On May 03 2015 16:27 manwiththemachinegun wrote: Even generally speaking, am skeptical of the approach of preventing faulty game states through adversarial player agency.
Well that was the whole point of my big post half way down the last page.
If some of the defenders advantage is removed and people can actually attack when someone takes an expansion instead of being forced to match their expansion, then it can prevent the snowballing economic problems Dwf pointed out last page. And if that change is combined with the DH9 mod, we could have a really good game on our hands.
TheDWF, everything you point out was done on purpose by the devs. Let me explain.
You must realize that Dustin Browder and David Kim are career developers. That means, they have no inspiration, vision, innovation, or talent. One thing they do have in abundance is knowledge how to play the corporate ladder game.
The number one rule of that game is "Cover Your Ass!!!" (CYA). These are the people who move in after a franchise attains critical acclaim. The ones that play the internal politics game to get where they are.
So if DKim's job is to balance the game, what better way than to make it into an elaborately disguised game of rock, scissors, paper. In other words, completely random. His goal is to achieve the 200/200 game state as quick as possible. The 200/200 deathball clash or 200/200 base trade is where randomness is maximized because too many units and too many things going on at once is where control is minimized.
Any strategy/unit that consistently prevents the 200/200 state is nerfed. Everything is compressed and optimized for the 200/200 fight. Things like map control, terrain, or strategy? No DK doesn't want. He'll minimize and eliminate such extraneous variables so he can boil it down to the 200/200 situation where he can play the simple game of smashing two toy cars together to see which one flips. He'll tinker until every toy flips at the same rate. He'll show his bosses the random win-loss rate and sing his own praise. If all else fails, he has the ultimate excuse up his sleeve: the demise of RTS and rise of MOBA. In other words, the career developer has his ass covered from multiple angles.
At this point, I think it's time we examined the role of sites like TL. Ever since WOL, whenever there was a groundswell of criticism leveled at the devs, whenever the vitriol was about to boil over, whenever we had the chance to unleash a "Jay Wilson" like protest, sites like TL handed out bans in order to quell the tide. Oh what could have been if we were able to pull a Diablo3 and affect change to the SC2 dev team. I hope that's a lesson for TL if ever it becomes a major hub for some other games I see it's trying to branch out into, instead of the slow death it has chosen by being overly protective of the devs.
On May 03 2015 16:27 manwiththemachinegun wrote: Even generally speaking, am skeptical of the approach of preventing faulty game states through adversarial player agency.
Well that was the whole point of my big post half way down the last page.
If some of the defenders advantage is removed and people can actually attack when someone takes an expansion instead of being forced to match their expansion, then it can prevent the snowballing economic problems Dwf pointed out last page. And if that change is combined with the DH9 mod, we could have a really good game on our hands.
I think SC2 economic progression may still be too fast in general. Having the time to deal some damage to a eco-powering player (time before the eco kicks in) is important in addition to having real attacking opportunities. And of course in general if the game moves too fast I don't think that's a good thing, attacking opportunities aside. So although I was speaking of giving more attacker's opportunity, slowing down the progression is still quite important.
It would be nice if players who have a smaller military force would be vulnerable to some sort of aggression even without expanding so there could be downsides to cutting those corners.
"Defender's advantage" is an interesting term. I'd say attacker's do need more opportunities, but at the same time defender's advantage is quite low in SC2. It seems like it's too hard to attack until you have the opportunity to attack from multiple angles, which makes it harder for the defender, as they don't know where you'll come from. This is the natural attacker's advantage - I might say "attacker's opportunity" - which has to be countered with some defender's advantage. I think the problem is these opportunities don't really appear very much until your opponent is quite spread out.
It also typically requires air units. Maps with backdoors to the main, even if they are blocked with rocks, help with this. The ease of funneling all ground attacks through one location (a side effect in maps of low defender's advantage I'd say) is contributing to the problem. Since BW functions this way it's a weird thing to pick on, though.
