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On April 10 2015 05:33 Acrofales wrote:
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.
Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could do to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding.
edit: I'll still take this over the current system though.
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On April 11 2015 09:20 Pursuit_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 05:33 Acrofales wrote:
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. Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could to to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding.
That punishes you for not expanding since anything less than 8 bases is you having less money than the opponent.
There is no economic system that does not punish you for not expanding.
The only way people can "afford" to not expand is if they have tech that is strong enough to compensate for not expanding. The only way to fix that is to fix units, not the econ. The econ simply dictates the pace of the game (How much X do I get in Y amount of time) but it is unit design that says "I might have less econ than the opponent, but it allowed me to speed up to Z tech which is strong enough to fight back against superior forces.
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On April 10 2015 06:11 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +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.
IN FACT, the popular clim over the years is that th game speeed needs to be recudec a bit.
First, to allow more room for micro to happen.
2nd, to allow minor supply figths and allow trades, where micro becomes really important.
3rd, to punish less the player that dedicates several secons microing in an engagement without caring much for the econ or macro
BW econ has that perk, plus the advantage of mitigating worker loss since saturation happens at 1 worker.
It's a win-win. Just introduce BW-like econ with less resources per base.
Have you ever seen how macro plays out in BW or Starbow?
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On April 11 2015 09:54 JCoto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2015 06:11 Acrofales wrote: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. IN FACT, the popular clim over the years is that th game speeed needs to be recudec a bit. First, to allow more room for micro to happen. 2nd, to allow minor supply figths and allow trades, where micro becomes really important. 3rd, to punish less the player that dedicates several secons microing in an engagement without caring much for the econ or macro BW econ has that perk, plus the advantage of mitigating worker loss since saturation happens at 1 worker. It's a win-win. Just introduce BW econ with less resources per base.
I don't think he was talking about the actual game speed.
Two different meanings of game speed.
Actual speed of the game, and the tempo of the game.
The changes are not being made because the game moves slowly, the changes are being made so we have less "Let me build workers until 18 supply" time. The actual game speed in not in question here.
BW's econ also had nothing to do with its unit pathing design. How workers saturate in BW had nothing to do with how units moved in BW. Those are two different things you're talking about.
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On April 11 2015 09:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2015 09:20 Pursuit_ wrote:On April 10 2015 05:33 Acrofales wrote:
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. Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could to to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding. That punishes you for not expanding since anything less than 8 bases is you having less money than the opponent. There is no economic system that does not punish you for not expanding. The only way people can "afford" to not expand is if they have tech that is strong enough to compensate for not expanding. The only way to fix that is to fix units, not the econ. The econ simply dictates the pace of the game (How much X do I get in Y amount of time) but it is unit design that says "I might have less econ than the opponent, but it allowed me to speed up to Z tech which is strong enough to fight back against superior forces.
You're thinking about this wrong. When I say punish, I mean that not expanding actually takes away from your income in a very short amount of time. Compare this to not gaining more income from not expanding. If you can't see the difference you're being obtuse.
There would also be diminishing returns in a system like the one I suggested (as a random example, the first worker harvests at 100% efficiency, the second at 80% efficiency, third at 50% efficiency, 4th and on add nothing), so you could theoretically have an equal income with a 3 base player with 1 on each mineral patch while on 2 bases by having a few more workers who aren't harvesting at maximum efficiency. It adds a lot of depth and variety to how you do your economy; if you use immobile units, you can stay on less bases and mine at worse efficiency but not have to defend as much area. If you use mobile units, you can afford to take more bases, giving you better efficiency but also making you more suspectible to harass.
In my suggested system, you have those options. In the current system, you dont.
edit: And obviously, units play into this as well. I'm not saying they dont. But the economy system matters a lot more than you're making it out to.
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On April 11 2015 09:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:
That punishes you for not expanding since anything less than 8 bases is you having less money than the opponent.
There is no economic system that does not punish you for not expanding.
The only way people can "afford" to not expand is if they have tech that is strong enough to compensate for not expanding. The only way to fix that is to fix units, not the econ. The econ simply dictates the pace of the game (How much X do I get in Y amount of time) but it is unit design that says "I might have less econ than the opponent, but it allowed me to speed up to Z tech which is strong enough to fight back against superior forces.
