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I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision.
Edit : and yeah, teching vs mass expanding without any security should yield rewards. I actually kinda like their idea to increase slightly the amount of minerals smaller patches hold so that you do have some pressure to expand but the timer is not as harsh as it is now. I was very pleased to read that "[they] started extreme so that [they] could get a good feel for the impact of [the] changes", probably implying they are willing to tone down what feels too strong/extreme currently if it proves truly problematic (disruptor splash, cyclones range, ravagers, colossus nerf...) even if the last balance patch wasn't really indicative of that.
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On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision.
I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings.
On April 22 2015 14:01 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 13:48 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 13:12 ZeromuS wrote:On April 22 2015 12:33 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 12:17 coolman123123 wrote:
Does anyone feel it's kind of inappropriate for the writers of a fansite to use it as a soapbox for their ideas? I'm okay with the initial post but now it's become a campaign to have the idea tested. We can sit around and pretend like we know for certain that this is the best course of action for the game, but we don't. It's just an idea, and unless something is positively the right thing to do, I don't think this proactive approach should be taken. I feel that it's more inappropriate that the original post takes a small detail David Kim got wrong and uses it to say that he misunderstood the entire post, completely ignoring everything else DK said. As I wrote earlier I think David Kim perfectly understood the initial post aside from some small numerical things he didnt calculate thoroughly and gave his reasoning or at least sugarcoated understandable reasons why he doesnt want to do it. Coming from Dota where every year the meta changes entirely because of balance patches Blizzard always patched way to defensively for my taste, Sc2 could be a way better game than it is. So I dont think it's wrong to try to force Blizzard to try this, because hell, they can just take the HotS map and release it as a LotV test map to see if they like the replays. If they dont, they dont have to implement it. We are talking about a working time of like 10 hours. I just think that the way it is done is a little bit insulting, although that might not be intentional. Its possible we misunderstood but the baseline is the first point: - 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) which implies that there are 16 workers on the first two bases and 16 spread across 4 bases (in hots). This is the only way that the economy advantage is zero as per: the "no econ advantage" comment. Extrapolating this number as similarly applying to the following point: - 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) we assume that he is discussing the model in itself and not a comparison of DH to SC2 econ because of the final point: - In the Void model, we have something in between the above Which implies that they are comparing the current hots model to our recommended model. The only way for double income to happen in our model with 4 base vs 2 is double the workers. This implies that they understand that the 8 workers is the optimal number similar to 16 in the current model. alternatively they might think that 8 is the saturation point (similar to 24 in the current model). Which implies, to me that they are comparing 2 bases on saturation (8 being their assumption) compared to 4 bases on optimal cap (8 again across 4 bases being their assumption). If we take the idea that 8 is the saturation point/cap then they could be comparing 16/16 split (which makes no more money than 8/8 if the 8 point is cap in their understanding) to a 4 base 8/8/8/8 split. Their assumption that 8 is the cap (similar to 16 in current or maybe 24) is especially apparent (or can at least be logically understood to be their assumption) when you consider this part of their comment: (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base) In the second part in discussing our model (again as a compare contrast where LotV falls in between) it makes sense to believe they see the cap at 8 and not being at 24 or optimal around 16, which Plexa clarifies in the OP. It makes sense to say that yes the 4 base player will EASILY double the income of the 2 base player because it is VERY easy to ONLY make an extra 16 workers for the other 2 bases and have double the income (because the bases are capped at 8 workers). This probably due to the fact that the talking point of "8 is better on each mineral line" of the first article was not clear enough in its distinction of: optimal counts and saturation points as plexa cleared up in this OP. In the points of summary Dkim presented, it is difficult to read into them as a comparison of the DH model to the HotS model. It reads to me like its a quick description of what hots does, a quick description of what they think DH does and how LotV's current econ fits in between. IMO the LotV econ is NOT in between the DH and HotS model. BUT if you consider the DH model as setting a cap on 8 workers you can begin to see exactly how LotV IS perfectly in between. Eventually 8 workers IS the optimal count for a LotV base (DH in their understanding of it) and it DOES begin just like HotS at the start of mining the base. In this sense the LotV econ IS exactly perfectly a mix between the two with regards to worker counts and "optimal" worker counts per base. What we felt was lost in translation somewhere along the line was that our change is more of a mid point between LotV trying to give players expanding more money (since they get to replace the mined out half patches + 4 more patches for a short period -- meaning reward for expanding), and HotS (consistent mineral mining). Except our consistency remains all the time from start of base to full mine out and the additional mineral patches are not "bonuses" alongside a replacement of patches but a full reward - you get it ALL if you can hold it and bigger benefits come from splitting properly across bases (which is another WAY of applying base management you will eventually see in LotV - ensuring only 8 workers are on a half mined out base). I hope that this breakdown describes why we thought they misunderstood. We aren't trying to insult them, we are trying to be as respectful as possible but taking the statements they made as a whole and when examining the bullet points specifically you can see how the only logical train of thought to their conclusion is one in which they believe 8 is the worker cap, which is unfortunately, not the case. Your statement makes perfectly sense and I agree that he probably misunderstood DH10. He explains however in his post that he dislikes the "imbalance" of teching vs expanding in the current version already and that DH10 would make expanding even better, which I assume still stands true with the right numbers (its far to early in the morning for me to calc that through, I might do so when I'm awake again). The original post of Plexa totally ignored this point and continued going about his wrong understanding, while even with the right numbers his point remains (I assume). So Plexa doesnt give him a single reason to rethink his position but only proves to the community that DK didnt understand your original post. Which can be easily taken as trying to make him look like an idiot. I might be just overthinking, it's pretty late here. Now you could argue that balancing tech vs expand can also be achieved by buffing tech while changing expand, but as I said earlier if we created a scenario where both sides need to be able to fight about map control not dependent of the mu or the tech level we are talking about half a year of rebalancing at least. On a side note: I'm going to bed, catching up with you later. The intention behind my post was to correct the misunderstanding. I don't want to do DK's analysis of the situation for him, it'd largely look like zeromus' first set of analysis or the analysis coming up in the second article in development. By correcting the misunderstanding I feel that Blizzard can re-assess the situation and determine whether they still think the "imbalance" exists to the same degree they otherwise thought. tldr; there's little value in taking down analysis which was based on a faulty premise to begin with. EDIT: I also posted this on reddit which deals with the same subject. Show nested quote +Loomismeister
I don't think you addressed his main concern with completely adopting this efficiency idea. You saw one fallacious bullet point he made and immediately pointed out why the numbers were wrong, but the core point he was making still stands.
To truly crush his argument, point out why your solution does fit into blizzards proven game development strategy of being easily tuned and iterated. Point out why it is better to put pressure on expanding from the other player rather than from the map itself. Actually make a good argument and David Kim will see it.
If it isn't easily iterated, if it's not better pressure, then David Kim will never yield to community pressure simply because you've shown solidarity. The comment section of your response post is troubling to me because it seems like if blizzard doesn't implement your idea then the community is already preparing the doom and gloom. Show nested quote +Plexa
Here's the logic behind my post. Zeromus's original post was analysed through the lens of faulty information. By correcting that misinformation and getting them to re-read the article they can then reform their opinion on the model.
There's little use in me re-writing zeromus's articles since they already explain (or will explain) the points that you raise.
EDIT: I also don't think its about one fallacious bullet point, under the assumption that 8 workers saturates a mineral line (which is roughly in line with the numbers in the Blizzard example) everything is completely different. It looks like they took the 1:1 efficiency ratio as saturation which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the model. No reasonable discussion can come from Blizzard thinking we're arguing one thing, when we're actually arguing something different. By first correcting this misunderstanding (first section) and the using their own example to illustrate the mechanics of the model (the second section) we feel like we put the discussion in the right place to continue.
Alright I didnt know that you had another article coming on the topic, I read your OP as a single reply in the same way Loomismeister read it.
Tbh I still fail to see how this rewards teching over expanding. Mining faster doesnt help teching if the enemy mines even faster because they are expanding. In the current version you would just get steamrolled.
No doubt their current solution seems a bit forced, but the main thing in both versions is that expanding is largely beneficial while teching higher than t2 is most of the time not. DH10 just makes expanding past three bases even more rewarding compared to high tech. While I would prefer DH10 I can totally understand that DK sees the rebalancing problems coming with it and points out that they already have to do rebalancing with the current model or rebalance the current model.
The way I read out your science.png adding a tenth worker adds 10 mins per minute compared to 55-57 before. The eleventh is way better but still over 20% inferior to workers before the ninth. So expanding once you hit 9 workers gives you massive advantages and things like zerg double expand creates economies that have 30-50% more economy than one base on the same worker count, making expanding pay itself after less than two minutes even if you stay on the same worker count. That is way shorter than LotV's half mineral patch system, essentially taking options like tech in the current balancing away.
For Zerg DH10 means that if you have 24 workers going from two to three bases is better in terms of economy than using those mins to build more workers. For T and P it's pretty close. Totally disregarding the fact that mains have other advantages like being the main production building for Zerg and having chrono, scan and mule for Terra and that you can pump worker even faster, which accelerates the advantage even more.
So yeah DK's concern that this overbuffs expanding vs teching still is totally valid.
Have you tried to tune down the numbers a bit? Like what happens if the worker collects overall 8 minerals instead of 10? Just something that could make the jump to DH10 less extreme for Blizzard.
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On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings.
Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO.
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 22 2015 22:19 KaZeFenrir wrote:
I think you guys need a tldr for the differences between dh10 and lotv, and why you are bothering with all of this in the first place? Seems like more than a few people don't understand.
From what I've read (correct me if I'm wrong):
Lotv: you are PUNISHED for not expanding since you mine out faster. 2 base with 16 workers is the same income as having 1 base with 16 workers.
Dh10: you are REWARDED for expanding because more than 8 workers mine innefccienctly. 2 base with 16 workers is MORE income than 1 base with 16 workers.
Maybe focus on simplifying it for the tl;dr people's so they have a general idea and aren't arguing about something they don't understand/misunderstood.
The tl;dr is actually difficult to explain in a few words and I'm trying to work on it for my next post.
The issue is that the mining income isn't linear as the worker count goes up.
Its a straight line to 8, and slopes from 9 to 24, and this slope means each worker becomes less useful the closer you get to 20.
On April 22 2015 21:25 timchen1017 wrote:
I am again sad to see this response. 2 points here:
1. why optimal saturation for both are 16-20 workers? HotS I understand, but DH10? how is optimal defined anyway? If you just look from the graph to get optimal income/worker, should it not be 8? You sure have reasons, but if you want to state this in a meaning-to-clarify article, you had better spell them out clearly.
2. Your comments on the total mineral amount. You failed to realize why Blizzard changes half of the patches to half of the amount. This is because when half of the patches are mined out, it creates a similar worker inefficiency problem if an expansion is not taken: the base can accommodate up to 12 workers to give max income, but 8 is optimal for income/worker. So there is again some expand vs. turtle choices to be made. If all mineral patches are same, no such effect to be seen.
