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[SC2] Macromanagement in Starcraft II
September 11th, 2009 20:40 GMT
Macromanagement in Starcraft II
Banner by SilverskY
Warning
This article (not by choice) contains incorrect information. As the reader, it is your job to read this in its entirety and comment, to yourself or publicly, on whether you agree or disagree with its conclusions.
It is important to remember that even if an idea is based on incorrect or incomplete information, the conclusion can still be accurate. For example, if the queen's build time is actually 50 seconds, instead of 45, it probably isn't going to change the disparity shown by this article.
Onward and Outward
Starcraft II is different than Starcraft. That's a good thing. Despite knowing this, many people at Blizzcon entered the game playing it like the original on day 1. Units from Starcraft II were substituted for their equivalent Starcraft units, and normal builds were tried. In my experience, the first person to break that mold was Hot_Bid, as shown in his Zerg Queen article. After I saw this, I quickly changed how I played, focusing ever more on macromanagement in its most raw form. This article looks to explain the operation of macromanagement in Starcraft II, as well as briefly touch on why it has changed the basic form of the game.
Less is More?
As you probably know by now, Starcraft II workers return 5 minerals per trip instead of 8. They cost the same as the original. They move the same as the original. They mine slightly more efficiently, but not enough to make up the disparity of 3 minerals per trip. Yet everyone who got a decent look at Starcraft II, and has a reasonable understanding of Starcraft, would agree that you could make units more quickly in Starcraft II. Why? Enter the new macro mechanics.
Get Money
Below are the basic macro mechanics for each race.
Zerg
No need to touch this. Read this. I agree with almost everything in that article.
Protoss
For 200 minerals, after having a gateway, Protoss can create the obelisk. The obelisk regains energy automatically, energy which can be used to recharge shields, give mana, or speed up mining. You will only use the latter - It casts an area of effect spell (about exactly the size of a standard arc of 8-10 mineral patches) which lets the targeted Probes mine 6 minerals instead of 5 for a short time. In that time you will build up enough energy to immediately cast the spell again.
Terran
For 150 minerals, after having a barracks, Terran can upgrade their command center into an orbital relay. The upgrade grants scan, upgrade supply depots, and MULE. You will again only use the latter - For 50 energy, it drops a "super SCV" that mines for around 60 seconds. It mines like a normal SCV but returns 30 minerals (I believe) per trip instead of 5. You can get 50 energy before the time is up, meaning it's possible to have 2 MULEs at a base for a brief time. Further, if you forget to use the ability, you can drop 4 MULEs at once. Obviously it is better to use them as you can, but you aren't losing too much potential until you hit 200 energy, unlike the other abilities. I also believe that the MULEs can mine patches that are currently being mined by SCVs.
Comparison
Undoubtedly, the Zerg mechanic is the best. It grants more overall production of anything for the entire game. More drones in the early game means more hatcheries in the midgame, yielding more queens and a dangerous compounding advantage. More larvae in the early game means more hydralisks threatening an attack, meaning more static defense needed for your opponent to live. Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. It's not possible. I will try to prove this later in this article.
The Protoss and Terran advantages do differ slightly. Because the MULE is basically giving you a set amount of minerals over the next 60 seconds, it is extremely good at the start of the game, when worker saturation is low. Once you have achieved full saturation, the effect is still the same, but the improvement won't affect you as much. Conversely, the Protoss ability is most powerful when you have a nice saturation of probes, since they are all affected by the AoE.
There Were... Other Abilities?
There has been a lot (A LOT) of talk on the forum about the lack of choice between the macro mechanics, and the devastating effects of Terran losing scan. These are unfounded. After playing Starcraft II for 10 games and understanding the mechanics, you will see there is actually no choice. It's an illusion of choice. Given the "choice" between using the MULE and scanning, you will always choose the MULE unless forced otherwise by immediately cloaked units. The return is just too great. Even if I were supply capped, I would bank the MULE minerals while building a supply depot before I used the ability to gain extra supply. You've got to figure the MULE can make a round-trip every 6-8 seconds. And it returns 25-30 minerals every trip (I believe 30 but I'm erring on the safe side). Assuming it stays for 45 seconds (I believe it's actually 60). This yields somewhere between 187 and 300 "extra" minerals per minute. Clearly something that can't be skipped for a convenient scouting scan. This also shows the importance of getting the MULE early, which is a theme common between all the mechanics. The MULE pays for itself in the first minute, after which you are generating around 200 minerals extra every minute. You can see how this compounds.
You may, rarely, use the obelisk's ability to charge mana in a nearby high templar; but at 2 energy for 1 mana, and with your obelisk rarely having more than 25 energy, the options look grim. So you can recharge 12.5 (let's hope they round up to 13!) mana, or boost your probes' mining in case you live the attack. The choice is obvious.
The Queen can... You will never use the Queen for anything other than pumping out a ridiculous amount of larvae.
Take the Red Pill
Believe this: There is no choice in the current state of macro mechanics. You get them as quickly as possible and you use them as often as possible. In the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible. Starcraft II's macro mechanics do not open up more options, they seal your strategic fate in the early game.
Racism
Ideally, all the macro mechanics should provide similar advantages. It would still be possible for them to operate differently and remain balanced, although it would be unbelievably hard to accomplish. For example, Protoss could give a boost to mining and Zerg a boost to production, and if the costs were well-balanced, it is conceivable that the matchup could be balanced. It would just be very, very hard to achieve this balance.
Hot_Bid's Zerg Queen article has talked about the power of the queen reasonably in-depth. The conclusion is that the queen is a very powerful unit; however, this article looks to compare the queen to the other race's macro mecahnics to find if one is objectively better. Let's begin with some theoretical discussions applicable to Starcraft.
I am playing PvT. Gambling that Terran didn't wall in, I build 2 gateways and begin producing zealots. By the time I scout him, I have 3 zealots either in production or produced, and I see he has a tight wall. I've already commited to attacking, but my attack will be ineffective. Terran has given up map control to me, but has a far superior economy for it.
I am playing ZvP. I place a standard 12 hatchery, 11 spawning pool, 13 hatchery, only to find that Protoss is rushing with zealots from 2 gateways. Unfortunately, I've already invested in my economy and production, and thus can't support units to defend the attack. I conceded defense for economy, and paid the price.
Now, let's look at Zerg in Starcraft II.
I am playing Zerg. I make a queen at 13 and inject 4 larva. 25 seconds later I have 4 - 7 available larva, depending on my strategy. I can make any combination of attacking units and drones. I can commit to attacking, see it isn't viable, and make 4 drones when the next injection finishes.
Zerg only makes concessions to itself. By Zerg starting a game by taking map control against a player who stayed safe and focused on economy, Zerg will only be behind relative to where they could have been. The larva inject is just so good at this point that you can rush, take map control, and then make workers, and still end up far, far, ahead of a player who just safely focused on making workers.
Warning: ESPORTS Science Follows
So that is my theory. Until a week ago, I had nothing else than my red name to back up my words. That's not enough, I needed numbers and graphs.
So I wrote a program to model Starcraft II's economy.
+ Show Spoiler [Results] +Disclaimer and AssumptionsThis wasn't designed to be accurate. It's not accurate; however, the inaccuracies are carried among all three races, meaning if we compare the races directly, we should get a fairly nice picture of the situation. In the interest of full-disclosure and open-sourceness, I am releasing my "model". You can find it as an excel spreadsheet and VB Macro here. The VB Macro is safe and will not harm your computer, because I don't even know how to do that if I tried. I have only taken one programming course in my life. The code is ragged and inefficient. I encourage people to modify what's there, make it better, or rewrite something from scratch. Note that if you run the macro in Excel 2002 you may get an error about updating the XValues. I've found if you just ignore it, the graph updates anyway. All that piece of code is doing is setting the limits on the graph so you don't get 300 extra, useless data points. If it doesn't work, simply set the data range manually, ending at the last row of the simulation. + Show Spoiler [Known Glitches] +- Once the queen injects, all 7 larvae will eventually come back naturally without a second injection, if you wait long enough. This is irrelevant to me, since I'm always reinjecting every 25 seconds, long before all the larvae can return.
- There is an error updating the XValues of the graphs in Excel 2002
All variables are declared at the start of each Sub and should be able to be changed freely. Where there are limitations, they are listed in the comments. Each race sends their workers to mine (2 seconds to reach minerals, 3 to mine, 2 to return). In the case that there are no free minerals, the worker will wait. I have allowed no time for moving back and forth looking for free minerals. The AI will build overlords, supply depots, and pylons, at times which are hardcoded into the code. After that, they will build a spawning pool, barracks, gateway, queen, obselisk, and upgrade to orbital relay when it is "logical" to do so. This simulation shows how long it takes for each race to reach saturation, which I've arbitrarily defined to be 30 workers, while using their race-specific macro mechanics. Essentially, this is a race to 30 workers, and nothing else. The Results: As you can see, it's not even close. Once the queen has an effect on the battlefield (which is actually 30 seconds after the other mechanics in this model, indicated by the coloured vertical lines), the Zerg drone count heads to the sky and never looks back. Also note that the Terran and Protoss macro mechanics complete within 1 second of each other, which is why there appears to be only two lines. Zerg reaches 30 workers just under three minutes before Protoss and just over three minutes before Terran. Even if we assume the Zerg portion of the model is out by a full minute, the results are still obscene, and will only compound as time goes on. True to Your AncestryAn interesting result comes from this model, which I thought I'd mention in passing. Although the macro mechanic allows Zerg to get more of everything, basically, it doesn't allow them to get more minerals as they approach saturation. Because the Terran and Protoss mechanics are immune to being affected by saturation, Zerg are required to expand earlier to keep up with their income. Although that isn't the focus of this article, it is nice to see that Zerg will probably still be trying to stay one base up on his opponent in Starcraft II. This Proves NothingBy itself, posting about who can get to 30 workers first proves nothing. I'm sure that unchecked, Zerg can get 30 workers before the other two races in Starcraft. The problem is that the queen lets Zerg seamlessly slip from one strategy to another. Again, let's imagine Starcraft. Your overlord arrives at Protoss' base and you see 2 gateways. It is natural to assume that he is going for an early attack, or else he wouldn't have invested in those. Even if he is playing mindgames and really focusing on economy, you will be ahead if you don't over-invest in defense because his gateways are useless to boosting his economy. Similarly, if your probe arrives fairly late to Zerg's base and you see 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den, you can be confident he is coming to break your expansion. Again, even if he doesn't, the fact that he stayed on 2 hatcheries has hurt his economy badly. In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know.
a >> Δv/t
If you accept what I've written above, you should expect to see the majority of games opening with a macro mechanic rush off one base. After this, the game reverts back to "standard" play with an accelerated income.
The more I've thought about it, the more I think this economic acceleration won't matter for any race but Zerg. You can support a ridiculous army off of one base in Starcraft II. For example, you can support 4 barracks with reactors off one base if you get the MULE quickly enough. Think about that. That's 8 barracks in constant marine production. That's a lot of marines. However, if you are able to scout 3 barracks with reactor addons, you know what's coming. If you see marines being rallied 8 at at time, you know what's happening.
The problem, as mentioned, is that Zerg don't have to show anything. Two hatcheries and a queen - That's enough to go anywhere in 7 minute from an all-in attack with 30 hydralisks, to pushing 60 supply in drones. When Zerglings are coming 28 at a time, and suddenly they stop, you can predict that Zerg has switched over to drone production again, but it's already too late for you to adapt.
We Can Rebuild; We Have the Technology
How does Blizzard fix the balance of the macro mechanics? Is it a problem? Does it need to be fixed?
Step 1: Make the mechanics equal. Assume everyone is going to rush for the mechanics, because that's what they're going to do in the current form. Find the number of larvae that balances the game. Make the Queen have to choose what unit it is going to inject, rather than having a ridiculous amount of choice in uncommitted larvae.
Step 2: Make the mechanics cost something. There are two options: lower the benefit of the mechanics or increase the cost. I would prefer to see the latter but both are viable. It needs some way to open up vulnerability in the early game to either timing attacks or tech rushes, so that the player is reacting to the opponent, as opposed to the current situation of rushing for the macro mechanic.
Step 3: Open up real choice. If I am giving up 200 minerals for not using my MULE, it had damn well better be doing something other than blinking some lights around for 5 seconds. Players are going to be giving up real income, and a lot of it, if they choose to use something other than the macro mechanics. They need to be given something that makes them think before they reactively slam another 8 larvae into their 2 hatcheries.
Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1.
This being said, I really did like all three of the macro mechanics. A lot. They fit well and seem like they will eventually open up new timing choices when the game draws closer to balance. I really hope they are slightly tweaked and allowed to remain a fundamental part of the Starcraft II economy.
I am confident Blizzard will understand this issue. If they haven't already understood the issue by now, they surely will in the beta. I'm not concerned that it will slip by unnoticed, and you shouldn't be either. I do, however, still think it is an interesting problem in its current form.
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GOD this banner is sick :D
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Great Write up thanks for this.
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Katowice25012 Posts
Good article, and the best banner I've seen in ages
The model is pretty interesting, and is probably a good avenue to go down as we near beta to try to find results for theorycrafting. I suspect we have a lot to learn with that kind of methodology.
Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1.
This seems to be the biggest problem with balancing before a beta. Developers don't have the same kind of drive to abuse mechanics and competitive spirit that shines light on just how serious (or not serious) problems like this are for balance. Until beta actually hits I would expect this kind of issue to be relatively unchecked, not by direct fault from blizzard but because the talent pool doing the testing won't be good enough until the public has their hands on it.
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that banner is amazing and the write up was pretty good as well
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Interesting... I am getting more and more excited about SC2 now and cool banner.
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Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation.
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Haha such a great banner! Good writeup!
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation.
In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Better pathing and the range of the queen kills probes many times quicker in SC2. The word from theorycraft and Blizzard seems to be "scout better", but there's no indication of how that should be done. You simply cannot keep the scout alive in SC2.
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On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time.
Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for)
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Baltimore, USA22251 Posts
Nice article Chill... after Hot_Bid's thorough examination, I'm sure the Blizz guys are hammering this one out non-stop, and expect it to change a little upon release.
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United States12607 Posts
Very nice analysis Chill. This was a pleasure to read.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for)
You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together.
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love it. freaking great banner and great article thanks for the good work : )
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Great write-up
Enjoyed it and agree
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Yay it has finally arrived 
Can't wait for the beta...
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Very nice article. I feel the same way.
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Amazing Article, this is one of the best I've seen in a while
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Great writeup, I've been seeing you were trying to get your point across for quite a while, hopefully people will understand now.
The banner was... interesting?:-p
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nice banner.
bleh this sounds like they fucked up SCII and we gotta remake it. *some poor sap walks in to tell us we need to wait till 2012*
im sure the larva inject thing can be countered by some advantages given to the toss.
remember when spawning pools were 150min, 4pool was deadly since you needed each drone to mine 3ish times and then pool goes down and out comes lings. they fixed that to 200 minerals.
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Very good write-up, great work. I believe myself that the macro mechanics really fit in with all of the three races' respective themes and feel.
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On September 12 2009 06:27 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for) You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together.
Yeah I know that, seems it is some sort of misunderstanding here of what I mean. If protoss scouts zerg in bw, and then dies, lets say zerg has 3 hatches. Protoss scouted drones poping from two of them, the last hatchery did in fact have hydras on it's way. So in this scenario the same apply as this but with LOWER number ofc "In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know." It is the same now, but with the number 9 per round of 3 hatches. Correct? or am I wrong?
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Calgary25966 Posts
Looking at the graph, it appears the queen is injecting 7 larvae instead of 4. I will try to fix that and repost the images.
Update: Made a mistake, it's injecting 4.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:33 Lobbo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:27 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for) You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together. Yeah I know that, seems it is some sort of misunderstanding here of what I mean. If protoss scouts zerg in bw, and then dies, lets say zerg has 3 hatches. Protoss scouted drones poping from two of them, the last hatchery did in fact have hydras on it's way. So in this scenario the same apply as this but with LOWER number ofc "In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know." It is the same now, but with the number 9 of 3 hatches. Correct? or am I wrong?
Yes but instead of 6 larvae per round at 6 minutes its 14 at 6 minutes. Surely you can see the difference and the potential for all-ins?
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The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums.
True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together.
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On September 12 2009 06:34 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:33 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:27 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for) You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together. Yeah I know that, seems it is some sort of misunderstanding here of what I mean. If protoss scouts zerg in bw, and then dies, lets say zerg has 3 hatches. Protoss scouted drones poping from two of them, the last hatchery did in fact have hydras on it's way. So in this scenario the same apply as this but with LOWER number ofc "In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know." It is the same now, but with the number 9 of 3 hatches. Correct? or am I wrong? Yes but instead of 6 larvae per round at 6 minutes its 14 at 6 minutes. Surely you can see the difference and the potential for all-ins?
Yeah I have the feeling he didn't understand that a queen can inject 4 larvae per 25 seconds for EVERY hatchery, so if you have 2 then that's 8 larvae
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On September 12 2009 06:34 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:33 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:27 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for) You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together. Yeah I know that, seems it is some sort of misunderstanding here of what I mean. If protoss scouts zerg in bw, and then dies, lets say zerg has 3 hatches. Protoss scouted drones poping from two of them, the last hatchery did in fact have hydras on it's way. So in this scenario the same apply as this but with LOWER number ofc "In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know." It is the same now, but with the number 9 of 3 hatches. Correct? or am I wrong? Yes but instead of 6 larvae per round at 6 minutes its 14 at 6 minutes. Surely you can see the difference and the potential for all-ins?
I do and it is far supreme as this article shows, which is a good thing. And I see your point now when you pointed out the All-in situation early game. But how will this effect the late-mid game? From what I took in from this article is that Zerg wins the race to 30. But in mid game and onward protoss and terran is far superior in collecting minerals. and here is it quite blank for me to see the zerg be stripped of the 4 larvae. How else would Zerg survive late game? It will be impossible without expanding. And everyone will see this and make it their top priority to deny zerg from doing so. So zerg must have this?? I may be wrong, I've never played SCII and I'm not the sharpest needle on bw. So clarification would be awesome.
On September 12 2009 06:38 minus_human wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:34 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:33 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:27 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:23 Lobbo wrote:On September 12 2009 06:19 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:16 Lobbo wrote:
Cool, but dosent this apply to bw also? A probe can scout Zerg, and see the little maggots waiting, and when the probe dies, Zerg has the same option to make attacking units or pure drones. I'm a bit clueless so please bother with my question or rather rant.
But this never happends in bw because you never wait as Zerg to build from your larvae. But theoretical it's the same situation. In SC2 the queen delivers larvae 4 at a time. Yeah I understand that. But with one queen you can have 4 extra hydra per 25 seconds rite? How is this still different from when a Terran or Protoss scout Zerg in bw? The same apply with the larvae question of what did the Zerg use them for. Obviously bw is played to look like it does today. But the same issue Had to be the same when SC came out. (with knowing what zerg used the larvae for) You're not saving larvae at all. You get the usual 3 and use them instantly as they come. Then, 25 seconds after you inject larvae with the queen, you get 4 more coming together. My point is that if you play optimally, using larvae instantly everytime, you still have 4 larvae coming together every 25 seconds. You don't have to save anything. They come like that - 4 together. Yeah I know that, seems it is some sort of misunderstanding here of what I mean. If protoss scouts zerg in bw, and then dies, lets say zerg has 3 hatches. Protoss scouted drones poping from two of them, the last hatchery did in fact have hydras on it's way. So in this scenario the same apply as this but with LOWER number ofc "In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know." It is the same now, but with the number 9 of 3 hatches. Correct? or am I wrong? Yes but instead of 6 larvae per round at 6 minutes its 14 at 6 minutes. Surely you can see the difference and the potential for all-ins? Yeah I have the feeling he didn't understand that a queen can inject 4 larvae per 25 seconds for EVERY hatchery, so if you have 2 then that's 8 larvae
Is this true? But you need to save the energy to do so right?
