EPT
Before getting into addressing the points you raised, I just want to thank you on behalf of the community for reaching out and responding to our thread on the economy of SC2. Regardless of any person's point of view on the economy, those participating in this discussion want the best possible outcome for StarCraft II so that the game can last for years to come. At TeamLiquid we firmly believe that the best way to get the optimal outcome for LotV is to have open and frank discussions so that the greatest set of viewpoints can be evaluated and the best of those viewpoints incorporated into the final product. Even if the dev team decides to stick with the current implementation, we hope that by giving our model a fair consideration that the most informed decision about the direction to take the StarCraft II economy is made.
We hope this greater level of communication is a sign of things to come.
Getting into addressing your specific claims, our principle concern is that it doesn’t look like our model has been completely understood by the dev team – that isn’t necessarily your fault! It means our explanation was not clear enough, so this post is an attempt to clear up these misconceptions. After all, we’re happy with you guys sticking to the current LotV model as long as our model has been given fair consideration. Since there has been a misunderstanding, we don’t think fair consideration has been given just yet.
Our response is structured as follows;
1) Misconceptions about the saturation point in our model
2) A breakdown of the 2 base vs 4 base example that you cited
3) Closing remarks
Misconceptions about the Saturation Point
Let’s make a definition; the ‘saturation point’ is the number of workers for which adding any further workers doesn’t increase the income rate of the player. The saturation point for 8 mineral nodes in HotS is 24 workers, since the 25th worker does not add any additional income. The saturation point for 16 mineral nodes is 48 workers. It’s worthwhile noting that the saturation point in LotV is the same as HotS.
The second definition I want to make is the `efficiency curve’; this is the graph of number of workers vs income/minute given a fixed number of mineral nodes. It roughly shows how efficient each worker is (in terms of money invested into worker vs income return). When the efficiency curve is constant the saturation point has been reached. It’s worthwhile pointing out that LotV and HotS have the same efficiency curve given the same number of mineral nodes.
Our current model (DH/10 trip) actually has the same saturation point as the HotS (or LotV) model. The change in our model is that the shape of the efficiency curve is changed. This is best illustrated in the following graph. Do note that this is the result of data collected in game. Thanks so much to community member Barrin for collecting this data and making it available to us.
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/dh10/dh10_vshots.png)
The first observation is you can clearly see that the saturation point of both the HotS and DH10 models is 24 workers and that both models mine effectively the same amount (there is a 7 mineral/minute difference, essentially negligible).
The big difference is in the shape of the efficiency curve. When the model is approximately linear it means that the number of workers is mining at near 100% efficiency, but when the model is non-linear it means the efficiency of these workers is less than 100%.
The HotS model is essentially linear until 18 workers (theoretical expectation is 16). It then drops off quite dramatically through workers 19-24. The DH10 model is essentially linear until about 9 workers (theoretical expectation is 8), and then drops off from 10-24 workers at a less steep rate than the HotS model.
In addition to the adjusted slope, workers in DH10 proportionally mine more than their HotS counterparts in the following sense. By ‘total possible income’ I mean the maximum income/minute for a fixed number of mineral nodes. In the above graph the total possible income is 825 for HotS and 832 for DH10.
- At 9 workers DH10 mines 59% of the total possible income, while HotS mines 44% of the total possible income.
- At 18 workers DH10 mines 89% of the total possible income, while HotS mines at 85% of the total possible income.
The 2 Base vs 4 Base Example
The preceding discussion is important, because it shows why the example you present isn’t nearly as drastic as you make out. Just so that we’re on the same page, I’ll quote your previous example.
There are two clear, opposing ways we can go in terms of iteration. More advantage towards teching vs. more advantage towards expanding. The community suggestion takes it heavily towards the expanding advantage, whereas closer we go towards the HotS model takes it back to teching advantage. What we mean by this is let's take the case of a player who is teching on 2 bases going up against a player who isn't teching and has 4 bases:
- In the HotS resourcing model, the 2nd player has almost no econ advantage (due to it being difficult to fully saturate every base + how the mining works per base)
- In the community suggestion model the 2nd player will have near double the econ advantage (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base)
- In the Void model, we have something in between the above
I want to zoom in on the bolded statement. Since the saturation point in all models considered is the same, it isn’t any easier to saturation mineral lines in our model than it is in the HotS model. I’ve also pointed out that the ideal number of workers for 8 patches is probably going to be in that 16-20 worker range as it is at the moment. But I think what we really need to do to illustrate our point is to make some graphs of this example. In the following graphs we’re assuming that the worker distribution is `optimal’ across all mineral nodes available and note that in practice this isn’t going to happen since there will always be worker number imbalances across the expansions. Nevertheless, the general principles carry over to actual games where worker number imbalances happen.