In the end, the major problem I find is that LotV is never treated properly here. This line of thought that BZ should at least try the DH10 or similar model is really weird. Sure, if a theoretical/numerical treatement of LotV is done and compared with DH10 and we found that DH10 has lots of benefits then sure why not try it, but no. Actually most of the work done is comparing HotS and DH10. How half of the patches only contain half of the mineral amount affect things is always dealed with in a hand-waiving way, if at all.
In response to 1)
we use the word "optimal" to mean - the most workers you would reasonably make to ensure you get good income from a base.
In HotS the "optimal" amount is 16 because workers begin to bounce after that and you see diminishing returns. Or you should but the efficiency of up to about 19 workers is almost the same as 16, so putting 19 instead of 16 is still very good.
This same income point of minerals per worker is retained in DH so if you happen to not have a free mineral line, you aren't hurt by going up to 16. If you do not have free mineral lines to put workers on then stopping at 8 is not in any way optimal. You are only making a small % of your peak income for that base. 16-20 gets you much closer to the peak income for the base without investing into workers who will take a long time to pay for themselves.
2) This post isn't responding to the LotV model specifically. I touched on it in my previous article and will make a comparison between DH and LotV in the followup more specific. But at its core we are arguing against worker pairing. Not specifically against LotV. We dislike the fact that bases mine out half way at first because it creates odd situations in gameplay and interaction between players.
A consistent income that does not change is non-punishing. Sure you can say that everyone loses the half patches but the value of half patches is so much higher early in the game and so much less later in the game that early game contain to take a third strategies become extremely powerful. If you can contain someone to 2 base while taking a third in the LotV model the half patches mining out means the contained player loses 25% of their available income.
If they can't break the contain with full econ then they instantly lose because they now are on 3/4 econ and still contained.
If they break the contain on 3/4 income they are a full base behind but its more than just 1 base at that point, because the player who took the third could have unpaired the workers on their half patches to put them on the new base increasing the overall lifespan of a higher income rate (which while interesting decision making, puts them in an even more powerful position to the opponent).
I'll have it in better writing later but at its core I am against half patches as a design decision to achieve the design goal of limiting the number of resources available on a map.
I am also against limiting the resources available on the map by about 25% because it forces a timer on the entire map to be mined out and creates perhaps too much of a skirmish feel to the game. I can understand quicker games being better for broadcast, but when you lose 25% of the maps resources you are limited in how small a map can even get in terms of mapmaking beyond rush distances. you begin to have to worry about minimal number of available bases. And you begin to constrict the time of a match for broadcast benefit at the detriment of artfully played long macro games with lots of back and forth.
I can again understand the design goal to reduce available resources mapwide in the effort to encourage more expanding and punish players who NEVER expand or play TOO defensively. I get that. It puts a pressure on the player whose sole goal in the game is cost efficient trades.
You need to balance this alongside our goal of giving the cost inefficient player more income to make those inefficient trades in our model. Thats our goal as well. So you could combine the two if you are blizzard. Our model mines 5% quicker to begin with so if you couple that with 5% or 10% less resources on the map you have a more subtle but still impactful timer on the players that is less punishing than half patches and continues to reward expansion based play by providing so much more income that inefficient trades are made.
Again, I feel very strongly that removing worker pairing from sc2 (however blizz wants to do it) alongside a less extreme implementation of the blizzcon LotV reduced mineral model (keep in mind fewer resources overall was ALSO an approach taken by the community in the past), would be possibly, hopefully, the silver bullet in this game for making it truly amazing and better than it is now.
On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 14:01 Plexa wrote:On April 22 2015 13:48 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 13:12 ZeromuS wrote:On April 22 2015 12:33 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 12:17 coolman123123 wrote:
Does anyone feel it's kind of inappropriate for the writers of a fansite to use it as a soapbox for their ideas? I'm okay with the initial post but now it's become a campaign to have the idea tested. We can sit around and pretend like we know for certain that this is the best course of action for the game, but we don't. It's just an idea, and unless something is positively the right thing to do, I don't think this proactive approach should be taken. I feel that it's more inappropriate that the original post takes a small detail David Kim got wrong and uses it to say that he misunderstood the entire post, completely ignoring everything else DK said. As I wrote earlier I think David Kim perfectly understood the initial post aside from some small numerical things he didnt calculate thoroughly and gave his reasoning or at least sugarcoated understandable reasons why he doesnt want to do it. Coming from Dota where every year the meta changes entirely because of balance patches Blizzard always patched way to defensively for my taste, Sc2 could be a way better game than it is. So I dont think it's wrong to try to force Blizzard to try this, because hell, they can just take the HotS map and release it as a LotV test map to see if they like the replays. If they dont, they dont have to implement it. We are talking about a working time of like 10 hours. I just think that the way it is done is a little bit insulting, although that might not be intentional. Its possible we misunderstood but the baseline is the first point: - 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) which implies that there are 16 workers on the first two bases and 16 spread across 4 bases (in hots). This is the only way that the economy advantage is zero as per: the "no econ advantage" comment. Extrapolating this number as similarly applying to the following point: - 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) we assume that he is discussing the model in itself and not a comparison of DH to SC2 econ because of the final point: - In the Void model, we have something in between the above Which implies that they are comparing the current hots model to our recommended model. The only way for double income to happen in our model with 4 base vs 2 is double the workers. This implies that they understand that the 8 workers is the optimal number similar to 16 in the current model. alternatively they might think that 8 is the saturation point (similar to 24 in the current model). Which implies, to me that they are comparing 2 bases on saturation (8 being their assumption) compared to 4 bases on optimal cap (8 again across 4 bases being their assumption). If we take the idea that 8 is the saturation point/cap then they could be comparing 16/16 split (which makes no more money than 8/8 if the 8 point is cap in their understanding) to a 4 base 8/8/8/8 split. Their assumption that 8 is the cap (similar to 16 in current or maybe 24) is especially apparent (or can at least be logically understood to be their assumption) when you consider this part of their comment: (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base) In the second part in discussing our model (again as a compare contrast where LotV falls in between) it makes sense to believe they see the cap at 8 and not being at 24 or optimal around 16, which Plexa clarifies in the OP. It makes sense to say that yes the 4 base player will EASILY double the income of the 2 base player because it is VERY easy to ONLY make an extra 16 workers for the other 2 bases and have double the income (because the bases are capped at 8 workers). This probably due to the fact that the talking point of "8 is better on each mineral line" of the first article was not clear enough in its distinction of: optimal counts and saturation points as plexa cleared up in this OP. In the points of summary Dkim presented, it is difficult to read into them as a comparison of the DH model to the HotS model. It reads to me like its a quick description of what hots does, a quick description of what they think DH does and how LotV's current econ fits in between. IMO the LotV econ is NOT in between the DH and HotS model. BUT if you consider the DH model as setting a cap on 8 workers you can begin to see exactly how LotV IS perfectly in between. Eventually 8 workers IS the optimal count for a LotV base (DH in their understanding of it) and it DOES begin just like HotS at the start of mining the base. In this sense the LotV econ IS exactly perfectly a mix between the two with regards to worker counts and "optimal" worker counts per base. What we felt was lost in translation somewhere along the line was that our change is more of a mid point between LotV trying to give players expanding more money (since they get to replace the mined out half patches + 4 more patches for a short period -- meaning reward for expanding), and HotS (consistent mineral mining). Except our consistency remains all the time from start of base to full mine out and the additional mineral patches are not "bonuses" alongside a replacement of patches but a full reward - you get it ALL if you can hold it and bigger benefits come from splitting properly across bases (which is another WAY of applying base management you will eventually see in LotV - ensuring only 8 workers are on a half mined out base). I hope that this breakdown describes why we thought they misunderstood. We aren't trying to insult them, we are trying to be as respectful as possible but taking the statements they made as a whole and when examining the bullet points specifically you can see how the only logical train of thought to their conclusion is one in which they believe 8 is the worker cap, which is unfortunately, not the case. Your statement makes perfectly sense and I agree that he probably misunderstood DH10. He explains however in his post that he dislikes the "imbalance" of teching vs expanding in the current version already and that DH10 would make expanding even better, which I assume still stands true with the right numbers (its far to early in the morning for me to calc that through, I might do so when I'm awake again). The original post of Plexa totally ignored this point and continued going about his wrong understanding, while even with the right numbers his point remains (I assume). So Plexa doesnt give him a single reason to rethink his position but only proves to the community that DK didnt understand your original post. Which can be easily taken as trying to make him look like an idiot. I might be just overthinking, it's pretty late here. Now you could argue that balancing tech vs expand can also be achieved by buffing tech while changing expand, but as I said earlier if we created a scenario where both sides need to be able to fight about map control not dependent of the mu or the tech level we are talking about half a year of rebalancing at least. On a side note: I'm going to bed, catching up with you later. The intention behind my post was to correct the misunderstanding. I don't want to do DK's analysis of the situation for him, it'd largely look like zeromus' first set of analysis or the analysis coming up in the second article in development. By correcting the misunderstanding I feel that Blizzard can re-assess the situation and determine whether they still think the "imbalance" exists to the same degree they otherwise thought. tldr; there's little value in taking down analysis which was based on a faulty premise to begin with. EDIT: I also posted this on reddit which deals with the same subject. Loomismeister
I don't think you addressed his main concern with completely adopting this efficiency idea. You saw one fallacious bullet point he made and immediately pointed out why the numbers were wrong, but the core point he was making still stands.
To truly crush his argument, point out why your solution does fit into blizzards proven game development strategy of being easily tuned and iterated. Point out why it is better to put pressure on expanding from the other player rather than from the map itself. Actually make a good argument and David Kim will see it.
If it isn't easily iterated, if it's not better pressure, then David Kim will never yield to community pressure simply because you've shown solidarity. The comment section of your response post is troubling to me because it seems like if blizzard doesn't implement your idea then the community is already preparing the doom and gloom. Plexa
Here's the logic behind my post. Zeromus's original post was analysed through the lens of faulty information. By correcting that misinformation and getting them to re-read the article they can then reform their opinion on the model.
There's little use in me re-writing zeromus's articles since they already explain (or will explain) the points that you raise.
