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I have received requests on how to try the model out: Search "Double Harvesting (TeamLiquid)" by ZeromuS as an Extension Mod in HotS Custom Games to try it out. Email your replays of your games on DH to: LegacyEconomyTest@gmail.com might have partnership with a replay website soon as well  In Game Group: Double Harvest |
On April 13 2015 15:16 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2015 15:09 docvoc wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed about something here. Every economic idea comes from a specific game orienting philosophy. In this y'all described that a player driven economy is better than a time driven economy, but that doesn't really explain to me the background as to why you guys want to emulate brood war. I get that player driven is going to be more fun than time driven in the case of SC, but how does that connect to making a BW-esque system? Why should blizzard implement that over a novel system that may work better for the SC2 AI? I'm not necessarily hating on this because the write up is fantastic, but I don't see the background connection between those two. Show nested quote +On April 13 2015 06:00 Plexa wrote:On April 13 2015 04:01 yuzisee wrote:On April 13 2015 00:53 Plexa wrote:On April 13 2015 00:48 Teoita wrote:
I think it kind of does that - the first few workers are more efficient because they have access to the gold nodes. In that model, you have higher income on 4bases because you have access to more gold nodes. Am i missing anything? I suppose your right to some extent. The issues are similar to the LotV model in that the gold nodes are going to mine out quicker than the blue nodes (at the proposed 7/4 model it takes about 30% longer to mine out the blue ones). You could change the values on the golds to correct this, but that is kinda weird (having two kinds of gold minerals). The mmpm graph also looks unnatural. I'm not convinced that its necessarily better than DH as a result. DH feels like a very organic solution (so does FRB for that matter) whereas gold nodes and mixed minerals don;t. You know, I agree with you about what feels more "organic." I also think Blizzard might have a different opinion. It could be more productive for us to push for something that we think Blizzard will more likely accept, to give us the best chance of seeing improvements to the game we love. Actually, the premise of the argument is to abolish the 2:1 worker:node ratio. DH is the best solution that we came up with with the given limitations. The worker AI doesn't change so no unit is being made dumber, so let's stop using that terminology. What you mean is worker bouncing on the mineral lines -- which actually already happens once you get to 17 or more workers. So we're not introducing anything new through breaking the 2:1 ratio. But lets say Blizzard wanted to experiment with breaking 2:1 but didn't want to have massive bouncing at 9+ workers, then beta is the perfect time for them to change the worker AI to cleverly select the mineral that will be available first beyond what already happens. Even in that instance, having a 1:1 optimal ratio as opposed to 2:1 would achieve the benefits outlined in the post. Show nested quote +This is important because if you accept that 66 workers is optimal in terms of economy supply vs army supply, then the 48 workers mining minerals need 24 mineral patches to be optimal. The gold patch model doesn't change this, and hence doesn't change the 3 base paradigm. FRB changes the 24 patch cap to four bases which is better (and arguably 5 bases due to less workers mining gas). DH changes this to that you need 48 patches to be optimal which is 6 bases and in any normal game you're never going to have 6 bases mining simultaneously. The effect of this is that there is always an advantage to having more bases if you can defend it, meaning there is no effective base cap unlike every other model suggested. It's worth noting that FRB (under Barrins 6m1g implementation) gets really damn close to this, and why that model worked quite well in encouraging expanding. tldr; no one is asking for a BW economy. We want to break the three base cap in a more interesting way than is currently suggested. It's also worth pointing out that the model where the worker collects two rounds of minerals is distinctly not-BW. BW was one round of 8 minerals, this is two rounds of 5 chunks mined one after another.
Awesome, thanks for the explanation Plexa, and for being nicer going about it haha.
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There's a variety of different ways that you could change the game to make things work out "differently". I won't say "better", because that is going to affect a lot of other things in the game that could make things worse, not better. With that being said, one of the things I dislike about SC2 is the lack of diminishing returns on more workers on a mineral line.