My theory is that both defender's advantage and attacker's opportunity should be increased. At least, attacker's opportunity should appear sooner in the game. Critically, it needs to appear before the economy has developed most of the way, and the sooner the better I'd say, so long as these attacks don't completely end the game too often. Also it means you can apply pressure to a teching player or something like that, even if they aren't expanding, although containing them and transitioning into economic play yourself should be enough if you open with a military investment and they turtle and tech. That's more boring than having the opportunity to attack them, though, isn't it? Only super-turtling (to the point of being an unwanted strategy) should force that sort of play IMO, and that would be because that sort of counter shuts it down so hard it's not a viable strategy at all. At that point it doesn't matter what the counter is, because no one ever goes down that road.
SC2 seems like it has high defender's advantage, but that's because the maps are made that way. If you're evaluating the strength of defender's advantage in SC2 you have to take into account the possibility to change the maps to not give free natural and third bases.
I think SC2 economic progression may still be too fast in general. Having the time to deal some damage to a eco-powering player (time before the eco kicks in) is important in addition to having real attacking opportunities. And of course in general if the game moves too fast I don't think that's a good thing, attacking opportunities aside. So although I was speaking of giving more attacker's opportunity, slowing down the progression is still quite important.
But it is was that very economic progression that allowed people to access things like Thors and Voids on one base, and what allowed one basing to exist in WOL. That was a good thing.
The problem was that the defenders advantage became so great due to map and balance changes (like the addition of Photon Overcharge) that it snuffed out one basing in general. That is a real problem, because builds like three CC before gas became viable, and the game got ridiculously greedy. For a long time I've been saying that Blizzard should just start everyone on two bases if they want expanding to be a right and not a privilege. There is no point to early game build up.
The defenders advantage in HOTS, compared to WOL, is massive. Ridiculous even. And it is even more massive in LOTV due to how the economy scales with 12 worker starts compared to upgrade timings.
I remember the days I had to hold of one base three rax builds and the 1-1-1 without a MSC, and this was after going to school uphill both ways!
People who play now have it easy. Click on MSC, press F, click on Nexus, all-in held. And in some ways that is the communities fault, constant whining about 1 base play and cheesers like me. Anyone who thinks that Gaulzi didn't show real skill when he executed his WOL cannon rushes and didn't spend enough time with the game is dead wrong. They were so well thought out that I know he spent hours carefully checking each spawn location of each map figuring out the ideal way to cannon rush on that map. What is wrong with that? Why is that any worse than someone grinding out games for hours to tune there macro build order?
I think SC2 economic progression may still be too fast in general. Having the time to deal some damage to a eco-powering player (time before the eco kicks in) is important in addition to having real attacking opportunities. And of course in general if the game moves too fast I don't think that's a good thing, attacking opportunities aside. So although I was speaking of giving more attacker's opportunity, slowing down the progression is still quite important.
But it is was that very economic progression that allowed people to access things like Thors and Voids on one base, and what allowed one basing to exist in WOL. That was a good thing.
The problem was that the defenders advantage became so great due to map and balance changes (like the addition of Photon Overcharge) that it snuffed out one basing in general. That is a real problem, because builds like three CC before gas became viable, and the game got ridiculously greedy. For a long time I've been saying that Blizzard should just start everyone on two bases if they want expanding to be a right and not a privilege. There is no point to early game build up.
The defenders advantage in HOTS, compared to WOL, is massive. Ridiculous even. And it is even more massive in LOTV due to how the economy scales with 12 worker starts compared to upgrade timings.
I remember the days I had to hold of one base three rax builds and the 1-1-1 without a MSC, and this was after going to school uphill both ways!
People who play now have it easy. Click on MSC, press F, click on Nexus, all-in held. And in some ways that is the communities fault, constant whining about 1 base play and cheesers like me. Anyone who thinks that Gaulzi didn't show real skill when he executed his WOL cannon rushes and didn't spend enough time with the game is dead wrong. They were so well thought out that I know he spent hours carefully checking each spawn location of each map figuring out the ideal way to cannon rush on that map. What is wrong with that? Why is that any worse than someone grinding out games for hours to tune there macro build order?
It's a question of what you want from the game. I want a game that is about proper base- and army build up paired with army control and multitasking. Controlling one screen of units is not enough army control for my taste, and gambling on your opponent doing certain build orders has nothing to do with proper base- and composition building.
