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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 17 2015 17:12 WrathofShane wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible. As someone with plenty of brood war games 1) It is way more important then you are making it out to be. 2) It is tedious. 3) Its a niche skill. 4) Its hidden power and APM sink that new players are going to be caught off guard by. With the 2:1 its not even something to worry about, with 1:1 your income is going to fall behind just from not stutter stepping the drones until you start to get up to 16 workers or whatever. 2:1 is a breath of fresh air compared to brood war early game (post split phase). I would rather experiment with 6 nodes and 1 rich gas per base over going back to 1:1
I read the whole article the first time, but after putting more thought into this I think the mid game benefits of having 1:1 greatly outweigh the negative impact 1:1 brings to the early game.
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could anyone explain why this isn't the same?
adding 2 gold patches to natural, 4 gold patches to 3rd (1 high efficiency gas), and then other bases are gold and high gas.
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Italy12247 Posts
Because it adds the issue of a) golds mining faster than normal minerals and b) it changes the gas income, meaning balance is impacted much more.
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On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible.
If it is totally negligible it a complete waste of time and money to have people program that into the game in the first place.
To me, a high silver-low gold level player (i.e. someone belonging to the largest group of players), there was nothing wrong with HOTS' economy. However, what I did notice is that I usually ended up spending more time looking at my production buildings than at my or my opponent's army, up to the point that 95% of my game time felt like playing a high-speed, real time city building and the other 5% actually fighting my opponent who was doing the same thing I was. If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine.
Some of Starcraft 2's mechanics are downright archaic and outdated, and exist only to make the game difficult for the sake of it. Sure, automising the whole production process would drastically lower the skill ceiling, but would also drastically reduce the skill threshold for new players. MOBA games, to me, seem to be about making smart strategical choices with your hero and its abilities. Starcraft 2 is about being able to click on things faster than your opponent, and in the lower leagues those things tend to be production buildings instead of army units.
So quite bluntly, my advice to blizzard would be: stop focussing on redesigning the game's economy and focus on automising the production process so people can spend more time thinking up strategies and outmanoeuvering their opponents. Do this even if you will draw the ire of the top 5% of players.
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United States7483 Posts
On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible. If it is totally negligible it a complete waste of time and money to have people program that into the game in the first place. To me, a high silver-low gold level player (i.e. someone belonging to the largest group of players), there was nothing wrong with HOTS' economy. However, what I did notice is that I usually ended up spending more time looking at my production buildings than at my or my opponent's army, up to the point that 95% of my game time felt like playing a high-speed, real time city building and the other 5% actually fighting my opponent who was doing the same thing I was. If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine. Some of Starcraft 2's mechanics are downright archaic and outdated, and exist only to make the game difficult for the sake of it. Sure, automising the whole production process would drastically lower the skill ceiling, but would also drastically reduce the skill threshold for new players. MOBA games, to me, seem to be about making smart strategical choices with your hero and its abilities. Starcraft 2 is about being able to click on things faster than your opponent, and in the lower leagues those things tend to be production buildings instead of army units. So quite bluntly, my advice to blizzard would be: stop focussing on redesigning the game's economy and focus on automising the production process so people can spend more time thinking up strategies and outmanoeuvering their opponents. Do this even if you will draw the ire of the top 5% of players.
Doing this sort of thing would destroy the competitive scene. This isn't a chess game where players are permitted to take as much time as they need to accomplish things, nor is it a team game where action is happening everywhere because it's all under the control of different players working together. For a one on one RTS competive game to be particularly interesting, it needs to be difficult to master the mechanics. We love the game and love to watch it because of how hard it is to play flawlessly.
The fact that the game is difficult to master is not a bad thing, but it's a plus. Starcraft is very much about strategy, but you need a minimum level of mechanical skill before that strategy comes into play. The equivalent example would be in a moba not knowing what the items are or how they function, or in heroes of the storm not knowing how the talents work. You can still play the game and can even have a lot of fun if you're open to it, but it's not going to be nearly as strategic.
That said, if you're having too much trouble with the mechanics, archon mode is being introduced for a reason, and seems exactly like the sort of thing you'd enjoy.