Another solution I remember reading about in the past was allowing multiple workers mine mineral patches at the same time, but adding diminishing returns to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc, miner on the individual patch. If the first miner gets 5 minerals in a trip, the 2nd would get just 4, the third would just get 3, the 4th would just get 2, and any more would just get 1, for instance.
I felt like being able to mine more minerals per minute with the same number of workers, or mining the same amount of minerals per minute with less workers, was a great incentive to try to expand more than your opponent in BW and it should exist in some way, shape, or form in SC2.
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On April 14 2015 08:14 Impervious wrote:
There's a variety of different ways that you could change the game to make things work out "differently". I won't say "better", because that is going to affect a lot of other things in the game that could make things worse, not better.
Sometimes, you have to get worse in order to get better. When Tiger Woods decided to change how he swung a golf club, initially he got a lot worse, but then he became better than he had ever been.
I think it is important to understand that the more willing someone is to try different things, the higher the chances they will get better are. I think we understand this new economy enough to realize that it forces people to expand faster. Blizzard should try a few other different things and see what works, and then go from there. In doing so, they might actually come up with the perfect system after a bunch of iterations.
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I have two questions.
First, why is the "expand or die" mentality such a bad thing? MY personal favorite games, both as a player and spectator, have always been scrappy low econ games.
Second, why can't we tweak the current system instead? There have been countless suggestions on how to tweak the current system, surely one of them is worth a shit?
Also, I feel that the authors hold BW as a gold standard, as in, they want to emulate BW econ above all else. The problem I have here is, who is to say the BW econ is truly the pinnacle? Why is "BW-esque" synonymous with "good" in this community? I feel as though the relative failure of Starbow is proof that the BW purists and their ideas are not all they are cracked up to be.
edit: another thing. Is it possible that the reason a BW player (usually Terran Mech) could compete with lower base counts against a player with higher base counts is because of the way units are designed in BW? The Siege Tank was a lot better, there were fewer harassment options, and so on. On the same note, with the amount of viable harassment options in LotV, is a player really going to want to take additional bases, spreading themselves thinner, for a modest resource gain? I feel like players will still want to stick to 3 bases for that reason
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 14 2015 09:30 coolman123123 wrote:
I have two questions.
First, why is the "expand or die" mentality such a bad thing? MY personal favorite games, both as a player and spectator, have always been scrappy low econ games.
Second, why can't we tweak the current system instead? There have been countless suggestions on how to tweak the current system, surely one of them is worth a shit?
Also, I feel that the authors hold BW as a gold standard, as in, they want to emulate BW econ above all else. The problem I have here is, who is to say the BW econ is truly the pinnacle? Why is "BW-esque" synonymous with "good" in this community? I feel as though the relative failure of Starbow is proof that the BW purists and their ideas are not all they are cracked up to be.
edit: another thing. Is it possible that the reason a BW player (usually Terran Mech) could compete with lower base counts against a player with higher base counts is because of the way units are designed in BW? The Siege Tank was a lot better, there were fewer harassment options, and so on.
This isn't BW-esque.
It is a very different system than BW.
The ONLY lesson we take from BW in our approach is to drop the efficiency of workers from 100% (full mining) starting with the 9th.
The thing we are borrowing is the idea that players who expand a lot are rewarded for it.
I don't want broodwar, I was never good at bw, i didnt play it so much as to have rose coloured nostalgia goggles.
What I do want is to create a positive influence on the need to expand in this game. What I don't like is being FORCED into scrappy low econ games. They happen, thats fine, they will happen with the double harvest system as well. Its just that if every game or most games in LotV end up being scrappy thats bad. We dont want every game to be a turtle fest the same way we dont want every game to be scrappy.
From our perspective its better to offer more options to players through more rewarding expansions than to take away the strategies that rely on smaller base counts. I just want to see tools offered to players to counter turtle strategies that are more effective.
