EPTI'm glad to see TL putting out featured pieces to reaffirm this superior approach to RTS economy. I'm not sure why Blizzard seems so adamantly against it, but perhaps with the largest SC2 community pushing forward the idea as well, they might come around.
A Treatise on the Economy of SCII - Page 21
| Forum Index > Legacy of the Void |
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 | ||
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iamcaustic
Canada1509 Posts
I'm glad to see TL putting out featured pieces to reaffirm this superior approach to RTS economy. I'm not sure why Blizzard seems so adamantly against it, but perhaps with the largest SC2 community pushing forward the idea as well, they might come around. | ||
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BronzeKnee
United States5225 Posts
On April 15 2015 12:43 iamcaustic wrote: I'm not sure why Blizzard seems so adamantly against it... Because it wasn't their idea. Pride. | ||
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Honeybadger
United States821 Posts
On April 15 2015 13:24 BronzeKnee wrote: Because it wasn't their idea. Pride. as retarded and obnoxious as this idea seems, as the years go by, I think it's the real answer. That, or maybe there's some litigious reason they can't just take the ideas we present them for intellectual property reasons or some other bullshit | ||
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vesicular
United States1310 Posts
This is a strategy game! The entire game should be a risk/reward cost/benefit analysis. Speeding up the game doesn't make it better if there's no real choice to make. | ||
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robopork
United States511 Posts
And the sad thing is that they missed out on winning a ton of brownie points. The community would have such a massive collective hard on if this patch had literally just read "Sure, we'll give double harvest a shot." Would have outstripped the hype for balance tweaks for sure, and the work was basically done for them. They need to learn to work the crowd a little better. | ||
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Leafty
France84 Posts
This would not change the mining profile up to 8 workers from the current SC2 on, but would introduce a ramping down effect starting at the 9th miner. Also, this dampens even more the economy with 3 workers for a single patch. As I see it, pros: - No change from current economy profile with 1 worker per patch. - Effective way to dampen the harvester efficiency depending on wrokers/patch. - Pulling workers out of a mineral line does not seem to be more penalized from the current SC2 mechanics. cons: - Is a cooldown visualisation needed? (Patch changes color, etc.) And coul it be confusing? - Accumulation of workers next to mineral patches, could have an impact on harass based on AoE damage. | ||
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Gwavajuice
France1810 Posts
Yeah or maybe, you know, this idea is not that good and the solution is more in the unit design? People see 2 graphs and they're going full erect, but really who has tested this and it's impact on an actual game? The current DH (10 mins per trip) is bad imho, because with a low count of workers you have a crazy mineral income that unecessarily boosts agressive openings (heard bout 3 rax proxy? you can go on test it) I m not sure this the way I would like the meta to go to. I will try and test the new 8 mins per trip DH, but I'm not particulary optimistic. On the other hand bizzard is testing a very violent change with the 1500 750 mins patch, but in the end the idea is to converge toward a smooth solution, what if at release it becomes 8 patch of 1250 minerals or something? So imho, both solution are bad atm, but I think blizzard one is easier to balance and to optimize... I can be totally wrong of course and maybe the 2:1 mining is actually the root of all evil in this game, but this old "blizzard is full of crap and don't know how to make a game" is getting old... | ||
Whitewing
United States7483 Posts
On April 15 2015 16:40 Gwavajuice wrote: Yeah or maybe, you know, this idea is not that good and the solution is more in the unit design? People see 2 graphs and they're going full erect, but really who has tested this and it's impact on an actual game? The current DH (10 mins per trip) is bad imho, because with a low count of workers you have a crazy mineral income that unecessarily boosts agressive openings (heard bout 3 rax proxy? you can go on test it) I m not sure this the way I would like the meta to go to. I will try and test the new 8 mins per trip DH, but I'm not particulary optimistic. On the other hand bizzard is testing a very violent change with the 1500 750 mins patch, but in the end the idea is to converge toward a smooth solution, what if at release it becomes 8 patch of 1250 minerals or something? So imho, both solution are bad atm, but I think blizzard one is easier to balance and to optimize... I can be totally wrong of course and maybe the 2:1 mining is actually the root of all evil in this game, but this old "blizzard is full of crap and don't know how to make a game" is getting old... It boosts the defense equally. It's a universal income boost, what the attacker gains so gains the defender. | ||
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Highways
Australia6120 Posts
Yea, I think this is the reason. The community has the most passionate and brightest people in Starcraft. If Blizzard cared about the game they will listen. | ||
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Highways
Australia6120 Posts
Say 5 nodes per base instead of 8? | ||
Teoita
Italy12247 Posts
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JorSharky
11 Posts