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If a player chooses not to rush his macro-enhancing in early game, they should have an advantage over their opponent who does rush their macro ability if they decide to go for an agressive build.
And if a zerg is scouted going for early queen, there should be a way to respond to and stop it before the zerg is given a choice on what to use his crazy number of additional larvae.
With all these balance issues, it appears as if another postponed release date is likely
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I gotta say, before I even read the article: That banner is amazing, and it's my new background. Awesome stuff Silversky!
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Korea (South)3086 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:46 number1gog wrote:
I gotta say, before I even read the article: That banner is amazing, and it's my new background. Awesome stuff Silversky!
 .
I'm gonna have to make banners more like this from now on. It's getting more hype. lol
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Osaka27128 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:40 Lobbo wrote:
I do and it is far supreme as this article shows, which is a good thing. And I see your point now when you pointed out the All-in situation early game. But how will this effect the late-mid game? From what I took in from this article is that Zerg wins the race to 30. But in mid game and onward protoss and terran is far superior in collecting minerals. and here is it quite blank for me to see the zerg be stripped of the 4 larvae. How else would Zerg survive late game? It will be impossible without expanding. And everyone will see this and make it their top priority to deny zerg from doing so. So zerg must have this?? I may be wrong, I've never played SCII and I'm not the sharpest needle on bw. So clarification would be awesome.
Obviously the zerg will expand. This is simply an opening. Without early pressure zerg can get to 30 drones so quickly, and expand to use those extra drones everywhere. By the time the pressure comes, because of the mass larvae, zerg can switch back to unit production to fend off the pressure and still come out ahead. Because zerg produces at an exponential rate and not a linear one like the other two, that exponential growth has to be controlled. In BW it was controlled by 3 larva per hatch. In SC2 it seems that the extra larva makes the zerg growth too much.
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Cool writeup and nice graphs, hopefully now everyone (Karune!) realizes the queen mechanic isn't just powerful for quick all-ins.
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This is why TL is #1 Intelligent and amazing articles and analysis.
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Just so I get things straight. The advantage you get from queens is that you get a shitload of extra larvae you can use right? Couldn't this compare to just having cheaper hatcheries? Wouldn't that give the same effect in the end? Isn't part of the problem that the queen costs half(?) as much as a hatchery but delivers 150%(?) of the larvae production?
Let's say that the queen was changed so that the value in (extra larvae/minerals spent) was just slightly more than that of adding a hatchery, so that if you wanted to stay on one base the queen would be a good investment but if you wanted to get two bases early to boost your economy then the extra hatchery would be a better idea. Wouldn't that fix the problem and open up for real choice?
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Interesting article. I have no idea if you are correct because I haven't played the game, but you make reasonable points that should (hopefully) have impact on the development process. Excellent work.
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I like the article a lot. I had a random thought recently about a possible counter strategy to the queen- does SC2 still have those "Xel Naga watchtowers" that blizz mentioned a while back? Because if it does, maybe T and P could use those to scout the zerg and know whether they need to prepare for a rush or a macro war.
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Calgary25966 Posts
Update: Queen was always injecting 4 larvae, my eyes are just broken.
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Awesome article, thanks for the write up
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alittle complicated for my brain
nice article tho, gave me some positive insights of sc2
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I respect your effort and everything, but I don't think this article was necessary. If the queen is so obviously broken, they will patch it after the first few beta days to, say, make 3 larvae every 35 seconds instead. No problem at all, that's what beta is for. I'm sure there's a dozen other glaring imbalances which will swiftly be found and eliminated once a broad public gets to play the game on a large scale. In short: no need to cry over presumed imbalances before the beta even hits.
That said, here's an idea to theorize over: What if inject larvae were a channeling spell? (That means the queen can't do anything else while injecting, like for example the archmage's blizzard spell in Warcraft 3) The result is that the queen can't chase scouts with her ranged attack while injecting. The opponent gets to keep his scout alive unless the zerg player foregoes injecting larvae for some time to go scout hunting. Would this help? If it doesn't, what if the queen's ground attack were melee? The effect is essentially the same, the scout lives longer and the opponent can adapt properly to what the zerg does.
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They could make drone eggs look different than ling/hydra eggs. That would at least make the first wave of larva easier to deal with. Or is it hard to even get a look at the eggs at that point of the game?
What I get as the main message of this article is that Blizzard need to assume that the game needs to be balanced (or balancable) at the highest level of play where both players use all factors of the game to their maximal potential, otherwise the game will fail.
Tweeking the different races' macro mechanics will be a great challenge because of how it inevitably affects every other aspect of the game.
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I suck at math, and those graphs are completely indecipherable to me. On another note, great article, the lack of choice is apparent and the proposed soutions are convincing.
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This has tons more credibility because of your skills Chill. Anyway, I agree with all the points. Here is just something to chew on. In sc1, nukes are rarely used, same with scouts, and with zerg infested terrans are never used. Maybe this isnt a valid argument, but imo the expensiveness of of the nukes just kills the entire tech tree, and MAYBE this is related with the no-scans idea. But thena gain, I did not play sc2 to fully understand what your saying.
Either way great article.
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Hmm... I've always thought the ability to quickly do surprise tech switches and be a little harder to "read" by just scouting was a cool part of playing Zerg. I hope the maco mechanic can be balanced while still allowing it to emphasize that aspect of the race.
Furthermore, I think Zergs will get easier to read as time goes on and builds are a little more well-defined. People will count hatcheries and expansions and the timing of dens and such after the optimal paths for reaching certain timing windows with the maximum amount of units are discovered. Like: protoss knows what the signs of 5 hat hydra are but the signs that it's probably going to be hydras instead of mutas are kinda subtle...
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United States12607 Posts
On September 12 2009 07:39 Scorch wrote:
I respect your effort and everything, but I don't think this article was necessary.
If this is true, you really need to visit other community sites / the B.net forums more often.
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Very interesting, thanks for the update.
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Nice writeup and banner. 
I hope SC2 is as balanced as SC:BW.
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great write up. i cant believe ppl dont understand what u wrote.
but then again i bet the ppl that dont understand dont ready it all ether.. or havnt read hot_bids post
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Hey chill
nice article.
Could you run your excel stuff with 2 or 3 larvae ? (I mean injection)
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Thank you for a great article. As your last line says, the problem will be fixed in beta most likely but it is quite interesting. Something else for Blizzard to chew on.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 08:22 freelander wrote:
Hey chill
nice article.
Could you run your excel stuff with 2 or 3 larvae ? (I mean injection)
Sure, brb.
2 drone inject:
3 drone inject:
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Chill, I love you, since this was almost exactly what I was arguing in the comments for Hot_bid's writeup (and had a little squabble with him over over =[
Gives a lot more weight to the argument - i.e. how linear it seems to make the decision-making process and how there's virtually no choice, and it would take a pretty major change to inject choice back into the macro.
One thing your graphs aren't taking into account, however, is how many troops P or T might be able to produce in the meantime. Those drone counts assume no other troops whatsoever, and while that is viable for a long period of time (since zerg can respond to 5 marines hitting their base by producing 10 lings at once) both T and P have excess minerals in your model they would be using for other production, and this could negatively effect Z's economy. It's obviously impossible to simulate this, but finding out how many marines T could produce before Z hits max saturation might be pretty important as well.
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On September 12 2009 07:39 Scorch wrote:That said, here's an idea to theorize over: What if inject larvae were a channeling spell? (That means the queen can't do anything else while injecting, like for example the archmage's blizzard spell in Warcraft 3) The result is that the queen can't chase scouts with her ranged attack while injecting. The opponent gets to keep his scout alive unless the zerg player foregoes injecting larvae for some time to go scout hunting. Would this help? If it doesn't, what if the queen's ground attack were melee? The effect is essentially the same, the scout lives longer and the opponent can adapt properly to what the zerg does.
it might help, but the pathfinding in SC2 is so far superior that you can just a-move with your first set of 6 lings and they'll kill the probe
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^^^ yeah people are missing the part where lings on creep will always kill the probes with the speed boost they are getting right now
I still don't think simply forcing Z to choose their "injection troop" in advance will change much, however, since Z is looking to have an enormous scouting advantage over other races. With 25 seconds to spare, you could easily continue pumping drone larvae until the last possible second before dropping 5-7 eggs worth of lings as the opponent starts to get close.
Not only that, the opponent is going to have to spend time near Z's base early game to "force zerg to play defensive", except that Z can produce an enormous quantity of lings out of nowhere and that spells death in an open field against a handful of troops. Problems, problems.
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On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together.
What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused.
I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation?
Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting.
If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen.
This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point.
edited to make the last paragraph more confusing
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Gosh, beta's going to be fun...:7
Here's to six solid months of arguing about balance...with actual gameplay experience and testing to back us up! And here's to a well-balanced game when it's over.
Godspeed, gentlemen...Godspeed.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused.
I understand. I'm just saying that Protoss is going to be doing something with his extra minerals. We're not going to race to 30 supply while we bank thousands of minerals. If Protoss produces Zealots and Zerg is forced to produce Zerglings, it will drive the mineral different down. That's all I meant.
I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Show nested quote +Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing
Yes your point stands and I agree.
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Not about the macro mechanics itself, but here's something.
In my opinion, it's never good for a RTS to have things that are there just for giggles. This is a problem up to nowadays in BW, and I don't want that in SC2.
I'm talking about many upgrades like "increased Observer sight range", Scouts, All of Medic researchable abilities, Devourers, etc.
It's essential that the Macro mechanics are fair amongst races - but once Blizzard has figured it out, why not make Obelisks/Queens/Terran thing have more uses? 2 energy for 1 mana is RIDICULOUS, seriously, they have to be kidding. If I were to balance it would be 1 energy for 2 mana, maybe even more if it's not something that is worth it in 9 out of 10 games...
Nice write-up anyways Chill.
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On September 12 2009 06:00 heyoka wrote:Good article, and the best banner I've seen in ages The model is pretty interesting, and is probably a good avenue to go down as we near beta to try to find results for theorycrafting. I suspect we have a lot to learn with that kind of methodology. Show nested quote +Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This seems to be the biggest problem with balancing before a beta. Developers don't have the same kind of drive to abuse mechanics and competitive spirit that shines light on just how serious (or not serious) problems like this are for balance. Until beta actually hits I would expect this kind of issue to be relatively unchecked, not by direct fault from blizzard but because the talent pool doing the testing won't be good enough until the public has their hands on it.
should point out that balancing something is different from watering it down.
in SC1, with MM+tank>all, watering it down would be to make tanks do less damage. balancing it would be having swarm kick in right when MM+tanks are unstoppable. same in PvT in SC1. watering down mech 3/3 upgrades is bad. but giving toss the option of stasis and carriers just when mech 3/3 kicks in, that is balance.
so with these macro mechanics, and with other game balancing issues, i think it's better to not water it down. any "fix" that reduces the relative advantage of one thing over another is bad. Instead, there should be a paper/scissor/rock thing going on at different parts of the game.
for example, maybe zerg has the strongest macro throughout the game, terran has the strongest macro in early stages, and toss has the strongest macro in middle stages. that is fine.
make zerg end game units less effective than terran and or protoss. make protoss early game units strong and mobile. terran can be given the strongest midgame units. however, the timing of when these units are strongest should be slightly offset from the timing of when the race's macro is strongest. that way, there is a back and forth action allowing for timing pushes.
this is just a suggestion of principle. the principle that when things are too balance, its' no longer fun. but when things are not balanced, when at different parts of the game, one race is better off than the other, that allows for timings, strategies to minimize weakness, and displays of skill.
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On September 12 2009 09:17 zazen wrote:
Not about the macro mechanics itself, but here's something.
In my opinion, it's never good for a RTS to have things that are there just for giggles. This is a problem up to nowadays in BW, and I don't want that in SC2.
I'm talking about many upgrades like "increased Observer sight range", Scouts, All of Medic researchable abilities, Devourers, etc.
It's essential that the Macro mechanics are fair amongst races - but once Blizzard has figured it out, why not make Obelisks/Queens/Terran thing have more uses? 2 energy for 1 mana is RIDICULOUS, seriously, they can't be serious. If I were to balance it would be 1 energy for 2 mana, maybe even more if it's not worth it 9 out of 10 games...
Nice write-up anyways Chill.
bw was intended to be played at normal speed, not fast speed.
at normal speed, many of those things you mention are viable again. if SC was played at normal speed but broadcast at fastest speed, you'll see a lot more nuking action, medic restoration vs plague, scout + shield battery harass, etc etc.
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nice work!!!!!!
I guess the idea of changeling the larva, and reduce to 2... or 3 is a good idea........
And it is not a hude deal because we r in alfa yet.So in beta they ll balence it very well.
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On September 12 2009 09:20 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 09:17 zazen wrote:
Not about the macro mechanics itself, but here's something.
In my opinion, it's never good for a RTS to have things that are there just for giggles. This is a problem up to nowadays in BW, and I don't want that in SC2.
I'm talking about many upgrades like "increased Observer sight range", Scouts, All of Medic researchable abilities, Devourers, etc.
It's essential that the Macro mechanics are fair amongst races - but once Blizzard has figured it out, why not make Obelisks/Queens/Terran thing have more uses? 2 energy for 1 mana is RIDICULOUS, seriously, they can't be serious. If I were to balance it would be 1 energy for 2 mana, maybe even more if it's not worth it 9 out of 10 games...
Nice write-up anyways Chill. bw was intended to be played at normal speed, not fast speed. at normal speed, many of those things you mention are viable again. if SC was played at normal speed but broadcast at fastest speed, you'll see a lot more nuking action, medic restoration vs plague, scout + shield battery harass, etc etc.
This explains why they were designed in the first place - thanks - but really doesn't explain why they were never fixed and just forgotten to be useless forever, since BW is only played at fastest anyway.
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Osaka27128 Posts
On September 12 2009 09:22 zazen wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 09:20 Polyphasic wrote:On September 12 2009 09:17 zazen wrote:
Not about the macro mechanics itself, but here's something.
In my opinion, it's never good for a RTS to have things that are there just for giggles. This is a problem up to nowadays in BW, and I don't want that in SC2.
I'm talking about many upgrades like "increased Observer sight range", Scouts, All of Medic researchable abilities, Devourers, etc.
It's essential that the Macro mechanics are fair amongst races - but once Blizzard has figured it out, why not make Obelisks/Queens/Terran thing have more uses? 2 energy for 1 mana is RIDICULOUS, seriously, they can't be serious. If I were to balance it would be 1 energy for 2 mana, maybe even more if it's not worth it 9 out of 10 games...
Nice write-up anyways Chill. bw was intended to be played at normal speed, not fast speed. at normal speed, many of those things you mention are viable again. if SC was played at normal speed but broadcast at fastest speed, you'll see a lot more nuking action, medic restoration vs plague, scout + shield battery harass, etc etc. This explains why they were designed in the first place - thanks - but really doesn't explain why they were never fixed and just forgotten to be useless forever, since BW is only played at fastest anyway.
The ladder was always played on fast though. It should be obvious to any game designer now though that there should only be one speed in a game, fastest. Nobody outside complete beginners will ever want to play on anything less than that. Certainly not competitive BW.
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Good article.
Most people who are disagreeing with it are missing these points (from what I've seen in the SC2 forum):
1a. They do not understand the flexibility of zerg to instantly produce military or workers WHEN they need to. Zerg has overlord out so they can see if you're producing military or teching. They have the flexibility to POWER workers THEN switch to military to defend. Thus, zerg are significantly ahead if toss/terran are going for a military/tech build because they can defend aggression at the last possible second.
1b. If toss/terran try for economical build it's OBVIOUS that zerg will out-power them.
2. The speed of lings and pathing on creep kill scouts + queen is just a bonus. The fact that you can power a significant amount of drones or military within a small time frame means they will be at a significant disadvantage that is game breaking in the hands of a good player.
3. Zerg is not going to stay on 1 hatch. They have extra minerals after about 3 minutes into the game to plant ANOTHER hatch (usually at their natural) WITH the pool-queen first build.
Saturation of 30 workers is not going to be reached -- in fact, zerg will have better mineral gathering rates than predicted by Chill's algorithms because they will be on 2 hatches by > 400s into the game.
Chill: there is something you forgot about your build. Using the minerals you have you want to have another queen hatched by the time your second hatchery is up ready to inject larva. This is definitely feasible within the time constrains of your charts (probably around 300-350s or so). Thus, the zerg is only going to get stronger at about ~5 minutes into the game once the second hatch pops.
200s: Plop down an extra hatchery after 1st queen is being made
225s: Build another queen PLUS it will be there for extra defense... how nice
300s: Hatch pops and second queen can inject larva.
At 300-350s, zerg will be able to power more than the chart suggests especially with a hatch at the main AND nat. No saturation of drones gives significant more minerals than predicted by your algorithm, plus significantly more production.
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Nice article Chill, though I have one important problem with your conclusions.
According to your graphs, by the 5 minute mark Zerg has 1000 minerals, Protoss has 1500 and Terran has 1750 or so. Let's say all sides have made expenditures worth 900 minerals in things such as refineries, supply depots, military and tech.
Well, Terran still has 750 minerals more than the Zerg does. You know what you can get with 750 minerals? A command center and 7 SCVs. Suddenly, 1-hatch Zerg doesn't have the capacity to build workers faster than Terran does. Protoss can get a Nexus and a few workers.
You go on about how Zerg can pump drones super-fast, and the compounding effect of this. Well, it so happens that to make money, you need money. If Terran and Protoss have a whole stash of available minerals that Zerg doesn't... that can easily translate into an expansion and greater income- also leading to a compounding growth in economy.
As to the Zerg's flexibility: Yes, Zerg has a great flexibility. They also have it in Brood Wars, however. In PvZ, you see a Zerg with 3 hatcheries, a spire and a hydra den. Your worker dies, looking at all those morphing zerg eggs, and you don't know whether to expect a hydra all-in, muta harass or massive amounts of drones. Since PvZ in Brood Wars is more or less figured out (compared to SC2 at least), you can assume it's either hydras or mutas. And Zerg can switch tech between those unit types seamlessly. In SC2... it's the same, only you have half as many hatcheries with twice the number of larvae per hatchery.
Is the Zerg in SC2 going for an all-in front door break? Full economy? Somewhere in between? If you can scout it, you can react appropriately to it. Karune claims scouting is not significantly harder in SC2 than it is in Brood Wars, because once ling speed finishes and your scouting probe dies, you can get air units to scout soon after. I haven't actually played any build of SC2, but given all the games he's played, I would tend to believe him.
TL;DR: Those spare minerals the T and P get are a huge deal. 1-hatch queen isn't necessarily overpowered.
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 12 2009 07:39 Scorch wrote:
I respect your effort and everything, but I don't think this article was necessary. If the queen is so obviously broken, they will patch it after the first few beta days to, say, make 3 larvae every 35 seconds instead. No problem at all, that's what beta is for. I'm sure there's a dozen other glaring imbalances which will swiftly be found and eliminated once a broad public gets to play the game on a large scale. In short: no need to cry over presumed imbalances before the beta even hits.
That said, here's an idea to theorize over: What if inject larvae were a channeling spell? (That means the queen can't do anything else while injecting, like for example the archmage's blizzard spell in Warcraft 3) The result is that the queen can't chase scouts with her ranged attack while injecting. The opponent gets to keep his scout alive unless the zerg player foregoes injecting larvae for some time to go scout hunting. Would this help? If it doesn't, what if the queen's ground attack were melee? The effect is essentially the same, the scout lives longer and the opponent can adapt properly to what the zerg does.
