On April 15 2015 05:58 MrMatt wrote: I was hoping for at least a mention of all the economy discussion happening lately.
Some have a hard time to adapt to the changes after years of classic SC2 economy, so within two weeks they rather criticise the Lotv economy which was internally tested for many weeks/months at Blizzard, because that company just don't know how to make good games.
I know right, I mean they make such great units! I'm going to go play HOTS now and build some Warhounds and wreck face.
But, like the universe, BW's success was not due to intelligent design. BW simply happened to be balanced when things like Muta-stacking that Blizzard never intended to happen, happened and balanced the game. So it wasn't Blizzard that made BW what it was.
Blizzard doesn't know what they are doing. There is more than enough evidence to show that.
Yeah, since there is no other successful game from Blizzard beside Broodwar, it is further proof they are clueless. Oh, wait ...
Also, to the rest: the economy forum post was made on April 12th for the economy. They released this patch 3 days later. I'm sure they discussed what they thought they wanted to change first right after Blizzcon. It takes time to plan, change, and make small tests and then implement. Obviously they aren't going to try something so huge as this economy change in that short a time...
You can't be surprised that Blizzard is having a hard time making SC2 a fun and balanced game. Balancing a game like this is very new, nobody is really mastering that "art", you can't be graduated with a phd in balancing video games... So... This might explain also that we see some good ideas on TL forums because some dedicated time to think about that.
On April 16 2015 00:56 Loccstana wrote: Blizzard please increase the supply cap to 250. Without all these 3/4 supply units and huge maps, how is 200 supply sfficient?
dude I almost never get to 200 with the new economy, so please
To be honest, I think the 200 supply cap is a very artificial and arbitrary limitation on the game. There is no cap on how many buildings or defensive structures you can build, so why should there be one for units?
It is the main reason why we see late game deathball/stalemate situation with each side banking thousands of resources and maxed out armies yet afraid to engage in each other or commit to decisive battles. This is because when both players are maxed out and have equivalent quality of army compositions, it becomes very hard to exploit economical advantages to gain an advantage and overwhelm the enemy through superior numbers. Similarly, it is also hard to attain superiority in army composition since each new unit your produce has to replace some other unit you have.
If there no supply cap, we would actually see interesting battles where small amounts of high tech expensive fight against hordes of cheap low tech units. Also, it would make enemy death balls impractical since you have both the supply to defend against it yet and also counter attack/harass the enemy's base. A player would have wider set of strategic options to counter how his opponent plays.
Blizzard should experiment with removing the supply cap and simply make supply depots/pylons/overlords give steadily less supply as more are built. For example, after building 20 supply depots, a new supply depot gives 6 supply. After 40, new supply depot gives 4 supply and so on.
This way, the supply of both the player and his opponent is ultimately determined through their strategic and tactical interactions (build order, economy, battles, etc) as well as the amount of resources of the map. Of course, Blizzard needs to adjust macro mechanics like larva inject for balancing reasons.
TLDR: Supply caps are bad for the game because they encourage deathballs and stalemate situations and limit the strategic depth of the game.
A supply cap isn't so much a problem (and it needs to be there considering computers start dying when you try to make too many units), the problem is that the cap of 200 is very outdated at this point. The cap is reached insanely fast and, as you say, at that point there is not a lot you can do to capitalize on an economic advantage, since you can't produce more units.
They should either raise the cap, do something to make reaching 200 supply take a lot longer.
I don't know if the supply cap is still a problem, since there might be more action in LotV and there might be generally lower economy in LotV. Both lead to reaching the supply cap less often.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
The idea about punishment vs reward is that in one scenario you are encouraged to slowly gain an advantage by carefully managing the risks associated with expanding, while in the other if you fail to march in lockstep and can no longer catch your breath you are shot and you will die. In both scenarios one player wins and the other loses, but the framing is rather different.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
If [# of workers] > [8], building an expansion ("expanding") without any additional worker production increases your income only when there is less than 100% efficiency for two workers on one mineral patch. Therefore you have increased income (you are "rewarded") for expanding in harvesting systems like double-harvest while you would not be rewarded for expanding in similar situations in the current SC2 harvesting system.
