A Treatise on the Economy of SCII - Page 34

On April 28 2015 05:55 Pontius Pirate wrote:
If the Parting vs Scarlett showmatch demonstrated anything that can actually be taken away, it's that we need to test a slightly more extreme version of the mod in order to showcase Zeromus' intended economic changes. Even if it would have to be toned down before actual implementation, DH9 didn't lead to very visually different games, and when demonstrating a model that was formerly only theorized, it would behoove the creators to endorse some more ambitious testing changes. Don't get me wrong, some of the games were very exciting. The increased mineral income on both players' parts led to slightly more unit wealth. Scarlett held more bases than would be expected at certain times of the game and saturated some of them with slightly fewer workers than would be expected. It lead to exciting large-army trades almost constantly in a couple of the games, as they bounced between 160 and 190 supply for about 15 minutes of a 25 game. I'd label it a very above-average game, from an entertainment perspective. It's possible that DH9 was the singular reason for why a couple of the games were great, but hard to say. We need a more extreme version of your mod, in order to test this out.

For the sake of demonstrating your model's efficacy, a more aggressive efficiency decrease between 8 and 16 workers is needed. It will almost certainly not make the final game, but it's the only way to showcase an element of the game that usually remains behind the scenes.

On April 28 2015 08:30 WhaleOFaTALE1 wrote:
How is the double harvest any different than the double mining model??

On April 28 2015 12:41 AmicusVenti wrote:
Zeromus, I've noticed Lalush has been stating his concerns lately that DH won't make any appreciable difference on SC2 as a whole, and that thinking in terms of when peak economy occurs is much more important. For example, in the case of Zerg against Turtle Mech, Lalush believes that the Mech player will max out before the Zerg player has a chance to capitalize on the increased income. As such, without reworking macro mechanics, DH will certainly fail.

From what I've seen, your choice of response to this is that DH is not meant to be exactly adopted into Void, but rather merely is there to showcase the benefits of worker pairing. However I don't think that's an adequate response. If Lalush is correct, then DH won't showcase the benefits of worker pairing because the point of peak economy still comes too quickly.

These concerns lead me to believe that, unless DH address macro mechanics (or alternatively raises supply cap but I don't think that's a good idea due to performance issues), then it won't do any good and this whole grand endeavor is for naught. This worried me a lot! If this is true, it seems wiser to rework macro mechanics on the DH mod before proceeding any further. I understand this may be seen as tampering with the game more further than Blizzard is willing to go, but if the DH mod can't showcase the benefits without macro mechanics rework, then it's all useless!

What do you think? I'm quite concerned about this; hopefully your response can restore my peace of mind.

On April 28 2015 13:08 Daeracon wrote:


Do you have a link to Lalushs comments? I think we need way more data than we have to make any conclusions in general though.

On April 28 2015 09:48 Plexa wrote:

These are good points. Once we get more data (soon, hopefully) we'll be able to make more conclusive statements about things. But I agree that the initial testing suggests that the changes aren't extreme enough.

On April 28 2015 12:41 AmicusVenti wrote:
Zeromus, I've noticed Lalush has been stating his concerns lately that DH won't make any appreciable difference on SC2 as a whole, and that thinking in terms of when peak economy occurs is much more important. For example, in the case of Zerg against Turtle Mech, Lalush believes that the Mech player will max out before the Zerg player has a chance to capitalize on the increased income.

On April 28 2015 18:41 Hider wrote:
Reason 2
DH doesn't properly reward immobile players for being on 2 base compared to 3 bases (note your not immobile if you mass Warpgate units). In BW if you had 45 mining workers, you only increased mineral income by 15%. In DH on the other hand, the difference between in income when using 50 workers is 25% (note: the reason I am using more workers here is due to chronoboost). On top of that, you can dramatiscally increase your mineral income by taking a 3rd and going to 60 workers in DH (over 30%). Such an opportunity didn't exist in BW:

On April 28 2015 18:41 Hider wrote:
TLDR: Protoss will opt to rush to 3 bases, and yes, the mobile opponent will have a slightly easier time army trading vs it if he takes more bases, and protoss will have a slightly easier time harassing the enemy mobile player (since that player is spread out further). However, this isn't a fundamental fix to Sc2.

I am confused here. In short - you say BW favored expanding less than DH and you say it is a good thing?

It is a fix. It does not fix everything however. We are not trying to fix everything.

On April 29 2015 01:52 Gfire wrote:
Immobile players taking a third so easily is partly a map thing. Map makers thought that the was best route at the time, for balance or whatever reason, but the thirds tend to be very close on SC2 maps compared to BW. If you make it tougher to take a third, the reward it gives might balance out the high reward for being 3 bases to 2.

It could still have a problem where the mobile player gets a third and the immobile player doesn't but can't do much with only two bases. Then we've still got that problem from WoL back when we started making easier thirds in the first place (generally for PvZ balance, and imo it made most the other matchups worse.) If we could do it over again I would have probably thought we should leave the maps alone and wait for Blizzard to adjust the units with a patch. We were too short sighted I think.