EDIT: I also don't think its about one fallacious bullet point, under the assumption that 8 workers saturates a mineral line (which is roughly in line with the numbers in the Blizzard example) everything is completely different. It looks like they took the 1:1 efficiency ratio as saturation which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the model. No reasonable discussion can come from Blizzard thinking we're arguing one thing, when we're actually arguing something different. By first correcting this misunderstanding (first section) and the using their own example to illustrate the mechanics of the model (the second section) we feel like we put the discussion in the right place to continue. Alright I didnt know that you had another article coming on the topic, I read your OP as a single reply in the same way Loomismeister read it. Tbh I still fail to see how this rewards teching over expanding. Mining faster doesnt help teching if the enemy mines even faster because they are expanding. In the current version you would just get steamrolled. No doubt their current solution seems a bit forced, but the main thing in both versions is that expanding is largely beneficial while teching higher than t2 is most of the time not. DH10 just makes expanding past three bases even more rewarding compared to high tech. While I would prefer DH10 I can totally understand that DK sees the rebalancing problems coming with it and points out that they already have to do rebalancing with the current model or rebalance the current model. The way I read out your science.png adding a tenth worker adds 10 mins per minute compared to 55-57 before. The eleventh is way better but still over 20% inferior to workers before the ninth. So expanding once you hit 9 workers gives you massive advantages and things like zerg double expand creates economies that have 30-50% more economy than one base on the same worker count, making expanding pay itself after less than two minutes even if you stay on the same worker count. That is way shorter than LotV's half mineral patch system, essentially taking options like tech in the current balancing away. For Zerg DH10 means that if you have 24 workers going from two to three bases is better in terms of economy than using those mins to build more workers. For T and P it's pretty close. Totally disregarding the fact that mains have other advantages like being the main production building for Zerg and having chrono, scan and mule for Terra and that you can pump worker even faster, which accelerates the advantage even more. So yeah DK's concern that this overbuffs expanding vs teching still is totally valid. Have you tried to tune down the numbers a bit? Like what happens if the worker collects overall 8 minerals instead of 10? Just something that could make the jump to DH10 less extreme for Blizzard.
Just because your diminishing returns start on the 9th worker doesnt mean you dont make that 9th worker.
Also in the science.png image each line is calculated per worker.
(math in HotS time below)
So getting the 9th worker on one mineral line means each worker now makes 55 mpM compared to the 58 before -- on average. The 9th worker adds almost 40 minerals per minute to your income.
IF he had a free mineral node to go on you would get almost 60 minerals a minute more. But this doesn't invalidate the income the 9th onward workers make for you. It only encourages you to spread them to a new base as soon as possible IF you are able to take and hold a base.
The key interaction here is that it makes new bases MORE vulnerable because there will be workers there right away. In the current SC2 econ you dont put workers on the new base other than fresh workers you JUST made to transfer.
So while this spreading of workers will benefit zerg immediately with their ability to spread out quicker, it will also provide a new challenge to zergs because they will have more mineral lines open to harass. In HotS players might come to a zerg third with a small hellion reaper push and find 4 drones meanwhile 32 drones are in the main and nat mining peacefully with a wall in with queen to block hellions.
In DH10 the zerg has the option to spread to the third line sooner but open themselves up to hellions as a result. So if terran can for a short while contain those drones from getting their personal mineral patches for more money the terran can keep up with both mules and a 3rd cc being built.
Zerg on the other hand might cut some drones (again keeping even with terran for it) and try to get an army to gain map control so that the hellion push cant deny saturating the third as they drone up behind the aggression.
These kinds of small shifts in thought as to where you put the workers, how fast you put them there, what kind of defense you have for them, because you want their income to be better, this is all subtle small interactions that create more decision making and more action on the map.
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On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO.
I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game.
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On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game.
Lol
So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involved early cheese...
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On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game.
WHAT? Lol they added so much interest to the early game, diversity is what makes bo5+ series so great and memorable, not the same cyclone into 3cc 7 games in a row.
Tech rushes are really cool, banshee vs banshee is probably the funniest to play and watch TvT openings and proxies, despite being frustrating make sure the greed is kept in check. + the fact that you can put some early game pressure (1gate proxy, 12/12 rax or some early pools) without doing a complete all in (proxy raxes are 100% all in in lotv and just a coin flip). is really good for the game.
Mvp best game vs Squirtle wasn't the snorefest into BC getting archon toileted. It was a freaking double rax in a game 7 on one of the biggest maps in the pool.
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese...
they add a lot to the game honestly.
The GSL finals of MKP (Boxer/Fake Boxer/Foxer back then) vs Nestea was amazing. Every game a 2 rax bunker rush. Slowly nestea figured out how to hold MKPs variant on the popular push and won the series in a 4-2 after losing i think 2 games early?
Was brilliant. Fantastic series i suggest EVERYONE watches.
On top of this relative timings for cheese still exist for T and Z. They still have the super early pool (12 pool for example) which is relative to P and T timings a stronger version of an 8 or 9 pool I think.
T still has proxy rax, you can afford three now.
P has nothing. There is no viable proxy pylon based play early like proxy gates because the pylon just starts so so so late thanks to 12 worker start and the time to scout it gets increased. I guess you could proxy 3 gate adept or stalkers but thats it.
Proxy oracle play is far far weaker due to the no engi bay turret and it was never done PvZ after the no evo requirement for spores was put in place.
You will still see it in pvp because relative timings in pvp dont change at all.
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On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese...
A matter of taste I think. 80-90% of them end in either side loosing immediately, which is freaking terrible for viewers and players. The ones where both side end up beaten up but not beaten usually transition into good games because they throw build orders out of the window and we get to see the minds behind the machines.
On April 23 2015 00:05 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese... they add a lot to the game honestly. The GSL finals of MKP (Boxer/Fake Boxer/Foxer back then) vs Nestea was amazing. Every game a 2 rax bunker rush. Slowly nestea figured out how to hold MKPs variant on the popular push and won the series in a 4-2 after losing i think 2 games early? Was brilliant. Fantastic series i suggest EVERYONE watches. On top of this relative timings for cheese still exist for T and Z. They still have the super early pool (12 pool for example) which is relative to P and T timings a stronger version of an 8 or 9 pool I think. T still has proxy rax, you can afford three now. P has nothing. There is no viable proxy pylon based play early like proxy gates because the pylon just starts so so so late thanks to 12 worker start and the time to scout it gets increased. I guess you could proxy 3 gate adept or stalkers but thats it. Proxy oracle play is far far weaker due to the no engi bay turret and it was never done PvZ after the no evo requirement for spores was put in place. You will still see it in pvp because relative timings in pvp dont change at all.
I have seen proxy 4 gate zealot into adept vs Zerg on desrows stream once and he destroyed, so they arent totally out of the game for toss either. It's just not as much of an immediate loss anymore.
On April 22 2015 23:50 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 22:19 KaZeFenrir wrote:
I think you guys need a tldr for the differences between dh10 and lotv, and why you are bothering with all of this in the first place? Seems like more than a few people don't understand.
From what I've read (correct me if I'm wrong):
Lotv: you are PUNISHED for not expanding since you mine out faster. 2 base with 16 workers is the same income as having 1 base with 16 workers.
Dh10: you are REWARDED for expanding because more than 8 workers mine innefccienctly. 2 base with 16 workers is MORE income than 1 base with 16 workers.
Maybe focus on simplifying it for the tl;dr people's so they have a general idea and aren't arguing about something they don't understand/misunderstood. The tl;dr is actually difficult to explain in a few words and I'm trying to work on it for my next post. The issue is that the mining income isn't linear as the worker count goes up. Its a straight line to 8, and slopes from 9 to 24, and this slope means each worker becomes less useful the closer you get to 20. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 21:25 timchen1017 wrote:
I am again sad to see this response. 2 points here:
1. why optimal saturation for both are 16-20 workers? HotS I understand, but DH10? how is optimal defined anyway? If you just look from the graph to get optimal income/worker, should it not be 8? You sure have reasons, but if you want to state this in a meaning-to-clarify article, you had better spell them out clearly.
2. Your comments on the total mineral amount. You failed to realize why Blizzard changes half of the patches to half of the amount. This is because when half of the patches are mined out, it creates a similar worker inefficiency problem if an expansion is not taken: the base can accommodate up to 12 workers to give max income, but 8 is optimal for income/worker. So there is again some expand vs. turtle choices to be made. If all mineral patches are same, no such effect to be seen.
In the end, the major problem I find is that LotV is never treated properly here. This line of thought that BZ should at least try the DH10 or similar model is really weird. Sure, if a theoretical/numerical treatement of LotV is done and compared with DH10 and we found that DH10 has lots of benefits then sure why not try it, but no. Actually most of the work done is comparing HotS and DH10. How half of the patches only contain half of the mineral amount affect things is always dealed with in a hand-waiving way, if at all. + Show Spoiler +In response to 1) we use the word "optimal" to mean - the most workers you would reasonably make to ensure you get good income from a base. In HotS the "optimal" amount is 16 because workers begin to bounce after that and you see diminishing returns. Or you should but the efficiency of up to about 19 workers is almost the same as 16, so putting 19 instead of 16 is still very good. This same income point of minerals per worker is retained in DH so if you happen to not have a free mineral line, you aren't hurt by going up to 16. If you do not have free mineral lines to put workers on then stopping at 8 is not in any way optimal. You are only making a small % of your peak income for that base. 16-20 gets you much closer to the peak income for the base without investing into workers who will take a long time to pay for themselves. 2) This post isn't responding to the LotV model specifically. I touched on it in my previous article and will make a comparison between DH and LotV in the followup more specific. But at its core we are arguing against worker pairing. Not specifically against LotV. We dislike the fact that bases mine out half way at first because it creates odd situations in gameplay and interaction between players. A consistent income that does not change is non-punishing. Sure you can say that everyone loses the half patches but the value of half patches is so much higher early in the game and so much less later in the game that early game contain to take a third strategies become extremely powerful. If you can contain someone to 2 base while taking a third in the LotV model the half patches mining out means the contained player loses 25% of their available income. If they can't break the contain with full econ then they instantly lose because they now are on 3/4 econ and still contained. If they break the contain on 3/4 income they are a full base behind but its more than just 1 base at that point, because the player who took the third could have unpaired the workers on their half patches to put them on the new base increasing the overall lifespan of a higher income rate (which while interesting decision making, puts them in an even more powerful position to the opponent). I'll have it in better writing later but at its core I am against half patches as a design decision to achieve the design goal of limiting the number of resources available on a map. I am also against limiting the resources available on the map by about 25% because it forces a timer on the entire map to be mined out and creates perhaps too much of a skirmish feel to the game. I can understand quicker games being better for broadcast, but when you lose 25% of the maps resources you are limited in how small a map can even get in terms of mapmaking beyond rush distances. you begin to have to worry about minimal number of available bases. And you begin to constrict the time of a match for broadcast benefit at the detriment of artfully played long macro games with lots of back and forth. I can again understand the design goal to reduce available resources mapwide in the effort to encourage more expanding and punish players who NEVER expand or play TOO defensively. I get that. It puts a pressure on the player whose sole goal in the game is cost efficient trades. You need to balance this alongside our goal of giving the cost inefficient player more income to make those inefficient trades in our model. Thats our goal as well. So you could combine the two if you are blizzard. Our model mines 5% quicker to begin with so if you couple that with 5% or 10% less resources on the map you have a more subtle but still impactful timer on the players that is less punishing than half patches and continues to reward expansion based play by providing so much more income that inefficient trades are made. Again, I feel very strongly that removing worker pairing from sc2 (however blizz wants to do it) alongside a less extreme implementation of the blizzcon LotV reduced mineral model (keep in mind fewer resources overall was ALSO an approach taken by the community in the past), would be possibly, hopefully, the silver bullet in this game for making it truly amazing and better than it is now. On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 14:01 Plexa wrote:On April 22 2015 13:48 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 13:12 ZeromuS wrote:On April 22 2015 12:33 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 12:17 coolman123123 wrote:
Does anyone feel it's kind of inappropriate for the writers of a fansite to use it as a soapbox for their ideas? I'm okay with the initial post but now it's become a campaign to have the idea tested. We can sit around and pretend like we know for certain that this is the best course of action for the game, but we don't. It's just an idea, and unless something is positively the right thing to do, I don't think this proactive approach should be taken.
