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Will the current economy solution in LotV encourage or discourage laddering?
There can be positive and negative incentives to promote certain behaviours. Both increase the incidence of the behavior, but negative ones create stress and lead to avoidance. I’m concerned that the lotv economic solution will create more stress and scare people away from the community.
Basic Argument
In WoL and HotS there was more or less a 3 mining base cap to your economy. There wasn’t an incentive to expand, it was often counterproductive.
Starbow, FRB(6m/1hg etc), and double-mining tried to solve this problem, partially, by reducing the number of workers needed to saturate a base. There was a reward, a “positive incentive” to expand more. This is a case of “expand and get a cookie!”
LotV solves the problem by punishing players for not expanding quickly enough. If you reach X minutes in game and do not have enough bases, your income will decrease significantly. This is a case of “expand or else!”
It’s the difference between fighting for an expansion to get ahead, to get an edge; and fighting for an expansion to keep from becoming crippled.
So What?
A lot of players find laddering to be stressful. The game has an unfortunate reputation for it. Whether you, the reader, finds that to be the case or not, it is still important for the health of the community to address this sort of thing.
(Regardless, both are far better than the 3 base cap)
My Perspective
I sort of like the idea that SC2 is stressful and anxiety inducing. It makes me feel like it can toughen me up by persevering. So, selfishly, I like the current solution.
However, from the other side of things, I have only one gamer friend who will play sc2 with me because the others are too stressed out by it!
TLDR
You can encourage players to expand via rewards (FRB) or punishments(lotv). Which do you think is preferable, and will the lotv punishments scare off players?
update: A new article on SC2's economics by TL
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Even disregarding any pressure/discouragement on laddering, the "expand or die" system is just poorly designed and does nothing to address the true issues of the SC2 economy. All it does is bandaid-force "action", taking away the strategy aspect of the game. As much as I love cool mechanics, there should be a balance. Many people have proposed far better solutions for the SC2 economy.
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it makes a faster action paces game, with fights below 200 supply
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The reward you talk about in Starbow/BW is just an illusion. If the opponent expands and gets the boost in the economy you also have to expand to not fall behind.
I really like the idea of the change. The game play will be more diversified where you can harrass your opponent to death. In WoL and HotS most game ends in one player crushing the opponent in one major battle. The death ball syndrom.
I think having halv the patches with reduced capacity is the perfect balance to promte expansion. Initially a base funktion just as before, but after some time it turns into a BW base which saturates with fewer workers. This way the balance of how much production can be supported by a base is the same at the beginning of the game.
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The reward you talk about in Starbow/BW is just an illusion. If the opponent expands and gets the boost in the economy you also have to expand to not fall behind.
How many BW games have you watched? It was typical of the immobile race to stay on fewer bases as the difference between a 2 base vs 3 base or 3 base vs 4 base wasn't as significant.
The real difference in income rate first came when you started to be on +2 bases compared to the opponent. But since an immobile race couldn't defend that many bases, he would instead stay on fewer bases and be more aggressive.
So there is a actually a mathematical phenomena that explains why BW players took expansions at a different rate.
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I foresee some sort of rule (like the rocket equation, or when playing BW, when taking a fourth base you must build a great wall of China) or timing to be figured out where "At X minutes you MUST expand in order to continue with normal production, upgrading etc or else you will be in constant economic deficit" and so on, and then the meta including that in its wiles - whereby players would try and disrupt this expansion timing/process, and do so with much more urgency than we would typically find in HotS or WoL.
If the current change does stay with LotV, I reckon we'd see maps with a smattering of standard HotS mineral lines in the same vein as gold expansions.
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On April 10 2015 04:53 dala wrote:
The reward you talk about in Starbow/BW is just an illusion. If the opponent expands and gets the boost in the economy you also have to expand to not fall behind.
I really like the idea of the change. The game play will be more diversified where you can harrass your opponent to death. In WoL and HotS most game ends in one player crushing the opponent in one major battle. The death ball syndrom.
I think having halv the patches with reduced capacity is the perfect balance to promte expansion. Initially a base funktion just as before, but after some time it turns into a BW base which saturates with fewer workers. This way the balance of how much production can be supported by a base is the same at the beginning of the game.
It feels horrible to play. You constantly feel broke and any base that is denied or destroyed is utterly disastrous
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Devil's advocate here, but shouldn't "being at max economy" be a luxury, and not a right? That's kinda the way LotV economy seems to work: you need to get used to NOT being at max economy and adjust your builds to that.
The reason you feel "broke" now is because you have not adjusted from WoL/HotS to LotV economy builds yet.
People are still expecting to be able to throw down tech/production buildings, upgrade units and build a max number of units at the same time. The LotV economy forces you to choose. Builds are simply not adjusted to that (yet) and therefore you try to do too much and feel like you're broke. Then blame the new economy instead of the not-yet-new builds.
