcing expansions because of the low mineral these give, I called it ¨Mother Main¨ because that's the place you're ¨born¨ essentially, and you need to start things from zero, while by the time you're expanding you have your production facilities on their way, with 8 patches i don't see any advantage for zerg, at all, it's only a slight buff to Protoss/Terran which need to build production (Gates/robo - Barracks/facs Etc.) from the start unlike Zerg, those extra minerals wouldn't really affect zerg in any meaningful way, taking away minerals from the main is what affects/nerfs Terran and mostly Protoss due to the nature of these races and how they produce units.
Also, there is no ¨Huge¨ advantage in taking another main since you'd mine at the same rhythm (compared to the new 8 patches with 8k minerals) it would just add some longevity to them and well.. if you hide a base and get to mine up to/more than 8k Then that expansion was never meant to be found anyways (either a very high skill game with action everywhere and no time to think/see that, translating into a brilliant decision making/current match evaluation, or just a low game with people that can't be bothered to scout).
Thanks for everyone's feedback :D
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Canada13379 Posts
On April 08 2015 08:53 Hider wrote:
So jus a little rant here.
The subject of economy is so complicated because it invovles two areas:
(1) How do we reward expanding
(2) What is the effect of rewarding expanding
Almost the whole discussion is focussed on the former, and very little on the latter. The issue here is that its the latter that is relevant. It doesn't matter if you reward more expansion if it results in more boring gameplay. So any type of discussion must seriously discuss the latter as well.
Unfortunately 99% of people who discuss the econoym doesn't have a comprehensive understanding of the effect on the gameplay of different economic systems (besides how many expansions you take).. Reading Barrins comments in the worker pairing thread was almost cringeworthy as he is dead wrong when it comes to the highground-argument.
The problem is there is no way to know what the impact will be on the game play in the SC2 Environment. What we can look at is how one economy in SC2 from a numbers perspective relates to another. Through exploration and testing more could be learned. But to outright guess at the impacts in SC2 (as opposed to BW) is impossible. The game is too different from a unit design perspective and especially within the context of the LotV beta.
I think looking at the rewards vs risks borrowing on existing gameplay is possible but not outright obvious or immediate. It needs to play out, and we need to examine it carefully: are the rewards of one economic model worth the risks associated? Is the economic model outright incompatible? What risks can we introduce into the ecosystem in order to play with the risk reward system? And is it worth it to do that?
There are a lot of questions and honestly, I do not envy the SC2 design team. Not in the slightest.
Anyway time to recuse myself from economy discussions
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The problem is there is no way to know what the impact will be on the game play in the SC2 Environment.
That's the whole issue with discussion. Noone attempts to understand why matchups were played in a certain way in BW. E,g, why did terran and toss stay on 2 base in PvZ and TvZ? Literraly noone talks about that, but everyone can talk about rewarding expansions "3base-syndrom" "Reward not force". Less buzzwords, more analysis please.
I believe that when you start to understand why BW was played in the way it was, then you also start to get ideas on how a BW economy would fare in Sc2.
Below are my estimations with regards to the effect of econ changes:
(1) Sc2 Toss --> Much more timing attack focussed with BW econ
(2) Mech --> Ovepowered.
(3) Zerg --> They can take bases a ton faster in PvZ, but not vs terran due to the latters mobility. I think bio vs zerg is gonna look similar to how it is in Sc2.
There is just no way toss is gonna attempt to take a 3rd or 4th when you can have 60 workers on 2 bases Why would toss try and play a spread-out game when its already difficult for them with Sc2-econ. With BW econ you always get behind in econ when you play this game. Instead you now have a higher econ rate as toss on fewer bases than in Sc2.
The reason mech will be imba with BW-econ is due to it having mobile and efficient tools in Cyclone/Hellions/Siege tank drops. I don't think zerg can take bases faster than mech as they become way too vulnerable to harass. Therefore the end-result is probably that the mech player will force his opponent into relative few bases, and then it becomes an even econ game which the mech player straight up wins.