I don't disagree with any of that. I'm going to try to split this up so you can point at the exact point where you disagree.
LOTV economy is primarily a nerf to immobile styles because they can no longer stay on 3 bases as long.
Mobile styles are mostly unchanged. For example a HOTS zerg vs mech could theoretically take mass bases at the same rate as they do in LOTV. They just get very little out of it in HOTS.
An incentive economy is primarily a buff to mobile styles because they now can get benefits from expanding faster/more.
Immobile styles are mostly unchanged because a mech player will still need to sit on a lowish number of bases.
Now, the incentive economy has a built in "nerf" to offset the buff. More expansions means more points to harass. That is the tradeoff in an incentive economy. We are not screwing with the mobile options so they aren't too strong. We are not forcing units to adhere to this system. The buff-nerf relationship is a natural progression from the economy.
The LOTV economy has no natural "buff" to compensate for the nerf to immobile styles. Now instead of changing just one thing (the economy) now Blizzard has to start counteracting the nerf with a series of inelegant buffs.The only way to accomplish this is to retool units as you have mentioned. In doing so we have all these awkward down stream effects that are avoidable.
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On April 10 2015 18:27 BluzMan wrote:
Non-linear saturation would solve the "base limit" problem - you get more income for more bases with the same total amount of workers by having less saturated bases and more efficient workers as a consequence.
BW economy might feel better for three reasons:
- It has diminishing returns starting at 1 WPP (workers per patch) while SC2 economy is linear up to 2 WPP. Thus, in BW, 48 workers will yield more income at 4 bases than at 3 (assuming 8 patch bases) because 12 workers at a base produce more income per worker than 16 (WPP 1.5 and 2 respectively), while in HotS it will be exactly the same unless you micromanage the workers to mine the closest patches at your expansions (which is doable, by the way, I dunno if pros really do that, never specifically saw that on streams).
- Workers build slower in BW for most races (terran is the exception in HotS, but they kinda offset that by in-base CC's and mules). In SC2, you saturate your main with 16 workers very fast. After that, keeping more workers in the main is kind of a huge waste compared to building more at your natural, which is why you feel obliged to expand very early as well. 1 v 2 base plays are almost non-existent in SC2 for that reason, the economy is very spiky and spikes start early. BW eco has smoother transitions because of the non-linearity.
- Accelerated worker production in SC2 had an (I think unintended) effect of exploding economies with very high income growth per time. It results in much more frequent maxouts (people have 15 minutes of "average supply capped" in their profiles, wtf) and, imo, reduces the incentive of attacking as economic growth is so fast it can even compare in speed to armies walking across the map. As a result, you can fight a different enemy when you reach him with your armies compared to the one you were fighting when those armies left your base.
I think Blizzard is going the wrong way with the eco changes. I think they should instead reevaluate their "macro mechanics" which, as people may or may not remember, were introduced for an entirely different reason than healthy economy: to keep people who complained about automining and multiple building select busy with clicking something else. And they received no revisal or significant changes ever since. Some of those mechanics worked out well (queens as an idea of an infrastructure unit are awesome with creep spread and base defense, terran add-ons are awesome), some have questionable economy effects (inject, chrono boost, mules) and some are flat out broken when used at the unit cap (inject for infinite larva, mules to make SCV obsolete). Keep in mind, I don't mention "imbalanced", just broken.
good points all around. the explosive sc2 economy makes a lot of aggression/harassment less viable. comparing Phoenix builds in SC2 vs Corsair builds in BW vs Zerg, you can see the difference in how often one just dies to the massive swell of units, or just falls completely behind in economy.
I think they're going backwards on this in LotV, it will be even less about teching and cute harassment and more out about just massing a big economy/army.
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I know this would have adverse affects on the game that would probably require quite a bit of rebalancing, but I think reducing the number of geysers per base from 2 to 1 would help solve the "3 base max" problem. This would force players to expand for the extra gas, and that would encourage more bases which are not fully saturated with workers mining minerals.