I feel that it's more inappropriate that the original post takes a small detail David Kim got wrong and uses it to say that he misunderstood the entire post, completely ignoring everything else DK said. As I wrote earlier I think David Kim perfectly understood the initial post aside from some small numerical things he didnt calculate thoroughly and gave his reasoning or at least sugarcoated understandable reasons why he doesnt want to do it.
Coming from Dota where every year the meta changes entirely because of balance patches Blizzard always patched way to defensively for my taste, Sc2 could be a way better game than it is. So I dont think it's wrong to try to force Blizzard to try this, because hell, they can just take the HotS map and release it as a LotV test map to see if they like the replays. If they dont, they dont have to implement it. We are talking about a working time of like 10 hours.
I just think that the way it is done is a little bit insulting, although that might not be intentional. Its possible we misunderstood but the baseline is the first point: - 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) which implies that there are 16 workers on the first two bases and 16 spread across 4 bases (in hots). This is the only way that the economy advantage is zero as per: the "no econ advantage" comment. Extrapolating this number as similarly applying to the following point: - 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) we assume that he is discussing the model in itself and not a comparison of DH to SC2 econ because of the final point: - In the Void model, we have something in between the above Which implies that they are comparing the current hots model to our recommended model. The only way for double income to happen in our model with 4 base vs 2 is double the workers. This implies that they understand that the 8 workers is the optimal number similar to 16 in the current model. alternatively they might think that 8 is the saturation point (similar to 24 in the current model). Which implies, to me that they are comparing 2 bases on saturation (8 being their assumption) compared to 4 bases on optimal cap (8 again across 4 bases being their assumption). If we take the idea that 8 is the saturation point/cap then they could be comparing 16/16 split (which makes no more money than 8/8 if the 8 point is cap in their understanding) to a 4 base 8/8/8/8 split. Their assumption that 8 is the cap (similar to 16 in current or maybe 24) is especially apparent (or can at least be logically understood to be their assumption) when you consider this part of their comment: (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base) In the second part in discussing our model (again as a compare contrast where LotV falls in between) it makes sense to believe they see the cap at 8 and not being at 24 or optimal around 16, which Plexa clarifies in the OP. It makes sense to say that yes the 4 base player will EASILY double the income of the 2 base player because it is VERY easy to ONLY make an extra 16 workers for the other 2 bases and have double the income (because the bases are capped at 8 workers). This probably due to the fact that the talking point of "8 is better on each mineral line" of the first article was not clear enough in its distinction of: optimal counts and saturation points as plexa cleared up in this OP. In the points of summary Dkim presented, it is difficult to read into them as a comparison of the DH model to the HotS model. It reads to me like its a quick description of what hots does, a quick description of what they think DH does and how LotV's current econ fits in between. IMO the LotV econ is NOT in between the DH and HotS model. BUT if you consider the DH model as setting a cap on 8 workers you can begin to see exactly how LotV IS perfectly in between. Eventually 8 workers IS the optimal count for a LotV base (DH in their understanding of it) and it DOES begin just like HotS at the start of mining the base. In this sense the LotV econ IS exactly perfectly a mix between the two with regards to worker counts and "optimal" worker counts per base. What we felt was lost in translation somewhere along the line was that our change is more of a mid point between LotV trying to give players expanding more money (since they get to replace the mined out half patches + 4 more patches for a short period -- meaning reward for expanding), and HotS (consistent mineral mining). Except our consistency remains all the time from start of base to full mine out and the additional mineral patches are not "bonuses" alongside a replacement of patches but a full reward - you get it ALL if you can hold it and bigger benefits come from splitting properly across bases (which is another WAY of applying base management you will eventually see in LotV - ensuring only 8 workers are on a half mined out base). I hope that this breakdown describes why we thought they misunderstood. We aren't trying to insult them, we are trying to be as respectful as possible but taking the statements they made as a whole and when examining the bullet points specifically you can see how the only logical train of thought to their conclusion is one in which they believe 8 is the worker cap, which is unfortunately, not the case. Your statement makes perfectly sense and I agree that he probably misunderstood DH10. He explains however in his post that he dislikes the "imbalance" of teching vs expanding in the current version already and that DH10 would make expanding even better, which I assume still stands true with the right numbers (its far to early in the morning for me to calc that through, I might do so when I'm awake again). The original post of Plexa totally ignored this point and continued going about his wrong understanding, while even with the right numbers his point remains (I assume). So Plexa doesnt give him a single reason to rethink his position but only proves to the community that DK didnt understand your original post. Which can be easily taken as trying to make him look like an idiot. I might be just overthinking, it's pretty late here. Now you could argue that balancing tech vs expand can also be achieved by buffing tech while changing expand, but as I said earlier if we created a scenario where both sides need to be able to fight about map control not dependent of the mu or the tech level we are talking about half a year of rebalancing at least. On a side note: I'm going to bed, catching up with you later. The intention behind my post was to correct the misunderstanding. I don't want to do DK's analysis of the situation for him, it'd largely look like zeromus' first set of analysis or the analysis coming up in the second article in development. By correcting the misunderstanding I feel that Blizzard can re-assess the situation and determine whether they still think the "imbalance" exists to the same degree they otherwise thought. tldr; there's little value in taking down analysis which was based on a faulty premise to begin with. EDIT: I also posted this on reddit which deals with the same subject. Loomismeister
I don't think you addressed his main concern with completely adopting this efficiency idea. You saw one fallacious bullet point he made and immediately pointed out why the numbers were wrong, but the core point he was making still stands.
To truly crush his argument, point out why your solution does fit into blizzards proven game development strategy of being easily tuned and iterated. Point out why it is better to put pressure on expanding from the other player rather than from the map itself. Actually make a good argument and David Kim will see it.
If it isn't easily iterated, if it's not better pressure, then David Kim will never yield to community pressure simply because you've shown solidarity. The comment section of your response post is troubling to me because it seems like if blizzard doesn't implement your idea then the community is already preparing the doom and gloom. Plexa
Here's the logic behind my post. Zeromus's original post was analysed through the lens of faulty information. By correcting that misinformation and getting them to re-read the article they can then reform their opinion on the model.
There's little use in me re-writing zeromus's articles since they already explain (or will explain) the points that you raise.
EDIT: I also don't think its about one fallacious bullet point, under the assumption that 8 workers saturates a mineral line (which is roughly in line with the numbers in the Blizzard example) everything is completely different. It looks like they took the 1:1 efficiency ratio as saturation which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the model. No reasonable discussion can come from Blizzard thinking we're arguing one thing, when we're actually arguing something different. By first correcting this misunderstanding (first section) and the using their own example to illustrate the mechanics of the model (the second section) we feel like we put the discussion in the right place to continue. Alright I didnt know that you had another article coming on the topic, I read your OP as a single reply in the same way Loomismeister read it. Tbh I still fail to see how this rewards teching over expanding. Mining faster doesnt help teching if the enemy mines even faster because they are expanding. In the current version you would just get steamrolled. No doubt their current solution seems a bit forced, but the main thing in both versions is that expanding is largely beneficial while teching higher than t2 is most of the time not. DH10 just makes expanding past three bases even more rewarding compared to high tech. While I would prefer DH10 I can totally understand that DK sees the rebalancing problems coming with it and points out that they already have to do rebalancing with the current model or rebalance the current model. The way I read out your science.png adding a tenth worker adds 10 mins per minute compared to 55-57 before. The eleventh is way better but still over 20% inferior to workers before the ninth. So expanding once you hit 9 workers gives you massive advantages and things like zerg double expand creates economies that have 30-50% more economy than one base on the same worker count, making expanding pay itself after less than two minutes even if you stay on the same worker count. That is way shorter than LotV's half mineral patch system, essentially taking options like tech in the current balancing away. For Zerg DH10 means that if you have 24 workers going from two to three bases is better in terms of economy than using those mins to build more workers. For T and P it's pretty close. Totally disregarding the fact that mains have other advantages like being the main production building for Zerg and having chrono, scan and mule for Terra and that you can pump worker even faster, which accelerates the advantage even more. So yeah DK's concern that this overbuffs expanding vs teching still is totally valid. Have you tried to tune down the numbers a bit? Like what happens if the worker collects overall 8 minerals instead of 10? Just something that could make the jump to DH10 less extreme for Blizzard. Just because your diminishing returns start on the 9th worker doesnt mean you dont make that 9th worker. Also in the science.png image each line is calculated per worker. (math in HotS time below) So getting the 9th worker on one mineral line means each worker now makes 55 mpM compared to the 58 before -- on average. The 9th worker adds almost 40 minerals per minute to your income. IF he had a free mineral node to go on you would get almost 60 minerals a minute more. But this doesn't invalidate the income the 9th onward workers make for you. It only encourages you to spread them to a new base as soon as possible IF you are able to take and hold a base. The key interaction here is that it makes new bases MORE vulnerable because there will be workers there right away. In the current SC2 econ you dont put workers on the new base other than fresh workers you JUST made to transfer. So while this spreading of workers will benefit zerg immediately with their ability to spread out quicker, it will also provide a new challenge to zergs because they will have more mineral lines open to harass. In HotS players might come to a zerg third with a small hellion reaper push and find 4 drones meanwhile 32 drones are in the main and nat mining peacefully with a wall in with queen to block hellions. In DH10 the zerg has the option to spread to the third line sooner but open themselves up to hellions as a result. So if terran can for a short while contain those drones from getting their personal mineral patches for more money the terran can keep up with both mules and a 3rd cc being built. Zerg on the other hand might cut some drones (again keeping even with terran for it) and try to get an army to gain map control so that the hellion push cant deny saturating the third as they drone up behind the aggression. These kinds of small shifts in thought as to where you put the workers, how fast you put them there, what kind of defense you have for them, because you want their income to be better, this is all subtle small interactions that create more decision making and more action on the map.
I didnt point out the 9th, I pointed out how inefficient the tenth is and as a result going over 9. The ninth is still ok (60% of the workers before) and once you overcome the fact that the tenth is barely existent (17% of a new worker on a new expansion) because you have reached like 14 workers going up to 16 is probably a good idea. However going from nine to eleven is less useful than adding a single worker on another base. It is close to ideal to have 9 on every base and then max out one base to 16. So overall ideally in the early game you want to have 24 to 27 workers on 3 bases and add a 4th once you have saturated one of the bases up to 16 because the tenth worker on a base will need 5 minutes to start generating value while the first nine need less than one. Having 27 mineral workers on three bases gives you close to 238 minerals per minte (19%) more compared to two bases, paying for the base in less than two minutes even without producing workers.
I doubt that we need to discuss that this model is a strong buff for the expanding and map controlling race and would need heavy rebalancing of at least two of the three races.
As I said before I think that a constant fight for map control and multi-pronged harassment is more interesting than deathball doom pushes and all-ins, but I doubt that Blizzard is going to go so far as to redevelop their different racial balancing entirely. They might just make starcraft 3.