How about in order to use the inject larva spell, the queen has to sit down and lay cacoons. Over time the queen produces larva in the same way as the hatcheries do, but is dependent on the amount of hatcheries you had. In this way the queen can't be used for anything else and all you need to know is that they have so many hatcheries and therefore so much larva.
I Think maps will play a big role on whether or not players know what zerg is doing as well.
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On September 12 2009 09:42 Zato-1 wrote:
Nice article Chill, though I have one important problem with your conclusions.
According to your graphs, by the 5 minute mark Zerg has 1000 minerals, Protoss has 1500 and Terran has 1750 or so. Let's say all sides have made expenditures worth 900 minerals in things such as refineries, supply depots, military and tech.
Well, Terran still has 750 minerals more than the Zerg does. You know what you can get with 750 minerals? A command center and 7 SCVs. Suddenly, 1-hatch Zerg doesn't have the capacity to build workers faster than Terran does. Protoss can get a Nexus and a few workers.
You go on about how Zerg can pump drones super-fast, and the compounding effect of this. Well, it so happens that to make money, you need money. If Terran and Protoss have a whole stash of available minerals that Zerg doesn't... that can easily translate into an expansion and greater income- also leading to a compounding growth in economy.
As to the Zerg's flexibility: Yes, Zerg has a great flexibility. They also have it in Brood Wars, however. In PvZ, you see a Zerg with 3 hatcheries, a spire and a hydra den. Your worker dies, looking at all those morphing zerg eggs, and you don't know whether to expect a hydra all-in, muta harass or massive amounts of drones. Since PvZ in Brood Wars is more or less figured out (compared to SC2 at least), you can assume it's either hydras or mutas. And Zerg can switch tech between those unit types seamlessly. In SC2... it's the same, only you have half as many hatcheries with twice the number of larvae per hatchery.
Is the Zerg in SC2 going for an all-in front door break? Full economy? Somewhere in between? If you can scout it, you can react appropriately to it. Karune claims scouting is not significantly harder in SC2 than it is in Brood Wars, because once ling speed finishes and your scouting probe dies, you can get air units to scout soon after. I haven't actually played any build of SC2, but given all the games he's played, I would tend to believe him.
TL;DR: Those spare minerals the T and P get are a huge deal. 1-hatch queen isn't necessarily overpowered.
There are no extra minerals -- the zerg has the ability with the queen to consume the minerals much faster. Terran and toss will have to use those minerals to plant down extra barracks/gateways/etc. tech off one base.
If the zerg sees that they are skimping on defense to get an extra CC/nexus (aka economy build quicker) then they will build military and overrun you.
That is what Hot Bid's article was about. Terran and toss CANNOT do this because they will get overrun by zerg flexibility.
It's a nice thought, but it doesn't work.
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On September 12 2009 09:18 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:00 heyoka wrote:Good article, and the best banner I've seen in ages The model is pretty interesting, and is probably a good avenue to go down as we near beta to try to find results for theorycrafting. I suspect we have a lot to learn with that kind of methodology. Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This seems to be the biggest problem with balancing before a beta. Developers don't have the same kind of drive to abuse mechanics and competitive spirit that shines light on just how serious (or not serious) problems like this are for balance. Until beta actually hits I would expect this kind of issue to be relatively unchecked, not by direct fault from blizzard but because the talent pool doing the testing won't be good enough until the public has their hands on it. should point out that balancing something is different from watering it down. in SC1, with MM+tank>all, watering it down would be to make tanks do less damage. balancing it would be having swarm kick in right when MM+tanks are unstoppable. same in PvT in SC1. watering down mech 3/3 upgrades is bad. but giving toss the option of stasis and carriers just when mech 3/3 kicks in, that is balance. so with these macro mechanics, and with other game balancing issues, i think it's better to not water it down. any "fix" that reduces the relative advantage of one thing over another is bad. Instead, there should be a paper/scissor/rock thing going on at different parts of the game. for example, maybe zerg has the strongest macro throughout the game, terran has the strongest macro in early stages, and toss has the strongest macro in middle stages. that is fine. make zerg end game units less effective than terran and or protoss. make protoss early game units strong and mobile. terran can be given the strongest midgame units. however, the timing of when these units are strongest should be slightly offset from the timing of when the race's macro is strongest. that way, there is a back and forth action allowing for timing pushes. this is just a suggestion of principle. the principle that when things are too balance, its' no longer fun. but when things are not balanced, when at different parts of the game, one race is better off than the other, that allows for timings, strategies to minimize weakness, and displays of skill.
you make a very good point. I just want to QFT
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On September 12 2009 09:42 Zato-1 wrote:
Nice article Chill, though I have one important problem with your conclusions.
According to your graphs, by the 5 minute mark Zerg has 1000 minerals, Protoss has 1500 and Terran has 1750 or so. Let's say all sides have made expenditures worth 900 minerals in things such as refineries, supply depots, military and tech.
Well, Terran still has 750 minerals more than the Zerg does. You know what you can get with 750 minerals? A command center and 7 SCVs. Suddenly, 1-hatch Zerg doesn't have the capacity to build workers faster than Terran does. Protoss can get a Nexus and a few workers.
You go on about how Zerg can pump drones super-fast, and the compounding effect of this. Well, it so happens that to make money, you need money. If Terran and Protoss have a whole stash of available minerals that Zerg doesn't... that can easily translate into an expansion and greater income- also leading to a compounding growth in economy.
As to the Zerg's flexibility: Yes, Zerg has a great flexibility. They also have it in Brood Wars, however. In PvZ, you see a Zerg with 3 hatcheries, a spire and a hydra den. Your worker dies, looking at all those morphing zerg eggs, and you don't know whether to expect a hydra all-in, muta harass or massive amounts of drones. Since PvZ in Brood Wars is more or less figured out (compared to SC2 at least), you can assume it's either hydras or mutas. And Zerg can switch tech between those unit types seamlessly. In SC2... it's the same, only you have half as many hatcheries with twice the number of larvae per hatchery.
Is the Zerg in SC2 going for an all-in front door break? Full economy? Somewhere in between? If you can scout it, you can react appropriately to it. Karune claims scouting is not significantly harder in SC2 than it is in Brood Wars, because once ling speed finishes and your scouting probe dies, you can get air units to scout soon after. I haven't actually played any build of SC2, but given all the games he's played, I would tend to believe him.
TL;DR: Those spare minerals the T and P get are a huge deal. 1-hatch queen isn't necessarily overpowered.
Here's the problem though - 1-hatch queen HAS to be somewhat overpowered as a universal strategy, because T and P are going to get at least that much of a mineral advantage and Zerg can apparently keep up in the overall game flow. Since Z's macro build is both eco and rush-friendly, they are going to go it 100% and have a scouting advantage over T and P. That means 1hatch Queen has to be able to keep up with a macro build from P or T, at least in terms of overall effectiveness (total minerals isnt really an accurate representation of effectiveness, as Zerg play in SC1 goes to show).
However, it almost certainly stands to reason that if P or T does NOT use that extra money to plop down an extra expansion at the earliest possible convenience, they will be far behind Z in overall effectiveness - Z can produce a ton more troops faster off one base and earlier in a game than T or P, so they'd be hurting in a straight up tier-1 push when Z can delay production of combat units to the last possible second. Since larvae inject allows for a very fluid, last-second transition playstyle, they will definitely be ahead economically unless T/P drop that superfast expo and power workers.
But THAT invites the problem that, assuming T/P uses that money for superfast eco/expansion, Z can flip to full military production WAYYYYY faster than either of the two races. Using the numbers you presumed, T spends the 700 minerals grabbing extra workers and a second CC. Zerg spots this and drops 24 lings in a 30 second window. T has no good way of knowing if this is happening without suiciding multiple SCVs, which reduces their advantage even further.
Another thing to remember is that if Z instead drops a second hatch, the ability to rapidly throw 30 drones at the second expo will very quickly erase that mineral advantage T tried to get. Since that second hatch also gives Z a ridiculous supply of extra larvae, this means T/P dropping a quick second base may actually put them further BEHIND the race to a huge army, even if they get it up before Z, since Z is going to be earning back mineral cost faster at a brand new expo (more drones faster) and then gets such a huge larvae boost for immediately building a huge army (which it can once again delay to the last second).
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nice banner. and great article. blizzard has a lotta work to do to fix this
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On September 12 2009 09:50 eshlow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 09:42 Zato-1 wrote:
Nice article Chill, though I have one important problem with your conclusions.
According to your graphs, by the 5 minute mark Zerg has 1000 minerals, Protoss has 1500 and Terran has 1750 or so. Let's say all sides have made expenditures worth 900 minerals in things such as refineries, supply depots, military and tech.
Well, Terran still has 750 minerals more than the Zerg does. You know what you can get with 750 minerals? A command center and 7 SCVs. Suddenly, 1-hatch Zerg doesn't have the capacity to build workers faster than Terran does. Protoss can get a Nexus and a few workers.
You go on about how Zerg can pump drones super-fast, and the compounding effect of this. Well, it so happens that to make money, you need money. If Terran and Protoss have a whole stash of available minerals that Zerg doesn't... that can easily translate into an expansion and greater income- also leading to a compounding growth in economy.
As to the Zerg's flexibility: Yes, Zerg has a great flexibility. They also have it in Brood Wars, however. In PvZ, you see a Zerg with 3 hatcheries, a spire and a hydra den. Your worker dies, looking at all those morphing zerg eggs, and you don't know whether to expect a hydra all-in, muta harass or massive amounts of drones. Since PvZ in Brood Wars is more or less figured out (compared to SC2 at least), you can assume it's either hydras or mutas. And Zerg can switch tech between those unit types seamlessly. In SC2... it's the same, only you have half as many hatcheries with twice the number of larvae per hatchery.
Is the Zerg in SC2 going for an all-in front door break? Full economy? Somewhere in between? If you can scout it, you can react appropriately to it. Karune claims scouting is not significantly harder in SC2 than it is in Brood Wars, because once ling speed finishes and your scouting probe dies, you can get air units to scout soon after. I haven't actually played any build of SC2, but given all the games he's played, I would tend to believe him.
TL;DR: Those spare minerals the T and P get are a huge deal. 1-hatch queen isn't necessarily overpowered. There are no extra minerals -- the zerg has the ability with the queen to consume the minerals much faster. Terran and toss will have to use those minerals to plant down extra barracks/gateways/etc. tech off one base. If the zerg sees that they are skimping on defense to get an extra CC/nexus (aka economy build quicker) then they will build military and overrun you. That is what Hot Bid's article was about. Terran and toss CANNOT do this because they will get overrun by zerg flexibility. It's a nice thought, but it doesn't work.
As to whether there are extra minerals: Yes, I understand 1-hatch + queen can spend minerals faster than 1 Nexus / CC. However, T and P can spend those "extra" minerals that they can't spend on their initial Nexus / CC, either in their military buildings or getting an expansion, which will allow them to catch up to 1-hatch queen build in terms of worker production, i.e. how fast you can spend your minerals for additional workers. My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow).
You, sir, are also assuming that the Zerg has perfect scouting and their opponent has no scouting. Sure, if we're playing rock-paper-scissors and I get to play after I see your hand, I'll always win! That's not how it goes, though. Yes, Zerg has overlords. T has floating barracks, medivac, reapers, scan- several ways to scout after speedlings kill the first SCV. Protoss can get a phoenix or an observer. I'm also not sure how long the scouting overlords can stay alive hidden on a ledge in SC2.
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On September 12 2009 09:42 Zato-1 wrote:
Nice article Chill, though I have one important problem with your conclusions.
According to your graphs, by the 5 minute mark Zerg has 1000 minerals, Protoss has 1500 and Terran has 1750 or so. Let's say all sides have made expenditures worth 900 minerals in things such as refineries, supply depots, military and tech.
Well, Terran still has 750 minerals more than the Zerg does. You know what you can get with 750 minerals? A command center and 7 SCVs. Suddenly, 1-hatch Zerg doesn't have the capacity to build workers faster than Terran does. Protoss can get a Nexus and a few workers.
You go on about how Zerg can pump drones super-fast, and the compounding effect of this. Well, it so happens that to make money, you need money. If Terran and Protoss have a whole stash of available minerals that Zerg doesn't... that can easily translate into an expansion and greater income- also leading to a compounding growth in economy.
As to the Zerg's flexibility: Yes, Zerg has a great flexibility. They also have it in Brood Wars, however. In PvZ, you see a Zerg with 3 hatcheries, a spire and a hydra den. Your worker dies, looking at all those morphing zerg eggs, and you don't know whether to expect a hydra all-in, muta harass or massive amounts of drones. Since PvZ in Brood Wars is more or less figured out (compared to SC2 at least), you can assume it's either hydras or mutas. And Zerg can switch tech between those unit types seamlessly. In SC2... it's the same, only you have half as many hatcheries with twice the number of larvae per hatchery.
Is the Zerg in SC2 going for an all-in front door break? Full economy? Somewhere in between? If you can scout it, you can react appropriately to it. Karune claims scouting is not significantly harder in SC2 than it is in Brood Wars, because once ling speed finishes and your scouting probe dies, you can get air units to scout soon after. I haven't actually played any build of SC2, but given all the games he's played, I would tend to believe him.
TL;DR: Those spare minerals the T and P get are a huge deal. 1-hatch queen isn't necessarily overpowered.
And than the zerg builds 10 lings on the next larvae injection round and you die, because larvae can build military units but CC's and Nexii can not. That is the real imbalance with the queen's larvae injection. Not to mention the overlord sitting above your nat seeing that you aren't building any military production buildings, so you die even earlier.
Edit: To above.
You will not have air units at 3-5 minutes into the game. Karune's reply to this issue in http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=101716 completely missed the point. In the first 5 or so minutes (as an estimation, I'm guessing the real number will be higher, since a straight up fast tech build has it's own problems), the zerg can scout you for free while you have to either fast tech or proxy buildings to float? You don't see a problem with that? Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue.
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All the posts criticizing my own make the same assumption: Zerg gets to see what T/P is doing, plays the appropriate counter, T/P doesn't see it coming, Z wins!
Why do you automatically assume T and P are playing in the dark, and Z has maphack?
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Another thing to remember is that if Z instead drops a second hatch, the ability to rapidly throw 30 drones at the second expo will very quickly erase that mineral advantage T tried to get. Since that second hatch also gives Z a ridiculous supply of extra larvae, this means T/P dropping a quick second base may actually put them further BEHIND the race to a huge army, even if they get it up before Z, since Z is going to be earning back mineral cost faster at a brand new expo (more drones faster) and then gets such a huge larvae boost for immediately building a huge army (which it can once again delay to the last second).
I feel certain an expansion algorithm based on the same input chill's graphs are based on would prove that though zerg can take (and populate) more bases faster, in a race-to-most-minerals terran and protoss would still be ahead most of the time. The only additional factor would be the build times for each race's respective CC/Nexus and their mechanics -- each respective expansion will follow the same exact dynamic the initial base did. More drones does not necessarily equal more minerals like it would in SC1.
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On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:As to whether there are extra minerals: Yes, I understand 1-hatch + queen can spend minerals faster than 1 Nexus / CC. However, T and P can spend those "extra" minerals that they can't spend on their initial Nexus / CC, either in their military buildings or getting an expansion, which will allow them to catch up to 1-hatch queen build in terms of worker production, i.e. how fast you can spend your minerals for additional workers.
Except they can't spend for an extra CC or nexus because zerg have OVERLORDS which will spot an economical build. Since they have more military production (think 14 initial lings over 6 in SC plus an extra 12 coming in 25s), how do you suppose a toss is going to defend this? Terran can wall for sure, and can build CC in main and float. Zerg can just plop down another hatchery and out power. This is shown in this article, and HB's.
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow).
HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions.
You, sir, are also assuming that the Zerg has perfect scouting and their opponent has no scouting. Sure, if we're playing rock-paper-scissors and I get to play after I see your hand, I'll always win! That's not how it goes, though. Yes, Zerg has overlords. T has floating barracks, medivac, reapers, scan- several ways to scan after speedlings kill the first SCV. Protoss can get a phoenix or an observer. I'm also not sure how long the scouting overlords can stay alive hidden on a ledge in SC2.
1. Zerg have significantly better scouting early game. Scouting is practically denied for toss/terran after a couple lings get out.
2a. So now you're floating rax... how are you going to get military to defend your expansion?
2b. All the rest of those units (both terran and toss) are FAR up the tech tree and cost significant amounts of gas.
3. Toss can't kill the overlord without tech; smart zerg players will keep lings outside their nat/main and overlord close by on cliffs. Units can't attack up cliffs unless they have vision.
We're not talking about amateurs here. We are trying to discuss this game on a high level of play... aka professional play. We all want SC2 to be viable in E-sports so it has to be balanced.
There are VERY few pros who will lose to a build they have scouted. Consider that.
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Just wondering, would it be possible to build a second CC in your main and, without expanding (and requiring additional defenses to defend it), upgrade it to an orbital command which would allow you to have two mules mining your minerals at the same time?
If it is true that you can generate ~200 additional minerals per minute with the mule, then, since an extra orbital command only costs 400+150=550, the cost would be made up for within 3 minutes (although 3 minutes isn't quite negligible, it isn't long either).
Thus, an extra advantage that this would allow is that it gives Terrans similar options to the Zerg, if Terran are able to wall in to prevent scouting: Is the Terran building another OC and mule (powering up with drones), or is he spending his money immediately on troops (using larvae for troops instead of drones)?
Another thing: I don't see that Dark Obelisks would ONLY be used for the macro mechanic. You could always build more than one, and then the extra ones would serve as the shield or mana rechargers, if needed (although the ratio is going to have to be better than 1 mana for 2 energy if it's going to come to that).
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On September 12 2009 10:17 Zato-1 wrote:
All the posts criticizing my own make the same assumption: Zerg gets to see what T/P is doing, plays the appropriate counter, T/P doesn't see it coming, Z wins!
Why do you automatically assume T and P are playing in the dark, and Z has maphack?
Because apparently they are? Chill and Hotbid have both emphasized the problem with scouting the zerg by other races.
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On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue.
Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without minerals, you don't. That simple.
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On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions.
They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. edit: or rather, that "test" proved nothing, I can't speak to their understanding. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate.
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For all you "wondering" about workers with an extra CC/nexus.
This is from HotBid's article which apparently you forgot or gloss over
Larvae injection leads to more drones than P or T can make. I remember Chill and I just built workers for the first few minutes of the game (he went 14cc and I went 2 hatch + Queen) and the supply count was 60-40 in my favor.
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On September 12 2009 10:21 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions. They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate.
So you're comparing an extra... what 200-300 (x2) minerals per Chill's article with an extra 20 workers?
Zerg will have another base by then, so they won't be saturated.
I'm pretty sure another 20 workers on an extra base outweighs 2 mules.
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On September 12 2009 10:19 Conquest101 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:17 Zato-1 wrote:
All the posts criticizing my own make the same assumption: Zerg gets to see what T/P is doing, plays the appropriate counter, T/P doesn't see it coming, Z wins!
Why do you automatically assume T and P are playing in the dark, and Z has maphack? Because apparently they are? Chill and Hotbid have both emphasized the problem with scouting the zerg by other races.
And yet Karune claims this is not true. Forgive me for believing the person who plays the game every damn day and beats the crap out of fans in events over the people who only get to play it every few months.
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You know how protoss always complain about how they can't scout the zerg's strategy early game? Now hive zerglings automatic speed boost + range.