Oh, and I don't think that building hightech units on 1base being viable is a good thing. If that is viable it just means that the invesment costs for high tech are too low. If rushing one Thor for 600/425 (not counting the barracks that also is used for marines in that rush) overall investment is a viable strategy against stuff that only comes from the cheapest infrustructual investments possible, then you got yourself a serious costefficiency problem.
By economic progression I only mean the progression for the player who expands. One-base plays not included in what I meant. If reducing general economic progression hurts the non-expanding too much a more specialized solution would be necessary.
By the very nature of it, two bases is twice as much as one. It may be more optimal for your first expansion to only increase your rate of progression by %50, which may be why people push for two bases to be a right and not a privilege.
Just giving players two bases to start might be a good solution, but IMO to delay getting a booming economy too fast you'd need to do something like double the time it takes to build a worker, and maybe having fewer patches per base so you start losing worker efficiency soon enough. But having your first expansion only increase worker production by %50 and starting players out with two mineral lines to defend could do wonders for the game.
Just giving players 12 workers to start doesn't begin to bring those sorts of effects even if it's designed to cut out an early game with no strategic variety. I think it's a problem that in all the early game "downtime" players are rushing towards "complete" economies. If we want to get rid of strategic variety in the beginning so the game really begins when it gets good (more mineral lines to defend, your next expansion only increasing worker production by %50) and then cut out that period of downtime that seems understandable. But then the game starts too close to the point in time when the economy is at full force, I think, and that needs to be fixed as well.
It's a question of what you want from the game. I want a game that is about proper base- and army build up paired with army control and multitasking. Controlling one screen of units is not enough army control for my taste, and gambling on your opponent doing certain build orders has nothing to do with proper base- and composition building.
Oh, and I don't think that building hightech units on 1base being viable is a good thing. If that is viable it just means that the invesment costs for high tech are too low.
It isn't that you have to one base (although if you're playing PvP and someone is proxy 2 gating, you're gonna have to one base to hold the attack), it is that you need to expand safely, which means scouting properly and accounting for their build. If they are expanding too, then you can expanding more greedy, but if they are gearing up for an attack, you'll have to expand slower and get some tech units out.
And that is where the real decision making strategy comes out for the early game. If you saw someone taking a really greedy expansion in WOL and you've opened a safe route, there is nothing wrong with just canceling that Nexus and throwing down a few extra Gates and attacking.
That is the heart of strategy.
I started out playing SC2 only one basing. But as I began to lose and had to refine my gameplay I began to expand, first to two bases, then to more, and then played straight macro games. Macro certainly wasn't my strong point, I was still working on it, but I had really good timing attacks (all-ins) and really good defense versus all-ins. It is the natural progression of skill, learn a single relatively simple build to a masters level, realize it's strengths and weakness and then build from there. And since simple builds are all-ins (the game duration and actions are limited due the nature of all-ins), that is the best way to learn.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. - Bruce Lee
But then there is people that want to manage a bunch of bases at once and wage this war of attrition against their opponent from the get-go. But that is something you earn by being a good player, and recognizing what your opponent is doing while reacting appropriately. An opponent may threaten with a timing, but realize it won't work after you skillfully scout it (a lesser player would attack anyway with said timing and lose, therefore you wouldn't realize your multiple base management and multitasking). Therefore, if you are matched against another good player, than that is what is going to happen. Good macro games are the result of refined skills, not a result of game design.
And that is what Blizzard is missing when it tries to control that. Blizzard needs to give us a balanced game (explained more in my response below) that opens up as many strategic avenues as possible and let the players refine their skills. The game will always trend toward macro games, because timings will be figured out (or balanced out) and better players will always want to extend games, giving them more time to use their superior skills.
On May 05 2015 14:20 Gfire wrote:
It may be more optimal for your first expansion to only increase your rate of progression by %50, which may be why people push for two bases to be a right and not a privilege.
I'd argue that the push for two bases comes because Blizzard has shown a clear inability to handle balancing one base play, where balance issues are the clearest.