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On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involved early cheese...
The best are when the cheese brings the players on an equal footing and then you transition in a macro game.
Or when TY bunker rushes Classic.
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On April 23 2015 00:11 sAsImre wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involved early cheese... The best are when the cheese brings the players on an equal footing and then you transition in a macro game. Or when TY bunker rushes Classic.
TY bunker rushing Classic is one of my personal favourite as well
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On April 23 2015 00:11 sAsImre wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involved early cheese... The best are when the cheese brings the players on an equal footing and then you transition in a macro game. Or when TY bunker rushes Classic.
i.e. when one of the players is CatZ
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Poland3746 Posts
Maybe SC2 should start like mobas:
player can start with few starting packages, players can veto some packages for their opponents at the start and then they can select up to 5 starting packages that will speed up initial game. Examples are:
1 extra workers,
overlord speed buff
free gas extractor
barracks
1 free scanner sweep
4 lings / 2 marines / 1 zaelot
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On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game.
Cheese add diversity to the early game since if don't have any early rush to worry about there is no reason not to play the same "greed" build every game, it's a fairly meaningless point to argue though since cheese are just different and not figured out and optimized yet rather than gone.
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On April 23 2015 00:21 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2015 00:11 sAsImre wrote:On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involved early cheese... The best are when the cheese brings the players on an equal footing and then you transition in a macro game. Or when TY bunker rushes Classic. i.e. when one of the players is CatZ It's unsual for catz to end on even footing when he get's cheesed :D
He tends to get ahead.
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From what I understood, the DH10 model would slow down the early game and encourage defensive play.
LotV and most people want exactly the opposite:
Encourage active play and make the early phase of the game faster.
The lack of strategic options in the LotV model is vastly overestimated.
The active play approach will lead to the development of entirely new strategies.
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 23 2015 00:59 fancyClown wrote:
From what I understood, the DH10 model would slow down the early game and encourage defensive play.
LotV and most people want exactly the opposite:
Encourage active play and make the early phase of the game faster.
The lack of strategic options in the LotV model is vastly overestimated.
The active play approach will lead to the development of entirely new strategies.
I am curious how does the DH10 model slow down the early game? You get your build going faster than in HotS, and you take a natural expansion sooner if you so choose. Currently in LotV you still see fast expansion as the norm, if anything expanding is encouraged too much in LotV to the detriment of teching.
I think maybe theres a misunderstanding. We don't want to encourage defensive play, rather we just don't want a defensive player to be punished by the game so quickly for choosing to tech and be defensive early. The power is in the opponents hands to react to defensive play through expansion based strategies, the timer for the slow to expand player is controlled by the opponent not the game.
DH10 just offers more of a middle ground. We give benefits to the expanding player for expanding a lot if they so choose and we don't punish a teching player by having half patches which mine out before they are able to take a third after teching and building enough army to hold the third.
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On April 23 2015 00:59 fancyClown wrote:
From what I understood, the DH10 model would slow down the early game and encourage defensive play.
LotV and most people want exactly the opposite:
Encourage active play and make the early phase of the game faster.
The lack of strategic options in the LotV model is vastly overestimated.
The active play approach will lead to the development of entirely new strategies.
That depends on how you think expanding will change the game. The DH10 model mainly puts everyone who doesnt expand really fast under a huge timer because his economy is going to be a lot weaker two minutes later and it's bound to snowball. If the races are rebalanced in a way that everyone can expand without loosing the expansion immediately it might spread people thin so we might see a lot of harassment and we might get rid of the deathball play for good. The game will probably feel more bw-esque with lategame tech that actually happens only late in the game, 5 bases+ for each player and multi-pronged aggression. If the races arent rebalanced the game will become mono-race, the race that can control the map during the first ten minutes in ZvT.
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Canada13378 Posts
On April 23 2015 00:06 Blackfeather wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese... A matter of taste I think. 80-90% of them end in either side loosing immediately, which is freaking terrible for viewers and players. The ones where both side end up beaten up but not beaten usually transition into good games because they throw build orders out of the window and we get to see the minds behind the machines. On April 23 2015 00:05 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese... they add a lot to the game honestly. The GSL finals of MKP (Boxer/Fake Boxer/Foxer back then) vs Nestea was amazing. Every game a 2 rax bunker rush. Slowly nestea figured out how to hold MKPs variant on the popular push and won the series in a 4-2 after losing i think 2 games early? Was brilliant. Fantastic series i suggest EVERYONE watches. On top of this relative timings for cheese still exist for T and Z. They still have the super early pool (12 pool for example) which is relative to P and T timings a stronger version of an 8 or 9 pool I think. T still has proxy rax, you can afford three now. P has nothing. There is no viable proxy pylon based play early like proxy gates because the pylon just starts so so so late thanks to 12 worker start and the time to scout it gets increased. I guess you could proxy 3 gate adept or stalkers but thats it. Proxy oracle play is far far weaker due to the no engi bay turret and it was never done PvZ after the no evo requirement for spores was put in place. You will still see it in pvp because relative timings in pvp dont change at all. I have seen proxy 4 gate zealot into adept vs Zerg on desrows stream once and he destroyed, so they arent totally out of the game for toss either. It's just not as much of an immediate loss anymore. On April 22 2015 23:50 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 22:19 KaZeFenrir wrote:
I think you guys need a tldr for the differences between dh10 and lotv, and why you are bothering with all of this in the first place? Seems like more than a few people don't understand.
From what I've read (correct me if I'm wrong):
Lotv: you are PUNISHED for not expanding since you mine out faster. 2 base with 16 workers is the same income as having 1 base with 16 workers.
Dh10: you are REWARDED for expanding because more than 8 workers mine innefccienctly. 2 base with 16 workers is MORE income than 1 base with 16 workers.
Maybe focus on simplifying it for the tl;dr people's so they have a general idea and aren't arguing about something they don't understand/misunderstood. The tl;dr is actually difficult to explain in a few words and I'm trying to work on it for my next post. The issue is that the mining income isn't linear as the worker count goes up. Its a straight line to 8, and slopes from 9 to 24, and this slope means each worker becomes less useful the closer you get to 20. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 21:25 timchen1017 wrote:
I am again sad to see this response. 2 points here:
1. why optimal saturation for both are 16-20 workers? HotS I understand, but DH10? how is optimal defined anyway? If you just look from the graph to get optimal income/worker, should it not be 8? You sure have reasons, but if you want to state this in a meaning-to-clarify article, you had better spell them out clearly.
2. Your comments on the total mineral amount. You failed to realize why Blizzard changes half of the patches to half of the amount. This is because when half of the patches are mined out, it creates a similar worker inefficiency problem if an expansion is not taken: the base can accommodate up to 12 workers to give max income, but 8 is optimal for income/worker. So there is again some expand vs. turtle choices to be made. If all mineral patches are same, no such effect to be seen.
In the end, the major problem I find is that LotV is never treated properly here. This line of thought that BZ should at least try the DH10 or similar model is really weird. Sure, if a theoretical/numerical treatement of LotV is done and compared with DH10 and we found that DH10 has lots of benefits then sure why not try it, but no. Actually most of the work done is comparing HotS and DH10. How half of the patches only contain half of the mineral amount affect things is always dealed with in a hand-waiving way, if at all. + Show Spoiler +In response to 1) we use the word "optimal" to mean - the most workers you would reasonably make to ensure you get good income from a base. In HotS the "optimal" amount is 16 because workers begin to bounce after that and you see diminishing returns. Or you should but the efficiency of up to about 19 workers is almost the same as 16, so putting 19 instead of 16 is still very good. This same income point of minerals per worker is retained in DH so if you happen to not have a free mineral line, you aren't hurt by going up to 16. If you do not have free mineral lines to put workers on then stopping at 8 is not in any way optimal. You are only making a small % of your peak income for that base. 16-20 gets you much closer to the peak income for the base without investing into workers who will take a long time to pay for themselves. 2) This post isn't responding to the LotV model specifically. I touched on it in my previous article and will make a comparison between DH and LotV in the followup more specific. But at its core we are arguing against worker pairing. Not specifically against LotV. We dislike the fact that bases mine out half way at first because it creates odd situations in gameplay and interaction between players. A consistent income that does not change is non-punishing. Sure you can say that everyone loses the half patches but the value of half patches is so much higher early in the game and so much less later in the game that early game contain to take a third strategies become extremely powerful. If you can contain someone to 2 base while taking a third in the LotV model the half patches mining out means the contained player loses 25% of their available income. If they can't break the contain with full econ then they instantly lose because they now are on 3/4 econ and still contained. If they break the contain on 3/4 income they are a full base behind but its more than just 1 base at that point, because the player who took the third could have unpaired the workers on their half patches to put them on the new base increasing the overall lifespan of a higher income rate (which while interesting decision making, puts them in an even more powerful position to the opponent). I'll have it in better writing later but at its core I am against half patches as a design decision to achieve the design goal of limiting the number of resources available on a map. I am also against limiting the resources available on the map by about 25% because it forces a timer on the entire map to be mined out and creates perhaps too much of a skirmish feel to the game. I can understand quicker games being better for broadcast, but when you lose 25% of the maps resources you are limited in how small a map can even get in terms of mapmaking beyond rush distances. you begin to have to worry about minimal number of available bases. And you begin to constrict the time of a match for broadcast benefit at the detriment of artfully played long macro games with lots of back and forth. I can again understand the design goal to reduce available resources mapwide in the effort to encourage more expanding and punish players who NEVER expand or play TOO defensively. I get that. It puts a pressure on the player whose sole goal in the game is cost efficient trades. You need to balance this alongside our goal of giving the cost inefficient player more income to make those inefficient trades in our model. Thats our goal as well. So you could combine the two if you are blizzard. Our model mines 5% quicker to begin with so if you couple that with 5% or 10% less resources on the map you have a more subtle but still impactful timer on the players that is less punishing than half patches and continues to reward expansion based play by providing so much more income that inefficient trades are made. Again, I feel very strongly that removing worker pairing from sc2 (however blizz wants to do it) alongside a less extreme implementation of the blizzcon LotV reduced mineral model (keep in mind fewer resources overall was ALSO an approach taken by the community in the past), would be possibly, hopefully, the silver bullet in this game for making it truly amazing and better than it is now. On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 14:01 Plexa wrote:On April 22 2015 13:48 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 13:12 ZeromuS wrote:On April 22 2015 12:33 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 12:17 coolman123123 wrote:
Does anyone feel it's kind of inappropriate for the writers of a fansite to use it as a soapbox for their ideas? I'm okay with the initial post but now it's become a campaign to have the idea tested. We can sit around and pretend like we know for certain that this is the best course of action for the game, but we don't. It's just an idea, and unless something is positively the right thing to do, I don't think this proactive approach should be taken.
I feel that it's more inappropriate that the original post takes a small detail David Kim got wrong and uses it to say that he misunderstood the entire post, completely ignoring everything else DK said. As I wrote earlier I think David Kim perfectly understood the initial post aside from some small numerical things he didnt calculate thoroughly and gave his reasoning or at least sugarcoated understandable reasons why he doesnt want to do it.