I believe that numbers don't lie, and that the double harvesting system should be tried in LoTV for sure, as the real implementation of this system is the only way to show the true effect on the game .. and hell yeah that is what a beta release is all about! Personally, I find the focus on rewarding the earlier expansion rather than punishing the delayed one is the most important thing in this article. Blizzard should really consider this change, and should be very proud of such a fan base that is willing to sacrifice such time and effort to improve their beloved game! With such dedicated fans this game will never die! | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On April 15 2015 17:06 Highways wrote: Would reducing the amount of nodes per base be a plausible solution? Say 5 nodes per base instead of 8? Similar ideas were tried with 7m1g (7 mineral 1 gas) maps (as well other combinations). There have been attempts with mixing rich (gold) patches to balance things out as well. Someone who's followed the discussion since then can probably answer better... I do personally like those fixes more as they are simpler to understand. How do you explain to someone that a worker mines twice because it makes the game work better? How do you convince Blizzard to make that change? I think pushing for double mining (at least first) would be a lot better.The advantage DH has over DM (mainly losing less mining time when workers are pulled) doesn't make up for it being "less intuitive" (IMO). | ||
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Teoita
Italy12247 Posts
Anyone who follows the scene and plays seriously will know that extra bases past the third are really advantageous, and the games will (hopefully) play out differently (and better), while nothing really substancial should change for Johnny Bronze who wants to just make tanks and turrets on 2 bases for 15 minutes. | ||
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BluzMan
Russian Federation4235 Posts
Tests that don't provide alternatives (at least the placebo group which in the current situation would be HotS economy) are not real tests, you know. | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On April 15 2015 17:42 Teoita wrote: Im not sure about the arguments of DH being less intuitive. Other than worker pairing being gone early on (which no newcomer notices anyway), i don't think people pay enough attention to the workers to actually tell there is a difference at first glance, even though against a good player the game changes massively (Zeromus fucking schools me with this economy because i play too much like HotS and he expands like a madman for example). Anyone who follows the scene and plays seriously will know that extra bases past the third are really advantageous, and the games will (hopefully) play out differently (and better), while nothing really substancial should change for Johnny Bronze who wants to just make tanks and turrets on 2 bases for 15 minutes. Any eco change will bring about a totally new meta. My point is that DM seems like a simpler solution than DH. *Let me try to see how the mod affects worker behavior first* :D | ||
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Teoita
Italy12247 Posts
A big reason why we like double harvesting is while the early game is faster and you mine out quicker (as blizzard intends), with extra bases being really advantageous, it's the closest alternative economic model to HotS as far as timings and income once fully saturated, meaning it should also be the easiest to balance. The key thing isn't individual worker behaviour, but overall worker behavior when mining together on a single base, and how that behavior influences income. The actual mining path might be different (although it's not that different betweem DM and DH), sure, but that's not the important thing. | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On April 15 2015 18:56 Teoita wrote: I agree that a new eco changes the game completely (see the current state of beta), but DM actually isn't a simpler solution than DH because the income levels are so different from HotS at every worker count. A big reason why we like double harvesting is while the early game is faster and you mine out quicker (as blizzard intends), with extra bases being really advantageous, it's the closest alternative economic model to HotS as far as timings and income once fully saturated, meaning it should also be the easiest to balance. The key thing isn't individual worker behaviour, but overall worker behavior when mining together on a single base, and how that behavior influences income. The actual mining path might be different (although it's not that different betweem DM and DH), sure, but that's not the important thing. I think it's easier to tweak DM than DH. DM probably requires a slightly longer mining time to more closely resemble HotS (if that's even needed) but that's an easy change, it doesn't fundamentally change something about the worker behavior. DH has a few "bugs": Trying to micro workers to keeping them from bouncing to far patches can result in sending the current worker to bounce between harvests isntead. Workers that mine out a patch on their first harvest don't look for a new patch. These aren't game breaking and simple things like "don't micro your workers" solves the first issue (but feels wrong). I'm sure Blizz can fix workers to look for new patches if the current patch mines out mid harvest but, if they're going to fundamentally change worker behavior is there a better solution? *This inability to find a new patch could be related to harvesting 2x4 in "Double Harvesting - FRB Edit" mod e: I was pleased to see that playing the mod did ease some of my concerns regarding worker behavior. Using queued (shift) commands in conjunction with harvest didn't behave any differently. Maybe it's just cause I'm one of those anal guys that wants to make sure when I send a worker to harvest gas no minerals are lost. Using "return cargo" won't help if a worker has already completed half a mining cycle. | ||
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blae000
Norway1640 Posts
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edge_sc
1 Post
This needs to be spread beyond TL, not forced down the throats of Blizzards devs mind you, but perfectly placed in a location where a dev might just happen upon it and claim it for his own creation! Far too many good ideas have been lost to the winds because the forums were alight with angry nerds claiming they had the right answer, leading Blizzard to disregard them outright along with the idea they were promoting in the first place. Anyway, looking forward to many good discussions and ideas to bloom from this article. | ||
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