On February 09 2013 13:55 SiskosGoatee wrote: Actually, I wanted to make a post detailing a way to simplify this concept for a long time but it can be summed up by this novel observation:
It is often said that BW saturation rules are better because 47 min workers in SC2 provide optimal saturation on 3 bases, in BW it can still go much higher. This isn't a completely fair comparison. In SC2 you start with two more workers, they harvest less, they produce more quickly, you have two gasses. Everything says: "You are supposed to have more workers in SC2 at any given point". And this is true. It takes far longer in BW to get 47 workers on mins than it does in SC2. So all would be well, except one fatal flaw: Workers still cost the same amount of supply.
Essentially, 70 workers in BW is equivalent to about 110 workers in SC2. Which is just more than you ever want to get because that eats in your max too much (unless you're Siskos, I have no problem playing P and Z up to 120 workers but that aside, I play like a retard anyway). Together with units in SC2 just in general taking more supply than in BW. Effectively it's like playing BW with a pop cap of 120. The pop cap in BW didn't see nearly as much actual significance as in SC2. People maxing was actually something that was something of note. Now it does add a certain strategic element in SC2, in BW it's just a case of 'more is more', in SC2 you actually have to throw units away far more often to decide what you want to max on. But still, I feel the FRB thing can far more easily be expressed by simply raising the supply cap to 300 and that is all. With a 300 supply cap people will probably be content to say go to 120 workers, thereby requiring more than 3 bases.
I like the Idea of upping the supply cap to 300. Armys of this size would also require way more carefull positioning and thus would alow the players to show their skill there. Only concern of mine is the Techheavyness of Z and P at the moment. While Terran would still be able to use their T1 and T2 units to great effect because they are designed well, a Zerg and Protoss army would become a even bigger all High Tech ball of doom. This however is nothing you could fix with mapmaking alone, its just the effect of a C&C dev team designing SC2.
On February 09 2013 20:35 gCgCrypto wrote:. Only concern of mine is the Techheavyness of Z and P at the moment. While Terran would still be able to use their T1 and T2 units to great effect because they are designed well, a Zerg and Protoss army would become a even bigger all High Tech ball of doom. This however is nothing you could fix with mapmaking alone, its just the effect of a C&C dev team designing SC2.
Oh please stop embarrassing yourself reproducing popular rhetoric which holds no real basis in reality. You have to be kidding me, the zealot is like the most common PvT lategame unit, PvZ sees stalkers up to the final mass carrier transition. Zerglings are used up to the very endgame versus Terran. PvP sees massive amounts of zealots in the lategame. ZvZ is roach based even at the very end, if it isn't it's ling/ultra based. Terran is in fact the only race which can avoid their T1 units in the lategame in every matchup. Mech in TvT and TvZ and mass ghost/viking in TvP.
On February 09 2013 20:35 gCgCrypto wrote:. Only concern of mine is the Techheavyness of Z and P at the moment. While Terran would still be able to use their T1 and T2 units to great effect because they are designed well, a Zerg and Protoss army would become a even bigger all High Tech ball of doom. This however is nothing you could fix with mapmaking alone, its just the effect of a C&C dev team designing SC2.
Oh please stop embarrassing yourself reproducing popular rhetoric which holds no real basis in reality. You have to be kidding me, the zealot is like the most common PvT lategame unit, PvZ sees stalkers up to the final mass carrier transition. Zerglings are used up to the very endgame versus Terran. PvP sees massive amounts of zealots in the lategame. ZvZ is roach based even at the very end, if it isn't it's ling/ultra based. Terran is in fact the only race which can avoid their T1 units in the lategame in every matchup. Mech in TvT and TvZ and mass ghost/viking in TvP.
Have you seen a maxed Zerg army in WoL lately? or a PvP army lategame? maby a PvZ lategame army? Its all high tech with maby some Meatshield because you lack gas...
As Z you dont want to have ANYTHING but Broodlords Infestors and Corrupters lategame, maby some queens for good mesure. As P you dont want to have anything but immortals, colossi and archons lategame (PvP) vs Z you want only Carrier HT Archon (if you get there ever) ZvZ is all Broodlord Infestor lategame aswell.
i agree that PvT is better in that regard. THINK before shitting all over yourself
On February 09 2013 20:35 gCgCrypto wrote:. Only concern of mine is the Techheavyness of Z and P at the moment. While Terran would still be able to use their T1 and T2 units to great effect because they are designed well, a Zerg and Protoss army would become a even bigger all High Tech ball of doom. This however is nothing you could fix with mapmaking alone, its just the effect of a C&C dev team designing SC2.