First off, the graph of the situation in HotS (the vertical lines are spaced 8 workers apart).
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/dh10/dh10_hots4base.png)
Three important observations
- Same income for both when 32 workers are mining
- At 48 workers (saturation point for 2 base) the 4 base player earns 18% more minerals/minute
- Double income only achieved at 4 base saturation point (96 workers)
Now compare that to the graph of the DH 10 model;
![[image loading]](/staff/Plexa/dh10/dh10_4base.png)
- Same income for both when 16 workers are mining
- At 32 workers mining the 4 base player earns 24% more minerals/minute
- At 48 workers (saturation point for 2 base) the 4 base player earns 34% more minerals/minute
- Double income only achieved at 4 base saturation point (96 workers)
Given that both players have a sensible number of workers (we think 48 workers on minerals is a fairly sensible amount) the reward for the player in HotS for taking four bases (and taking on the risk of spreading out across the map and committing to defending those locations) is an 18% increase in income compared to two bases. While in DH10 the reward for taking four bases (and inheriting the same risk as in HotS) the reward is a 34% increase in income. Given that we expect the four base player to earn more money, we think the DH10 model offers a more sensible reward/risk ratio compared to HotS.
Since a 4 base player will be able to produce more workers and receive more income/minute past 16 workers that player should not only reach 48 workers faster but also earn more money in getting to that point. This kind of example is difficult to graph with these simple models, but it's important to recognise that there is more advantage gained than the 34% greater minerals/minute represents.
We think the strategic options that our models opens up as a result of the increased income/minute when a player holds more bases (given worker parity between players) makes for more interesting games. This was explained in our first article, and I hope with the graphs we’ve presented here that the misconceptions about our first article are cleared up.
Closing Remarks
One thing that everyone involved in this discussion agrees upon is that we need more data. The current LotV economy changes have the benefit of being tested at length through the LotV beta which opens up the potential for more players to test the changes. TeamLiquid is committed to getting as much data about the DH10 model as we possibly can; but of course it’s always going to be less than the data you can collect. We’re happy to share the data we’ve collected, just reach out to us through any of the usual channels and we’ll happily pass that along.
We also recognise that LotV is trending in the direction of less minerals per base. That’s completely fine with us. Our model is not mutually exclusive with decreasing the resources available per base – for instance we can reduced the mineral patches to say 1350 instead of 1500 so bases mine out faster. What we would prefer is that there wasn’t a difference in the value of mineral patches in one mineral line. We think that this makes it more difficult for newer players to get used to this, in particular we’d like to draw attention to the fact a Terran player dropping a mule onto a node with less minerals on it is extremely punishing in LotV but newer players may not recognise that this is the case. As such we think that less minerals for each node is a superior option if you wish to have bases mine out faster.
We don’t think it’s our job to decide where that line for minerals per mineral node is drawn, so in our DH10 mod we have kept the minerals at 1500. If you would like to see that decreased we’re happy to make that change – we’re happy to do whatever makes the data more valuable so the most informed decision can be made regarding the economy. We’ll be hosting a TL Open using the mod in the very near future, we hope that you watch some of the games there.
Zeromus is also working on a follow up article to the original which addresses a number of concerns raised by the community regarding our model, as well as talking about some new material such as the production cap (which was raised during the discussion on 'The Late Game').
In summary, we hope that this post has cleared up any misunderstandings regarding the model and differences between DH10 and HotS. We hope that this gets you to sit down and take a second look at the benefits/drawbacks of our model and that a fair consideration is given. We’re all invested in the success of StarCraft II and we hope that this dialogue can continue so that we end up with the best possible end product.
Regards,
TeamLiquid.net staff
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