This seems like a better solution then having bases mine out really fast... it might encourage expanding but that doesn't mean it is a good thing overall. If anything I think it will just encourage more low-economy types of strategies (i.e. all ins) which I think is the opposite of what they are trying to do.
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Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could do to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding.
I think it would be fun to have a map where every mineral patch was gold, and 4 patches/base. Makes it worthwhile to have a tremendous number of bases, and the bases pay off sooner so its less risky to take them.
Maybe not for every map, but it would be a fun map to play once in a while.
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On April 11 2015 10:44 knyttym wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2015 09:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:
That punishes you for not expanding since anything less than 8 bases is you having less money than the opponent.
There is no economic system that does not punish you for not expanding.
The only way people can "afford" to not expand is if they have tech that is strong enough to compensate for not expanding. The only way to fix that is to fix units, not the econ. The econ simply dictates the pace of the game (How much X do I get in Y amount of time) but it is unit design that says "I might have less econ than the opponent, but it allowed me to speed up to Z tech which is strong enough to fight back against superior forces. I don't disagree with any of that. I'm going to try to split this up so you can point at the exact point where you disagree. LOTV economy is primarily a nerf to immobile styles because they can no longer stay on 3 bases as long. Mobile styles are mostly unchanged. For example a HOTS zerg vs mech could theoretically take mass bases at the same rate as they do in LOTV. They just get very little out of it in HOTS. An incentive economy is primarily a buff to mobile styles because they now can get benefits from expanding faster/more. Immobile styles are mostly unchanged because a mech player will still need to sit on a lowish number of bases. Now, the incentive economy has a built in "nerf" to offset the buff. More expansions means more points to harass. That is the tradeoff in an incentive economy. We are not screwing with the mobile options so they aren't too strong. We are not forcing units to adhere to this system. The buff-nerf relationship is a natural progression from the economy. The LOTV economy has no natural "buff" to compensate for the nerf to immobile styles. Now instead of changing just one thing (the economy) now Blizzard has to start counteracting the nerf with a series of inelegant buffs.The only way to accomplish this is to retool units as you have mentioned. In doing so we have all these awkward down stream effects that are avoidable.
My disagreement is on forcing overly specific playstyles to exist for the sake of nostalgia.
We already have more mobile armies fighting less mobile armies and that creating different dynamics. What this thread is asking for is for a specific type of unit to be used a specific type of way to create a specific type of result. That is not attempting to improve the economic structure of a game, that is trying to enforce personal nostalgia on a product that is trying to separate itself from that nostalgia.
And its very easy to make the changes you are suggesting. You make expensive midgame units that are very very strong defensively, but need support in order to be offensive. Infestor Buffs, SH design, etc... all did that and it always made exactly the type of game state you guys keep clamoring for. Defensive turtle builds that holds 5-6 bases with positioning until 2-3 hours has passed of grinding down the opponent to dust.
Was it positional? Yes.
Did it take over the whole map? Yes.
Was it unbeatable? No, just very hard to crack.
Did people complain because the game wasn't kinetic enough? Yes.
Its dishonest that people are asking for a specific playstyle when more than once that playstyle was given to the playerbase. What people want is a specific playstyle available to a specific race hinging on a specific unit--and that is not discourse that is whining about SC2 and it isn't constructive.
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your Country52797 Posts
On April 12 2015 02:44 HewTheTitan wrote:Show nested quote +Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could do to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding. I think it would be fun to have a map where every mineral patch was gold, and 4 patches/base. Makes it worthwhile to have a tremendous number of bases, and the bases pay off sooner so its less risky to take them. Maybe not for every map, but it would be a fun map to play once in a while.
To add to this, I would love to see maps where the economy works differently (think Peninsula in Shoutcraft Clan Wars) than on other maps. Blizzard's rule of 8M2G at every base except for golds is silly I think >.>
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On April 12 2015 04:16 The_Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2015 02:44 HewTheTitan wrote:Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could do to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding. I think it would be fun to have a map where every mineral patch was gold, and 4 patches/base. Makes it worthwhile to have a tremendous number of bases, and the bases pay off sooner so its less risky to take them. Maybe not for every map, but it would be a fun map to play once in a while. To add to this, I would love to see maps where the economy works differently (think Peninsula in Shoutcraft Clan Wars) than on other maps. Blizzard's rule of 8M2G at every base except for golds is silly I think >.>
I'm a big fan of diverse econs per map so that you can't just do "a build order" for all maps. Maybe the main and natural can be standard. But min only, gas only, low min, high gas, etc... all those infinite variations are so interesting. Like what if island expos had fewer resources, but open expos had more resources. And so on and so forth.