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 09:39 eshlow wrote:
Chill: there is something you forgot about your build. Using the minerals you have you want to have another queen hatched by the time your second hatchery is up ready to inject larva. This is definitely feasible within the time constrains of your charts (probably around 300-350s or so). Thus, the zerg is only going to get stronger at about ~5 minutes into the game once the second hatch pops.
200s: Plop down an extra hatchery after 1st queen is being made
225s: Build another queen PLUS it will be there for extra defense... how nice
300s: Hatch pops and second queen can inject larva.
At 300-350s, zerg will be able to power more than the chart suggests especially with a hatch at the main AND nat. No saturation of drones gives significant more minerals than predicted by your algorithm, plus significantly more production.
There is no second anything in this model, no second hatchery, no expansion, nothing. I mean we will just end up analyzing this cyclically (If Zerg expands, so will Protoss. If Zerg expands too early, Terran can attack with X units). To avoid this problem, I just showed what happens in the simplest form of the game. I agree though, with expansions the problem just compounds.
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On September 12 2009 10:24 Avidkeystamper wrote:
You know how protoss always complain about how they can't scout the zerg's strategy early game? Now hive zerglings automatic speed boost + range.
Perhaps that is how it looks to you. From what I read from the folks who most know the game, scouting is actually easier in SC2. I don't expect to convince anyone with this, just establish reasonable doubt.
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On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple.
Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can.
Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be?
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On September 12 2009 10:25 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 09:39 eshlow wrote:
Chill: there is something you forgot about your build. Using the minerals you have you want to have another queen hatched by the time your second hatchery is up ready to inject larva. This is definitely feasible within the time constrains of your charts (probably around 300-350s or so). Thus, the zerg is only going to get stronger at about ~5 minutes into the game once the second hatch pops.
200s: Plop down an extra hatchery after 1st queen is being made
225s: Build another queen PLUS it will be there for extra defense... how nice
300s: Hatch pops and second queen can inject larva.
At 300-350s, zerg will be able to power more than the chart suggests especially with a hatch at the main AND nat. No saturation of drones gives significant more minerals than predicted by your algorithm, plus significantly more production. There is no second anything in this model, no second hatchery, no expansion, nothing. I mean we will just end up analyzing this cyclically (If Zerg expands, so will Protoss. If Zerg expands too early, Terran can attack with X units). To avoid this problem, I just showed what happens in the simplest form of the game. I agree though, with expansions the problem just compounds.
True. Can't wait for the beta, haha.
On a side note: are you going to be playing the beta? I'd love to see if you or other community members are going to try to hash out timings and exploit the Q macro mechanic (even if it is nerfed).
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On September 12 2009 10:22 eshlow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:21 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions. They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate. So you're comparing an extra... what 200-300 (x2) minerals per Chill's article with an extra 20 workers? Zerg will have another base by then, so they won't be saturated.
They reported solely on the number of workers, not on the minerals mined or spent. You're assuming way more than you can and building a weak model as a result. If you want to point to the number of workers that zerg has while excluding all other factors such as total minerals gathered and the derivative of the income curve, go right ahead, but that argument has no merit.
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On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be?
Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii.
Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare.
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Just thought about the numbers a little bit....and those eco-mechanics are way too strong and the one of Protoss seems very weak.
For comparison,
a worker mines on a free mineral patch 5x5 minerals in 30sec, given there are 8 mineral crystals per Base( battle reports...),
a 1x saturated base provides 5x5x8= 200 minerals/30sec (estimation)
a 2x saturated base provides 8x5x8= 320 minerals/30sec (estimation)
a 3x saturated base provides 10x5x8= 400 minerals/30sec (estimation)
Terran Mule provides like 120 minerals/30sec (estimation)
Protoss Obelisk 1min+/run making Protoss base more effective, resulting in
1x saturated base providing +40min/30sec
2x saturated base provides +64min/30sec
3x saturated base provides +80min/30sec
Well the Zergs one costs 200min/30sec, but the benefits add up as long as the drones stay alive.
Also it play a role where drones go to work, a saturated or a new base.
Going into maximum drone pumping we get,
1) -200 for + 50min
2) -200 for +100min
3) -200 for +150min
4) -200 for +200min
5) -200 for +250min
By this time you actually lost 150min. In comaprison Terran made 600min bonus which results in terran having 750min more than Z, lets add another 350 Zerg will need to expand because of all those drones, Terran is ahead 1100minerals.
Zerg on the other hand Zerg makes now +320min/30sec due to those +20 extra drones + expansion, Terra still only get +120/30sec.
So this leads me to the question, does obelsik charge really only adds up 1 more mineral per worker run? Terran Mule sounds like 2x as good.
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On September 12 2009 10:33 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:22 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:21 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions. They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate. So you're comparing an extra... what 200-300 (x2) minerals per Chill's article with an extra 20 workers? Zerg will have another base by then, so they won't be saturated. They reported solely on the number of workers, not on the minerals mined or spent. You're assuming way more than you can and building a weak model as a result. If you want to point to the number of workers that zerg has while excluding all other factors such as total minerals gathered and the derivative of the income curve, go right ahead, but that argument has no merit.
Orbital command = 150 (x2)
Extra hatch = 300
It's pretty obvious that Z outpaces P/T once the economy gets up in running via the models but whatever.
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Osaka27128 Posts
On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare.
Then you have nothing to worry about then. Relax and wait for the beta.
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very nice in depth write up thanks :D
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On September 12 2009 10:40 Manifesto7 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare. Then you have nothing to worry about then. Relax and wait for the beta.
Which is exactly what I'm doing.
That, and foolishly trying to fight off some forum fearmongering.
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On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare.
That's where we'll have to agree to disagree than, I suppose. Unfortunately, Blizzard's responses have not inspired the kind of confidence in them you seem to possess. I am the first to hope that we are all wrong, and Blizzard does indeed have this balanced properly.
But just in case they don't, I feel this is a good thread.
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United States22883 Posts
On September 12 2009 06:40 Lobbo wrote:
Is this true? But you need to save the energy to do so right?
I believe you can build more than 1 Queen, so each Hatch will have it's own dedicated Queen.
Oh ok, this thread expanded like crazy.
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Osaka27128 Posts
On September 12 2009 10:43 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:40 Manifesto7 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare. Then you have nothing to worry about then. Relax and wait for the beta. Which is exactly what I'm doing. That, and foolishly trying to fight off some forum fearmongering.
Yeah I once spent a day with a bucket throwing back the tide. Now I just move my blanket up to higher ground.
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Niiiiiccceeeee : ) i would be interested to see karune respond to this
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On September 12 2009 06:28 Crunchums wrote:Yay it has finally arrived Can't wait for the beta...
4 months out man still a long wait.
+ Show Spoiler +no idea when its coming out... SIGH
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On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare.
Yeah, all it does is give more production capability. That's like nothing important, right? The T would have to go for a build like triple CC in his base into 4 barracks to get the same kind of a production as Z. And do those total at 150 or whatever minerals?
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On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Show nested quote +Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing
This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well.
[1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones.
+ Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically:] +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races.
[2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries).
So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course.
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Waw, this article is a bit shocking to me. I expected to be MORE persuaded of the Z dominance, yet I now have some serious doubts. A few quick thoughts:
1. The most surprising thing is how much more efficient P and T are at mining off of 1 base. This, as Zato-1 said above, should mean they can make many more gateways/racks earlier, without ever stopping worker production. Hey, all that extra cash has to go into something!
2. I view the theoretical race to 30 drones as largely irrelevant: Z will have to sacrifice some drone production to get other units in response to P/T (who have to spend that pile of cash).
3. Z must expand to keep up economically. Yes, they have the ability/map control to do so, and yes, they can saturate quickly. Still, they must do it and still be ready in multiple locations for a variety of P and T timing pushes. Could be tricky.
4. Your "comparison" section gave me pause: T has an early mining edge, but in mid-late game P seems to get a HUGE advantage, as obelisks improve mining in saturated mineral lines. What does this mean for a PvT? Does T now need to out-expand the P in mid-game to keep up?
So many questions, so much excitement! Thanks Chill.
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This was a really interesting read TY TL
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On September 12 2009 12:46 Shikyo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:35 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:28 Conquest101 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:20 Zato-1 wrote:On September 12 2009 10:11 Conquest101 wrote:Also, don't forget that by the time you have another nexus + CC zerg will easily have a 2nd hatch + 2nd queen, thus only compounding the issue. Wrong. Remember all those spare minerals T and P have? And that Z doesn't have? An expansion costs minerals. With minerals, you can get one. Without one, you don't. That simple. Check the graph again please. At approx. 200+ secs zerg has 300 mineral's banked. What is a zerg going to do with those 300 minerals, assuming a macro build? Expand. What is a terran/protoss going to do? They CANNOT expand because they will DIE to lings. Remember, the zerg has a pool up. And all those injected larvae can build lings OR drones. However many CC's/Nexii the the opponent gets will not save them if they CAN'T build military units. Consequently, the toss/terran cannot invest in an expansion as early as the zerg can. Read Karune's reply again. Although he misses the point of the question directed at him, he does bring up an interesting issue. Look at all the shit the Toss has to do to NOT OUTRIGHT DIE to a zerg all-in after a pool first/queen build. What if, in that situation, as many of the posters commented, the zerg didn't all in, and instead built drones, only building lings/hydras at the last second to fend off pressure from the toss. Do you see how behind the toss would be? Sigh. All the Queen gives the Zerg is more production capacity, which can be emulated with barracks/CC or Gateways/Nexii. Yes, Terran and Protoss have to get around to building those. And yet by balancing the building times and building costs, it's easy to give them a balanced production capacity. In fact, I suspect they have a balanced production capacity already, this game's been tested for months and months. Two days of testing by fans does not compare. Yeah, all it does is give more production capability. That's like nothing important, right? The T would have to go for a build like triple CC in his base into 4 barracks to get the same kind of a production as Z. And do those total at 150 or whatever minerals?
I think you're overestimating the production capacity of 1-hatch queen.
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No he's not. To get the flexibility of 1 hatch queen you pretty much would need triple CC and barracks. The problem isn't that he can mass workers or that he can mass units, its that he can potentially do both. People going double rax were getting absolutely steamrolled by a 1 hatch queen build.
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Thanks for writing this Chill. Good points all around, really does illustrate how Zerg compounds an advantage.
In the same line of thought though I don't see how people aren't freaking about Terran's mechanic as well - MULEs combined with reactors sounds like just as hellish production. Especially for the early/mid game - forget mass zergling production - marines are range, this army advantage compounds HARD, especially with tighter unit groupings. Marines literally turn into a ball now and they are even better.
Turn everything on the flip side and imagine Zerg trying to scout this. Overlords can't get in because they will get shot down by a minimal amount of marines no matter what. keep some marines on the ramp, some around the perimeter, and hide the big ball of death deep inside the base. At the right timing when Zerg is powering drones, just walk on in. Don't know if any amount of spine crawlers, queens, zerglings or even banelings (due to getting shot down before reaching ball) will stop a huge marine ball.
To me, this sounds so ridiculously cost efficient that its no wonder in all the battle reports and games I've seen so far, you just haven't seen tech races with terran or large late game macro wars. It's Marines and Marauders getting pumped and winning at that stage. Granted I have nothing to base this off of except observation, I haven't yet had chance to play, and yeah beta blah blah, but just wanted to contribute to the discussion with my thoughts. Maybe someone can make a graph of how quickly marine production can escalate in the early-mid game.
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Osaka27128 Posts
Turn everything on the flip side and imagine Zerg trying to scout this. Overlords can't get in because they will get shot down by a minimal amount of marines no matter what. keep some marines on the ramp, some around the perimeter, and hide the big ball of death deep inside the base. At the right timing when Zerg is powering drones, just walk on in. Don't know if any amount of spine crawlers, queens, zerglings or even banelings (due to getting shot down before reaching ball) will stop a huge marine ball.
To me, this sounds so ridiculously cost efficient that its no wonder in all the battle reports and games I've seen so far, you just haven't seen tech races with terran or large late game macro wars. It's Marines and Marauders getting pumped and winning at that stage. Granted I have nothing to base this off of except observation, I haven't yet had chance to play, and yeah beta blah blah, but just wanted to contribute to the discussion with my thoughts. Maybe someone can make a graph of how quickly marine production can escalate in the early-mid game.
Yeah I was wondering about this as well. It seemed like that is why zerg teched to ultras so quickly, to try and deal with this massive force, but I don't know how you can get numbers up in time.
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Really well thought out Chill, like you say, I love all of the macro mechanics, I just think they need some stat tweaking for balance. I also agree that using a macro mechanic should be a bit more of a commitment and not just a "bonus" to every race.
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On September 12 2009 13:19 General Nuke Em wrote:
No he's not. To get the flexibility of 1 hatch queen you pretty much would need triple CC and barracks. The problem isn't that he can mass workers or that he can mass units, its that he can potentially do both. People going double rax were getting absolutely steamrolled by a 1 hatch queen build.
Okay now you're being plain ridiculous. 1-hatch queen gives you the the equivalent of 2 hatcheries worth of larvae from Brood Wars. You're saying that to compete against a Zerg with two hatcheries, Terran needs three bases and four Barracks. I think you forgot to mention that to fend off the massive onslaught of a Zerg with two hatcheries, Terran would also need a couple science vessels and a fleet of Battlecruisers, I mean the zerg might make hydras with those larvae!
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It took me a few seconds to get the banner haha.
Nice analysis. I'm glad you're confident Blizzard will make changes, because I already find TvZ in SC hard ~_~
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On September 12 2009 05:40 Chill wrote:
The more I've thought about it, the more I think this economic acceleration won't matter for any race but Zerg. You can support a ridiculous army off of one base in Starcraft II. For example, you can support 4 barracks with reactors off one base if you get the MULE quickly enough. Think about that. That's 8 barracks in constant marine production. That's a lot of marines. However, if you are able to scout 3 barracks with reactor addons, you know what's coming. If you see marines being rallied 8 at at time, you know what's happening.
The problem, as mentioned, is that Zerg don't have to show anything. Two hatcheries and a queen - That's enough to go anywhere in 7 minute from an all-in attack with 30 hydralisks, to pushing 60 supply in drones. When Zerglings are coming 28 at a time, and suddenly they stop, you can predict that Zerg has switched over to drone production again, but it's already too late for you to adapt.
The real question is what is T sacrificing by making 4 racks and marines? The Z has NO CHOICE but to stop making (some?) drones, while the T presumably continues to pump scvs non-stop.
I am also not convinced you can scout the T that easily after the first rack is complete. They probably want to rush to mule anyway, and then make the rest of the racks, or whatever else they choose. By then no OL will be in their base, correct?
By the way, the charts show mining efficiency without mule/obelisk, correct? Accounting for those would make the minerals disparity wider in favor of P/T, and much more imperative for Z to expand to keep up.
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On September 12 2009 05:40 Chill wrote:<font size=4> Macromanagement in Starcraft II </font> How does Blizzard fix the balance of the macro mechanics? Is it a problem? Does it need to be fixed? Step 1: Make the mechanics equal. Assume everyone is going to rush for the mechanics, because that's what they're going to do in the current form. Find the number of larvae that balances the game. Make the Queen have to choose what unit it is going to inject, rather than having a ridiculous amount of choice in uncommitted larvae. Step 2: Make the mechanics cost something. There are two options: lower the benefit of the mechanics or increase the cost. I would prefer to see the latter but both are viable. It needs some way to open up vulnerability in the early game to either timing attacks or tech rushes, so that the player is reacting to the opponent, as opposed to the current situation of rushing for the macro mechanic. Step 3: Open up real choice. If I am giving up 200 minerals for not using my MULE, it had damn well better be doing something other than blinking some lights around for 5 seconds. Players are going to be giving up real income, and a lot of it, if they choose to use something other than the macro mechanics. They need to be given something that makes them think before they reactively slam another 8 larvae into their 2 hatcheries. Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This being said, I really did like all three of the macro mechanics. A lot. They fit well and seem like they will eventually open up new timing choices when the game draws closer to balance. I really hope they are slightly tweaked and allowed to remain a fundamental part of the Starcraft II economy. I am confident Blizzard will understand this issue. If they haven't already understood the issue by now, they surely will in the beta. I'm not concerned that it will slip by unnoticed, and you shouldn't be either. I do, however, still think it is an interesting problem in its current form.
I definitely agree with those... points
1 may involve cutting back the Queen's Larva rate (increase energy v. decrease cost) but boosting the Hatcheries
2 only really works if you are talking about the cost of building/teching to the Queen/OC/Obelisk*
Possible Idea... make the Macro mechanics require the Evo chamber/Forge/Engineering bay... so that they are sacrificing a fast military build.
3 is easily done for some with balancing the energy costs of current abilities... make comsat only cost 10 energy and the MULE 100, ... and then its balanced (probably) v. the MULE.
Make the energy recharge 5 energy : 1 Obelisk energy, and its balanced.
Some of the abilities are less likely to be used due to thier nature
The Queen's and Obelisks abilities are slightly less likely to be used because they need to get to the site of battle for maximum utility... (impossible for the Obelisk, hard for the Queen)
There is the problem of the Zerg being able to chase away everyone else's scouts, (including fellow Zerg).... and them getting a scout that the Protoss can't chase away.
Terrans do get a Marine and range can help in getting rid of a Drone....or definitely an Overlord.. but the speed boost gets rid of everything.
ideas to help scout the Zerg.... make Creep speed boost an all unit upgrade, like Burrow... even make it Cheap (25 min, 0 gas)... just have it take time... and require a spawning pool/evo chamber
ideas to help stop the Zerg scout.... make Overlords lose hp very slowly if off the Creep when only Hatchery Tech..... before Lair, the only thing they are useful for is scouting.... so give them a "leash" for that purpose... so that the slow Overlord can only just get across a small map before having to head back.
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On September 12 2009 12:52 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well. [1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones. + Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races. [2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries). So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course.
I very much appreciate you actually writing out the math, I've lost my grasp of calculus after having not used it for a while. (Actually the other day I was trying to work out the angles of a triangle and had the sudden cold realization that I'd forgotten how to do basic trigonometry, made me feel pretty laughably incompetent.)
You make some very good points about things I ironically overlooked (and why I overlooked it) in a post about not misinterpreting the graphs, notably that zerg is spending faster than terran and protoss and this skews the graph. It's hard to extrapolate from the tail end of that graph whether dM/dt for zerg would be comparable to the terran and protoss curves, but after looking at it again I think that it would, plus it'd be pretty hard to argue that it wouldn't. Protoss' mineral mining rate w/mechanic is going to be 1.2x (not 1.25x, unless 6/5 is now 1.25... but I got the other math wrong so ) that of normal workers w/o mechanic, which as you point out falls significantly short of the advantage the zerg mechanic gives.