Coming from Dota where every year the meta changes entirely because of balance patches Blizzard always patched way to defensively for my taste, Sc2 could be a way better game than it is. So I dont think it's wrong to try to force Blizzard to try this, because hell, they can just take the HotS map and release it as a LotV test map to see if they like the replays. If they dont, they dont have to implement it. We are talking about a working time of like 10 hours.
I just think that the way it is done is a little bit insulting, although that might not be intentional. Its possible we misunderstood but the baseline is the first point: - 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) which implies that there are 16 workers on the first two bases and 16 spread across 4 bases (in hots). This is the only way that the economy advantage is zero as per: the "no econ advantage" comment. Extrapolating this number as similarly applying to the following point: - 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) we assume that he is discussing the model in itself and not a comparison of DH to SC2 econ because of the final point: - In the Void model, we have something in between the above Which implies that they are comparing the current hots model to our recommended model. The only way for double income to happen in our model with 4 base vs 2 is double the workers. This implies that they understand that the 8 workers is the optimal number similar to 16 in the current model. alternatively they might think that 8 is the saturation point (similar to 24 in the current model). Which implies, to me that they are comparing 2 bases on saturation (8 being their assumption) compared to 4 bases on optimal cap (8 again across 4 bases being their assumption). If we take the idea that 8 is the saturation point/cap then they could be comparing 16/16 split (which makes no more money than 8/8 if the 8 point is cap in their understanding) to a 4 base 8/8/8/8 split. Their assumption that 8 is the cap (similar to 16 in current or maybe 24) is especially apparent (or can at least be logically understood to be their assumption) when you consider this part of their comment: (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base) In the second part in discussing our model (again as a compare contrast where LotV falls in between) it makes sense to believe they see the cap at 8 and not being at 24 or optimal around 16, which Plexa clarifies in the OP. It makes sense to say that yes the 4 base player will EASILY double the income of the 2 base player because it is VERY easy to ONLY make an extra 16 workers for the other 2 bases and have double the income (because the bases are capped at 8 workers). This probably due to the fact that the talking point of "8 is better on each mineral line" of the first article was not clear enough in its distinction of: optimal counts and saturation points as plexa cleared up in this OP. In the points of summary Dkim presented, it is difficult to read into them as a comparison of the DH model to the HotS model. It reads to me like its a quick description of what hots does, a quick description of what they think DH does and how LotV's current econ fits in between. IMO the LotV econ is NOT in between the DH and HotS model. BUT if you consider the DH model as setting a cap on 8 workers you can begin to see exactly how LotV IS perfectly in between. Eventually 8 workers IS the optimal count for a LotV base (DH in their understanding of it) and it DOES begin just like HotS at the start of mining the base. In this sense the LotV econ IS exactly perfectly a mix between the two with regards to worker counts and "optimal" worker counts per base. What we felt was lost in translation somewhere along the line was that our change is more of a mid point between LotV trying to give players expanding more money (since they get to replace the mined out half patches + 4 more patches for a short period -- meaning reward for expanding), and HotS (consistent mineral mining). Except our consistency remains all the time from start of base to full mine out and the additional mineral patches are not "bonuses" alongside a replacement of patches but a full reward - you get it ALL if you can hold it and bigger benefits come from splitting properly across bases (which is another WAY of applying base management you will eventually see in LotV - ensuring only 8 workers are on a half mined out base). I hope that this breakdown describes why we thought they misunderstood. We aren't trying to insult them, we are trying to be as respectful as possible but taking the statements they made as a whole and when examining the bullet points specifically you can see how the only logical train of thought to their conclusion is one in which they believe 8 is the worker cap, which is unfortunately, not the case. Your statement makes perfectly sense and I agree that he probably misunderstood DH10. He explains however in his post that he dislikes the "imbalance" of teching vs expanding in the current version already and that DH10 would make expanding even better, which I assume still stands true with the right numbers (its far to early in the morning for me to calc that through, I might do so when I'm awake again). The original post of Plexa totally ignored this point and continued going about his wrong understanding, while even with the right numbers his point remains (I assume). So Plexa doesnt give him a single reason to rethink his position but only proves to the community that DK didnt understand your original post. Which can be easily taken as trying to make him look like an idiot. I might be just overthinking, it's pretty late here. Now you could argue that balancing tech vs expand can also be achieved by buffing tech while changing expand, but as I said earlier if we created a scenario where both sides need to be able to fight about map control not dependent of the mu or the tech level we are talking about half a year of rebalancing at least. On a side note: I'm going to bed, catching up with you later. The intention behind my post was to correct the misunderstanding. I don't want to do DK's analysis of the situation for him, it'd largely look like zeromus' first set of analysis or the analysis coming up in the second article in development. By correcting the misunderstanding I feel that Blizzard can re-assess the situation and determine whether they still think the "imbalance" exists to the same degree they otherwise thought. tldr; there's little value in taking down analysis which was based on a faulty premise to begin with. EDIT: I also posted this on reddit which deals with the same subject. Loomismeister
I don't think you addressed his main concern with completely adopting this efficiency idea. You saw one fallacious bullet point he made and immediately pointed out why the numbers were wrong, but the core point he was making still stands.
To truly crush his argument, point out why your solution does fit into blizzards proven game development strategy of being easily tuned and iterated. Point out why it is better to put pressure on expanding from the other player rather than from the map itself. Actually make a good argument and David Kim will see it.
If it isn't easily iterated, if it's not better pressure, then David Kim will never yield to community pressure simply because you've shown solidarity. The comment section of your response post is troubling to me because it seems like if blizzard doesn't implement your idea then the community is already preparing the doom and gloom. Plexa
Here's the logic behind my post. Zeromus's original post was analysed through the lens of faulty information. By correcting that misinformation and getting them to re-read the article they can then reform their opinion on the model.
There's little use in me re-writing zeromus's articles since they already explain (or will explain) the points that you raise.
EDIT: I also don't think its about one fallacious bullet point, under the assumption that 8 workers saturates a mineral line (which is roughly in line with the numbers in the Blizzard example) everything is completely different. It looks like they took the 1:1 efficiency ratio as saturation which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the model. No reasonable discussion can come from Blizzard thinking we're arguing one thing, when we're actually arguing something different. By first correcting this misunderstanding (first section) and the using their own example to illustrate the mechanics of the model (the second section) we feel like we put the discussion in the right place to continue. Alright I didnt know that you had another article coming on the topic, I read your OP as a single reply in the same way Loomismeister read it. Tbh I still fail to see how this rewards teching over expanding. Mining faster doesnt help teching if the enemy mines even faster because they are expanding. In the current version you would just get steamrolled. No doubt their current solution seems a bit forced, but the main thing in both versions is that expanding is largely beneficial while teching higher than t2 is most of the time not. DH10 just makes expanding past three bases even more rewarding compared to high tech. While I would prefer DH10 I can totally understand that DK sees the rebalancing problems coming with it and points out that they already have to do rebalancing with the current model or rebalance the current model. The way I read out your science.png adding a tenth worker adds 10 mins per minute compared to 55-57 before. The eleventh is way better but still over 20% inferior to workers before the ninth. So expanding once you hit 9 workers gives you massive advantages and things like zerg double expand creates economies that have 30-50% more economy than one base on the same worker count, making expanding pay itself after less than two minutes even if you stay on the same worker count. That is way shorter than LotV's half mineral patch system, essentially taking options like tech in the current balancing away. For Zerg DH10 means that if you have 24 workers going from two to three bases is better in terms of economy than using those mins to build more workers. For T and P it's pretty close. Totally disregarding the fact that mains have other advantages like being the main production building for Zerg and having chrono, scan and mule for Terra and that you can pump worker even faster, which accelerates the advantage even more. So yeah DK's concern that this overbuffs expanding vs teching still is totally valid. Have you tried to tune down the numbers a bit? Like what happens if the worker collects overall 8 minerals instead of 10? Just something that could make the jump to DH10 less extreme for Blizzard. Just because your diminishing returns start on the 9th worker doesnt mean you dont make that 9th worker. Also in the science.png image each line is calculated per worker. (math in HotS time below) So getting the 9th worker on one mineral line means each worker now makes 55 mpM compared to the 58 before -- on average. The 9th worker adds almost 40 minerals per minute to your income. IF he had a free mineral node to go on you would get almost 60 minerals a minute more. But this doesn't invalidate the income the 9th onward workers make for you. It only encourages you to spread them to a new base as soon as possible IF you are able to take and hold a base. The key interaction here is that it makes new bases MORE vulnerable because there will be workers there right away. In the current SC2 econ you dont put workers on the new base other than fresh workers you JUST made to transfer. So while this spreading of workers will benefit zerg immediately with their ability to spread out quicker, it will also provide a new challenge to zergs because they will have more mineral lines open to harass. In HotS players might come to a zerg third with a small hellion reaper push and find 4 drones meanwhile 32 drones are in the main and nat mining peacefully with a wall in with queen to block hellions. In DH10 the zerg has the option to spread to the third line sooner but open themselves up to hellions as a result. So if terran can for a short while contain those drones from getting their personal mineral patches for more money the terran can keep up with both mules and a 3rd cc being built. Zerg on the other hand might cut some drones (again keeping even with terran for it) and try to get an army to gain map control so that the hellion push cant deny saturating the third as they drone up behind the aggression. These kinds of small shifts in thought as to where you put the workers, how fast you put them there, what kind of defense you have for them, because you want their income to be better, this is all subtle small interactions that create more decision making and more action on the map. I didnt point out the 9th, I pointed out how inefficient the tenth is and as a result going over 9. The ninth is still ok (60% of the workers before) and once you overcome the fact that the tenth is barely existent (17% of a new worker on a new expansion) because you have reached like 14 workers going up to 16 is probably a good idea. However going from nine to eleven is less useful than adding a single worker on another base. It is close to ideal to have 9 on every base and then max out one base to 16. So overall ideally in the early game you want to have 24 to 27 workers on 3 bases and add a 4th once you have saturated one of the bases up to 16 because the tenth worker on a base will need 5 minutes to start generating value while the first nine need less than one. Having 27 mineral workers on three bases gives you close to 238 minerals per minte (19%) more compared to two bases, paying for the base in less than two minutes even without producing workers. I doubt that we need to discuss that this model is a strong buff for the expanding and map controlling race and would need heavy rebalancing of at least two of the three races. As I said before I think that a constant fight for map control and multi-pronged harassment is more interesting than deathball doom pushes and all-ins, but I doubt that Blizzard is going to go so far as to redevelop their different racial balancing entirely. They might just make starcraft 3
But you don't want only 9 workers. Even if the extra guys after that are inefficient, you don't want to do that because your overall income is still very poor compared to a person who has the extra workers. If you cut at 9 your gas income is much higher than your mineral income and you have a hard time affording anything properly.
The games between CatZ and Iaguz showed that stopping at 9 workers as Z (the xpanding race) vs T (the more workers race) meant that anytime before catz was able to secure 5/6 bases he was behind in army workers and income. The entire time. And Iaguz rode that to victory. In basically every game.