Not revamping things that very much need it because the lower echelon of players don't care isn't a reason not to do it, nor is it a reason to redesign the game. Professionals are only interested in the game because of its difficulty: take that away and they'd lose interest. There's a reason Starcraft is the only RTS being played right now, rather than command and conquer.
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I don't really know what to say besides if it makes the game require more skill then I am all for this change, especially if it makes it a lot more like BW than SC2 currently is.
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On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine.
Go download the best RTT (real-time tactics) games ever, in my opinion, Myth/Myth II: Soulblighter:
http://gateofstorms.net/
Made by Bungie Software way back before it was bought by Microsoft, pre-Halo days. Times may have changed, but if you want a game that's all about the tactics, no production, I'm not sure there is a better made game out there. Plus, it has dwarves that lob moltov cocktails.
More to your point, there is a significant difference between a RTT (real-time tactics) game and a RTS (real-time strategy game). The latter looks like starcraft and includes a constant tension between controlling your army and controlling your production and economy. That's the nature of the game. If you want a game focused on army control, you'll probably be happier playing a RTT.
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On April 17 2015 23:09 rhythmrenegade wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine. Go download the best RTT (real-time tactics) games ever, in my opinion, Myth/Myth II: Soulblighter: http://gateofstorms.net/Made by Bungie Software way back before it was bought by Microsoft, pre-Halo days. Times may have changed, but if you want a game that's all about the tactics, no production, I'm not sure there is a better made game out there. Plus, it has dwarves that lob moltov cocktails. More to your point, there is a significant difference between a RTT (real-time tactics) game and a RTS (real-time strategy game). The latter looks like starcraft and includes a constant tension between controlling your army and controlling your production and economy. That's the nature of the game. If you want a game focused on army control, you'll probably be happier playing a RTT.
Actually I really like Dawn of War 2. I found its campaign to be better than WoL's because the latter felt like one long tutorial. The game's sound design is especially amazing. Too bad Relic suffered really badly from their publisher's bankruptcy. They were the only RTS studio left that could stand up to Blizzard, in my opinion. Company of Heroes 2 wasn't bad, but it felt like a step backwards in RTS design. I haven't checked out the expansion yet though. I've heard that they included some persistant units that need to survive throughout the campaign, which is very neat. The one game that did that before, an obscure but Russian title called OriginalWar, was really good, especially since you had to specialise your characters into either soldiering, engineering, working or science. Losing a level 9 soldier or engineer could really make life a lot more difficult.
On the other hand, C&C and SupCom are also called RTS but don't require the player to macro nearly as much as starcraft does. C&C has the unit production tab constantly on-screen and SupCom's production is fully automated. AoE 1 and 2 were even more macro-intensive than Starcraft (2), but AoE3 just let players create units five at a time if they could afford it. Game speed in these games is also significantly slower than in Starcraft 2, which makes the whole process more manageable in the first place.
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Perhaps I should check for the answer, but 26 pages is quite a lot. That's why I'm asking here.
Is there group or chat room on battle.net dediceted to testing those changes? How can I find someone to play with mod and see how that works in game?
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Is there a designated channel for the extension mod for players to meet up and set up matches?
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After having read this entire article, it truly makes a lot of sense. Blizzard
Step 1) Try out this economic model
Step 2) If it works, and it's adopted, you gotta hire this individual. The universe is watching. Remember that.
Ryan
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Is the email up yet to send replays to?
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Is there a special way to search custom games just by extension mods? Because even when I copy paste the title provided above for the map, nothing comes up..
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Canada13410 Posts
On April 18 2015 09:06 Survivor61316 wrote:
Is the email up yet to send replays to?
Apologies real life caught up with me yes check the mod note above
On April 18 2015 09:14 Survivor61316 wrote:
Is there a special way to search custom games just by extension mods? Because even when I copy paste the title provided above for the map, nothing comes up..
you need to find a map (anymap) then hit "create with mod" on the bottom right THEN search the extension mod i posted above and you are good to go!