Take for instance the Blink all-in in TvP, that should have been adjusted, but Blizzard has no idea what it is doing so it made some weird changes to the MSC sight range that didn't really solve anything at all. For more evidence, just look at how long the 4 Gate existed, or the 1-1-1 was a major problem. Many one base builds are held in check by the map makers, not Blizzard.
Past a single base, balance between units, and balance in general becomes far less of a problem as you can always point to player mistakes and say "well if he did X, then he would have been fine." And that is a real problem because good game design should allow for some mistakes. And SC2 doesn't do that well (unlike LOL) at a very high level, which is why I stopped playing it. I got sick of macroing for 30 minutes, then making a small micro error and losing the game.
But you know where you will see crazy comebacks? Low mining base economy game one and two base games. Check out Nestea vs MKP, Game 2 from the second GSL Final:
But it shouldn't surprise anyone that Blizzard, with an inability to actually balance their game, continues to force the game to higher speeds and strain multitasking, to mask game design problems.That way, in the future they can point the finger at player mistakes when anyone cries imbalance. The game above seems quite slow in comparison to today's game.
Therefore, the cries to expand safely which have lead to restrictions in map design are because early expanding should be a viable option. A two base player should be able to hold a Blink all-in TvP regardless of how large his main is, just like a two base Protoss should have been able to hold the 1-1-1.
On the same note, a one base Protoss should have a chance to attack and kill an early expanding Terran. It should all come down to skill.
Expanding on that post, which discussed the disastrous effects of hyper-development (i.e. the fact that you reach your “optimal infrastructure” way too fast) on SC2's gameplay:
On April 30 2015 08:15 TheDwf wrote: It is actually harder to find a regular supply inflation in LotV's games with the 5-10-15 minutes system. One would probably have to refine to 5-10-12-14. Trades indeed don't occur randomly, and hyper-development further routinizes sequences. By the old 15 SC2 minutes benchmark, (1) probably more of the LotV games are already finished and (2) the “survivors” are already diving in the downwards spiral, particularly because of the decreased stock of minerals implemented by the SC2 crew (a very astute mechanic to obtain what they want). But the phenomenon is still visible at 5 and 10 minutes, though concealed/minimized by the ET substitution discussed above.
BW = a few NaDa's TvZ games on his stream. HotS = all TvZ games from Code S Group E. LotV = MMA vs Nerchio (games 2 and 3) + MMA vs bly + Ryung vs Dimaga from the fourth Legacy of the Olimoleague.
Some notes:
(1) The increasing contraction of time is still undervalued because the variable chosen (raw supply) masks other relevant things, including the investments in infrastructure (the ET substitution).
(2) You can ignore the decline at the end of the BW curve, normally it would keep increasing. It just so happens that NaDa was bulldozed by ultra timings before!
(3) The LotV values are unstable as well at the end for various reasons.
(4) The “downwards spiral” described in the quote is visible in the LotV curve. (14-15 SC2 minutes = 10-11 RT minutes, which is where the LotV curve starts declining.) We can visualize it even more clearly with the last game from the MMA vs Nerchio series, where the “sharp bell-shaped curve” is characteristic:
On April 30 2015 08:15 TheDwf wrote: The rocket engine of hyper-development is indeed self-destructive. The brutal contraction of time tends to generate a chronic state of instability: after the initial push, a plateau is reached from which “over-critical” action occurs (e. g. players have to go “all-in” on certain decisions, or on the engagements). […] Then, when economies crumble in macro games, it's often too delicate to catch up: under the threat of their opponent's huge army, players cannot redevelop without risking immediate checkmate.
Ryung vs Dimaga: LotV, max in 9 minutes on 4M (3OC build). Flash vs Ret: beginning of HotS, near max very fast as well (3OC build). NaDa the Warrior on his joyous tractor—grandpa is in control. And TY vs ByuL, a case of “happy accident” …
On April 30 2015 08:15 TheDwf wrote: To get [action-packed, back-and-forth] games, one has to hope that timings/all-ins damage but don't kill; that fights are “stalemates”; and that economies stabilize on a “medium” setup, ideally decreasing the army size:reproducibility ratio. Naturally, in the modern era, planets rarely line up; which is why Neanderthal games are the rule while authentic gems are happy accidents.