On April 23 2015 01:10 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2015 00:59 fancyClown wrote:
From what I understood, the DH10 model would slow down the early game and encourage defensive play.
LotV and most people want exactly the opposite:
Encourage active play and make the early phase of the game faster.
The lack of strategic options in the LotV model is vastly overestimated.
The active play approach will lead to the development of entirely new strategies. That depends on how you think expanding will change the game. The DH10 model mainly puts everyone who doesnt expand really fast under a huge timer because his economy is going to be a lot weaker two minutes later and it's bound to snowball. If the races are rebalanced in a way that everyone can expand without loosing the expansion immediately it might spread people thin so we might see a lot of harassment and we might get rid of the deathball play for good. The game will probably feel more bw-esque with lategame tech that actually happens only late in the game, 5 bases+ for each player and multi-pronged aggression. If the races arent rebalanced the game will become mono-race.
My concern with this analysis is that you assume that there will be no action from one player vs the expanding player to slow them down and that everyone will just stop at 8 or 9 workers per base which is wrong.
In the LotV model there is also a timer, a fairly short timer of 5-6 minutes on half the econ of your main then nat etc just cutting out and going away forever. That timer isn't controlled by any one player. There is no dynamic interaction.
At the very least if the players are controlling the timers within the game you get more interesting interactions. And again, the game won't be a mono-race game, it doesnt feel at all like this when you play the mod. And you don't need to rebalance every race to have a super fast third. You just need to have the tech be worthwhile to get to delay the third. At the very least the consistent mineral income on 2 bases before the third will mean trades can be had while taking the third whereas in LotV right now this is less of the scenario we see.
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On April 23 2015 01:11 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2015 00:06 Blackfeather wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese... A matter of taste I think. 80-90% of them end in either side loosing immediately, which is freaking terrible for viewers and players. The ones where both side end up beaten up but not beaten usually transition into good games because they throw build orders out of the window and we get to see the minds behind the machines. On April 23 2015 00:05 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:57 OtherWorld wrote:On April 22 2015 23:53 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:46 [PkF] Wire wrote:On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Yeah but isn't there a happy medium between having those full two minutes during which nothing happens and literally skipping that time ? 8-9 workers at the start would massively reduce the downtime while not being as problematic IMO. I'm pretty sure Blizz did some testing on the numbers. Tbh from what I see on streams I dont see any balance problems aside from toss early game weakness, which they tried to solve with Adept buffs. The only real "problems" I see with this change is that all the early all-ins like double 10/10 rax bunker rush, two gate zealot and six and ten pools and super gas heavy timings like banshee rush are gone/weaker/later. But tbh I have yet to find a person who thought that these added anything to the game. Lol So many of competitive SC2's greatest moments involve early cheese... they add a lot to the game honestly. The GSL finals of MKP (Boxer/Fake Boxer/Foxer back then) vs Nestea was amazing. Every game a 2 rax bunker rush. Slowly nestea figured out how to hold MKPs variant on the popular push and won the series in a 4-2 after losing i think 2 games early? Was brilliant. Fantastic series i suggest EVERYONE watches. On top of this relative timings for cheese still exist for T and Z. They still have the super early pool (12 pool for example) which is relative to P and T timings a stronger version of an 8 or 9 pool I think. T still has proxy rax, you can afford three now. P has nothing. There is no viable proxy pylon based play early like proxy gates because the pylon just starts so so so late thanks to 12 worker start and the time to scout it gets increased. I guess you could proxy 3 gate adept or stalkers but thats it. Proxy oracle play is far far weaker due to the no engi bay turret and it was never done PvZ after the no evo requirement for spores was put in place. You will still see it in pvp because relative timings in pvp dont change at all. I have seen proxy 4 gate zealot into adept vs Zerg on desrows stream once and he destroyed, so they arent totally out of the game for toss either. It's just not as much of an immediate loss anymore. On April 22 2015 23:50 ZeromuS wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 22:19 KaZeFenrir wrote:
I think you guys need a tldr for the differences between dh10 and lotv, and why you are bothering with all of this in the first place? Seems like more than a few people don't understand.
From what I've read (correct me if I'm wrong):
Lotv: you are PUNISHED for not expanding since you mine out faster. 2 base with 16 workers is the same income as having 1 base with 16 workers.
Dh10: you are REWARDED for expanding because more than 8 workers mine innefccienctly. 2 base with 16 workers is MORE income than 1 base with 16 workers.
Maybe focus on simplifying it for the tl;dr people's so they have a general idea and aren't arguing about something they don't understand/misunderstood. The tl;dr is actually difficult to explain in a few words and I'm trying to work on it for my next post. The issue is that the mining income isn't linear as the worker count goes up. Its a straight line to 8, and slopes from 9 to 24, and this slope means each worker becomes less useful the closer you get to 20. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 21:25 timchen1017 wrote:
I am again sad to see this response. 2 points here:
1. why optimal saturation for both are 16-20 workers? HotS I understand, but DH10? how is optimal defined anyway? If you just look from the graph to get optimal income/worker, should it not be 8? You sure have reasons, but if you want to state this in a meaning-to-clarify article, you had better spell them out clearly.
2. Your comments on the total mineral amount. You failed to realize why Blizzard changes half of the patches to half of the amount. This is because when half of the patches are mined out, it creates a similar worker inefficiency problem if an expansion is not taken: the base can accommodate up to 12 workers to give max income, but 8 is optimal for income/worker. So there is again some expand vs. turtle choices to be made. If all mineral patches are same, no such effect to be seen.
In the end, the major problem I find is that LotV is never treated properly here. This line of thought that BZ should at least try the DH10 or similar model is really weird. Sure, if a theoretical/numerical treatement of LotV is done and compared with DH10 and we found that DH10 has lots of benefits then sure why not try it, but no. Actually most of the work done is comparing HotS and DH10. How half of the patches only contain half of the mineral amount affect things is always dealed with in a hand-waiving way, if at all. + Show Spoiler +In response to 1) we use the word "optimal" to mean - the most workers you would reasonably make to ensure you get good income from a base. In HotS the "optimal" amount is 16 because workers begin to bounce after that and you see diminishing returns. Or you should but the efficiency of up to about 19 workers is almost the same as 16, so putting 19 instead of 16 is still very good. This same income point of minerals per worker is retained in DH so if you happen to not have a free mineral line, you aren't hurt by going up to 16. If you do not have free mineral lines to put workers on then stopping at 8 is not in any way optimal. You are only making a small % of your peak income for that base. 16-20 gets you much closer to the peak income for the base without investing into workers who will take a long time to pay for themselves. 2) This post isn't responding to the LotV model specifically. I touched on it in my previous article and will make a comparison between DH and LotV in the followup more specific. But at its core we are arguing against worker pairing. Not specifically against LotV. We dislike the fact that bases mine out half way at first because it creates odd situations in gameplay and interaction between players. A consistent income that does not change is non-punishing. Sure you can say that everyone loses the half patches but the value of half patches is so much higher early in the game and so much less later in the game that early game contain to take a third strategies become extremely powerful. If you can contain someone to 2 base while taking a third in the LotV model the half patches mining out means the contained player loses 25% of their available income. If they can't break the contain with full econ then they instantly lose because they now are on 3/4 econ and still contained. If they break the contain on 3/4 income they are a full base behind but its more than just 1 base at that point, because the player who took the third could have unpaired the workers on their half patches to put them on the new base increasing the overall lifespan of a higher income rate (which while interesting decision making, puts them in an even more powerful position to the opponent). I'll have it in better writing later but at its core I am against half patches as a design decision to achieve the design goal of limiting the number of resources available on a map. I am also against limiting the resources available on the map by about 25% because it forces a timer on the entire map to be mined out and creates perhaps too much of a skirmish feel to the game. I can understand quicker games being better for broadcast, but when you lose 25% of the maps resources you are limited in how small a map can even get in terms of mapmaking beyond rush distances. you begin to have to worry about minimal number of available bases. And you begin to constrict the time of a match for broadcast benefit at the detriment of artfully played long macro games with lots of back and forth. I can again understand the design goal to reduce available resources mapwide in the effort to encourage more expanding and punish players who NEVER expand or play TOO defensively. I get that. It puts a pressure on the player whose sole goal in the game is cost efficient trades. You need to balance this alongside our goal of giving the cost inefficient player more income to make those inefficient trades in our model. Thats our goal as well. So you could combine the two if you are blizzard. Our model mines 5% quicker to begin with so if you couple that with 5% or 10% less resources on the map you have a more subtle but still impactful timer on the players that is less punishing than half patches and continues to reward expansion based play by providing so much more income that inefficient trades are made. Again, I feel very strongly that removing worker pairing from sc2 (however blizz wants to do it) alongside a less extreme implementation of the blizzcon LotV reduced mineral model (keep in mind fewer resources overall was ALSO an approach taken by the community in the past), would be possibly, hopefully, the silver bullet in this game for making it truly amazing and better than it is now. On April 22 2015 23:37 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 23:35 [PkF] Wire wrote:
I actually think the downsides of 12 workers at the start are massively underestimated. By accelerating the decisions in the early game so much you create a lot of subtle problems (P spend a chrono less on probes, overlord scouts come very late, eco grows quickly and out of control) that you wouldn't have had with a 8 workers start for instance. I'm surprised no one is really questioning this decision. I think everybody agrees with Blizzard that the two minutes Blizzard took away were pretty boring for viewers and players alike. So while people see these disadvantages, those are mostly small racial balance issues that Blizzard could work out in time. Tbh I'm surprised Overlord didnt get a speed buff, but since most early all-ins need more preparation time than the twelve worker start gives them it currently doesnt seem to be a problem. The race which profits most of it is probably Terra because they produce worker at the slowest pace and have multiple no gas openings. Show nested quote +On April 22 2015 14:01 Plexa wrote:On April 22 2015 13:48 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 13:12 ZeromuS wrote:On April 22 2015 12:33 Blackfeather wrote:On April 22 2015 12:17 coolman123123 wrote:
Does anyone feel it's kind of inappropriate for the writers of a fansite to use it as a soapbox for their ideas? I'm okay with the initial post but now it's become a campaign to have the idea tested. We can sit around and pretend like we know for certain that this is the best course of action for the game, but we don't. It's just an idea, and unless something is positively the right thing to do, I don't think this proactive approach should be taken.
I feel that it's more inappropriate that the original post takes a small detail David Kim got wrong and uses it to say that he misunderstood the entire post, completely ignoring everything else DK said. As I wrote earlier I think David Kim perfectly understood the initial post aside from some small numerical things he didnt calculate thoroughly and gave his reasoning or at least sugarcoated understandable reasons why he doesnt want to do it.
Coming from Dota where every year the meta changes entirely because of balance patches Blizzard always patched way to defensively for my taste, Sc2 could be a way better game than it is. So I dont think it's wrong to try to force Blizzard to try this, because hell, they can just take the HotS map and release it as a LotV test map to see if they like the replays. If they dont, they dont have to implement it. We are talking about a working time of like 10 hours.