Personally, I feel that double harvest does this best within the game of sc2. Again, this is not BW. BW mined 8 minerals at a time and over a long period of time.
This does 2 harvests 5 at a time and when 10 minerals is reached (2 harvests) the probe returns to the mineral line.
I think that its fine to want to reduce overall mineral counts in bases, just not the way LotV is doing it atm.
I think that its very punishing for players who dont expand and changes the value of tech based or slow (mech) based armies. Mech can't hold that many positions on the map at once, and you can't expect them to take 5 bases quickly to keep up income. I guess if you want to have primarily mobile playstyles in LotV thats fine. But mobile playstyles aren't the same as space control playstyles like tank based mech.
I also worry that the changes will be unfriendly to new players since they often play slower and if their bases mine out quickly, they might not have fun with the game even at a low or casual level. I guess they could play fastest map mods so that they never have to expand or run out of minerals, but, im not sure thats good either.
I simply want to provide players with more options in how to approach the game and encourage more expansions through more reward for those bases.
Also part of the problem with the expand or die mentality is that it removes some of the power a player has over their game. You not only need to fight your opponent, you also need to fight your own base. And this kind of dynamic is very much related to race asymmetry. Map control and economy are related and tempered by the existence of tech. This little triangle of relationships is kind of toyed with in the lotv economy and requires A LOT of changes during beta to get right. I think if we begin to fully balance around the LotV econ and discover its less than optimal then we have committed hard to a path we cannot change. that is why now is the best time to try new things.
On the topic of race asymettry, if you make it easier for Terran and Protoss to mass expand like Zerg, they lose some of their identity or rather zerg loses some of its identity. And thats another issue altogether i don't have time to really get into.
Also see:
On April 13 2015 15:16 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2015 15:09 docvoc wrote:
I'm a bit perplexed about something here. Every economic idea comes from a specific game orienting philosophy. In this y'all described that a player driven economy is better than a time driven economy, but that doesn't really explain to me the background as to why you guys want to emulate brood war. I get that player driven is going to be more fun than time driven in the case of SC, but how does that connect to making a BW-esque system? Why should blizzard implement that over a novel system that may work better for the SC2 AI? I'm not necessarily hating on this because the write up is fantastic, but I don't see the background connection between those two. Show nested quote +On April 13 2015 06:00 Plexa wrote:On April 13 2015 04:01 yuzisee wrote:On April 13 2015 00:53 Plexa wrote:On April 13 2015 00:48 Teoita wrote:
I think it kind of does that - the first few workers are more efficient because they have access to the gold nodes. In that model, you have higher income on 4bases because you have access to more gold nodes. Am i missing anything? I suppose your right to some extent. The issues are similar to the LotV model in that the gold nodes are going to mine out quicker than the blue nodes (at the proposed 7/4 model it takes about 30% longer to mine out the blue ones). You could change the values on the golds to correct this, but that is kinda weird (having two kinds of gold minerals). The mmpm graph also looks unnatural. I'm not convinced that its necessarily better than DH as a result. DH feels like a very organic solution (so does FRB for that matter) whereas gold nodes and mixed minerals don;t. You know, I agree with you about what feels more "organic." I also think Blizzard might have a different opinion. It could be more productive for us to push for something that we think Blizzard will more likely accept, to give us the best chance of seeing improvements to the game we love. Actually, the premise of the argument is to abolish the 2:1 worker:node ratio. DH is the best solution that we came up with with the given limitations. The worker AI doesn't change so no unit is being made dumber, so let's stop using that terminology. What you mean is worker bouncing on the mineral lines -- which actually already happens once you get to 17 or more workers. So we're not introducing anything new through breaking the 2:1 ratio. But lets say Blizzard wanted to experiment with breaking 2:1 but didn't want to have massive bouncing at 9+ workers, then beta is the perfect time for them to change the worker AI to cleverly select the mineral that will be available first beyond what already happens. Even in that instance, having a 1:1 optimal ratio as opposed to 2:1 would achieve the benefits outlined in the post. Show nested quote +This is important because if you accept that 66 workers is optimal in terms of economy supply vs army supply, then the 48 workers mining minerals need 24 mineral patches to be optimal. The gold patch model doesn't change this, and hence doesn't change the 3 base paradigm. FRB changes the 24 patch cap to four bases which is better (and arguably 5 bases due to less workers mining gas). DH changes this to that you need 48 patches to be optimal which is 6 bases and in any normal game you're never going to have 6 bases mining simultaneously. The effect of this is that there is always an advantage to having more bases if you can defend it, meaning there is no effective base cap unlike every other model suggested. It's worth noting that FRB (under Barrins 6m1g implementation) gets really damn close to this, and why that model worked quite well in encouraging expanding. tldr; no one is asking for a BW economy. We want to break the three base cap in a more interesting way than is currently suggested. It's also worth pointing out that the model where the worker collects two rounds of minerals is distinctly not-BW. BW was one round of 8 minerals, this is two rounds of 5 chunks mined one after another.
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This is so over and above what Blizzard should need to take a really good look at this idea. Such a better way to spread things out. Great job as always.
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This has got to be the most complete idea I've ever seen presented in a gaming community. The main post was really well done, and the discussion seems good, too.
One thing that I'd be worried about is the implications that the new mining approach has on timing. For example, if it allows Protoss to always 14 Nexus safely vs. Zerg aside from 6 Pool, and still allows the scouting Probe to block Hatch First then it may cause some serious problems. However, I guess you'll look at that after the initial discussion.
Your new econ model seems great, though. One of the things that made Broodwar dynamic was the large spread on bases. Giving more area to cover defensively means that you need to be careful, and make enough units to keep your workers safe. On the flip side, you also need to be expanding at a rate to keep up economically. This balance should make the game more interesting, as well as adding another skill-based factor to play.
I haven't played since WoL, but if this new econ were added I would seriously consider switching back from BW.
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Read through the post a second time with Plexa's comments in mind. I definitely get where you are coming from Zeromus. How do you think this will affect strategy timings for the early game or early game worker scouting. This method will change the make up of the game, and I think with the effort you've put into the write up and the numbers you've posted the change is welcome. That being said do you think that externalities of the change (like having fewer workers meaning harder to pull of SCV all ins or more costly early game scouting for protoss before obs) whether they are considered positive and negative will be difficult to negotiate? I'm not asking you to have it all figured out right now by any means, and I don't want this to come off like I'm being contentious. I'm just curious since I'm sure you've put a lot of thought into this question given how far reaching changing an economy is. I like breaking from the 2:1 ratio though, I think that opens up a lot of economic opportunities in the game.
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Very good statistics and model. No wonder people complain about zerg in LOTV. It is because the economy allows the zerg to get multiple bases with few saturation, which ultimately capitalizes on economy now. In HotS it was more balanced based off the stats. I can see why terran econ is bad in LOTV (Even though they have the uber cyclone).
Basicly it means that the race that can produce the most workers fastest is the most efficient based off this article. Meaning Zerg with inject get the most workers out. It is not so much that the Ravager is OP. I honestly believe it isn't compared to most people. Its just zerg is so good with econ in this game.
You might as well just CC First or Nexus First every game.
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 14 2015 12:46 RuFF_SC2 wrote:
Very good statistics and model. No wonder people complain about zerg in LOTV. It is because the economy allows the zerg to get multiple bases with few saturation, which ultimately capitalizes on economy now. In HotS it was more balanced based off the stats. I can see why terran econ is bad in LOTV (Even though they have the uber cyclone).
Basicly it means that the race that can produce the most workers fastest is the most efficient based off this article. Meaning Zerg with inject get the most workers out. It is not so much that the Ravager is OP. I honestly believe it isn't compared to most people. Its just zerg is so good with econ in this game.