So you'd have resource rich maps, and resource scarce maps, gas heavy maps, and mineral heavy maps.
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Canada13389 Posts
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Neat. I will read it shortly, thank you for writing it. I will put a link in the OP for any who want additional reading.
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Thank GOD that Bizzard is making the returning of the Valkyrie. The problem with Terran right now is the inability to defend against mobile air harrass.(mainly Mutas) Thors, Marines, and Vikings just can't get the job done right now.
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On April 12 2015 04:16 The_Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2015 02:44 HewTheTitan wrote:Honestly I think there shouldn't be a practical max economy. IMO max economy should look something like 1 worker per mineral patch across ~8+ bases, which would be essentially unachievable in a real game. In this case there would always be something you could do to improve your economy, but you wouldn't be punished for not expanding. I think it would be fun to have a map where every mineral patch was gold, and 4 patches/base. Makes it worthwhile to have a tremendous number of bases, and the bases pay off sooner so its less risky to take them. Maybe not for every map, but it would be a fun map to play once in a while. To add to this, I would love to see maps where the economy works differently (think Peninsula in Shoutcraft Clan Wars) than on other maps. Blizzard's rule of 8M2G at every base except for golds is silly I think >.>
I think there's some issues with that. SC2 is not designed around the idea of noticeably different incomes. First of all, in order for a concept to be relevant it needs to distinguish itself. This already eliminates some variants like seven patches per base as viable alternatives. Second of all, anything which can be characterized as high income immediately runs into the supply cap. Third, anything which upsets the balance of gas and minerals ends up invalidating half of the units, given that all units are balanced to be viable with the current economy. Chances are that if you're a protoss player with excessive gas, you will start to neglect zealots and simply build pure archons.
Now there still are a great deal of possibilities left, but we can go further in eliminating them. Anything which is a fundamental change to mining mechanics is not suitable as a map change, so fanciful ideas like double harvesting and such enabled for one map have to go. More on the extreme end, completely different mining designs like standard income independent of bases or constant cargo drops at random places on the map fail because now you're left with a different game.
What you're left with is largely something like slightly lower or higher income or maybe forced higher base spread or bases that run out more quickly. All of this, if severe enough to be noticeable, will have balance implications. Any tournament map which is "odd" will need to be very well designed if it can survive the attempts by the players to figure it out. There is too much asymmetry in Starcraft 2 to expect stuff like this to work. Look at Legacy of the Void for an example.
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United States4883 Posts
On April 12 2015 02:55 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2015 10:44 knyttym wrote:On April 11 2015 09:26 Thieving Magpie wrote:
That punishes you for not expanding since anything less than 8 bases is you having less money than the opponent.
There is no economic system that does not punish you for not expanding.