Oh please stop embarrassing yourself reproducing popular rhetoric which holds no real basis in reality. You have to be kidding me, the zealot is like the most common PvT lategame unit, PvZ sees stalkers up to the final mass carrier transition. Zerglings are used up to the very endgame versus Terran. PvP sees massive amounts of zealots in the lategame. ZvZ is roach based even at the very end, if it isn't it's ling/ultra based. Terran is in fact the only race which can avoid their T1 units in the lategame in every matchup. Mech in TvT and TvZ and mass ghost/viking in TvP.
Have you seen a maxed Zerg army in WoL lately?
Why yes, it's filled with Zerglings versus T and Hydras and roaches versus Z.
or a PvP army lategame?
Which tends to be completely filled with massive amounts of zealots.
maby a PvZ lategame army?
Filled with stalkers before a super lategame mass carrier transition takes place.
Its all high tech with maby some Meatshield because you lack gas...
No, the majority of supply in them are T1 units.
As Z you dont want to have ANYTHING but Broodlords Infestors and Corrupters lategame, maby some queens for good mesure.
I guess that's why these guys make tonnes of banelings and Zerglings with it right. Please show me game of pure infestor/broodlord that wasn't versus Protoss.
As P you dont want to have anything but immortals, colossi and archons lategame (PvP)
Please, show me any game where this happened.
vs Z you want only Carrier HT Archon (if you get there ever)
I agree.
ZvZ is all Broodlord Infestor lategame aswell.
Yeah, except the roaches, hydras and corruptors
THINK before shitting all over yourself
Please, you almost sound like one of these BW elists who's last SC2 game watched was in the beta who heard fancy terms from their fellow BW elistist like 'deathball' and continues to propagate weird myths.
In any case Terran is definitely the race that can go without T1 the most, either by going mech or in the only matchup where mech doesn't work get one of those Byun style ridiculously ghost heavy armies with not a marine or marauder in it any more.
Which of course isn't a problem whatsoever, the concept of 'T1' for Terran works different anyway, you can get to T2 with Terran a loooot quicker than the other races and you can play 2 of the 3 matchups pretty much by making 4 marines early game and then switching to fact units. The race is designed to be able to work with only fact units. That's just not how Protoss works because robo units lack AA for one. It's also not how Z works.
On February 09 2013 20:35 gCgCrypto wrote:. Only concern of mine is the Techheavyness of Z and P at the moment. While Terran would still be able to use their T1 and T2 units to great effect because they are designed well, a Zerg and Protoss army would become a even bigger all High Tech ball of doom. This however is nothing you could fix with mapmaking alone, its just the effect of a C&C dev team designing SC2.
Oh please stop embarrassing yourself reproducing popular rhetoric which holds no real basis in reality. You have to be kidding me, the zealot is like the most common PvT lategame unit, PvZ sees stalkers up to the final mass carrier transition. Zerglings are used up to the very endgame versus Terran. PvP sees massive amounts of zealots in the lategame. ZvZ is roach based even at the very end, if it isn't it's ling/ultra based. Terran is in fact the only race which can avoid their T1 units in the lategame in every matchup. Mech in TvT and TvZ and mass ghost/viking in TvP.
Have you seen a maxed Zerg army in WoL lately?
Why yes, it's filled with Zerglings versus T and Hydras and roaches versus Z.
As Z you dont want to have ANYTHING but Broodlords Infestors and Corrupters lategame, maby some queens for good mesure.
I guess that's why these guys make tonnes of banelings and Zerglings with it right. Please show me game of pure infestor/broodlord that wasn't versus Protoss.
Please, you almost sound like one of these BW elists who's last SC2 game watched was in the beta who heard fancy terms from their fellow BW elistist like 'deathball' and continues to propagate weird myths.
In any case Terran is definitely the race that can go without T1 the most, either by going mech or in the only matchup where mech doesn't work get one of those Byun style ridiculously ghost heavy armies with not a marine or marauder in it any more.
Which of course isn't a problem whatsoever, the concept of 'T1' for Terran works different anyway, you can get to T2 with Terran a loooot quicker than the other races and you can play 2 of the 3 matchups pretty much by making 4 marines early game and then switching to fact units. The race is designed to be able to work with only fact units. That's just not how Protoss works because robo units lack AA for one. It's also not how Z works.