The only way an even econ game with mech could be balanced was if mech was spread out superthin leaving him very exposed to enemy aggression in the late game. Such a scenario could actually be created in a LOTV-economy, but in BW econ the equlibrium is gonna be with fewer expansons for both the mech player and his opponent.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 08 2015 09:05 Herecomestrouble wrote:
Also, there is no ¨Huge¨ advantage in taking another main since you'd mine at the same rhythm (compared to the new 8 patches with 8k minerals) it would just add some longevity to them and well.. if you hide a base and get to mine up to/more than 8k Then that expansion was never meant to be found anyways (either a very high skill game with action everywhere and no time to think/see that, translating into a brilliant decision making/current match evaluation, or just a low game with people that can't be bothered to scout).
Thanks for everyone's feedback :D
Maybe it's a bit of an exaggeration; my bad, I think I misread it a little.
However, I maintain that the idea would still cause weird situations in the late game where one race could expand to a certain main fairly safely while the other couldn't expand to the opposite main, and would ultimately starve out; according to the feedback I've been hearing, they would starve out rather quickly. In particular, it puts a lot of pressure on slower unit compositions which rely on controlling the center of the map rather than the outskirts.
And again, having a fuller main is not an incentive to expand, it's just a bandaid fix to a problem already present. I said I liked the idea, but I think something much more drastic like the worker pairing model needs to be adopted in order to improve the game substantially.
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With those minerals in the main, you'll allow people to turtle, and once again we'll have another broken expansion. Protoss will keep turtling into an amove death ball and mechers will keep massing defense for one hour until they have an unbeatable composition.
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There were never 12 patches in the main in BW, I don't know how I'm the first person to point this out after reading all the posts.
It varied between 8-9 patches in the main. There were never 12, at least in the pro scene from when I started watching 2006 and forward.
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On April 08 2015 12:26 xTJx wrote:
With those minerals in the main, you'll allow people to turtle, and once again we'll have another broken expansion. Protoss will keep turtling into an amove death ball and mechers will keep massing defense for one hour until they have an unbeatable composition.
I hardly doubt 4k extra minerals would make that happen, you're exaggerating, if you're at 3 bases economy that would be like having a total 11% extra minerals, not even gas. The purpose is cementing openings mostly for Protoss/Terran by allowing to diversify.
On April 08 2015 12:38 FabledIntegral wrote:
There were never 12 patches in the main in BW, I don't know how I'm the first person to point this out after reading all the posts.
It varied between 8-9 patches in the main. There were never 12, at least in the pro scene from when I started watching 2006 and forward.
Yeah you're right, for some reason when i came back and re-read my post i was doubting myself lol but the math is pretty much the same 9 patches on main (i just went and tried several maps and they all had 9) and 7 in your nat, i was thinking about the 12 drones you need at the main to get optimal saturation for some odd reason.. *Tired* (you need way more scv's and probes due to BW economy and to transfer as well, which doesn't really apply here). Then there's some places with 6 minerals or 8 which can be your 3rds, which are random depending on the map (think in terms of gold minerals for sc2)
The idea behind it, it's just having extra minerals in your main, not changing the amount of mineral patches anyways but having a slightly more cemented opening mainly for Protoss and Terran with the LotV changes, helping to avoid must-go builds or even perhaps race imbalance.
Numbers can be played with but having this ¨Mother Main¨ makes a lot of sense to me, it's the place where you start the game and you should get a slight boost in order to build, mainly for the 2 races named above, the Zerg doesn't care about it really, if anything it's an indirect buff to them because it hurts the other 2.
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Banelings is like the opposite of lucky, you don't get lucky with banelings.
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Cool idea but in the past Blizzard has denied the option of having different mineral amounts at different bases (excluding the gold mineral difference) due to it being hard for new players to know that difference exists. However, because they are willing now to have 50/50 high patches and low patches perhaps they have abandoned that mentality.
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EPT