I'd want to factor in build times and building costs to truly graph out a function dM/dt that included expansions, but as it stands I concede to the "zerg queen mechanic also enables faster economy" argument, which makes a few of my prior points invalid. (e.g. that there will be some theoretical intersect at which point the mining rate of protoss and terran would surpass that of the zerg -- and thus a point in the midgame where protoss and terran would reach a greater number of minerals mined overall. This still might happen in a real game due to other limits such as population cap and the typically limited number of mineral patches on starcraft maps, but there is no denying the current advantage zerg has both in theoretical expansion and production capabilities.)
edit: if the unit cost/effectiveness ratios are balanced, dM/dt is what needs to be emphasized and focused on in terms of economy balancing. Any significant imbalance in the dM/dt of unchecked expansion will have to be made up for with other gameplay aspects.
edit two: clarity or lack thereof
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United States47024 Posts
There has been a lot (A LOT) of talk on the forum about the lack of choice between the macro mechanics, and the devastating effects of Terran losing scan. These are unfounded. After playing Starcraft II for 10 games and understanding the mechanics, you will see there is actually no choice. It's an illusion of choice. Given the "choice" between using the MULE and scanning, you will always choose the MULE unless forced otherwise by immediately cloaked units. The return is just too great. Even if I were supply capped, I would bank the MULE minerals while building a supply depot before I used the ability to gain extra supply. You've got to figure the MULE can make a round-trip every 6-8 seconds. And it returns 25-30 minerals every trip (I believe 30 but I'm erring on the safe side). Assuming it stays for 45 seconds (I believe it's actually 60). This yields somewhere between 187 and 300 "extra" minerals per minute. Clearly something that can't be skipped for a convenient scouting scan. This also shows the importance of getting the MULE early, which is a theme common between all the mechanics. The MULE pays for itself in the first minute, after which you are generating around 200 minerals extra every minute. You can see how this compounds.
You may, rarely, use the obelisk's ability to charge mana in a nearby high templar; but at 2 energy for 1 mana, and with your obelisk rarely having more than 25 energy, the options look grim. So you can recharge 12.5 (let's hope they round up to 13!) mana, or boost your probes' mining in case you live the attack. The choice is obvious.
The Queen can... You will never use the Queen for anything other than pumping out a ridiculous amount of larvae.
Thank you for the article, Chill, and especially for this. I feel like this section in particular is something that has been under-discussed.
Ignoring the issues with 1-hatch queen relative to the other races right now, I see two relevant issues:
1) There is almost never any reason to use the macro buildings for their other abilities, unless you forget, and have extra mana to dump (ironically, the mechanic that has the most useful alternatives, the MULE, also is the only one that you can pump multiple times--further solidifying that you'll never use the alternatives).
2) The mechanics are so good (1-hatch queen in particular) that there is almost no reason ever to NOT open with them. From what it looks like so far, hatchery-first builds (or any hatchery-before-saturated-main builds) are basically not viable, because having a queen gives better production than a second hatchery, and the difference outweights the advantage of being able to mine from less saturated minerals (I'm assuming the improved pathing of SC2 also makes it such that a heavily saturated base does not lower the efficiency of individual workers as much--that is the pathing makes it less likely that workers will get stuck on one another between trips). It seems incredibly stale, particularly in ZvZ, if every Zerg build opens spawning pool->queen simply because it's better at both aggression AND economy than any alternative builds.
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very very interesting read
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 12 2009 12:55 citi.zen wrote:
4. Your "comparison" section gave me pause: T has an early mining edge, but in mid-late game P seems to get a HUGE advantage, as obelisks improve mining in saturated mineral lines. What does this mean for a PvT? Does T now need to out-expand the P in mid-game to keep up?
So many questions, so much excitement! Thanks Chill.
I deleted a section from my article because I wasn't sure, but I think the MULE is better than the obelisk at anytime. The MULE is 25 minerals per trip, regardless of saturation. The obelisk is basically 9 (every probe returning 1 more) plus a little more for every probe returning minerals during the time the MULE is in transit. I deleted it because I'm not entirely convinced yet.
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Thanks for the clarification. At the very least the obelisk effect varies through the game :-)
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On September 12 2009 13:55 Krikkitone wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 12 2009 05:40 Chill wrote:<font size=4> Macromanagement in Starcraft II </font> How does Blizzard fix the balance of the macro mechanics? Is it a problem? Does it need to be fixed? Step 1: Make the mechanics equal. Assume everyone is going to rush for the mechanics, because that's what they're going to do in the current form. Find the number of larvae that balances the game. Make the Queen have to choose what unit it is going to inject, rather than having a ridiculous amount of choice in uncommitted larvae. Step 2: Make the mechanics cost something. There are two options: lower the benefit of the mechanics or increase the cost. I would prefer to see the latter but both are viable. It needs some way to open up vulnerability in the early game to either timing attacks or tech rushes, so that the player is reacting to the opponent, as opposed to the current situation of rushing for the macro mechanic. Step 3: Open up real choice. If I am giving up 200 minerals for not using my MULE, it had damn well better be doing something other than blinking some lights around for 5 seconds. Players are going to be giving up real income, and a lot of it, if they choose to use something other than the macro mechanics. They need to be given something that makes them think before they reactively slam another 8 larvae into their 2 hatcheries. Step 4: Test it under the premise that good players are going to abuse it. Return to Step 1. This being said, I really did like all three of the macro mechanics. A lot. They fit well and seem like they will eventually open up new timing choices when the game draws closer to balance. I really hope they are slightly tweaked and allowed to remain a fundamental part of the Starcraft II economy. I am confident Blizzard will understand this issue. If they haven't already understood the issue by now, they surely will in the beta. I'm not concerned that it will slip by unnoticed, and you shouldn't be either. I do, however, still think it is an interesting problem in its current form. I definitely agree with those... points 1 may involve cutting back the Queen's Larva rate (increase energy v. decrease cost) but boosting the Hatcheries 2 only really works if you are talking about the cost of building/teching to the Queen/OC/Obelisk* Possible Idea... make the Macro mechanics require the Evo chamber/Forge/Engineering bay... so that they are sacrificing a fast military build. 3 is easily done for some with balancing the energy costs of current abilities... make comsat only cost 10 energy and the MULE 100, ... and then its balanced (probably) v. the MULE. Make the energy recharge 5 energy : 1 Obelisk energy, and its balanced. Some of the abilities are less likely to be used due to thier nature The Queen's and Obelisks abilities are slightly less likely to be used because they need to get to the site of battle for maximum utility... (impossible for the Obelisk, hard for the Queen) There is the problem of the Zerg being able to chase away everyone else's scouts, (including fellow Zerg).... and them getting a scout that the Protoss can't chase away. Terrans do get a Marine and range can help in getting rid of a Drone....or definitely an Overlord.. but the speed boost gets rid of everything. ideas to help scout the Zerg.... make Creep speed boost an all unit upgrade, like Burrow... even make it Cheap (25 min, 0 gas)... just have it take time... and require a spawning pool/evo chamber ideas to help stop the Zerg scout.... make Overlords lose hp very slowly if off the Creep when only Hatchery Tech..... before Lair, the only thing they are useful for is scouting.... so give them a "leash" for that purpose... so that the slow Overlord can only just get across a small map before having to head back.
Nice ideas
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On September 12 2009 14:21 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 12:55 citi.zen wrote:
4. Your "comparison" section gave me pause: T has an early mining edge, but in mid-late game P seems to get a HUGE advantage, as obelisks improve mining in saturated mineral lines. What does this mean for a PvT? Does T now need to out-expand the P in mid-game to keep up?
So many questions, so much excitement! Thanks Chill. I deleted a section from my article because I wasn't sure, but the MULE is better than the obelisk at anytime. The MULE is 25 minerals per trip, regardless of saturation. The obelisk is basically 9 (every probe returning 1 more) plus a little more for every probe returning minerals during the time the MULE is in transit. I deleted it because I'm not entirely convinced yet.
This is a function of the number of mineral patches and the probe saturation within the area of effect. Assuming complete saturation and a mineral return rate where one worker can mine in the space another one is returning (or a 1.5x increase in efficiency relative to the mule unless I really really need to go take math again), there would need to be roughly 17 mineral patches within the AoE to produce the same result. With no saturation at all, there would need to be 25 patches to produce the same result. If I fail at math and saturation is actually 2x greater efficiency, which I'm really struggling to figure out why it wouldn't be, you'd still need 25 probes on 12.5 patches to match the effect of a single MULE.
edit; fuck I'm stupid, it'd only be 1.5x if the mule and two workers started at the same time, mined once and returned once... but since it's a continuous stream, it approaches 2x asymptotically.
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On September 12 2009 13:57 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 12:52 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well. [1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones. + Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races. [2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries). So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course. I very much appreciate you actually writing out the math, I've lost my grasp of calculus after having not used it for a while. (Actually the other day I was trying to work out the angles of a triangle and had the sudden cold realization that I'd forgotten how to do basic trigonometry, made me feel pretty laughably incompetent.) You make some very good points about things I ironically overlooked (and why I overlooked it) in a post about not misinterpreting the graphs, notably that zerg is spending faster than terran and protoss and this skews the graph. It's hard to extrapolate from the tail end of that graph whether dM/dt for zerg would be comparable to the terran and protoss curves, but after looking at it again I think that it would, plus it'd be pretty hard to argue that it wouldn't. Protoss' mineral mining rate w/mechanic is going to be 1.2x (not 1.25x, unless 6/5 is now 1.25... but I got the other math wrong so ) that of normal workers w/o mechanic, which as you point out falls significantly short of the advantage the zerg mechanic gives. I'd want to factor in build times and building costs to truly graph out a function dM/dt that included expansions, but as it stands I concede to the "zerg queen mechanic also enables faster economy" argument, which makes a few of my prior points invalid. (e.g. that there will be some theoretical intersect at which point the mining rate of protoss and terran would surpass that of the zerg -- and thus a point in the midgame where protoss and terran would reach a greater number of minerals mined overall. This still might happen in a real game due to other limits such as population cap and the typically limited number of mineral patches on starcraft maps, but there is no denying the current advantage zerg has both in theoretical expansion and production capabilities.) edit: if the unit cost/effectiveness ratios are balanced, dM/dt is what needs to be emphasized and focused on in terms of economy balancing. Any significant imbalance in the dM/dt of unchecked expansion will have to be made up for with other gameplay aspects. edit two: clarity or lack thereof
Wow, I said that earlier in this thread which you ignored.
He breaks out the rate calculus and you accept it.
...
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Minerals from the Proton Charge per trip of a mule should be m * n, where m is the number of mineral patches and n is the number of workers required to fully saturate a patch with optimal pathing - (time to cut minerals + travel time to CC) / (time to cut minerals). I don't know exactly what this would be for SC2 obviously, but it should be somewhere around 2. So calling it 2 for the sake of argument, and figuring 9-10 mineral patches as standard, proton charge should net about 20 minerals in the time that the mule makes a trip. So if the mule is 25/trip its somewhat better, 30/trip would be significantly so.
A thought that popped into my head while reading the end of this: One of the main reasons people talk about the zerg mechanic being a problem is the uncertainty factor, that the enemy can't scout what's coming out of the eggs. What if they changed Zerg eggs so that you could see what they were morphing into? Say you select it and it says "Drone Egg" or "Zergling Egg" for example. Obviously zerg could still power faster per Chill's graph, but would the potential for being punished a bit (for example, I see 7 Drone eggs, I'll move out with the Zealots I made to block my ramp) bring the ability better into balance?
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On September 12 2009 10:33 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 10:22 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:21 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 10:18 eshlow wrote:On September 12 2009 10:10 Zato-1 wrote:
My point was, if all you're doing is racing to 30 workers like Chill's model assumes, P and T have a whole bunch of minerals left over- this means the model isn't fair to those 2 races because they can get a whole bunch of stuff with those minerals that the model doesn't consider (one of these things they could get would be an expansion- I'd be interested to see the model in a race to 60 workers or so, assuming the races expand whenever their mineral stores allow). HotBid's article went over this. Zerg gets to 60 workers when toss/terran get to 40. With expansions. They did that test with an irrelevant understanding of how mechanics work in SC2. With the new macro mechanics, # of workers != mineral mining rate. So you're comparing an extra... what 200-300 (x2) minerals per Chill's article with an extra 20 workers? Zerg will have another base by then, so they won't be saturated. They reported solely on the number of workers, not on the minerals mined or spent. You're assuming way more than you can and building a weak model as a result. If you want to point to the number of workers that zerg has while excluding all other factors such as total minerals gathered and the derivative of the income curve, go right ahead, but that argument has no merit.
Quoting myself because I obviously ignored you because you DIDNT do the calculus.
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I think that Blizzard should balance the game so that P or T are able to expand and defend against ling agression without getting behind in terms of economy. All they would have to do is sacrifice the usage of their respective macro mechanic just like the zerg would spend their extra larvae on combat units instead of drones.
In a balanced game, If the zerg decides to not attack from 1-hatch, then a 2-base P/T could out-eco zerg. However, a 2-base zerg should out-eco 2-base terran/toss while being vulnerable to a 1-base rush build like quick 2 gates.
This means that a fast-expanding T would build a Planetary Fortress instead of an Orbital Command in their natural expo if there's a need to. It would be important that T has the ability to salvage the CC's module in order to be able to switch between the two just like how Z can switch between making drones and lings.
I guess that P could build an extra Obelisk in their nat that could be used for defensive purposes. P would have the option to spend mana on Proton Charge, and if zerglings attack then he could spend the mana instead on shield regen. Shield regen should be good enough to allow the protoss player to defend his nat from lings with just a few zeals and cannons.
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nice charts there and good writing 
was an insightful read
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Mule seems so good its silly, making 150minerals/30sec.
In comparison i estimate a good saturated Protoss base to make 80minerals/30sec.
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Something I haven't actually seen answered anywhere but...are these macro mechanics actually fun? Doesn't it feel a little tacked on having to do something to your hatches/min line every however often? Just seems a tad arbitrary and something people might otherwise hate if the benefit wasn't so large. Like it's all fun doubling your larvae but is the actual action of injecting it not tiresome after a while?
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pripple
Finland1714 Posts
excellent writeup, hopefully it get's balanced in the near future..
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good read i agree with most of it
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after reading this article I almost... ALMOST... felt the desire to play SC2
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Great article.
And I agree, the more REAL choices are present in the game, the more levels of skill there are - the game is better.
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This was a really interesting read, even for me who have not even been close to playing it. I've always loved TL's way of caring about our beloved child that is starcraft, now that child has become a man and a new kid will be born with SC2. I've got no doubt this will be fixed to the same balance as broodwar possesses, even if it will take a year or two with our help.
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Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway.
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On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway.
How is it ever to be completed, then?
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i got about halfway through...i don't really agree about the part where you don't have a choice...just because using the resource gathering skills is kindof pointless if you've mined out the map already.
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On September 12 2009 21:33 dcttr66 wrote:
i got about halfway through...i don't really agree about the part where you don't have a choice...just because using the resource gathering skills is kindof pointless if you've mined out the map already.
Mining out a map happens incredibly rarely and by then the game has already been decided 95% of the time.
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epic banner and awesome article ;] i really enjoyed reading this
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On September 12 2009 21:54 tedster wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 21:33 dcttr66 wrote:
i got about halfway through...i don't really agree about the part where you don't have a choice...just because using the resource gathering skills is kindof pointless if you've mined out the map already. Mining out a map happens incredibly rarely and by then the game has already been decided 95% of the time.
Source?
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:o Queen will only reign supreme until they release beta and we play 24/7 to break the game.
Zerg's turn to be imba please.
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I have to say, if I imagine SC2 in current form w/out macro mechanics, I imagine a better game with more balance between micro and macro.
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On September 12 2009 23:46 0neder wrote:
I have to say, if I imagine SC2 in current form w/out macro mechanics, I imagine a better game with more balance between micro and macro.
By having close to no macro that would be balanced?
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It took me around 4 minutes into reading the article until I understood what the banner actually meant. That's damn clever there Silversky...
Excellent article. It really helps clear up the macro mechanics and I hope the game will evolve because of it.
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awesome article
since sc2's coming out in 2050 blizzard has plenty of time
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United States12607 Posts
On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway.
I've seen this argument a lot around SC2 threads lately, and it's completely broken. The logic seems to be that, because SC2 isn't finished, there's no point in heavily critiquing it. But the only reason you can assume that the finished product will be better than what's out today is because of the critique (and resulting improvement) the game will receive! Especially in cases like this, where Blizzard employees seem to be missing a crucial balance concept, the voice of third parties like TL motivates improvements in balance/gameplay.
So, please, don't post here just to say that TL is being too serious, or too good, or too thorough at its SC2 coverage.
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On September 12 2009 13:52 citi.zen wrote:
I am also not convinced you can scout the T that easily after the first rack is complete. They probably want to rush to mule anyway, and then make the rest of the racks, or whatever else they choose. By then no OL will be in their base, correct? [1]
By the way, the charts show mining efficiency without mule/obelisk, correct? Accounting for those would make the minerals disparity wider in favor of P/T, and much more imperative for Z to expand to keep up. [2]
[1] It's not so much about scouting his base. It's that you are denying his scout and you can scout him as soon as he moves out. So if you move out, he has the time that it takes you to get to his base to respond and also increased capacity for response. If he moves, it will be difficult for you to scout it unless you have scouts well outside his base. This means you'll have less time to respond to him. It's this inequality in scouting that leads to the Zerg's advantage.
[2] The least you could do is carefully read the OP before making a statement like this. Of course the graph takes into account the other macro mechanics. I mean, he even drew a vertical line at the times in which they kick in.
On September 12 2009 13:57 integral wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 12:52 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On September 12 2009 08:48 integral wrote:On September 12 2009 06:38 Chill wrote:On September 12 2009 06:34 integral wrote:
The graphs are interesting, I hope people interpret them appropriately. As you say, Zerg having fewer minerals at an arbitrary one-base saturation level is only due to their macro mechanic not raising the maximum rate of mining from a particular area. I think that could easily be misunderstood, especially in the context of "in the end, RTS strategies usually boil down to the simplest common factor - maximize resource production as quickly as possible." Those are pretty significant gaps for mineral count, after all, so zerg will have to leverage its early game advantage to make up the difference in theoretical maximums. True, however, keep in mind that from this one hatchery and queen, Zerg essentially has 2 gateways and a nexus. If the model built 2 gateways and constant zealots, im sure the minerals would come a little more together. What? You weren't producing zerglings, were you? Why would one race adding in combat unit production make an assessment of the economic potential of the races an even comparison? I understand that larva are equivalent to production buildings, but you were using your larva for drones, not zerglings, so I'm confused. I'm not concerned with the model's accuracy, I'm fond of the saying that "all models are wrong, some are useful", but this model does seem to indicate that protoss and terran have the ability to have a stronger economy IF all they do is focus on workers and their macro mechanics -- which is of course, very unrealistic. Zerg reaches drone saturation earlier, as you point out, but why is that so critical if their economy at saturation is relatively worse than a protoss or terran's economy pre-saturation? [1] Factor in production buildings and the other things terran and protoss would need to do to remain militarily (can military be adverbed?!) comparable and they might be more even, yes, but I do find it interesting. [2] If my point stands and I'm not missing something, the main things to balance are (as you point out) the zerg's ability to 1. gain map control due to early unit production advantage and 2. fluidly switch between what they're producing, which are as far as I can tell the sole reasons why the queen mechanic is better -- NOT that the zerg can outmine the other two races in a "who can mine more minerals faster", as you suggested when you said Further, in a straight-up macro war, you will never out macro a Zerg player who opens 13 pool into queen. This is, of course, just looking at the numbers here. Though psi count and the other factors involved in macro might be higher for zerg initially, unless the ratio of terran/protoss buildings' and units' cost to zerg's buildings' and units' cost is worse than the ratio of their economic advantage, there simply must be an intersection at some point. edited to make the last paragraph more confusing This topic is brought up a lot after this post. I just chose to quote this particular one because it covers the topic well. [1] I don't think the Zerg has worse economy, though. The reason Zerg has fewer minerals is because they have the ability to spend it faster on faster drones. If the Zerg graphs were extended over time to be closer to the other graphs - even if no additional drones were built - Zerg would likely catch up in minerals with the other two races. The horizontal axis is the time (obviously) and Zerg has a higher number of drones than the other two races. After the queen kicks in, they have a waaay higher number of drones. + Show Spoiler [So purely theoretically +
We want to know the number of minerals at time 't'. This has to do with the number of workers and the rate at which they gather.