The only way people can "afford" to not expand is if they have tech that is strong enough to compensate for not expanding. The only way to fix that is to fix units, not the econ. The econ simply dictates the pace of the game (How much X do I get in Y amount of time) but it is unit design that says "I might have less econ than the opponent, but it allowed me to speed up to Z tech which is strong enough to fight back against superior forces. I don't disagree with any of that. I'm going to try to split this up so you can point at the exact point where you disagree. LOTV economy is primarily a nerf to immobile styles because they can no longer stay on 3 bases as long. Mobile styles are mostly unchanged. For example a HOTS zerg vs mech could theoretically take mass bases at the same rate as they do in LOTV. They just get very little out of it in HOTS. An incentive economy is primarily a buff to mobile styles because they now can get benefits from expanding faster/more. Immobile styles are mostly unchanged because a mech player will still need to sit on a lowish number of bases. Now, the incentive economy has a built in "nerf" to offset the buff. More expansions means more points to harass. That is the tradeoff in an incentive economy. We are not screwing with the mobile options so they aren't too strong. We are not forcing units to adhere to this system. The buff-nerf relationship is a natural progression from the economy. The LOTV economy has no natural "buff" to compensate for the nerf to immobile styles. Now instead of changing just one thing (the economy) now Blizzard has to start counteracting the nerf with a series of inelegant buffs.The only way to accomplish this is to retool units as you have mentioned. In doing so we have all these awkward down stream effects that are avoidable. My disagreement is on forcing overly specific playstyles to exist for the sake of nostalgia. We already have more mobile armies fighting less mobile armies and that creating different dynamics. What this thread is asking for is for a specific type of unit to be used a specific type of way to create a specific type of result. That is not attempting to improve the economic structure of a game, that is trying to enforce personal nostalgia on a product that is trying to separate itself from that nostalgia. And its very easy to make the changes you are suggesting. You make expensive midgame units that are very very strong defensively, but need support in order to be offensive. Infestor Buffs, SH design, etc... all did that and it always made exactly the type of game state you guys keep clamoring for. Defensive turtle builds that holds 5-6 bases with positioning until 2-3 hours has passed of grinding down the opponent to dust. Was it positional? Yes. Did it take over the whole map? Yes. Was it unbeatable? No, just very hard to crack. Did people complain because the game wasn't kinetic enough? Yes. Its dishonest that people are asking for a specific playstyle when more than once that playstyle was given to the playerbase. What people want is a specific playstyle available to a specific race hinging on a specific unit--and that is not discourse that is whining about SC2 and it isn't constructive.
...what.
The way Zeromus explained it was that the lotv economy puts everyone on a timer, which is particularly punishing to immobile styles. Now, whether you agree if those strategies are fun to play or interesting to watch...doesn't matter. They should be left available for the sake of strategic diversity. The current economic model limits rather than promotes strategic diversity by shoehorning every race and composition into a mobile, fast-expanding monstrosity.
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But it's only punishing to one specific play style. Immobile, turtle based play. One can be defensive, one can be dependent on less mobile units, some maps with proper chokes can be split map so you hold 5-6 bases like you did in WoL and HotS. The only gameplay lost is immobile unit specific two-three base turtle play--the type of play TL has been the loudest of removing if Terran is not the race that has it.
Nothing is lost. It's the same strategies just faster and more back and forth. Your opponents getting ahead if you don't expand is the same no matter how quickly the base runs out of money. You still can't let them do it unless we have HotS level SH turtle fests.
This is just nostalgia talking, that's it.
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On April 15 2015 04:50 Thieving Magpie wrote:
But it's only punishing to one specific play style. Immobile, turtle based play. One can be defensive, one can be dependent on less mobile units, some maps with proper chokes can be split map so you hold 5-6 bases like you did in WoL and HotS. The only gameplay lost is immobile unit specific two-three base turtle play--the type of play TL has been the loudest of removing if Terran is not the race that has it.
Nothing is lost. It's the same strategies just faster and more back and forth. Your opponents getting ahead if you don't expand is the same no matter how quickly the base runs out of money. You still can't let them do it unless we have HotS level SH turtle fests.
This is just nostalgia talking, that's it.
Your correct that the reason 99% of the people who support this economy over the LOTV economy is impacted by nostalagia. However, what everyone doesn't realize is that the immobile race in fact shouldn't be force to expand as fast in the midgame if you want to make aggressive opportunites possible.
This is why I claim that noone understands the economy because either you are wrong or you are right for the wrong reasons.
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On April 11 2015 04:26 castleeMg wrote:
lol all these threads just make me laugh so hard. it's gotten to a point where it really is too much, no matter what blizzard does a large portion of unsatisfiable people will still complain. "omg 4gate all in is imba" "omg protoss so op" "omg lotv economy is too quick". im so happy that i can play my game (broodwar) and not have to listen and deal with all this never ending nonsense its ridiculous
User was warned for this post
Buddy, BW had the same amount of bitching relative to the sizes of the player bases. Remember when Blizzard changed Protoss storm to not 1 cast kill lurkers? People bitched about it at first calling it zerg op albeit in much nicer terms.
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