[Idea] GEM: New LotV economy model - Page 19

On July 02 2015 16:30 ChristianS wrote:
Alright, so the purpose of alternative economy models is to break the 3-base cap, because with only three active bases, map control isn't very important (map control being one of the more interesting and dynamic areas of Starcraft strategy, and one which should be promoted), and harass isn't very good because it's too easy to cover just three bases at once. So what we want is something that gives players an incentive to go beyond 3 mining bases, so that map control becomes a more useful resource and harass becomes stronger because both players are more spread out. (All of this is either directly borrowed or inferred from Meavis's post).

If anyone has a disagreement with that, then that's where the discussion should start. If not, we can move on to how alternative economy models work on that problem.

LotV in its current state achieves this by making half the minerals at each base mine out pretty quickly. So now the theoretical cap is somewhere around 5 or 6 active bases (plus your dumb main you still kind of need to protect), only because your other bases probably only have 4 mineral patches and you need to keep 24 patches of economy going to reach ideal economy. It seems to me this achieves the stated goals – players can't just turtle on their main, natural, and third; both players are more spread out, making map control a more important resource; and harass should be stronger now because it is easier to harass someone with 6 bases than 3. Meavis notes this is offset by the fact that each base has fewer workers so it's harder to score as big with each harass, but in the current state of things you rarely have time to kill a whole base of workers anyway; you pick off four or five before the army shows up. So now if you have time to pick off ten of the sixteen workers at a 4-patch base, since the army is further out of position to stop you, surely harass is still stronger than in HotS.

DH and HMH combat the three-base cap by making workers mine most efficiently when they are one per patch. Therefore on 6 active bases you have 48 mineral patches, so you can have 1 worker per patch and maintain efficient mining without raising worker supply, whereas on 3 active bases your income is reduced by either having to wait to mine (DH) or by mining a patch while it's "hot" (HMH). The hope is that this will encourage taking more bases to maintain worker efficiency, thus breaking the three-base cap, making map control more important, and (as players take more bases and spread out workers) strengthening harassment. I'd note that just as in the LotV model, Meavis's note about there being fewer workers at each base, making the payoff for harassment less, is just as true here as for the LotV model. As long as we're keeping the same worker count and spreading them out over more bases, that is inevitably going to happen.

GEM more or less takes the same tack as the LotV model, by reducing the usefulness of a base after a short amount of time. Unlike LotV, however, even 6 bases cannot achieve the same economy for the same supply if those bases have been mined enough. If you can get a fresh base, you might as well put as many workers there as you efficiently can; otherwise, you're no better off with 6 bases than 3. So players can make more than 70 workers to offset the loss of economy, expand like crazy to keep HotS economy levels, or just make do with the lower income.

Any disagreements with anything I've said so far?

On July 02 2015 17:31 Geiko wrote:
GEM works a bit the same way, you need to transfer 16 workers to a new base, but it reduces the income when bases are low. As you've seen, opimal 48 patch economy is unatainable, so player either make more workers, expand more, or accept lower income. This opens a lot more strategic depth than just camping on 48 workers and 4 bases like lotv is doing right now.
In LotV taking that 4th to reach optimal economy is highly rewarded ~40% more income on 48 workers as shown by my graphs. And taking a 5th is nit rewarded as you are already on optimal economy.
In GEM, taking a 4th is a bit rewarded, taking a fith as well etc. (All under the asumptiom that some of your bases are going to be low.

On July 02 2015 17:40 BlackLilium wrote:

In GEM optimal economy it attainable although probably not very viable. You need to expand every T/6 and transfer 16 workers from low base to high base, leaving the low base empty.

On July 02 2015 17:34 BlackLilium wrote:
I think that the reason why people are asking aboud LotV + mod is more political than practical:

• It would make Bllizzard happy that we don't totally reject their approach
  
• If LotV actually get out of beta with the current LotV economic system, LotV will become Standard. When that happens our mods will be applied to it and not HotS.
  

I agree with you that if each of the changes achieves the goal in a different, but sufficient way, than adding them both together may be too much. However, HMH and GEM can be tuned to be 50% effective. I am sure the same will be possible with LotV. Having a mod that is 0.5*LotV + 0.5*GEM or 0.5*LotV + 0.5*HMH is certainly viable and probably well balance. Just a bit complicated...

On July 02 2015 17:53 OtherWorld wrote:
With all due respect, I think that everyone who thinks that we can "make Blizzard happy" and thus that they'll accept one of the community models is delusional.

On July 02 2015 17:53 OtherWorld wrote:

With all due respect, I think that everyone who thinks that we can "make Blizzard happy" and thus that they'll accept one of the community models is delusional. It seems pretty clear by now that Blizzard is clearly going for the current LotV model and that they won't change it, unless they suddenly change their game design goals for LotV (not gonna happen), and it's way too late in the beta for that. Thus, unlike what Geiko claims, the chances of GEM or a derivative being accepted as a new econ system are just as high as DH's or HMH's : zero percent. If GEM or HMH is to be the basis for a game, it will be a community-made one and not LotV.

On July 02 2015 18:34 Geiko wrote:
Thanks for starting to take the conversation a bit seriously by the way, isn't it nice when we can all get along and discuss things calmly ?

On July 02 2015 18:42 BlackLilium wrote:
You don't have to explain to me in this big wall of text why reaching optimal harvesting in GEM is not viable. I said that myself!


Of course it is. When I joined this thread I was calm as ever, treating it 100% seriously and sticking to the point. But then you started your sarcasm, unhealthy humor, patronizing and - worst of all - pulling arbitrary numbers and manipulating (if not to say "lie").

On July 02 2015 18:48 Geiko wrote:


Please read again. My point is not that reaching optimal economy in unatainable (that's obivous), my point is that GEM encourages you to spread workers on bases and expand just as much as dh or hmh.