The rate at which minerals increase ('dM/dt' if familiar with differential calculus) is the gathering rate (some constant 'k', the number of minerals gathered per second) times the number of workers (we'll say 'g' ). So it's just 'dM/dt = kg'. But 'g' is not constant (you build more over time).
So 'g' is some function that increases as 't' increases. Well, 'dg/dt' (the rate at which workers are built) is basically '1/b' where 'b' is the time it takes to build a drone (plus a bit more to factor in overlords and and a bit less to factor in larva and so on and so forth). For example, say that 'b' is 13 seconds. So you get '1/13' or 1 worker every 13 seconds.
So integrating 'dg/dt = 1/b', we get 'g=t/b'. So the number of workers at time 't' is the amount that's passed divided by the amount of time it takes to build a worker. Swell, this is all making sense so far.
So back to 'dM/dt = kg', we now can say 'dM/dt = kt/b = t(k/b) = tC' where 'C' is just whatever number 'k' is divided by whatever number 'b' is (it's just a constant, in other words. Integrating 'dM/dt = tC', we get 'M = (C/2)t^2'.
tldr Minerals are proportional to t^2 (the amount of time passed squared) with one hatchery.
So what happens when the queen kicks in? Well, the time it takes to build a drone is shorter, but more accurately, you can build more drones at the same time than you could before.
What happens to 'dg/dt' if we could double the speed of larva (basically like building a second hatchery)? Well, now you can build 2 drones every 13 seconds, so 'dg/dt = 2/b' so 'g=2t/b'.
So we plug that 'g' back into 'dM/dt = kg = k(2t/b) = t(2k/b) = 2C' and we integrate to get 'M = Ct^2' which is predictably twice the result we got earlier.
tldr So a queen used to make drones will multiply your total minerals by 2.5 times (when compared over the same amount of time with just a single hatchery). I find this interesting because the Protoss mechanic is only multiplying by 1.25 x number of nexuses whereas the Zerg mechanic (if only used for drones) is expansions x 2.5.
Now, these are total minerals mined, not stored in the bank [also this is a purely ideal economy building nothing but drones etc. and using continuous math is dangerous around discrete systems and so on disclaimer yada yada]. So your bank will not grow at this rate, only the total amount of mining you have done. The great thing about Zerg is that you can spend all of your money as fast as possible - and in Starcraft and most RTSs, the more total money you spend, the better your economy is functioning. Yes, the cost of all those drones so fast is expensive, but it will pay ridiculous dividends just seconds later after they all pop and start mining. Would a Terran turn down 2.5 times more SCV's if they had to pay the cost?
Because you can reach your optimal saturation (depends on your build, probably) faster, you can start your actual build sooner and with more money more quickly than the other races. [2] The interesting thing about Zerg in SC is their ability to tech switch rapidly because they need only build one building and then can produce whatever unit up to their maximum capacity. This also has a side-effect of making their macro needs slightly cheaper (even with drone cost figured into buildings). SC2 makes this even more true because the 100 mineral queen is an early replacement for (1.5 x (300+50[+mining time])) ~525 minerals worth of buildings (in terms of production). The Zerg has so few expenses compared to Terran and Protoss in SC2. If a Terran wants to mass marines to counter zergling numbers, they have to invest in more barracks. A Zerg just needs the initial Spawning Pool, and 'saves' the money that the Terran spent throughout the game (though spending a bit of it on extra hatcheries). So I would guess that in a realistic situation, the Zerg would be even better off than they appear in the graphs when compared to the Terran or Protoss. That kind of thing is difficult to say definitively, though. Different builds call for different cost patterns, of course. You make some very good points about things I ironically overlooked (and why I overlooked it) in a post about not misinterpreting the graphs, notably that zerg is spending faster than terran and protoss and this skews the graph. It's hard to extrapolate from the tail end of that graph whether dM/dt for zerg would be comparable to the terran and protoss curves, but after looking at it again I think that it would, plus it'd be pretty hard to argue that it wouldn't. [1] Protoss' mineral mining rate w/mechanic is going to be 1.2x (not 1.25x, unless 6/5 is now 1.25... but I got the other math wrong so ) that of normal workers w/o mechanic, which as you point out falls significantly short of the advantage the zerg mechanic gives. [2] I'd want to factor in build times and building costs to truly graph out a function dM/dt that included expansions, [3] but as it stands I concede to the "zerg queen mechanic also enables faster economy" argument, which makes a few of my prior points invalid. (e.g. that there will be some theoretical intersect at which point the mining rate of protoss and terran would surpass that of the zerg -- and thus a point in the midgame where protoss and terran would reach a greater number of minerals mined overall. This still might happen in a real game due to other limits such as population cap and the typically limited number of mineral patches on starcraft maps, but there is no denying the current advantage zerg has both in theoretical expansion and production capabilities.) edit: if the unit cost/effectiveness ratios are balanced, dM/dt is what needs to be emphasized and focused on in terms of economy balancing. Any significant imbalance in the dM/dt of unchecked expansion will have to be made up for with other gameplay aspects. [4] edit two: clarity or lack thereof
[1] The theoretical and realistic models of the mechanic might collide and disagree at strange times. The thing about the model is that the constant 'C' becomes slightly smaller as you build more drones (because there is such a thing as oversaturation). At some point, having too many drones is not advantageous enough without having an expo to use them at.
Another point that makes a Zerg fall short of its theoretical maximum is that a Zerg's build is more optimized if he builds one type of unit at a time (this is generally true). So building a drone, then a ling, then a drone is usually not the most optimal way to do it. It'd be better to go drone drone ling instead (of course this is assuming the regular course of your build and not that you're being attacked at the moment and need emergency defense). So at some point when the Zerg decides to make an army, he will pretty much stop building drones altogether. Protoss and Terran will still be getting a fairly theoretically maximal output from their mechanics because they will rarely have to stop worker production.
However, I think in a realistic sense, the Zerg is able to reach the saturation required for his build earlier because of the larva mechanic. This allows him to switch production to something else (possibly a contain or a set of defensive units to cover an expansion [like a Terran would do in BW]). So it could be that because of the playstyles of the different races, Protoss or Terran might benefit more in minerals over time (simply because trying to follow closely to the theoretical model of the larva mechanic means not building enough units to cover expansions needed). Even if this is the case, the fact that Zerg has such a powerful and flexible early game really makes me think that a possible mineral advantage later on is pretty moot. Advantages early on tend to snowball in an RTS like SC (this is often called the slippery slope effect).
[2] You're right here. For someone reason I used 4-->5 instead of 5-->6. Maybe it was just too late or something.
[3] Doing this is actually a complete nightmare. It's much easier to talk about the ideal economy and then talk about the kinds of expenses that take away from ideal economy. To actually do this, you would need a specific build order and you would need to set up a differential equation for each milestone. So from 0 seconds to first supply depot, you'd solve the DE for one function. Then from that point to Barracks, you would solve another DE for another function. And you would do this many many times and add the results all up together by evaluating the functions along the time intervals to which they apply.
This becomes pretty much impossible after the first engagement with the enemy (unless you are doing it after the fact... though that's pointless because you could just look at the replay and see how many total minerals they had mined). You can't even loosely predict what an enemy will do or even the actual outcome of a single engagement so you definitely cannot predict it accurately enough to write out a model.
Also there are some problems you run into with using continuous math with these discrete things that will affect even a 100% accurate model.
[4] This is one of the core aspects of BW to me. It's also the reason I find the Zerg so interesting because they have so much potential for economic advantage.
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On September 13 2009 00:08 JWD wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway. I've seen this argument a lot around SC2 threads lately, and it's completely broken. The logic seems to be that, because SC2 isn't finished, there's no point in heavily critiquing it. But the only reason you can assume that the finished product will be better than what's out today is because of the critique (and resulting improvement) the game will receive! Especially in cases like this, where Blizzard employees seem to be missing a crucial balance concept, the voice of third parties like TL motivates improvements in balance/gameplay. So, please, don't post here just to say that TL is being too serious, or too good, or too thorough at its SC2 coverage.
I disagree with this logic.
You see, I've been a WoW player for years- say what you will about that. In the past 18 months or so, there has been an unprecedented level of communication between the community and the WoW developers- or rather, between the community and one particular developer who's willingly taken the cross of extending communication channels with the community. This developer is known as Ghostcrawler.
Thanks to Ghostcrawler's candor, I've learned many details about how the Blizzard development process works. It's an iterative process- they try one build, if something doesn't work, they make a change and try another build, polishing until the final product shines. I also know that Blizzard is far more critical of its own work than the fans are. They have high standards, and it shows.
Now, where does the community come in? We offer feedback. We do not design the game, our voice is limited to an opinion. For better or for worse (and I think it's for the better), it's the game developers who have the final say on any and all decisions. Drama happens each and every day in the WoW forums- members of the community threaten to leave the game and stop paying their subscription fees all the time, there are strong emotions at play. All the time. At the end of the day, it means jack. All that matters are good arguments, presented in a concise and respectful manner. The game developers will give much, much more weight to that kind of argumentation than to the cries of the masses demanding justice for the perceived imbalance of 1-hatch queen. Game development is not a democracy.
Chill and Hot_Bid's articles were great. I'm sure they've been read, discussed, and duly considered by the Blizzard staff. Most everything beyond that is chaff. The devs are _not_ missing a crucial balance concept. They know the game far better than we do. They know the 1-hatch queen build much better than we do. I'm sure they won't be as good SC2 players as some of the folks in TL.net. However, it does not take an S class Brood Wars player to be an S class game developer. And Blizzard entertainment have proved to me that in the game industry, they are the S class game developers.
TL:DR; They know we think there's an issue with the 1-hatch queen build. I'm sure they appreciate the feedback. It's time to move on.
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Interesting Read. I suprised no ones commented on how zerg will be forced to expend the most psi to increase mineral gain and the macro elements of warpin and especially reactors are understated. Zerg will need this macro ability to match up in the midgame. Possibly a delayed queen would work best.
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On September 13 2009 00:17 DefMatrixUltra wrote:
[1] The theoretical and realistic models of the mechanic might collide and disagree at strange times. The thing about the model is that the constant 'C' becomes slightly smaller as you build more drones (because there is such a thing as oversaturation). At some point, having too many drones is not advantageous enough without having an expo to use them at.
Another point that makes a Zerg fall short of its theoretical maximum is that a Zerg's build is more optimized if he builds one type of unit at a time (this is generally true). So building a drone, then a ling, then a drone is usually not the most optimal way to do it. It'd be better to go drone drone ling instead (of course this is assuming the regular course of your build and not that you're being attacked at the moment and need emergency defense). So at some point when the Zerg decides to make an army, he will pretty much stop building drones altogether. Protoss and Terran will still be getting a fairly theoretically maximal output from their mechanics because they will rarely have to stop worker production.
However, I think in a realistic sense, the Zerg is able to reach the saturation required for his build earlier because of the larva mechanic. This allows him to switch production to something else (possibly a contain or a set of defensive units to cover an expansion [like a Terran would do in BW]). So it could be that because of the playstyles of the different races, Protoss or Terran might benefit more in minerals over time (simply because trying to follow closely to the theoretical model of the larva mechanic means not building enough units to cover expansions needed). Even if this is the case, the fact that Zerg has such a powerful and flexible early game really makes me think that a possible mineral advantage later on is pretty moot. Advantages early on tend to snowball in an RTS like SC (this is often called the slippery slope effect).
[2] You're right here. For someone reason I used 4-->5 instead of 5-->6. Maybe it was just too late or something.
[3] Doing this is actually a complete nightmare. It's much easier to talk about the ideal economy and then talk about the kinds of expenses that take away from ideal economy. To actually do this, you would need a specific build order and you would need to set up a differential equation for each milestone. So from 0 seconds to first supply depot, you'd solve the DE for one function. Then from that point to Barracks, you would solve another DE for another function. And you would do this many many times and add the results all up together by evaluating the functions along the time intervals to which they apply.
This becomes pretty much impossible after the first engagement with the enemy (unless you are doing it after the fact... though that's pointless because you could just look at the replay and see how many total minerals they had mined). You can't even loosely predict what an enemy will do or even the actual outcome of a single engagement so you definitely cannot predict it accurately enough to write out a model.
Also there are some problems you run into with using continuous math with these discrete things that will affect even a 100% accurate model.
[4] This is one of the core aspects of BW to me. It's also the reason I find the Zerg so interesting because they have so much potential for economic advantage.
For [3], I was still in "expand-as-fast-as-possible" theory-mode, imagining a game where the objective is not to engage an opponent but to gather resources as fast as possible. I wouldn't want to write out an actual equation to model it, that'd be really difficult as you say, but I think it would be fairly easy to plot a few curves and do a relative comparison at various points in the game. I'd try out a few different maximum-economy build orders with each race and plot a rough curve of each and then compare them. This wouldn't make for a good mathematical model, of course, but it would include realistic factors such as mining base build time and cost, supply costs, pathing inefficiencies, etc. -- and the conclusions made and understanding gained from it would be a lot more tangible. Right now with real-game variables and parameters it's still not clear just how relatively advantageous zerg's mechanic can be in an economy race. A lot of it would be based on the map -- varying the number of mineral patches per expansion, number of minerals per patch, and the distance of base from mineral patch would all have a significant effect on such a race.
And, of course, the results of such a test will vary from build to build as everything gets tweaked. The beta will be an interesting process, for sure.
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On September 13 2009 00:08 JWD wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway. I've seen this argument a lot around SC2 threads lately, and it's completely broken. The logic seems to be that, because SC2 isn't finished, there's no point in heavily critiquing it. But the only reason you can assume that the finished product will be better than what's out today is because of the critique (and resulting improvement) the game will receive! Especially in cases like this, where Blizzard employees seem to be missing a crucial balance concept, the voice of third parties like TL motivates improvements in balance/gameplay. So, please, don't post here just to say that TL is being too serious, or too good, or too thorough at its SC2 coverage.
I just remembered, this game isn't even in its beta stage yet. I respect TL.net's dedication to analyze the current build but how on earth are you supposed to tell what's balanced and not judging from some hours of gameplay of an alpha build at a few events? I'm pretty sure that when Blizzard put up all those PC:s at BlizzCon with SCII, balance testing wasn't the purpose of it but just to let people play for fun and test it out without looking at all the small details.
As the guy said above me said Blizzard have their iterative development process and we all know how they change their games dramatically every so often. I follow Diablo III closely and while it's not as far in development as SCII, it does look very playable and Blizzard could probably have released it in some months if they wanted to, yet they change stuff all the time. People whine like crazy at certain things with the game but the next thing you see is that that thing got replaced or revamped, just look at the class weapons or skills that constantly change (lol at people creating skill calculators).
For me it has been the same with SCII just it's even worse with a game like that - units are the main part of the game but they get removed or they get other attacks/spells or they can suddenly fly... how can anyone even TRY to understand the game when it constantly changes? How do you know Queens will even be in the final build?
My point is, why would Blizzard listen to critique from a few people's opinions already when the game isn't even ready to be tested yet? I thought the beta phase was the purpose of that since they will receive input from thousands of people who has tested the game far longer than what's possible on the event floors. However I did like to read the article because it's nice to know how the game is shaping up, I just stopped reading half-way through since it's so full of assumptions and lack of faith in the developers.
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ok this is my thought into this conflict
Zergs will need to tone down their benefits with either the number of larvae injected, energy to do so, or a amazing secondary benefit that makes the choice very difficult between the two
For terrans ( i kno this is so strange) but they should alow scan sweep to go for the entire map. its a satelittle how can it not pick up the whole map its not that huge plus u are sacrificing 200 minerals for scouting 100% of the map and picking possible things that can win you the game. Think about it, you are walled in and wondering if the zerg is going all drones or hydras.... just get scan and you will kno what hes up to and counter. O ya they should make a good counter to hydras that can be gotten early game
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Sanya12364 Posts
Nice article Chill.
I noticed you mentioned some of the other abilities for Terrans and Protoss. I noticed that the Orbital Relay grants Terran scans which in theory could be used to scout the Zerg. I'd think given right timing and a good guess, that there is a possibility that the information from the scan might be worth more than 200 minerals or whatever the amount that is forgone.
In the end, it comes down to details. What was the area of vision in the scan? Is large enough to figure out what a Z is probably doing with one scan? If not, it just sounds like Blizzard took away the comsats by making its opportunity cost too big. Is it not even sound to reserve some energy for emergency detection?
The additional abilities for P's obelisk are really silly. There's no reason to use any of them. And how sure are you of the numbers for the probe mining? If it gives 6 minerals instead of 5, that's only 20% increase in efficiency. It's not as drastic as other less reliable rumors have suggested.
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Chill, your last comments left me a bit puzzled. It seems that for 99% of the article you said the mechanics suck but then at that last 1% you said they were awesome.
Anyway, I agree with your overall article (very well written btw), and I agree that those four steps you mentioned in the end need to be taken.
Also, nice banner ;D
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I have to admit when i first saw the pic i thought wtf is this, a horse and a granny? Than i was like JEEZ, a mule an obelisk and the Queen.
Really nicely done, both the banner and the article
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United States47024 Posts
On September 13 2009 02:57 Zato-1 wrote:
Chill and Hot_Bid's articles were great. I'm sure they've been read, discussed, and duly considered by the Blizzard staff. Most everything beyond that is chaff. The devs are _not_ missing a crucial balance concept. They know the game far better than we do. They know the 1-hatch queen build much better than we do. I'm sure they won't be as good SC2 players as some of the folks in TL.net. However, it does not take an S class Brood Wars player to be an S class game developer. And Blizzard entertainment have proved to me that in the game industry, they are the S class game developers.
TL:DR; They know we think there's an issue with the 1-hatch queen build. I'm sure they appreciate the feedback. It's time to move on.
This would be correct if the answer given to the community on the 1-hatch-queen issue wasn't one that COMPLETELY missed the concern. People would have more faith in their ability to resolve the issue if they made it clear that they understood what the issue was (to the contrary, Karune's answer makes it sound like he has no idea what we're bitching and moaning about).
On September 12 2009 22:22 Boundz(DarKo) wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2009 21:54 tedster wrote:On September 12 2009 21:33 dcttr66 wrote:
i got about halfway through...i don't really agree about the part where you don't have a choice...just because using the resource gathering skills is kindof pointless if you've mined out the map already. Mining out a map happens incredibly rarely and by then the game has already been decided 95% of the time. Source?
Is this really necessary? The alternative is ludicrous. If any significant percentage of games involved mining the entire map out, the sheer length of games would be too long for the game to be enjoyable by a large fanbase, particularly in competitive fashion.
Also, in the case of a mined-out map, you STILL have no choice. For Terran, ComSat will simply become the "always-better-than-everything-else" choice once the map is mined out (because you'll be on 200/200 of supply depots anyway). For Protoss, there is again no choice, because the speed-up-mining option is useless. For zerg--well, I still have a suspicion that more larva is still better, because you can use it to make more units.
Option A being viable at time a and option B being viable at time b is not the same thing as option A and B being viable at both times. You still have no choice--its just the forced choice is different at different times.
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On September 13 2009 23:20 TheYango wrote:
Also, in the case of a mined-out map, you STILL have no choice. For Terran, ComSat will simply become the "always-better-than-everything-else" choice once the map is mined out (because you'll be on 200/200 of supply depots anyway). For Protoss, there is again no choice, because the speed-up-mining option is useless. For zerg--well, I still have a suspicion that more larva is still better, because you can use it to make more units.
Option A being viable at time a and option B being viable at time b is not the same thing as option A and B being viable at both times. You still have no choice--its just the forced choice is different at different times.