Concerning the accelerated loss of income ("punishment"), from what I can understand LotV mineral layout cuts income by 50% 1/3 of the way through the normal duration of a base's total mineral supply.
You may disagree with the semantics of "reward/punishment," but phrased instead as income increase without additional worker production and accelerated income loss respectively I am sure we can agree on the existence of these trends and perhaps move on to more substantial discussion of the merits or demerits of each system.
I'm in favour of trying the DH system, or something similar.
I just don't like the reward/punishment narrative because it's distracting and emotive. Someone looking at this article who might be tempted to dismiss it as BW nostalgia will take this as confirmation. BW rewards, SC2 punishes. It also tacitly assumes the conclusion: reward is by definition better than punishment; do you want a system that rewards, or one that punishes?
What DH does is:
1. Smooth out the bump in a fast expand. The investment in the extra base is paid off more quickly even without making extra workers, so you're less behind. Is that a good thing? Sounds to me like it punishes one base aggression.
2. Accelerate the economy. The 12 worker start cuts a chunk from the start of the game, but the subsequent curve is unchanged and the half-patches actually tend to retard growth. DH on the other hand steepens the curve: workers bring in more resources which means supply increases faster at any given level of supply. Is that a good thing? Surely that means smaller timing windows and less time to act, which (I'm told) negates strategy.
3. Soften the effective base limit, soften the effect of losing half a saturated mineral line - all the intended benefits.
I'm not convinced yet. Gut feeling is that DH could result in everyone going for three or four bases before doing anything interesting, because the advantage of spreading workers out sooner rather than later is too great to overcome with early aggression.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
The idea about punishment vs reward is that in one scenario you are encouraged to slowly gain an advantage by carefully managing the risks associated with expanding, while in the other if you fail to march in lockstep and can no longer catch your breath you are shot and you will die. In both scenarios one player wins and the other loses, but the framing is rather different.
It still makes no sense to frame it as punishment vs reward. It's a question of severity and rapidity of consequences.
It's fine to argue "LotV is too unstable. The income drop from the half patches creates too large an income discrepancy between someone who has taken a fast third versus someone whose expansion has been delayed. Instead of ramping up to 24 vs 16 mining patches, it very abruptly becomes 20 vs 12 or even 8. The window to recover from that is too small and depends on coin-flippy harassment."
I just find punishment/reward to be a false distinction that distracts more than it explains.
On April 17 2015 09:23 Umpteen wrote: What DH does is:
1. Smooth out the bump in a fast expand. The investment in the extra base is paid off more quickly even without making extra workers, so you're less behind. Is that a good thing? Sounds to me like it punishes one base aggression.
I agree with you that a double-harvest model makes expanding easier to do and harder to pressure. Additionally, if I understand how LotV works versus how the proposed double-harvest (or similar) models work, the LotV harvesting model makes one-base aggression win-or-die. What is your understanding here?
2. Accelerate the economy. The 12 worker start cuts a chunk from the start of the game, but the subsequent curve is unchanged and the half-patches actually tend to retard growth. DH on the other hand steepens the curve: workers bring in more resources which means supply increases faster at any given level of supply. Is that a good thing? Surely that means smaller timing windows and less time to act, which (I'm told) negates strategy.
Barrin's recent graph in the parent thread of this conversation shows the following about one-base income:
reducing the amount of total minerals gathered per harvester per trip to 8 puts double-harvest income at roughly 25 minerals per minute more than HotS with 5-10 workers, after which point HotS income increases much more rapidly. Specifically, at 12 workers 8-mineral double-harvest income is roughly 25 minerals per minute below HotS income.
reducing the amount of total minerals gathered per harvester per trip to 9 puts double-harvest income at roughly 50 minerals per minute (on average) higher than HotS until 14/15 workers, after which point HotS income increases moderately over double-harvest. Specifically, at 12 workers 9-mineral double-harvest income is roughly 25 minerals per minute above HotS income.