… where the sequences of hyper-development were partially cut short/muted by the scenario of the game. A rare possibility that the LotV economy should further remove.
The folly of hyper-development is best seen when drawing the sharpest contrasts:
Yeah, no comment. Of course, sense, finesse and strategy can totally stand the shock of that contraction of time, with the development curve high on crack delivering +135 supply in 9 minutes… SC2 already came with Metabolic Boost researched, LotV adds Adrenal Glands.
Of course, it's only a problem of “unit design”: I'm sure we can grey out 95% of the tech tree to have stable worker fights, allowing the best player to come ahead through micro even in the hell of that mass production into huge high-stake engagements environment.
I would be extremely surprised if any significant change occurred to the economy during the beta + Show Spoiler +
which means that LotV will be a disaster
. The LotV economy (12 workers + reduced global amount of minerals per base on 8 nodes) is 100% successful for what it intends to achieve: big economies into big battles + death of the 3b symptom. If I was a Blizzster, I would barely bother to test another system. To add insult to injury, the LotV economy is even perfectly compatible with DH10 and DH9!
Although, may be... everithing intended for observer is not so bad. If a player do everything not to entertain himself but to prove his superriority to observer. How he can do that if none watching him?
On May 20 2015 00:20 Kangoroo wrote: An excellent post and word excess as well.
Although, may be... everithing intended for observer is not so bad. If a player do everything not to entertain himself but to prove his superriority to observer. How he can do that if none watching him?
I think the key point here is that the players, the people who actually spend money and invest time into the game (especially for a game as time and effort-intensive as Starcraft), need to be prioritized over "having more viewers". If a game is good, if people enjoy playing it, then the game will naturally lead to more interest and more viewers. The opposite is not true; more viewers will not make players playing a game they don't enjoy prosper.
And again, just to reiterate: TheDwf's main point here is that Blizzard has done a lot of things wrong with SC2, including killing the strategy part of RTS and hijacking tournaments, and we should be critical of them going into LotV or else we risk further damage.
If you look at industry standards for Project Management, stakeholders are anyone involved or could be affected by the outcome. IE us as paying individuals are. When Blizzard makes rash or dumb decisions for a game, then in turn it is affecting the stakeholders.
Companies tend to forget that its not the Product Owners, the Board Members, the CEO's care about the end state product. Sure they do to an extent, they want to get paid. But us as stakeholders, as paying customers, expect what we pay for and at times we do not receive this.
I think you are from the left wing of politics. I think you have a lot of a reporter in you. - Not necessarily good. I read a lot of assumptions and also some plain wrong stuff.
Still love the post and once i can muster up the patience to go through this, i will finish reading it. I was done around point 10 or something. Too tired.
Goob job Thedwf. What an excellent post with a bit of humor thrown in! I like how your writing skills (or style) ruffled a few feathers or as a matter of fact hit a few too many nerves for the select few members out there. Maybe some of them are the very blizzsters you were referring to *tin foil hat*.
One point that got me thinking is how they intended this to happen. Im sure alot of people on TL still believes to this day that the dev team behind SC2 is just a bunch of incompetent fools that have no idea what they are doing. I also used to be one of those people. I dont think this is the case or has been for many years. The dev team knows EXACTLY what they are doing and this goal/vision of theirs simply do not resonate at all with what the community wants. There are so many resources (from past games, the community etc) out there to put together a starcraft sequel that could imo potentially be greater than its predecessor or even the current incantation of the sequel. Yet most of the resources are left on the shelves and discarded simply because it doesn't meet their goals nor the vision of what they want sc2 to be. I guess in short, the product we have now wasn't an accident by any means.
I don't see them changing their design philosophy anytime soon. They will continue to reinvent the wheel although it would be quite hilarious if they do come full circle. At times like these, it would be great if there was a competing RTS game similar to SC because it would seriously give them a wakeup call.
On May 20 2015 02:06 SC2John wrote: TheDwf's main point here is that Blizzard has done a lot of things wrong with SC2, including killing the strategy part of RTS and hijacking tournaments, and we should be critical of them going into LotV or else we risk further damage.