An appropriate reference point is the decision making involved in making workers vs units in a mined out map.
Time-based decision making for economic gameplay elements is a tricky subject. What exactly qualifies as nessisary? Do I really have decision making with whether I make workers or units? If I do the same thing most of the time at what percentage does the ability lack decision-making? At what level does the ability qualify for autocast?
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Calgary25966 Posts
On September 13 2009 13:41 n00bonicPlague wrote:
Chill, your last comments left me a bit puzzled. It seems that for 99% of the article you said the mechanics suck but then at that last 1% you said they were awesome.
I like the idea of the mechanics, I just don't like how they work now.
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On September 13 2009 23:20 TheYango wrote:
This would be correct if the answer given to the community on the 1-hatch-queen issue wasn't one that COMPLETELY missed the concern. People would have more faith in their ability to resolve the issue if they made it clear that they understood what the issue was (to the contrary, Karune's answer makes it sound like he has no idea what we're bitching and moaning about).
As I said in my previous post, I've read a LOT of interactions between Blizzard and fans. Invariably, there are fans who claim Blizzard dropped the ball / don't understand the problem / don't want to fix the problem because they have a different agenda.
Invariably, those fans are wrong.
If you want to contribute to SC2, then you need something to contribute- a clever idea, a new mechanic, an impression or conviction. You need to present your case as fairly and accurately as possible. Anything beyond that is usually not helpful- it's just venting. Not that there's anything wrong with venting- just don't do it under the pretense that you're trying to save SC2 from the incompetent clutches of the Blizzard devs. As far as SC2's development is concerned, we have a voice- but we don't have a vote. You'd do well to remember that. Trying to work with the dev team is helpful, railing against them with claims of ignorance / stupidity / some other lack of competence is just trolling.
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Nice article, keep up the good work!
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On September 13 2009 02:57 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2009 00:08 JWD wrote:On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway. I've seen this argument a lot around SC2 threads lately, and it's completely broken. The logic seems to be that, because SC2 isn't finished, there's no point in heavily critiquing it. But the only reason you can assume that the finished product will be better than what's out today is because of the critique (and resulting improvement) the game will receive! Especially in cases like this, where Blizzard employees seem to be missing a crucial balance concept, the voice of third parties like TL motivates improvements in balance/gameplay. So, please, don't post here just to say that TL is being too serious, or too good, or too thorough at its SC2 coverage. I disagree with this logic. You see, I've been a WoW player for years- say what you will about that. In the past 18 months or so, there has been an unprecedented level of communication between the community and the WoW developers- or rather, between the community and one particular developer who's willingly taken the cross of extending communication channels with the community. This developer is known as Ghostcrawler. Thanks to Ghostcrawler's candor, I've learned many details about how the Blizzard development process works. It's an iterative process- they try one build, if something doesn't work, they make a change and try another build, polishing until the final product shines. I also know that Blizzard is far more critical of its own work than the fans are. They have high standards, and it shows. Now, where does the community come in? We offer feedback. We do not design the game, our voice is limited to an opinion. For better or for worse (and I think it's for the better), it's the game developers who have the final say on any and all decisions. Drama happens each and every day in the WoW forums- members of the community threaten to leave the game and stop paying their subscription fees all the time, there are strong emotions at play. All the time. At the end of the day, it means jack. All that matters are good arguments, presented in a concise and respectful manner. The game developers will give much, much more weight to that kind of argumentation than to the cries of the masses demanding justice for the perceived imbalance of 1-hatch queen. Game development is not a democracy. Chill and Hot_Bid's articles were great. I'm sure they've been read, discussed, and duly considered by the Blizzard staff. Most everything beyond that is chaff. The devs are _not_ missing a crucial balance concept. They know the game far better than we do. They know the 1-hatch queen build much better than we do. I'm sure they won't be as good SC2 players as some of the folks in TL.net. However, it does not take an S class Brood Wars player to be an S class game developer. And Blizzard entertainment have proved to me that in the game industry, they are the S class game developers. TL:DR; They know we think there's an issue with the 1-hatch queen build. I'm sure they appreciate the feedback. It's time to move on.
I think the point of his post was that these two bolded things are connected, and so it's worthwhile for the community to keep on looking for these things. Your initial post seemed to say that ALL criticisms from the community were pointless, whereas here you seem to be saying that some of the are. One of the reasons Chill was motivated (at least from what I read) to write this article was because of the debate in the community that you would have called "chaff."
The cream will rise to the top and be noticed... but not if we throw out all the milk.
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On September 14 2009 12:14 LaughingTulkas wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2009 02:57 Zato-1 wrote:On September 13 2009 00:08 JWD wrote:On September 12 2009 20:56 Freezard wrote:
Nice article but I don't know why you guys take the beta so seriously lol... the game is nowhere near completion but I love you anyway. I've seen this argument a lot around SC2 threads lately, and it's completely broken. The logic seems to be that, because SC2 isn't finished, there's no point in heavily critiquing it. But the only reason you can assume that the finished product will be better than what's out today is because of the critique (and resulting improvement) the game will receive! Especially in cases like this, where Blizzard employees seem to be missing a crucial balance concept, the voice of third parties like TL motivates improvements in balance/gameplay. So, please, don't post here just to say that TL is being too serious, or too good, or too thorough at its SC2 coverage. I disagree with this logic. You see, I've been a WoW player for years- say what you will about that. In the past 18 months or so, there has been an unprecedented level of communication between the community and the WoW developers- or rather, between the community and one particular developer who's willingly taken the cross of extending communication channels with the community. This developer is known as Ghostcrawler. Thanks to Ghostcrawler's candor, I've learned many details about how the Blizzard development process works. It's an iterative process- they try one build, if something doesn't work, they make a change and try another build, polishing until the final product shines. I also know that Blizzard is far more critical of its own work than the fans are. They have high standards, and it shows. Now, where does the community come in? We offer feedback. We do not design the game, our voice is limited to an opinion. For better or for worse (and I think it's for the better), it's the game developers who have the final say on any and all decisions. Drama happens each and every day in the WoW forums- members of the community threaten to leave the game and stop paying their subscription fees all the time, there are strong emotions at play. All the time. At the end of the day, it means jack. All that matters are good arguments, presented in a concise and respectful manner. The game developers will give much, much more weight to that kind of argumentation than to the cries of the masses demanding justice for the perceived imbalance of 1-hatch queen. Game development is not a democracy. Chill and Hot_Bid's articles were great. I'm sure they've been read, discussed, and duly considered by the Blizzard staff. Most everything beyond that is chaff. The devs are _not_ missing a crucial balance concept. They know the game far better than we do. They know the 1-hatch queen build much better than we do. I'm sure they won't be as good SC2 players as some of the folks in TL.net. However, it does not take an S class Brood Wars player to be an S class game developer. And Blizzard entertainment have proved to me that in the game industry, they are the S class game developers. TL:DR; They know we think there's an issue with the 1-hatch queen build. I'm sure they appreciate the feedback. It's time to move on. I think the point of his post was that these two bolded things are connected, and so it's worthwhile for the community to keep on looking for these things. Your initial post seemed to say that ALL criticisms from the community were pointless, whereas here you seem to be saying that some of the are. One of the reasons Chill was motivated (at least from what I read) to write this article was because of the debate in the community that you would have called "chaff." The cream will rise to the top and be noticed... but not if we throw out all the milk.
I don't know what Chill's motivation for writing his article was, but I nevertheless thank him for writing it. It's just that the... level of the discussion in this thread has been less than stellar, for the most part. Further discussion can be helpful to the developers, and I once again base this on my experience with the WoW devs; this further discussion, however, should:
a) Be constructive criticism. If you say everything's working wrong and your game sucks and I hate you, you're not really helping.
b) Expand on one of the topics already discussed in an analytical way, hopefully backed up with playtesting (not possible at this point) or with math;
OR
c) You should bring up a new element to the discussion that is related to it;
OR
d) Round up the discussion and point out any further conclusions that can be drawn from it- helping to see the forest amidst all the trees, so to say.
For the most part, I'm sad to say, further discussion on this thread has not been helpful (for the devs, it may be helpful to TL.net in some way). This does not mean that further discussion on any topic is doomed to failure as far as the SC2 devs are concerned.
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The problem is that P and T economy boosts are linear over time, while Z is exponential. This is because P and T get a set amount of Minerals per use, while Z (potentially) gets a Drone per use, which after 2 minutes or so has gathered more minerals than one mule drop.
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On September 14 2009 23:02 Error Ash wrote:
The problem is that P and T economy boosts are linear over time, while Z is exponential. This is because P and T get a set amount of Minerals per use, while Z (potentially) gets a Drone per use, which after 2 minutes or so has gathered more minerals than one mule drop.
With all this theorycraft mathematics I think people are making an assumption about Starcraft economics that is wrong. You cant look at one race and assume that because there income is linear or exponential at this point that they are going to have the advantage/disadvantage.
Economic intake funnels into unit production, unit production funnels into total army size. But it is total army effectiveness not total army size that determines battlefield outcome.
Now if Starcraft had no other units beyond zerglings then perhaps you could reduce it to linear or exponential considerations. But as soon as you throw in a stalker or siege tank you alter army effectiveness. Not only that but you alter army effectiveness as a function of time. A group of siege tanks is more effective then the sum of its parts.
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On September 14 2009 23:02 Error Ash wrote:
The problem is that P and T economy boosts are linear over time, while Z is exponential. This is because P and T get a set amount of Minerals per use, while Z (potentially) gets a Drone per use, which after 2 minutes or so has gathered more minerals than one mule drop.
P+T is a Linear boost that reaches a higher maximum than the Zerg boost does though, so Timewise, the Zerg gets the earliest boost, but it will fall behind if they don't expand. (but it makes it easier for Zerg to expand)
Also the Protoss gets the Latest Boost, because they only reach maximum benefit when the mineral line is saturated.
The time differential does make it difficult to balance, but it is definitely balanceable
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"In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know."
Hilarious
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On September 15 2009 00:41 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2009 23:02 Error Ash wrote:
The problem is that P and T economy boosts are linear over time, while Z is exponential. This is because P and T get a set amount of Minerals per use, while Z (potentially) gets a Drone per use, which after 2 minutes or so has gathered more minerals than one mule drop. With all this theorycraft mathematics I think people are making an assumption about Starcraft economics that is wrong. You cant look at one race and assume that because there income is linear or exponential at this point that they are going to have the advantage/disadvantage. Economic intake funnels into unit production, unit production funnels into total army size. But it is total army effectiveness not total army size that determines battlefield outcome. Now if Starcraft had no other units beyond zerglings then perhaps you could reduce it to linear or exponential considerations. But as soon as you throw in a stalker or siege tank you alter army effectiveness. Not only that but you alter army effectiveness as a function of time. A group of siege tanks is more effective then the sum of its parts.
That's why most of the discussion has centered around early game and has stayed away from mid-game tech or later. Also, you can't prove that having an incredibly superior economy will make you able to easily beat your opponent, but it's one of the hallmarks of strategy gameplay - it would be a pretty safe assumption. The thing is that economy allows you to mass units or to tech. So a faster, better economy will allow you to mass units faster or tech faster.
Unless an extremely weak mid-game is what Zerg is being designed for, letting them have an exponential economy just means that they will eventually win if you don't kill them first. This puts the burden of action on the other races - which they might be able to carry out, mind you.
So if Zerg has an exponential economy, it means they will be able to make exponentially more units as time goes on (the closer they are to this exponential economy). So if, for example, Terran units got linearly more powerful as the tech tree goes - Zerg would still beat them. So to balance that out, Zerg units would have to get exponentially weaker as time goes on (which is evident in a case like pure zergling versus pure siege tank). But none of the complicated stuff is necessary in the early game, where these affects are likely most important. Because an early game advantage will lead into a bigger mid-game advantage (assuming things are balanced) and so on.
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Great article. Sounds like Blizzard need to do something about this though, Queen sounds overpowered. It does suit the characteristics of the Zerg race (overwhelm your enemy with numbers) but it may just be too much for Terran and Protoss players to contend with.
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On September 15 2009 02:38 SayaSP wrote:
"In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know."
Hilarious
yeah this is stupid, rotfl... how can he have a idra den when my FIRST probe arrive at its base, it's impossible
my first probe start scouting at 8-9 supply, it's impossible for him to have idra den yet...lol
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I have an idea about how to force players to use the other abilities of obelisk, command center and queen. Just double the cooldown time of their spells. At some point of time if you are not using the energy that's accumulating in these three entities, you are wasting energy. That should make for some interesting decisions.
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Perhaps we can expect to see Queens require teching to in future builds. Or even a nerf (gasp).
That or making Terran reactors (or whatever the barracks add-ons that increase production are called, forgive my ignorance) or Protoss warp-ins available in Tier 1 to help balance out the races.
Or maybe not. Just thinking out loud here.
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On September 15 2009 23:52 mercvii wrote:
Perhaps we can expect to see Queens require teching to in future builds. Or even a nerf (gasp).
Or maybe, rather than just repeat what everyone else has been saying about the queen and assuming it's overpowered, we could see some math / playtesting to support the thesis that it could use a nerf (gasp).
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On September 15 2009 23:38 WWJDD wrote:
I have an idea about how to force players to use the other abilities of obelisk, command center and queen. Just double the cooldown time of their spells. At some point of time if you are not using the energy that's accumulating in these three entities, you are wasting energy. That should make for some interesting decisions.
I think allot of people are forgeting the point of the macro mechanics.
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While I can see the point of this article I think it misses a lot, as it has a tunnel vision only looking at the economy. It sure is an advantage to be able to put out more units then the other races, what has to be considering is differences in unit strength.
It simply does not matter if Zerg produces Zerglings twice as fast as Terran produces Marines if they are also twice as weak. Without more information and seeing the full picture this article can not be looked at as anything but a waste of time.
If the Zerg really has a big advantage then we will find out in beta.
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I don't get what people are saying about the Queen being an exponential boost to your economy and the other two mechanics being a linear improvement.
The way I see it, all three mechanics can lead to a linear increase or an exponential increase: with the queen you get to produce more units, so you can either focus on drones (roughly exponential growth), on combat units (stagnating economy) or you can get a few attack units and a few drones (depending on saturation and your plans for expanding, that can be linear growth, slow exponential growth or growth with diminishing returns).
The same goes for the MULE and the Obelisk: you get extra minerals which you can either invest into expanding and getting more workers (roughly exponential growth), into combat units while cutting workers (stagnating economy) or into getting more combat units while continuing to produce workers and slowly taking new bases (depending on saturation and your plans for expanding, that can be linear growth, slow exponential growth or growth with diminishing returns).
The only two real differences here are numbers (this can easily be balanced) and the fact that Zerg can easily switch back and forth between those three options, whereas Toss and Terran have a harder time with that because they have seperate production facilities for workers and fighting units. This second one will be harder to balance, but the issue in SC1 was very similar, so I trust that Blizzard will figure out a way to balance this. After all we're still in alpha, so there's plenty of time for that.
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There Were... Other Abilities?
There has been a lot (A LOT) of talk on the forum about the lack of choice between the macro mechanics, and the devastating effects of Terran losing scan. These are unfounded. After playing Starcraft II for 10 games and understanding the mechanics, you will see there is actually no choice. It's an illusion of choice. Given the "choice" between using the MULE and scanning, you will always choose the MULE unless forced otherwise by immediately cloaked units. The return is just too great. Even if I were supply capped, I would bank the MULE minerals while building a supply depot before I used the ability to gain extra supply. You've got to figure the MULE can make a round-trip every 6-8 seconds. And it returns 25-30 minerals every trip (I believe 30 but I'm erring on the safe side). Assuming it stays for 45 seconds (I believe it's actually 60). This yields somewhere between 187 and 300 "extra" minerals per minute. Clearly something that can't be skipped for a convenient scouting scan. This also shows the importance of getting the MULE early, which is a theme common between all the mechanics. The MULE pays for itself in the first minute, after which you are generating around 200 minerals extra every minute. You can see how this compounds.
You may, rarely, use the obelisk's ability to charge mana in a nearby high templar; but at 2 energy for 1 mana, and with your obelisk rarely having more than 25 energy, the options look grim. So you can recharge 12.5 (let's hope they round up to 13!) mana, or boost your probes' mining in case you live the attack. The choice is obvious.
The Queen can... You will never use the Queen for anything other than pumping out a ridiculous amount of larvae.
_____________________________________________________________________________
You are forgetting something. These mechanics were not made for us to choose. They were made for us to USE them. This was a option to add more "return to base" factor and to made advanced players have a difference against noobs in the macro. The other abilities are only a "plus".
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United States47024 Posts
On September 14 2009 06:14 Zato-1 wrote:
As I said in my previous post, I've read a LOT of interactions between Blizzard and fans. Invariably, there are fans who claim Blizzard dropped the ball / don't understand the problem / don't want to fix the problem because they have a different agenda.
Invariably, those fans are wrong.
This is true. My point is that Blizzard could be doing a lot better job of making it clear that those fans are wrong. The development of SC2 to this point has had quite a few misunderstandings to this point (expansions vs. separate games, single account on Battle.net, requirements for premium maps, and now 1-hatch-queen). A lot of these revolve around simple wording issues on Blizzard's part (the 3-games drama could have been avoided if they had simply called them expansions from the start, the premium maps business could have been avoided if they had called premium content mods instead of maps, and 1-hatch-queen wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is now if Karune had directed his answer at the actual issue).
On September 14 2009 01:16 Archerofaiur wrote:
An appropriate reference point is the decision making involved in making workers vs units in a mined out map.
Time-based decision making for economic gameplay elements is a tricky subject. What exactly qualifies as nessisary? Do I really have decision making with whether I make workers or units? If I do the same thing most of the time at what percentage does the ability lack decision-making? At what level does the ability qualify for autocast?
The thing is, a mined-out map should not be a situation that occurs frequently anyway. It shouldn't even come close to being frequent, because of the sheer length of game required for the map to be mined out. Decisions based on a map getting mined out are decisions that happen far too infrequently to be considered in most games.
On September 17 2009 04:46 Kallahad wrote:
You are forgetting something. These mechanics were not made for us to choose. They were made for us to USE them. This was a option to add more "return to base" factor and to made advanced players have a difference against noobs in the macro. The other abilities are only a "plus".
If this was their only purpose, then they're effectively identical to manual mining, which was what we want to avoid. Why have the macro mechanics at all if they are functionally identical to mechanic that was taken out (and had no balance issues in and of itself)? For the macro mechanics to be worth putting in the game, they have to offer something NEW. This is supposed to be decisions, but it doesn't do that.
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On September 17 2009 05:05 TheYango wrote:
If this was their only purpose, then they're effectively identical to manual mining, which was what we want to avoid. Why have the macro mechanics at all if they are functionally identical to mechanic that was taken out (and had no balance issues in and of itself)? For the macro mechanics to be worth putting in the game, they have to offer something NEW. This is supposed to be decisions, but it doesn't do that.
Weve looked at this extensively on SCL. Basically there are some very very fundamental things that have to change if you wanted to truly improve macro. The current macro mechanics, while not perfect, are at least slightly better then the old ones. Here was a great post made by Nicol Bolas.
The problem is where Blizzard started from.
The correct way to design a StarCraft 2 would be, not to start with all of StarCraft 1's stuff and poke at it, but to look at the effects of SC1's mechanics. Look at where macro comes from and why it's important. Look at where the skill differential works and what causes it. Most important of all, look at the problems that these mechanics create.
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And when I say everything, I mean everything, right down to minerals, gas, and workers with main buildings. Throw it all out and rebuild it from scratch.
What that means is that the presence of workers must be justified. There must be some reason for them.