I think it is a mistake to assume that double-harvest must mean 10-minerals-per-trip. ZeromuS wrote that he tended toward a higher income in order to follow what he perceives to be Blizzard's intent of speeding up the game, but the numbers can easily be tweaked.
I'm not convinced yet. Gut feeling is that DH could result in everyone going for three or four bases before doing anything interesting, because the advantage of spreading workers out sooner rather than later is too great to overcome with early aggression.
As noted by ZeromuS, worker harassment actually becomes much more effective in systems where workers are spread over more bases. I think the early game interaction would not necessarily pan out as stale as your gut tells you, however that would have to be observed to tell either way. It is possible, for example, that two base would become the standard early game while simultaneously providing for a broader range of strategy.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
The idea about punishment vs reward is that in one scenario you are encouraged to slowly gain an advantage by carefully managing the risks associated with expanding, while in the other if you fail to march in lockstep and can no longer catch your breath you are shot and you will die. In both scenarios one player wins and the other loses, but the framing is rather different.
It still makes no sense to frame it as punishment vs reward. It's a question of severity and rapidity of consequences.
It's fine to argue "LotV is too unstable. The income drop from the half patches creates too large an income discrepancy between someone who has taken a fast third versus someone whose expansion has been delayed. Instead of ramping up to 24 vs 16 mining patches, it very abruptly becomes 20 vs 12 or even 8. The window to recover from that is too small and depends on coin-flippy harassment."
I just find punishment/reward to be a false distinction that distracts more than it explains.
Sure, but this is the same community that obsesses about "you should buff, not nerf" which is equally meaningless. Reward instead of punishment sounds catchy and is a useful phrase to repeat as it does highlight an important nuance in the difference between lotv and dh.
At one point he was asked: "What is the purpose/role of the Raven?"
David Kim answers: We hope to see it in battles, but just not these prolonged battles".
What is that for an answer? ? A role =/ whether its useful or not. A role on the other hand is supposed to fit a strategic purpose. Allow you to be more cost efficient vs certain compositions. Allow you play more aggressive or secure expansions safer. A proper answer would instead have looked at whether its really good for the game if terran can block ranged shots when going for Ravens.
There wasn't even any mentioning of micro interactions either (where its pretty bad since PDD is still a spam-ability w/ no realistic counterplay).
Sure, but this is the same community that obsesses about "you should buff, not nerf" which is equally meaningless.
I blame DOTA and people in the SC community for misapplying the "If everything is OP, nothing is OP"-phrases. Dota is designed around hardcounters and P/B-system, which cannot in anyway be applied into Starcraft. One would think that rational people would have reassessed whether the concept made sense after WOL-Fungal became a reality.
I'm not convinced yet. Gut feeling is that DH could result in everyone going for three or four bases before doing anything interesting, because the advantage of spreading workers out sooner rather than later is too great to overcome with early aggression.
In a game balanced around mobile units (such as in LOTV), you can both attack and take bases at the same time. In a game balanced around immobile vs mobile units, the defensive player has to choose. If there is no benefit to have +16 workers in a base, this type of econ could indeed result in more passive gameplay.
On April 17 2015 09:23 Umpteen wrote: What DH does is:
1. Smooth out the bump in a fast expand. The investment in the extra base is paid off more quickly even without making extra workers, so you're less behind. Is that a good thing? Sounds to me like it punishes one base aggression.
I agree with you that a double-harvest model makes expanding easier to do and harder to pressure. Additionally, if I understand how LotV works versus how the proposed double-harvest (or similar) models work, the LotV harvesting model makes one-base aggression win-or-die. What is your understanding here?
Oh, the LotV version probably punishes one base aggression too That's the problem with using that kind of language: the reader is free to imagine what you're talking about 'punishment' being relative to. HotS? LotV? Doing something else in the same game?
To me it looks inevitable that DH will reduce the viability of one base aggression compared to HotS because your opponent won't be as far behind (if at all) when you get to him. My worry is the same might be true for two-base aggression versus a fast third.
In LotV, it's not the half patches that punishes early aggression so much as the extra starting workers. Because you're both starting further along the worker curve, the economic gap widens more quickly, earlier, meaning that again the investment in an expansion pays off sooner and the window for aggression to work is shrunk. Half patches in themselves would merely make the outcome of early aggression more extreme, one way or another.