Also as an update to everyone:
I fucked up, there are now 2 of the same extension mod with slightly different names. They are both the same, im just an editor extension mod publishing noob
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On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible. If it is totally negligible it a complete waste of time and money to have people program that into the game in the first place. To me, a high silver-low gold level player (i.e. someone belonging to the largest group of players), there was nothing wrong with HOTS' economy. However, what I did notice is that I usually ended up spending more time looking at my production buildings than at my or my opponent's army, up to the point that 95% of my game time felt like playing a high-speed, real time city building and the other 5% actually fighting my opponent who was doing the same thing I was. If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine. Some of Starcraft 2's mechanics are downright archaic and outdated, and exist only to make the game difficult for the sake of it. Sure, automising the whole production process would drastically lower the skill ceiling, but would also drastically reduce the skill threshold for new players. MOBA games, to me, seem to be about making smart strategical choices with your hero and its abilities. Starcraft 2 is about being able to click on things faster than your opponent, and in the lower leagues those things tend to be production buildings instead of army units. So quite bluntly, my advice to blizzard would be: stop focussing on redesigning the game's economy and focus on automising the production process so people can spend more time thinking up strategies and outmanoeuvering their opponents. Do this even if you will draw the ire of the top 5% of players.
I definitely hear what you're saying... however I think that sort of discussion is much more pertinent to TheDwf's discussion which is more centered around game/unit design.
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On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible. If it is totally negligible it a complete waste of time and money to have people program that into the game in the first place. To me, a high silver-low gold level player (i.e. someone belonging to the largest group of players), there was nothing wrong with HOTS' economy. However, what I did notice is that I usually ended up spending more time looking at my production buildings than at my or my opponent's army, up to the point that 95% of my game time felt like playing a high-speed, real time city building and the other 5% actually fighting my opponent who was doing the same thing I was. If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine. Some of Starcraft 2's mechanics are downright archaic and outdated, and exist only to make the game difficult for the sake of it. Sure, automising the whole production process would drastically lower the skill ceiling, but would also drastically reduce the skill threshold for new players. MOBA games, to me, seem to be about making smart strategical choices with your hero and its abilities. Starcraft 2 is about being able to click on things faster than your opponent, and in the lower leagues those things tend to be production buildings instead of army units. So quite bluntly, my advice to blizzard would be: stop focussing on redesigning the game's economy and focus on automising the production process so people can spend more time thinking up strategies and outmanoeuvering their opponents. Do this even if you will draw the ire of the top 5% of players.
Have you considered that the starcraft games just arent for you? BW was succesful because it WASNT like all the dime a dozen RTS games out there. And now youre in here saying blizzard should cater the game to casuals even if it destroys the pro scene.
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On April 17 2015 23:49 maartendq wrote:
Actually I really like Dawn of War 2. I found its campaign to be better than WoL's.
I'm glad you're also interested in hijacking this thread.
I'm glad because Myth & Myth II have awesome campaigns and stories, as do the original Marathon games by Bungie!
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Myth is the best "here's a bunch of units, make the best of them" game in history, period. It may be a little hard on the eyes now, but if you can go through that, #1 recommended game. Those goddamn troves...
Didn't try DoW2, partly because I hated how Relic ruined the first one with stupid Warhammer fanservice. Maybe I should try it out, I don't know.
For me, RTS was always about building a simulation that converts resources into victory. Units have a secondary role, they are just a way to achieve that victory, the real game is about taking parts of the map for yourself and getting the most out of them. Myth-style games have their own place, but it's a different genre.
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On April 19 2015 01:17 BluzMan wrote:
Myth is the best "here's a bunch of units, make the best of them" game in history, period. It may be a little hard on the eyes now, but if you can go through that, #1 recommended game. Those goddamn troves...
The whole unit swapping in planning time concept was genius, I don't think I've seen something like that replicated since (but I haven't played many other similar tactical games...)