For example, in SC1, workers have a number of subsidiary effects beyond their primary designed purpose. They're cheap early-game scouts. They're vital in defend a rush build, or any base attack, really. And, because they're units, they can be susceptible to attacks that only attack units (Psi Storm), thus allowing the enemy to damage a player's economy without having to fully destroy it (kill the main building).
Thus, if some new set of mechanics is going to replace workers, then either those mechanics must have similar effects or they must create similar depth and options. This is one of the problems in more modern RTS's. They dumped workers over resource notes, but doing so also dumped a lot of the subsidiary effects of them without replacing it with added depth.
This also allows you to decide what kind of effects you want in a game to begin with. For example, do you want the player to have to go back to their base like clockwork in the potential middle of combat to perform some task? If you do, is the "clockwork" part necessary, or can it be at a user's wish without irreparable penalty? How often should the "clockwork" part be, and what are the effects of changing the time? Is the "back to your base" part necessary, or can you do it while watching the battlefield? What would the effect of having some mechanics that can be run in the field, but other more-powerful ones that you need to return to your base to do?
If Blizzard had taken this course, a lot of sacred cows might have died.
And hes right. The problem of macro is something the RTS genre has been struggling with for a decade. Its huge and unbelievably complicated. And Starcraft 2 really should have been built from the ground up to solve this problem.
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United States47024 Posts
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva.
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On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva.
Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action.
Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose.
And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making.
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On September 17 2009 05:41 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva. Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action. Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose. And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making.
Why????
u r just making a point based in something that u believe is rigth. Every new game has it s only path.Wait and u ll see a nice game.
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On September 17 2009 07:57 lipebra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 05:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva. Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action. Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose. And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making. Why???? u r just making a point based in something that u believe is rigth. Every new game has it s only path.Wait and u ll see a nice game.
?
Your lack of explaination and worse grammer then me confuses me.
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On September 17 2009 05:41 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva. Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action. Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose. And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making.
They don't need to have 30 strategic decisions......
Because a truly strategic decision is going to require more attention then a non strategic decision.
This is the reason that macro mechanics must have an incombat use (comsat, transfusion, Proton charge speeding up army)
because combat is more dynamic, and having that link allows it to be strategic AND rapidly changing
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On September 17 2009 10:51 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 05:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva. Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action. Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose. And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making. They don't need to have 30 strategic decisions...... Because a truly strategic decision is going to require more attention then a non strategic decision. This is the reason that macro mechanics must have an incombat use (comsat, transfusion, Proton charge speeding up army) because combat is more dynamic, and having that link allows it to be strategic AND rapidly changing
Macro mechanics that have incombat use arnt macro mechanics. They are micro mechanics.
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On September 17 2009 11:03 Archerofaiur wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 10:51 Krikkitone wrote:On September 17 2009 05:41 Archerofaiur wrote:On September 17 2009 05:21 TheYango wrote:
Then, once you understand what SC1 is and how its mechanics create thes effects, throw everything in SC1 away.. Then, design new mechanics that create similar effects, but without the negative effects of the original mechanics.
And this is the issue right now. The macro mechanics DON'T avoid the negative effects of manual mining. They still require the rote task of looking at your base and performing the action without requiring any thought. They still punish new players for not doing so. In fact, it's arguable that they currently AMPLIFY the problems of the old mechanics, because the lost minerals from one or two idle workers is much less than the lost minerals from an inactive dark pylon, an un-cast or idle MULE (though multi-casting MULE makes this a bit better) or 4 unused larva. Your missing the point. To give you an idea of how big the problem is you have about 30 targeting actions from saturating one mineral line with manual mining. To make macro mechanics that are trully decision making you have to present two or more options. Both options have to be macro based since micro does not compete well with macro. Both of these options need to be viable most of the time. Are you getting a sense for big THIRTY strategic options is? As an example choosing to get a hydralisk den over a spire is one action. Not only that but all thirty actions need to include position-based decision making. For each decision the player must be choosing a position from multiple locations each with multiple considerations, advantages, disadvantages etc... So lets say you have a base with red minerals on the right and blue minerals on the left. And red minerals make ground units and blue units make air units. You can have the player choose which location he wants to mine from. That is one action. Asking him to repeat this multiple times where the answer is the same choice will nessisitate automation. So yah you can make him choose when he wants to switch from mining red to blue positions but you cant force him to continually choose red with no purpose. And keep in mind 30 macro actions is just for one mineral fields worth of automing. Toss in other mineral fields, production buildings, queued construction etc.. and you get a sense for just how massive this macro problem has been for designing an RTS. You have to go back and reinvent Dune II. Its such a big problem that the general RTS trend has been to minimize or abandon base building/resources rather then to find a way to make all of macro involve decision making. They don't need to have 30 strategic decisions...... Because a truly strategic decision is going to require more attention then a non strategic decision. This is the reason that macro mechanics must have an incombat use (comsat, transfusion, Proton charge speeding up army) because combat is more dynamic, and having that link allows it to be strategic AND rapidly changing Macro mechanics that have incombat use arnt macro mechanics. They are micro mechanics.
Well to be more specific, macromechanics need to have a micromechanical Cost. ie I have this 'energy' resource I can use it to boost my production, or I can use it to improve my units in combat
Such that...
MULE=macro ability
v.
Comsat=micro ability
v.
Supply=macro ability
is a macro decision, of managing the resource "OC energy"... do you want to convert that resource into minerals or a combat bonus (or into instant supply)
and
Spawn Larva=macro ability
v.
Creep=probably macro ability sort of on the edge (similar to building defenses)
v.
Transfusion=micro ability
is a macro decision, managing the resource "Queen Energy" [which I would make a management of Zerg Building hp.. which would make it even more macro]
and
Proton Charge=macro [/micro if it applies to other units, and strategic macro if it applies to buildings]
v.
Energy recharge=macro/micro (its like 'repairing' a unit)
v.
Shield Battery=micro (since its only useful In combat if Protoss shields regenerate fast Out of combat)
would also be a macro decision, managing the resource "Obelisk energy" (particularly if that energy is pooled)
Macroing requires watching the level of resources, (minerals, gas, production facilities/larva, Queen/Obelisk/OC energy) and responding to the changing Combat situation by changing how you spend those resources on your troops (moving them around and and doing damage with them being micro)
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Micro does not compete well with Macro for these mechanics. To understand why you have too look at what the macro mechanics are trying to accomplish.
One of the primary goals of the macro mechanics is to break the player from microing about every 30 seconds. If you allow the player too continue microing often (by making macro and micro equally useful) than you have deminished the effectiveness of your mechanic.
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On September 17 2009 13:02 Archerofaiur wrote:
Micro does not compete well with Macro for these mechanics. To understand why you have too look at what the macro mechanics are trying to accomplish.
One of the primary goals of the macro mechanics is to break the player from microing about every 30 seconds. If you allow the player too continue microing often (by making macro and micro equally useful) than you have deminished the effectiveness of your mechanic.
If the "ease of use" is part of the balance then it is not, ie
If Spawn Larva is a little more effective than Transfusion, that is OK.... because Spawn Larva is harder to use ('micro break' required). As long as it isn't TOO much better than Transfusion, which is the current situation.
Another important point is that the mechanic should be stackable/queable, sending workers to minerals was "stackable/queuble", if several workers had not been sent you could send them all at once. This way you don't have to go back to your base Exactly every X sec. That is ideal, but you still get the minerals/gas... just later.
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On September 17 2009 05:05 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2009 06:14 Zato-1 wrote:
As I said in my previous post, I've read a LOT of interactions between Blizzard and fans. Invariably, there are fans who claim Blizzard dropped the ball / don't understand the problem / don't want to fix the problem because they have a different agenda.
Invariably, those fans are wrong. This is true. My point is that Blizzard could be doing a lot better job of making it clear that those fans are wrong. The development of SC2 to this point has had quite a few misunderstandings to this point (expansions vs. separate games, single account on Battle.net, requirements for premium maps, and now 1-hatch-queen). A lot of these revolve around simple wording issues on Blizzard's part (the 3-games drama could have been avoided if they had simply called them expansions from the start, the premium maps business could have been avoided if they had called premium content mods instead of maps, and 1-hatch-queen wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is now if Karune had directed his answer at the actual issue).
Let's say, hypothetically, that Starcraft 2 was not Blizzard's franchise- that it was being developed by, say, Westwood Studios, Electronic Arts, Cavedog Entertainment or Ensemble Studios, which are makers of similar RTS titles such as Dune 2, games from the Command & Conquer series, Total Annihilation and Age of Mythology.
Would you expect these game developers to satisfy your 1-hatch queen balance concerns more fully than Blizzard? I don't think so. In fact, Blizzard is already going above and beyond what most, if not all, game developers do in terms of communication with its fans. Now, I'm the first to recognize they're not doing this just out of the goodness of their hearts- our feedback helps them make a better, long-lasting game, and we help them in terms of publicity through mouth-to-mouth recommendation. We have a vested interest in making sure SC2 is a record-breaking, jaw-dropping, ass-shaking blockbuster, so it's only logical for Blizzard to smile at us, shake our hand, and say, "Thank you. Now, what do you think about this other game feature?"
That said, I think it's a little selfish to expect Blizzard devs to go out of their way to appease the fans, particularly in a matter they never considered to be such a big deal, AND they've already explained in public and on the record why it's not, in fact, imbalanced. Perhaps their explanation wasn't satisfactory to many here- but as I've posted before, this is their game, not a democracy. They make the calls based on their own opinions and the feedback they get- and TL.net is most assuredly not the only source for feedback they have, though perhaps it is one of the better ones. If they think 1-hatch queen is a non-issue, they will treat it as such, and there's little we can do other than state our concerns fully (which Hot_Bid and Chill have done, in great detail and with good argumentation)- that said, the Blizzard devs disagree with us, they've told us why they disagree with us, and that's that.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 17 2009 21:24 Zato-1 wrote:
Let's say, hypothetically, that Starcraft 2 was not Blizzard's franchise- that it was being developed by, say, Westwood Studios, Electronic Arts, Cavedog Entertainment or Ensemble Studios, which are makers of similar RTS titles such as Dune 2, games from the Command & Conquer series, Total Annihilation and Age of Mythology.
Would you expect these game developers to satisfy your 1-hatch queen balance concerns more fully than Blizzard? I don't think so. In fact, Blizzard is already going above and beyond what most, if not all, game developers do in terms of communication with its fans. Now, I'm the first to recognize they're not doing this just out of the goodness of their hearts- our feedback helps them make a better, long-lasting game, and we help them in terms of publicity through mouth-to-mouth recommendation. We have a vested interest in making sure SC2 is a record-breaking, jaw-dropping, ass-shaking blockbuster, so it's only logical for Blizzard to smile at us, shake our hand, and say, "Thank you. Now, what do you think about this other game feature?"
That said, I think it's a little selfish to expect Blizzard devs to go out of their way to appease the fans, particularly in a matter they never considered to be such a big deal, AND they've already explained in public and on the record why it's not, in fact, imbalanced. Perhaps their explanation wasn't satisfactory to many here- but as I've posted before, this is their game, not a democracy. They make the calls based on their own opinions and the feedback they get- and TL.net is most assuredly not the only source for feedback they have, though perhaps it is one of the better ones. If they think 1-hatch queen is a non-issue, they will treat it as such, and there's little we can do other than state our concerns fully (which Hot_Bid and Chill have done, in great detail and with good argumentation)- that said, the Blizzard devs disagree with us, they've told us why they disagree with us, and that's that.
You're missing my point. I know Blizzard sees the problem, and I'm not asking them to do more about it. My point is that they've created a lot of unneeded drama by mis-explaining things to fans. It won't affect the end-game, but it creates pages of unnecessary trolling over a few misspoken words. To use an old example, whether they call the other 2 expansions to SC2 "games" or "expansions" makes no actual difference to the final product, but as there have been plenty of people who have expressed their distaste for it being separate games (some even enough to say they won't buy SC2), it sure as hell would have been good if they had just called them "expansions".
None of their programmers lose any sleep over what Karune or Dustin Browder tell us. The distinction between "map" and "mod" has basically no impact on them, or the objective quality of the final product. Whether Karune gave an unsatisfactory answer or an adequate one doesn't actually change whether or not 1-hatch-queen is balanced. But as that difference could actually gain them or lose them sales, it would be nice if they answered questions clearly and made things a little less ambiguous sometimes. Do they have an obligation to? No. But IMO they could make people a lot less angry without any change to their game.
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On September 18 2009 07:42 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 17 2009 21:24 Zato-1 wrote:
Let's say, hypothetically, that Starcraft 2 was not Blizzard's franchise- that it was being developed by, say, Westwood Studios, Electronic Arts, Cavedog Entertainment or Ensemble Studios, which are makers of similar RTS titles such as Dune 2, games from the Command & Conquer series, Total Annihilation and Age of Mythology.
Would you expect these game developers to satisfy your 1-hatch queen balance concerns more fully than Blizzard? I don't think so. In fact, Blizzard is already going above and beyond what most, if not all, game developers do in terms of communication with its fans. Now, I'm the first to recognize they're not doing this just out of the goodness of their hearts- our feedback helps them make a better, long-lasting game, and we help them in terms of publicity through mouth-to-mouth recommendation. We have a vested interest in making sure SC2 is a record-breaking, jaw-dropping, ass-shaking blockbuster, so it's only logical for Blizzard to smile at us, shake our hand, and say, "Thank you. Now, what do you think about this other game feature?"
That said, I think it's a little selfish to expect Blizzard devs to go out of their way to appease the fans, particularly in a matter they never considered to be such a big deal, AND they've already explained in public and on the record why it's not, in fact, imbalanced. Perhaps their explanation wasn't satisfactory to many here- but as I've posted before, this is their game, not a democracy. They make the calls based on their own opinions and the feedback they get- and TL.net is most assuredly not the only source for feedback they have, though perhaps it is one of the better ones. If they think 1-hatch queen is a non-issue, they will treat it as such, and there's little we can do other than state our concerns fully (which Hot_Bid and Chill have done, in great detail and with good argumentation)- that said, the Blizzard devs disagree with us, they've told us why they disagree with us, and that's that. You're missing my point. I know Blizzard sees the problem, and I'm not asking them to do more about it. My point is that they've created a lot of unneeded drama by mis-explaining things to fans. It won't affect the end-game, but it creates pages of unnecessary trolling over a few misspoken words. To use an old example, whether they call the other 2 expansions to SC2 "games" or "expansions" makes no actual difference to the final product, but as there have been plenty of people who have expressed their distaste for it being separate games (some even enough to say they won't buy SC2), it sure as hell would have been good if they had just called them "expansions". None of their programmers lose any sleep over what Karune or Dustin Browder tell us. The distinction between "map" and "mod" has basically no impact on them, or the objective quality of the final product. Whether Karune gave an unsatisfactory answer or an adequate one doesn't actually change whether or not 1-hatch-queen is balanced. But as that difference could actually gain them or lose them sales, it would be nice if they answered questions clearly and made things a little less ambiguous sometimes. Do they have an obligation to? No. But IMO they could make people a lot less angry without any change to their game.
It sounds reasonable. And yet when I see it in practice, when through the internet you offer fans a hand, they cry in dismay as to why didn't you give them an arm.
Fan: "Hey guys, look! I can tank as a feral druid/paladin! Sure, I'm no Warrior, but it's pretty neat!"
Blizzard: "You know what, we want to see tanks of all classes be viable. We're introducing Death Knight tanks, and we're making Druids and Paladins just as good as Warriors! Who knows, a raid without Warriors might even be possible!"
Warrior: "WTF Blizzard, way to axe my class."
Druid: "My area threat generation is not as good as the other tanks'!"
Paladin: "My survivability isn't as good as the other tanks'!"
Blizzard: "Ok, we'll work on those issues, we want all tanks to be viable for tanking any encounter!"
Warrior: "Death Knight is too good!"
Death Knight: "No I'm not!"
Paladin: "I still have bad survivability!"
Druid: "My itemization sucks, and my threat rotation is mind-numbingly boring!"
Blizzard: "You know what, Death Knights were too good. We'll nerf them, and buff Paladins."
Death Knight: "WTF now I'm useless. GG Blizzard, you useless retards."
Warrior: "Paladin is too good!"
Paladin: "No I'm not!"
Druid: "WTF no one cares about me. I never get any attention!"
This is a brief history of how the WoW tanking forums have behaved since Blizzard chose to make all tanking classes fairly equal in Wrath of the Lich King. And- this is important- the tanking aspect of WoW has improved vastly because of this change. My point is: when you have the attention of the developers, people who are dissatisfied in some way are much, much more likely to post than those who are more or less content. Without a fairly strict and active moderation of internet forums, no matter how helpful and open the developers are, the fans will always find some fault, no matter how small or fair this criticism is, and there will be pages upon pages of argumentation, insults and trolling.
Could the SC2 devs have made a better job of communicating with the fans? Probably.
Would a better job at communicating with the fans placate the "drama" and trolling? LOL. No.
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On September 18 2009 09:01 Zato-1 wrote:
Fan: "Hey guys, look! I can tank as a feral druid/paladin! Sure, I'm no Warrior, but it's pretty neat!"
Blizzard: "You know what, we want to see tanks of all classes be viable. We're introducing Death Knight tanks, and we're making Druids and Paladins just as good as Warriors! Who knows, a raid without Warriors might even be possible!"
Warrior: "WTF Blizzard, way to axe my class."
Druid: "My area threat generation is not as good as the other tanks'!"
Paladin: "My survivability isn't as good as the other tanks'!"
Blizzard: "Ok, we'll work on those issues, we want all tanks to be viable for tanking any encounter!"
Warrior: "Death Knight is too good!"
Death Knight: "No I'm not!"
Paladin: "I still have bad survivability!"
Druid: "My itemization sucks, and my threat rotation is mind-numbingly boring!"
Blizzard: "You know what, Death Knights were too good. We'll nerf them, and buff Paladins."
Death Knight: "WTF now I'm useless. GG Blizzard, you useless retards."
Warrior: "Paladin is too good!"
Paladin: "No I'm not!"
Druid: "WTF no one cares about me. I never get any attention!"
LOL that was hilarious! I cant wait till we can do this with SC2.
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god, I love esports science
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Terran macro mechanic: Speed build with a MULE:
When you call down a MULE, you can only have it mine minerals. What if you could also use it help an scv to build a building faster? So once an scv starts building something, you can have a MULE help build it to reduce build time.
This furthers the style of the terran race because already you can reduce unit production time by adding on a tech lab to a fac or rax. Using a MULE to speed up build time seems to fit.
There are many interesting things you can do with this: Building a proxy building? Call down a MULE to speed it up. Mutas on the way? Help that bunker build faster. DTs coming and you don't want to blow a full scan? Speed up that turret production.
This macro mechanic has versatility without making you lose out on the econ benefit of a MULE. You can still get minerals by setting it to mine after it's done producing.
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In Starcraft II, your probe arrives at Zerg's base to find 2 hatcheries and a hydralisk den. Two minutes after the probe dies, Zerg could theoretically have 20 hydralisks or 30 drones, and it's impossible for you to know.
If blizzard made the morphing larva eggs different sizes, depending on which unit is being morphed, then it would take a lot of the ambiguity out of scouting a zerg in SC2.
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Fantastic article. Loved the read. Now to understand the exact math behind this heh.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/SilverskY/MuleQueenObelisk.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Daigomi/Other__Terran_graph.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Daigomi/Other__Protoss_graph.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Daigomi/Other__Zerg_graph.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Daigomi/Other__Comparitive_graph.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/SC2Macro/combined2droneinject.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Chill/SC2Macro/combined3droneinject.png)