2. Accelerate the economy. The 12 worker start cuts a chunk from the start of the game, but the subsequent curve is unchanged and the half-patches actually tend to retard growth. DH on the other hand steepens the curve: workers bring in more resources which means supply increases faster at any given level of supply. Is that a good thing? Surely that means smaller timing windows and less time to act, which (I'm told) negates strategy.
Barrin's recent graph in the parent thread of this conversation shows the following about one-base income:
reducing the amount of total minerals gathered per harvester per trip to 8 puts double-harvest income at roughly 25 minerals per minute more than HotS with 5-10 workers, after which point HotS income increases much more rapidly. Specifically, at 12 workers 8-mineral double-harvest income is roughly 25 minerals per minute below HotS income.
reducing the amount of total minerals gathered per harvester per trip to 9 puts double-harvest income at roughly 50 minerals per minute (on average) higher than HotS until 14/15 workers, after which point HotS income increases moderately over double-harvest. Specifically, at 12 workers 9-mineral double-harvest income is roughly 25 minerals per minute above HotS income.
I think it is a mistake to assume that double-harvest must mean 10-minerals-per-trip. ZeromuS wrote that he tended toward a higher income in order to follow what he perceives to be Blizzard's intent of speeding up the game, but the numbers can easily be tweaked. [/quote]
Absolutely. I think experimenting with different numbers of starting workers returning different amounts of minerals could well prove fruitful.
I'm not convinced yet. Gut feeling is that DH could result in everyone going for three or four bases before doing anything interesting, because the advantage of spreading workers out sooner rather than later is too great to overcome with early aggression.
As noted by ZeromuS, worker harassment actually becomes much more effective in systems where workers are spread over more bases. I think the early game interaction would not necessarily pan out as stale as your gut tells you, however that would have to be observed to tell either way. It is possible, for example, that two base would become the standard early game while simultaneously providing for a broader range of strategy.
[/quote]
Maybe. The harassment might be more effective in terms of killing workers, but then the guy on more bases can afford to lose (and replace) more because he's streaking ahead in economy. A tricky balancing act.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
Dude, then Nexus first and I will Proxy 2 Gate you. You expanded, how did that reward work out for ya? I mean, how could you lose, I should have been punished for not expanding... right? That is what you just said.
Does it make sense now? Expanding is a strategic choice with risks and rewards in HOTS, it isn't always better. And not expanding, isn't always worse, this is a strategy game.
I am going to assume that this assumption that people must expand, and that is it is the better choice no matter what comes from low level players because it ignores the history of Starcraft. Because timing attacks is what made the Protoss race successful. MC won a GSL title with timing attacks against July.
He didn't constantly expand. Puma didn't expand when he ran over everyone with the 1-1-1. And the Soultrain is powered by two bases baby, who cares how many bases the Zerg takes.
Expanding isn't always better. Expanding should be a choice with risks and reward. Just like doing a timing attack should be. And with the idea that expanding is always better shown to be clearly wrong, the rest of your argument fails.
The point here is that expanding is being forced in LOTV. And that is a bad thing because it reduces strategic variation. As someone else put it, Starcraft is starting to lose the S in RTS because you don't choose if you want to expand anymore or not, you just expand now because it always better. That one less choice has a massive effect on the strategies that can employed.
And that is actually really sad, because I loved Starcraft. And the thing I loved was most is that back in WOL you made the game your own. If you put enough time into it, you could make any style function, whether it was gaulzi's cannon rushes, MC's timing attacks, or Idra's macro. Starcraft was what you wanted it to be.
My point is that just because Blizzard made some good games, doesn't mean they will continue to make good games. It doesn't give them a free pass for anything.
I like HotS and I think it is fairly close to be a really good game. I dont think LotV, in general, improve the state of HotS, so far.
I hope Blizzard keeps this update rate of 2 weeks but with bigger changes.
Wouldn't the easiest thing just be to reduce the number of patches at each base but increase the mineral count to where each base still has the same total minerals?
