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On May 20 2015 12:50 Gfire wrote:
I think there's a problem where worker production from all the bases is taken out of the equation. If we give players more bases so they have more places to defend, it results in them building workers much more quickly, and I think the late-game income levels are reached too quickly. The 12 worker start contributes to this as well, even though it's cutting out time of being on lower base counts which does the same thing as making expansions easier to take.
If you keep players on lower worker counts it means that building an expansion will be a decent investment as you will actually be building workers out of it. I feel like the entire expanding game and a lot of the strategic decision making falls apart when you get enough workers. Do others agree?
So concerning maps... Do we need to make sure the bases are very harassable, even if easy to take, so that workers killed is higher to make up for higher worker production? It feels bad to have workers still cost 50 if they're expected to die though. Having more bases essentially makes available worker build time a more plentiful resource, so the obvious clean solution would be to increase worker build time. Not something that can be done with just maps.
My response to this would be that this is why it's very desirable to have an economy system that provides income for triple and even quadruple workers on a patch. Heavy saturation should give income returns (though inefficient). This is another way of rewarding expansions without making parts of the game dead limbs (worker production capacity).
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On May 20 2015 23:53 Gfire wrote:Show nested quote +On May 20 2015 22:39 BaronVonOwn wrote:On May 20 2015 18:43 frostalgia wrote:
Gfire, I would say the obvious answer to that would be to make full saturation require less workers per base. Just going from 16 to 12 would make a difference in all the right places. Interestingly, this would mean that players start with full (mineral) saturation if we keep the 12 worker start. I think this would make the game more noob-friendly, while the lower income per base means you'll be rewarded with better macro if you expand more aggressively. Right now 3 bases (24 patches) is considered a healthy economy, but with 6 patches you'd need 4 bases to replicate that economy. I would prefer a system where you are rewarded for expanding rather than punished for not expanding. Well yes, with more expected bases having only 6 patches per base makes a lot of sense. Still, it seems like you'd need to do something like decrease the cost from 400 to 300 for an expo and decrease the production speed of workers at each expo to keep everything in line, just spread over more locations. In fact, maybe Sc2 was designed on the older maps with quite a low base count, so we're already suffering from more bases than intended and therefore quicker reach of ideal worker supplies than seems reasonable. Reducing patches per base has no effect on the abundance of worker production time in a world where you have more bases than the game was designed for.
I don't think it's necessary to make bases cheaper. For one, this would favor Zerg with their tendency to get Macro Hatches. Just increasing the supply each base provides already makes them more worthwhile, and I actually like the idea of a player being slightly punished for not protecting their base once it's built.. which already is the case. If you cancel while it's being built, it's still not a huge loss.
I definitely think the 100/60 model punishes players for not expanding faster, but this 6 patch/base model would not. Your base would take just as long to mine out as it does in HotS, your income rate would just be slightly lower. So expanding faster rewards you by increasing your mineral income, but it doesn't inherently punish for not expanding fast like the current LotV model. (Of course, you'll still have to keep up with your opponents expos, which should remain the deciding factor as to when to expand.) The income rate is what I think makes things really interesting, as your gas income should be able to keep up with your mineral income throughout most of the game.
Remember, the only thing that would change is the mineral income rate, not necessarily the amount of minerals. You'll mine bases slower with 6 patches per base/1500 minerals in all patches. This means you will need to keep army spread out over 4 bases, as it will take longer to mine them out. Right now, you mine bases so fast there's hardly ever a need to spread out over more than 3 bases.
Also, if we started with 9 workers instead of 12 (and 200 minerals instead of 50) it would mean you'd be slightly less than full saturation right away on your main.. around the same as it is now. It might even prove to be more favorable to instantly fast expand if you only have 6 patches as well, but it wouldn't be necessary. What it would really do is cause players to stay at a base for the same length of time as they do now in HotS, but it would also mean they'd have to take more bases faster throughout the game.
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If the new worker numbers turn out to have zerg-bias, then it has to be dealt with by tweaking the numbers, such as starting worker count, number of supply supported by a hatchery, number of larvae available at the beginning of the game, etc.
Making the maps more turtle-friendly is a totally bone-headed move that completely goes against what Blizzard set out to achieve with the new economy model. To be frank, I find the two "solutions" (tighter but open bases or spread-apart but closed bases) suggested by the OP quite a disingenuous and dishonest attempt to hide her/his bias towards turtle play.
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On June 01 2015 09:35 Barrin wrote:
Bases being closer together does not necessarily mean that maps will be more turtle-oriented. You can reduce the turtle-factor by increasing the # of attack paths into a base, the openness of these attack paths, adding more surrounding air space, putting high ground nearby, reducing rush distance, etc, etc.
When I say the above, half of you are worried that aggression will be too strong (it's already pretty strong in LotV), and when I say "bases closer together" the other half of you are worried that there will be too much turtle.
Let me stress this again: it is up to mapmakers to find a new proper balance between too much aggression and too much turtle. I happen to be a pioneer in helping mapmakers understanding what makes maps aggressive or turtley (see: Circle Syndrome); there is a very wide acceptable range, and I believe that all map pools should feature both ends of the spectrum.
Adding more bases and proportionally increasing the vulnerability of bases does not make for an identical game, btw. You will see more (non-fatal) action with this alone.
When you assume that the bases must be closer together, that wide acceptable range diminishes. It is not so wide anymore.
I fear it will be easy to miss the balance and either make the map turle-friendly or aggression-friendly. As a result we get opinions from various people with a seemingly contradicting statements.
Densier bases also imply that you don't have to be so mobile in order to defend all of them. This may indirectly buff mech play, but also turtle play. It also reduces the significance of map control: you can sit happily on your 3 bases and then slowly push towards the next expansion which is few inches away...
Naturally, making map more open is a partial solution to it. But if a base is too close to another, having multiple attack paths won't be that strong anymore. It's because you can defend one base from the another. One base acts as a safe "anhor" to defend the other from or mount a counteroffensive.
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EPT