I feel like we're too late. Honestly, I think WOL 2011 was the golden age of SC2, and HOTS was the chance to fix the major problems of WOL as it declined (Fungal, Vortex, Mech, ect...). But Blizzard's fixes were less than ideal, and the units they added did little to make the game better, and in most cases made it worse.
I am of the opinion now that the TL Strategy team should create their own version of SC2, with the lessons learned from Blizzard's mistakes. Maybe with their clout something can be put together that really shines. They have shown an ability to do what the Blizzard design team cannot, and that is listen to the community and weed out bad ideas from good ones. Anytime you hear someone say "we're going to do it our way" they are taking the easy way out because they can't communicate effectively, and that is what Blizzard is doing. Great things aren't created by taking the easy way out.
It would be hard work, people's feeling would get hurt, and some people would rage quit. But it would be worth it. Everything is better when many people give their input, and good ideas are implemented.
This was a really enlightening maga-post, just sharing my own 2 cents as well:
I play random at the low masters level, and yet I still have ladder anxiety against diamond and sometimes even plat players. I can scout for cheese and play super safe all I want, but the "loss of control" aspect is huge in the sense that hard-counters, forcefields, etc. will still contribute significantly to me losing games against inferior players in the most frustrating and helpless ways possible.
To further convey my point, when I face a superior player, I would abuse this "I'm a better player so I'll play safe and win later in a macro game" as much as I possibly can as well. PvZ against a high masters player? No problem, forge first into attempted triple pylon ramp block (very high success rate due to the BO1 nature of ladder play). Denied due a drone on patrol? No problem, pylon block at the natural AND at the 3rd while going either blink or immortal/sentry all-in behind it.
I'm a naturally competitive person, the type of player that watches replays of my own losses. I enjoy learning from my losses, and I usually GG even after humiliating losses IF I can attribute the losses to inadequacies in my own play. But in cases when I macro perfectly and only drone to 55 against immortal sentry all-ins yet still die to forcefields on maps like overgrowth (shit like snipe 3rd into recall, so fucking frustrating), or when I sacrifice 2 overlords and still scout nothing in a ZvT (usually on maps with larger mains where a Terran can hide an armory at the very back of his base) and later die to hellbats, I can't help but rage at least a little bit.
Granted, BO losses, hard counters and "OP" abilities existed even in BW, but they were much less frequent and felt much less helpless to play against. Dark swarm casted by defilers with infinite energy seems so overpowered on paper, but there were dynamics in BW TvZ where as long as the T entered the late game on a decent economy, the irradiate/plague/dark swarm dance would eventually produce a winner based on the merits of his own actions, namely the macro to produce the science vessels and defilers, and the micro to dodge scourges and constantly plague.
BW was such that Flash could easily beat me with a mass marine strategy 100 times in a row in TvP because the importance of mechanics was overwhelming. SC2 is the case where I would feel confident beating Flash a few times if I could practice a snipe build X200 to get the early game macro/micro good enough to hit the timing that I need. Finding the right balance is extremely challenging, but vital to the success of the game.
On May 20 2015 02:06 SC2John wrote: TheDwf's main point here is that Blizzard has done a lot of things wrong with SC2, including killing the strategy part of RTS and hijacking tournaments, and we should be critical of them going into LotV or else we risk further damage.
I feel like we're too late. Honestly, I think WOL 2011 was the golden age of SC2, and HOTS was the chance to fix the major problems of WOL as it declined (Fungal, Vortex, Mech, ect...). But Blizzard's fixes were less than ideal, and the units they added did little to make the game better, and in most cases made it worse.
I am of the opinion now that the TL Strategy team should create their own version of SC2, with the lessons learned from Blizzard's mistakes. Maybe with their clout something can be put together that really shines. They have shown an ability to do what the Blizzard design team cannot, and that is listen to the community and weed out bad ideas from good ones. Anytime you hear someone say "we're going to do it our way" they are taking the easy way out because they can't communicate effectively, and that is what Blizzard is doing. Great things aren't created by taking the easy way out.
It would be hard work, people's feeling would get hurt, and some people would rage quit. But it would be worth it. Everything is better when many people give their input, and good ideas are implemented.
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