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United States4883 Posts
On April 18 2015 16:06 solidbebe wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 19:12 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 16:52 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 16:31 maartendq wrote:On April 17 2015 15:34 Whitewing wrote:On April 17 2015 15:30 WrathofShane wrote:
The fact that he didnt even consider APM negating the bad brood war AI tells me he wasnt a brood war player. As someone who had probably over 1000 games as zerg on brood war, no I dont want to go back to the 1:1 Not really any more APM required than early game worker pairing on good patches, and it's during a time where you have nothing else to do with that APM anyway. With multiple building selection and smart mining, there's not a large APM requirement during the phases where that would even be slightly beneficial. Later on it's not even a gain. Blizzard should not be creating reasons to go click-click-click with your mouse in phases of the game where there is nothing to do. The APM-threshold is already incredibly high in this game, no reason to make it even worse. People wonder why SC2 has lost a lot of its popularity lately but at the same time keep demanding that Blizzard artificially increase the skill floor some more. As a matter of fact, blizzard could do smart things to lower the amount of tedious things one has to do. One idea I've had lately is auto-grouping units that spawn from production buildings, e.g. marines automatically 1, tanks 2, etc. Or moving parts of the observer UI to the player UI: having on-screen indicators what is producing, what is upgrading and when it will be ready. Or god forbid actually enabling players to let units autocreate for as long as they want, so they don't have to return to their production buildings all the time, e.g. right-click the marine-button in the barracks will make the barracks autocreate the unit as long as the player has enough resources. This would allow players to actually focus on their units and their overbearing amount of active abilities. I can't help it, but sometimes I yearn for the simplicity that was WoL back in 2010. This has nothing to do with any of that. By spending early game APM doing these things, you manage to eek out a few minerals more than you would otherwise, and not really that many. For professional players who have nothing better to do, that's fine. For your average player, they won't see any difference at all by doing it, and it won't hurt them in any measurable way not to do it. The amount we're talking about it is around 5-10 minerals total in difference for double harvesting. Maybe 15-20 over the course of a game when applied to multiple bases, max. It's totally negligible. If it is totally negligible it a complete waste of time and money to have people program that into the game in the first place. To me, a high silver-low gold level player (i.e. someone belonging to the largest group of players), there was nothing wrong with HOTS' economy. However, what I did notice is that I usually ended up spending more time looking at my production buildings than at my or my opponent's army, up to the point that 95% of my game time felt like playing a high-speed, real time city building and the other 5% actually fighting my opponent who was doing the same thing I was. If I am playing an RTS, I want to the focus to be on using my army in a strategic fashion, not on optimising my production because below master league the bigger army will usually win. Holding off cheese would be a lot more bearable (not to mention fun) if I didn't have to surrender control over my units every few seconds because I have to order my barracks to make another marine. Some of Starcraft 2's mechanics are downright archaic and outdated, and exist only to make the game difficult for the sake of it. Sure, automising the whole production process would drastically lower the skill ceiling, but would also drastically reduce the skill threshold for new players. MOBA games, to me, seem to be about making smart strategical choices with your hero and its abilities. Starcraft 2 is about being able to click on things faster than your opponent, and in the lower leagues those things tend to be production buildings instead of army units. So quite bluntly, my advice to blizzard would be: stop focussing on redesigning the game's economy and focus on automising the production process so people can spend more time thinking up strategies and outmanoeuvering their opponents. Do this even if you will draw the ire of the top 5% of players. Have you considered that the starcraft games just arent for you? BW was succesful because it WASNT like all the dime a dozen RTS games out there. And now youre in here saying blizzard should cater the game to casuals even if it destroys the pro scene.
He has a point, though. It is very much related to TheDwf's post about how Blizzard has specifically designed SC2 to NOT cater to players (both casuals and professionals) that has hurt the game. If the pro scene gets destroyed, but SC2 becomes a fun game to play, I'm not sure I could argue with it.
What he fails to really notice is that the economy is one of the core issues affecting how people interact with one another. With a nearly automated economy, there really is very little room for dynamic decision making and strategy, whereas a more rewarding economy would most likely result in a much more interesting game where expanding and unit compositions were a choice rather than a forced decision.
I truly believe that by at least looking at the economy, Blizzard is taking a step in the right direction at improving the game significantly. However, it saddens me that the half patch approach seems to be their final destination for now, and that they are more interested in trying to balance units and matchups rather than the deeper, core issues at hand. As Zeromus points out in the OP, everything stems from the economy -- it needs to approached first before any race/unit balancing is even considered.
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