You might as well just CC First or Nexus First every game.
In LotV the workers mine just like HotS.
The problem is that Zerg has access to bases so much easier, and if you can deny or slow a third down your advantage gets huge. On top of that, the units are so strong that they become cost efficient vs a lesser econ always  You are the reverse protoss right now.
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Very good post, I wish blizzard would try it out.
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One of the major problems with the current LotV model is also that it really messes with the MULE mechanic. Anything that causes you to mine out quicker is an issue. (Also, not a fan of being "forced" to drop MULEs on closer patches to preserve overall income rate.) This is a big reason I'd rather see DH (or DM, or more gold bases) tried.
I do think the LotV changes are better than HotS and I'm curious to see things playing out with a larger tester-base (especially since most of those with beta are -or should be- busy with WCS).
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Okay I'm less and less convinced by DH and DM models, I profundly dislike the income you have at lower worker counts that can go almost up to 50% compared to HotS according to Zeromus spreadshit.
That said, I believe in testing and experimentation, so I'm up to play with people with the extension mods. If you guys want to prove your point, it's time to create a channel in game so we can meet, play and test this crap
I'm Gwavanoob on EU server, still in plat, booooh.
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On April 14 2015 15:37 Gwavajuice wrote:Okay I'm less and less convinced by DH and DM models, I profundly dislike the income you have at lower worker counts that can go almost up to 50% compared to HotS according to Zeromus spreadshit. That said, I believe in testing and experimentation, so I'm up to play with people with the extension mods. If you guys want to prove your point, it's time to create a channel in game so we can meet, play and test this crap I'm Gwavanoob on EU server, still in plat, booooh.
I do think small tweaks can be done there - such as changing mining time slightly...
wait, what happens if mining time is simply changed in the current model?
Say we just up the income and mining time by 20%? (6 per trip and 3.2 mining time)?
e1: I assume this would still allow 2 workers to pair on long patches but would probably cause a dip at 12 workers?
e2: too small a change, pairing still possible.
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Wow short of changing the worker ai this is genius. Awesome groundbreaking work and impressive analysis both of the positive and negative effects.
The economiv change in lotv seems pretty meh to me, trying to force players to play like blizz wants them too by punishing some strategies is just bad from a rts point of view. Creating incentive for playing differently is definitely the prefered way to go.
If this change would to be tested I would be so hyped for lotv beta, just imagine all the possibilies for strategic choice.
You can expand aggresively and focus on defence while being stretched thin.
You could expand fast as P and try and attack at the same time, thus the economic advantage will kick in during the attack and the enemy will be surprised at your increased economy and production.
If your enemy goes the eco route you can choose to try and harass, remember harass will thus be more costly for the expanded player, each worker might carry more minerals and each worker mines more and is thus worth more. Harass becomes more lethal while expanding and defending harass becomes more rewarding
This feels like it would really be positive for the game and give players very creative freedom with how they want to play the game.
So hyped about such an awesome article that really shows a golden light of possible improvements to the game. Thank you for all your work on this!
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On April 14 2015 09:30 coolman123123 wrote:
I have two questions.
First, why is the "expand or die" mentality such a bad thing? MY personal favorite games, both as a player and spectator, have always been scrappy low econ games.
can be done by simply throwing in maps with lower base counts, don't see why the lotv eco is needed for this
Second, why can't we tweak the current system instead? There have been countless suggestions on how to tweak the current system, surely one of them is worth a shit?
this is pretty much what the thread is about.