This has the same effect as BW of reducing the number of workers that can efficiently mine at once base. So it rewards players for taking more bases without REQUIRING them to because they've run out of minerals in their main 2 minutes in.
So for example, you could have 6-7 patches instead of 8. This makes it so that your 13th or 15th worker mine a lot more efficiently at an expansion. Currently it's 8x2 so 16 workers per base x 3 = 48 workers on minerals.
At 6 patches, you'd need 4 bases to mine as efficently At 7 patches it's about 3.5 bases (so you still gain something from taking a 4th).
Wouldn't the easiest thing just be to reduce the number of patches at each base but increase the mineral count to where each base still has the same total minerals?
This has the same effect as BW of reducing the number of workers that can efficiently mine at once base. So it rewards players for taking more bases without REQUIRING them to because they've run out of minerals in their main 2 minutes in.
So for example, you could have 6-7 patches instead of 8. This makes it so that your 13th or 15th worker mine a lot more efficiently at an expansion. Currently it's 8x2 so 16 workers per base x 3 = 48 workers on minerals.
At 6 patches, you'd need 4 bases to mine as efficently At 7 patches it's about 3.5 bases (so you still gain something from taking a 4th).
Thoughts?
Good idea, but it would slow down the game considerably unless you also sped up working mining.
On April 17 2015 04:06 Umpteen wrote: The reward/punishment thing makes no sense. You might think it does, but that's because you're imposing a single arbitrary baseline across two games. You are rewarded for expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you didn't. You are punished for not expanding in both games, relative to what would happen if you did. Saying you're being punished by comparing what happens with a different game is not logical.
Dude, then Nexus first and I will Proxy 2 Gate you. You expanded, how did that reward work out for ya? I mean, how could you lose, I should have been punished for not expanding... right? That is what you just said.
Thanks for further proving my point - which, if you check, was that it makes no sense to say one game punishes and the other rewards. I'll happily take your examples as further support for that.
The point here is that expanding is being forced in LOTV. And that is a bad thing because it reduces strategic variation. As someone else put it, Starcraft is starting to lose the S in RTS because you don't choose if you want to expand anymore or not, you just expand now because it always better. That one less choice has a massive effect on the strategies that can employed.
This, too, I'm perfectly happy to agree with. If you read my other posts, I was not in any way suggesting otherwise. I can totally get behind the idea that LotV's half patch system makes the game 'all about dat (next) base'.
ALL I was arguing against was the use of 'punish vs reward' because it's a terrible, ambiguous, misleading way to describe what's going on, because it relies entirely on the reader's interpretation of what 'punishment' or 'reward' is relative to. If it happens to match what you intended, understanding will occur. If it doesn't - and it clearly often hasn't - it just gets in the way.
Wouldn't the easiest thing just be to reduce the number of patches at each base but increase the mineral count to where each base still has the same total minerals?
This has the same effect as BW of reducing the number of workers that can efficiently mine at once base. So it rewards players for taking more bases without REQUIRING them to because they've run out of minerals in their main 2 minutes in.
So for example, you could have 6-7 patches instead of 8. This makes it so that your 13th or 15th worker mine a lot more efficiently at an expansion. Currently it's 8x2 so 16 workers per base x 3 = 48 workers on minerals.
At 6 patches, you'd need 4 bases to mine as efficently At 7 patches it's about 3.5 bases (so you still gain something from taking a 4th).
Thoughts?
Good idea, but it would slow down the game considerably unless you also sped up working mining.
So speed up worker mining a little bit to compensate. Voila.
You know... We had aggressive play in WoL because of map design. Look at Xel'Naga Caverns and Metalopolis. Community hates those maps now, mainly because protoss cannot survive without being able to turtle.
In any case I don't see why we can only have one standard for resources in the map pool. I think there ought to be a diversity of maps with scarce resources, as well as maps reflecting the current HOTS standard, and easy money maps like BGH for the unranked queue. Just give people more vetoes to compensate. Maps are the easiest way to rebalance the game and enable/prevent different playstyles. It's crazy to not make full use of the flexibility they give.
EPT