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It's a pretty gigantic nerf to defensive/slower styles of play. When you start hearing "Mineral field depleted" while taking a fast third...I don't know, it just feels way too frantic right now.
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On April 10 2015 05:23 KrazyTrumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 04:53 dala wrote:
The reward you talk about in Starbow/BW is just an illusion. If the opponent expands and gets the boost in the economy you also have to expand to not fall behind.
I really like the idea of the change. The game play will be more diversified where you can harrass your opponent to death. In WoL and HotS most game ends in one player crushing the opponent in one major battle. The death ball syndrom.
I think having halv the patches with reduced capacity is the perfect balance to promte expansion. Initially a base funktion just as before, but after some time it turns into a BW base which saturates with fewer workers. This way the balance of how much production can be supported by a base is the same at the beginning of the game. It feels horrible to play. You constantly feel broke and any base that is denied or destroyed is utterly disastrous
Yup. In the case of LotV economy, you are expanding against the system instead of expanding to gain something against your enemy. That and it limits the slower, more strategical methods of playing. Mechanical action is great, but it is bad if the the system voids strategy.
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I do have to add that while the economy feels really off, the constant engagements all over the place are definitely making the game more interesting. I just hope Blizzard can find a way to satisfy the desire to still have defensive/slower styles of play as well.
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Why is using Brood War's economy model not an option?
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On April 10 2015 05:40 purakushi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 05:23 KrazyTrumpet wrote:On April 10 2015 04:53 dala wrote:
The reward you talk about in Starbow/BW is just an illusion. If the opponent expands and gets the boost in the economy you also have to expand to not fall behind.
I really like the idea of the change. The game play will be more diversified where you can harrass your opponent to death. In WoL and HotS most game ends in one player crushing the opponent in one major battle. The death ball syndrom.
I think having halv the patches with reduced capacity is the perfect balance to promte expansion. Initially a base funktion just as before, but after some time it turns into a BW base which saturates with fewer workers. This way the balance of how much production can be supported by a base is the same at the beginning of the game. It feels horrible to play. You constantly feel broke and any base that is denied or destroyed is utterly disastrous Yup. In the case of LotV economy, you are expanding against the system instead of expanding to gain something against your enemy. That and it limits the slower, more strategical methods of playing. Mechanical action is great, but it is bad if the the system voids strategy.
Could we please use the term diversity instead of strategy? The thing that is changed here is that defensive/immobile units aren't viable anymore, but there are still lots of strategy in the game, and I don't agree with the consensus that immobile compositons per definition require more strategic thinking than mobile styles.
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On April 10 2015 05:51 PineapplePizza wrote:
Why is using Brood War's economy model not an option?
Brood War's economy was limited in different ways (generally the lack of production facilities/"macro mechanics" in comparison to SC2), so builds were slower.
There is not that much difference between BW and HotS economy, except that in HotS you can get there a hell of a lot faster. The only one that really changed is Zerg, who no longer need all those extra hatcheries all over the place.
I guess the lower saturation count per base is what you're aiming at? Imho, that's a bad model, because it slows down the game.
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So, in starbow, you get more income for more expansions, and in Lotv youn get less income for less expansions. The one is good and the other one is bad.
That seems to be very subjektive to me. At least i cant see a difference for getting a reward for more expansions, and getting punishend for less. In a 1v1 game, the outcome should be literally the same......
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It's stupid and definitely not what I had in mind for FRB (Fewer Resources per Base). A better term would be LIB (Lesser Income per Base). Note that a version of 6m had 2000 minerals per patch. More later.
Barrin, did I misrepresent your ideas? I will edit the OP if you like. Please let me know, I know that a particular income curve was your goal. I just mentioned 6m in the context of the 3 base mining cap.
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Italy12246 Posts
On April 10 2015 04:15 purakushi wrote:
Even disregarding any pressure/discouragement on laddering, the "expand or die" system is just poorly designed and does nothing to address the true issues of the SC2 economy. All it does is bandaid-force "action", taking away the strategy aspect of the game. As much as I love cool mechanics, there should be a balance. Many people have proposed far better solutions for the SC2 economy.
Yeah i agree with this unfortunately.
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I foresee some sort of rule (...) or timing to be figured out where "At X minutes you MUST expand in order to continue with normal production, upgrading etc or else you will be in constant economic deficit" and so on, and then the meta including that in its wiles - whereby players would try and disrupt this expansion timing/process, and do so with much more urgency than we would typically find in HotS or WoL.
I like that aspect of the current system a lot actually, really throws a million wrenches into a set build and forces your to adapt constantly. Rewards understanding and improvisation.
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EPT