Also, I feel that the authors hold BW as a gold standard, as in, they want to emulate BW econ above all else. The problem I have here is, who is to say the BW econ is truly the pinnacle? Why is "BW-esque" synonymous with "good" in this community? I feel as though the relative failure of Starbow is proof that the BW purists and their ideas are not all they are cracked up to be.
if you paid any attention to it you would know it largely failed due to the complete faillure the arcade&custom games are, and that nobody takes time to find a game when they can press a search game button.
edit: another thing. Is it possible that the reason a BW player (usually Terran Mech) could compete with lower base counts against a player with higher base counts is because of the way units are designed in BW? The Siege Tank was a lot better, there were fewer harassment options, and so on. On the same note, with the amount of viable harassment options in LotV, is a player really going to want to take additional bases, spreading themselves thinner, for a modest resource gain? I feel like players will still want to stick to 3 bases for that reason
as for the BW thing, I suggest you watch some BW TvP vods to get a better understanding of the economical mechanics behind that MU.
as for the 3base thing, well, you can try that in LotV but your 3 base simply aren't fully functional 3base because some of them have half the patches mined out now, so you're forcibly kicked of your 3base eco.
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edit: another thing. Is it possible that the reason a BW player (usually Terran Mech) could compete with lower base counts against a player with higher base counts is because of the way units are designed in BW? The Siege Tank was a lot better, there were fewer harassment options, and so on.
Vultures in especially TvP were incredibly strong. They hardcountered meele units and could be cost effective vs Dragoons with proper Spider Mine control and would relatively easily take out Photo Cannons as they deat 20 damage to shields. A 75 mineral Vulture is probably better in most situations than a 100 mineral Hellion.
Thus, its incorrect to imply that mech in BW was less harassment focussed than it is in WOL/HOTS. However, LOTV definitely seems to change that. Sc2-mech in TvZ is, however, much more reliant on the Raven than mech-Terran relied on the Science Vessel.
The real strenght of BW mech lied in the late game where you would see a gameplay that was more based on armytrading than stale deathball focussed as in Sc2. This is a result of multiple factors though (not just econ), Tanks being stronger late game (and 2 supply) is definitely one of them, but at the same time the opponent was given the tools to break it down. So we don't see any scenarios where you attack into 20 Ravens and dealt 0 damage.
Another difference with BW mech and Sc2 mech was that it was easier to attack/make timing attacks with BW mech. In Sc2 your always´waiting for critical mass when you mech vs zerg while vs toss tanks just aren't very good (at least they weren't prior to LOTV). In Sc2 TvT, however, you do see some comparables to BW mech as you can make 2 base and 3 base timing attacks (vs bio/tank) + static defense doesn't shut down your harass.
Meching vs zerg in Sc2 is problematic as the race is so strong in the midgame and therefore outnumbers you. In BW Zerg had much less larva and therefore didn't have as strong map control in the midgame. In Sc2, it is neccesary that you have a good escape-mechanic if you move out on the map vs Zerg (such as Medivac with speed boosts) as you likely get outnumbered.
At last, terran mech in Sc2 are also very exposed to heavy Mutalisk play which makes it hard to be aggressive. The new terran AA unit could however help with that.
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reduce minerals returned of Double Mining by 15% instead of 10 you get 8 oh wow we're back to SC:BW 
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Italy12246 Posts
Workers mine once in BW not twice
Again, double mining is not BW, even though it has the same consequence of "more than 3bases is good for both mineral and gas income!". So does Blizzard's model to a certain extent, we just think that DM is a more elegant solution
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I agree that mining inefficiency when worker number grows is the best method to provide encouragement for more expansion than what current LotV Beta implements.
But it does seem like the current macro mechanics would need some reworking. MULEs would give Terran the mineral advantage without risking an immediate expansion(assuming they still work the same way in this model). Larva Inject means Zerg grows significantly with every expansion in economy and in production. Chronoboost however, accelerate the economy but takes up supply in probes and starts mining inefficiently earlier, which probably forces an earlier expansion timing.
I guess what I want to express is that with the mining inefficiency model current Protoss macro mechanic has less reward with more risk, and thus not up to par with the other 2 races.
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