I just think that the way it is done is a little bit insulting, although that might not be intentional. Its possible we misunderstood but the baseline is the first point: - 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) which implies that there are 16 workers on the first two bases and 16 spread across 4 bases (in hots). This is the only way that the economy advantage is zero as per: the "no econ advantage" comment. Extrapolating this number as similarly applying to the following point: - 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) we assume that he is discussing the model in itself and not a comparison of DH to SC2 econ because of the final point: - In the Void model, we have something in between the above Which implies that they are comparing the current hots model to our recommended model. The only way for double income to happen in our model with 4 base vs 2 is double the workers. This implies that they understand that the 8 workers is the optimal number similar to 16 in the current model. alternatively they might think that 8 is the saturation point (similar to 24 in the current model). Which implies, to me that they are comparing 2 bases on saturation (8 being their assumption) compared to 4 bases on optimal cap (8 again across 4 bases being their assumption). If we take the idea that 8 is the saturation point/cap then they could be comparing 16/16 split (which makes no more money than 8/8 if the 8 point is cap in their understanding) to a 4 base 8/8/8/8 split. Their assumption that 8 is the cap (similar to 16 in current or maybe 24) is especially apparent (or can at least be logically understood to be their assumption) when you consider this part of their comment: (due to it being pretty easy to fully saturate every base) In the second part in discussing our model (again as a compare contrast where LotV falls in between) it makes sense to believe they see the cap at 8 and not being at 24 or optimal around 16, which Plexa clarifies in the OP. It makes sense to say that yes the 4 base player will EASILY double the income of the 2 base player because it is VERY easy to ONLY make an extra 16 workers for the other 2 bases and have double the income (because the bases are capped at 8 workers). This probably due to the fact that the talking point of "8 is better on each mineral line" of the first article was not clear enough in its distinction of: optimal counts and saturation points as plexa cleared up in this OP. In the points of summary Dkim presented, it is difficult to read into them as a comparison of the DH model to the HotS model. It reads to me like its a quick description of what hots does, a quick description of what they think DH does and how LotV's current econ fits in between. IMO the LotV econ is NOT in between the DH and HotS model. BUT if you consider the DH model as setting a cap on 8 workers you can begin to see exactly how LotV IS perfectly in between. Eventually 8 workers IS the optimal count for a LotV base (DH in their understanding of it) and it DOES begin just like HotS at the start of mining the base. In this sense the LotV econ IS exactly perfectly a mix between the two with regards to worker counts and "optimal" worker counts per base. What we felt was lost in translation somewhere along the line was that our change is more of a mid point between LotV trying to give players expanding more money (since they get to replace the mined out half patches + 4 more patches for a short period -- meaning reward for expanding), and HotS (consistent mineral mining). Except our consistency remains all the time from start of base to full mine out and the additional mineral patches are not "bonuses" alongside a replacement of patches but a full reward - you get it ALL if you can hold it and bigger benefits come from splitting properly across bases (which is another WAY of applying base management you will eventually see in LotV - ensuring only 8 workers are on a half mined out base). I hope that this breakdown describes why we thought they misunderstood. We aren't trying to insult them, we are trying to be as respectful as possible but taking the statements they made as a whole and when examining the bullet points specifically you can see how the only logical train of thought to their conclusion is one in which they believe 8 is the worker cap, which is unfortunately, not the case. Your statement makes perfectly sense and I agree that he probably misunderstood DH10. He explains however in his post that he dislikes the "imbalance" of teching vs expanding in the current version already and that DH10 would make expanding even better, which I assume still stands true with the right numbers (its far to early in the morning for me to calc that through, I might do so when I'm awake again). The original post of Plexa totally ignored this point and continued going about his wrong understanding, while even with the right numbers his point remains (I assume). So Plexa doesnt give him a single reason to rethink his position but only proves to the community that DK didnt understand your original post. Which can be easily taken as trying to make him look like an idiot. I might be just overthinking, it's pretty late here. Now you could argue that balancing tech vs expand can also be achieved by buffing tech while changing expand, but as I said earlier if we created a scenario where both sides need to be able to fight about map control not dependent of the mu or the tech level we are talking about half a year of rebalancing at least. On a side note: I'm going to bed, catching up with you later. The intention behind my post was to correct the misunderstanding. I don't want to do DK's analysis of the situation for him, it'd largely look like zeromus' first set of analysis or the analysis coming up in the second article in development. By correcting the misunderstanding I feel that Blizzard can re-assess the situation and determine whether they still think the "imbalance" exists to the same degree they otherwise thought. tldr; there's little value in taking down analysis which was based on a faulty premise to begin with. EDIT: I also posted this on reddit which deals with the same subject. Loomismeister
I don't think you addressed his main concern with completely adopting this efficiency idea. You saw one fallacious bullet point he made and immediately pointed out why the numbers were wrong, but the core point he was making still stands.
To truly crush his argument, point out why your solution does fit into blizzards proven game development strategy of being easily tuned and iterated. Point out why it is better to put pressure on expanding from the other player rather than from the map itself. Actually make a good argument and David Kim will see it.
If it isn't easily iterated, if it's not better pressure, then David Kim will never yield to community pressure simply because you've shown solidarity. The comment section of your response post is troubling to me because it seems like if blizzard doesn't implement your idea then the community is already preparing the doom and gloom. Plexa
Here's the logic behind my post. Zeromus's original post was analysed through the lens of faulty information. By correcting that misinformation and getting them to re-read the article they can then reform their opinion on the model.
There's little use in me re-writing zeromus's articles since they already explain (or will explain) the points that you raise.
EDIT: I also don't think its about one fallacious bullet point, under the assumption that 8 workers saturates a mineral line (which is roughly in line with the numbers in the Blizzard example) everything is completely different. It looks like they took the 1:1 efficiency ratio as saturation which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the model. No reasonable discussion can come from Blizzard thinking we're arguing one thing, when we're actually arguing something different. By first correcting this misunderstanding (first section) and the using their own example to illustrate the mechanics of the model (the second section) we feel like we put the discussion in the right place to continue. Alright I didnt know that you had another article coming on the topic, I read your OP as a single reply in the same way Loomismeister read it. Tbh I still fail to see how this rewards teching over expanding. Mining faster doesnt help teching if the enemy mines even faster because they are expanding. In the current version you would just get steamrolled. No doubt their current solution seems a bit forced, but the main thing in both versions is that expanding is largely beneficial while teching higher than t2 is most of the time not. DH10 just makes expanding past three bases even more rewarding compared to high tech. While I would prefer DH10 I can totally understand that DK sees the rebalancing problems coming with it and points out that they already have to do rebalancing with the current model or rebalance the current model. The way I read out your science.png adding a tenth worker adds 10 mins per minute compared to 55-57 before. The eleventh is way better but still over 20% inferior to workers before the ninth. So expanding once you hit 9 workers gives you massive advantages and things like zerg double expand creates economies that have 30-50% more economy than one base on the same worker count, making expanding pay itself after less than two minutes even if you stay on the same worker count. That is way shorter than LotV's half mineral patch system, essentially taking options like tech in the current balancing away. For Zerg DH10 means that if you have 24 workers going from two to three bases is better in terms of economy than using those mins to build more workers. For T and P it's pretty close. Totally disregarding the fact that mains have other advantages like being the main production building for Zerg and having chrono, scan and mule for Terra and that you can pump worker even faster, which accelerates the advantage even more. So yeah DK's concern that this overbuffs expanding vs teching still is totally valid. Have you tried to tune down the numbers a bit? Like what happens if the worker collects overall 8 minerals instead of 10? Just something that could make the jump to DH10 less extreme for Blizzard. Just because your diminishing returns start on the 9th worker doesnt mean you dont make that 9th worker. Also in the science.png image each line is calculated per worker. (math in HotS time below) So getting the 9th worker on one mineral line means each worker now makes 55 mpM compared to the 58 before -- on average. The 9th worker adds almost 40 minerals per minute to your income. IF he had a free mineral node to go on you would get almost 60 minerals a minute more. But this doesn't invalidate the income the 9th onward workers make for you. It only encourages you to spread them to a new base as soon as possible IF you are able to take and hold a base. The key interaction here is that it makes new bases MORE vulnerable because there will be workers there right away. In the current SC2 econ you dont put workers on the new base other than fresh workers you JUST made to transfer. So while this spreading of workers will benefit zerg immediately with their ability to spread out quicker, it will also provide a new challenge to zergs because they will have more mineral lines open to harass. In HotS players might come to a zerg third with a small hellion reaper push and find 4 drones meanwhile 32 drones are in the main and nat mining peacefully with a wall in with queen to block hellions. In DH10 the zerg has the option to spread to the third line sooner but open themselves up to hellions as a result. So if terran can for a short while contain those drones from getting their personal mineral patches for more money the terran can keep up with both mules and a 3rd cc being built. Zerg on the other hand might cut some drones (again keeping even with terran for it) and try to get an army to gain map control so that the hellion push cant deny saturating the third as they drone up behind the aggression. These kinds of small shifts in thought as to where you put the workers, how fast you put them there, what kind of defense you have for them, because you want their income to be better, this is all subtle small interactions that create more decision making and more action on the map. I didnt point out the 9th, I pointed out how inefficient the tenth is and as a result going over 9. The ninth is still ok (60% of the workers before) and once you overcome the fact that the tenth is barely existent (17% of a new worker on a new expansion) because you have reached like 14 workers going up to 16 is probably a good idea. However going from nine to eleven is less useful than adding a single worker on another base. It is close to ideal to have 9 on every base and then max out one base to 16. So overall ideally in the early game you want to have 24 to 27 workers on 3 bases and add a 4th once you have saturated one of the bases up to 16 because the tenth worker on a base will need 5 minutes to start generating value while the first nine need less than one. Having 27 mineral workers on three bases gives you close to 238 minerals per minte (19%) more compared to two bases, paying for the base in less than two minutes even without producing workers. I doubt that we need to discuss that this model is a strong buff for the expanding and map controlling race and would need heavy rebalancing of at least two of the three races. As I said before I think that a constant fight for map control and multi-pronged harassment is more interesting than deathball doom pushes and all-ins, but I doubt that Blizzard is going to go so far as to redevelop their different racial balancing entirely. They might just make starcraft 3 But you don't want only 9 workers. Even if the extra guys after that are inefficient, you don't want to do that because your overall income is still very poor compared to a person who has the extra workers. If you cut at 9 your gas income is much higher than your mineral income and you have a hard time affording anything properly. The games between CatZ and Iaguz showed that stopping at 9 workers as Z (the xpanding race) vs T (the more workers race) meant that anytime before catz was able to secure 5/6 bases he was behind in army workers and income. The entire time. And Iaguz rode that to victory. In basically every game.
That is pretty interesting. Are you sure that that isnt a result of Mule? Because in a scenario with the low workercount Mule is going to have an immense impact. As I calculated through earlier expansions pay for themselves in less than two minutes and often are preferable to building more workers. However if you stay at 27 workers early on Mule is bound to have a massive impact.
I might be really overlooking something, so if I was wrong that's all the better.
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