The comps do happen in a lot of games but you need other units to get there, i agree. I won´t search for any replays of said comps because i don´t see a reason to argue over this anymore Your opinion =/= My opinion, lets stop it since it dosn´t bring the topic forward k?
And BW elitism? really? I though that discussion ended like 4 months ago after Broodlord infestor got discovered and abused ad absurdum.
and people complaining about stuff in the game should be normal. First rule in software design: The software is NEVER perfect and SC2s design is far from it (IMO obviously)
Nahh, that discussion is still going on and it's hilarious the silly myths many people procreate. Like that some people actually believe that SC2 has harder counters than BW because someone once said that some-where. Are you kidding me? BW counters are so scaringly hard compared to SC2. A quick look at the damage model also indicates that. Some BW units do 25% of their max output against some units. Entire parts of tech trees couldn't be used because they were countered so brutally hard.
Or my absolute favourite when people complain that WoL is 'too much about splash compared to BW', lol, are you kidding me. BW was all about splash, everything in BW is about splash and AoE. The entire game revolves around splash, the only mu that doesn't completely revolve around it is ZvZ.
And whatever flaws the design or balance WoL, HotS or BW have has nothing to do with software design.
On February 10 2013 01:27 SiskosGoatee wrote: Nahh, that discussion is still going on and it's hilarious the silly myths many people procreate. Like that some people actually believe that SC2 has harder counters than BW because someone once said that some-where. Are you kidding me? BW counters are so scaringly hard compared to SC2. A quick look at the damage model also indicates that. Some BW units do 25% of their max output against some units. Entire parts of tech trees couldn't be used because they were countered so brutally hard.
Thats not true at all, did you even ever play a game of BW??? There are little to no hard counters. If i have a ling hydra army sure a reaver puts the P in favour but i can still compensate by mass and splitting etc. If i have a Zerg army without Corrupters/Vipers/Broodlords or Ultras and my oponent has colossi i´m dead, period (assuming none of us got ahead) THAT is a hardcountersituation and those simply didnt exist in BW for the most part.
(eccept whens omething didnt shoot air, it got hardcountered by air) Corsairs didnt hard counter mutas while still being good vs them Lurkers didnt hard counter Marine Medic Scourge didnt hardcounter all air (because you could micor vs them and you needed to split them up because of overkill etc)
The list goes on and on.
For SC2 Colossi hardcounter most all of Zergs ground but Ultras Immortals hardcounter all Tanks and Thors hard as fuck Tempests Hardcounter Broodlords HTs hardcounter Vipers etc etc
Good examples for unit interaction would be: Lings and Banelings, while Banes are good against Lings proper micro can turn this around Marines and Banes for the same reason HTs and Ghosts
so yeah don´t talk about stuff you have no idea about.
On February 10 2013 01:27 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Or my absolute favourite when people complain that WoL is 'too much about splash compared to BW', lol, are you kidding me. BW was all about splash, everything in BW is about splash and AoE. The entire game revolves around splash, the only mu that doesn't completely revolve around it is ZvZ.
Thats interesting, never ever heared about this, neither in any SC2 forums (eccept for now obviously) nor in the BW forums
On February 10 2013 01:27 SiskosGoatee wrote:
And whatever flaws the design or balance WoL, HotS or BW have has nothing to do with software design.
Eccept for the fact that its software and software allways has flaws
All in all i feel like you are making shit up by yourself, you have a good imagination. So yeah thanks for bumping the Thread though =)
On February 10 2013 01:27 SiskosGoatee wrote: Nahh, that discussion is still going on and it's hilarious the silly myths many people procreate. Like that some people actually believe that SC2 has harder counters than BW because someone once said that some-where. Are you kidding me? BW counters are so scaringly hard compared to SC2. A quick look at the damage model also indicates that. Some BW units do 25% of their max output against some units. Entire parts of tech trees couldn't be used because they were countered so brutally hard.
Thats not true at all, did you even ever play a game of BW??? There are little to no hard counters.
Lol, wonder why you never saw a marine made ever beyond 4 minutes in TvP or TvT? Marines versus storm, reavers or tanks isn't pretty.
If i have a ling hydra army sure a reaver puts the P in favour but i can still compensate by mass and splitting etc. If i have a Zerg army without Corrupters/Vipers/Broodlords or Ultras and my oponent has colossi i´m dead, period (assuming none of us got ahead)
It doesn't even begin to come that close. You see many Zerg armies beat colossus armies by correct usage of flanks without any of those units. Let's not forget how Haypro actually beat a stalker colossus army with mass upgraded ling by dropping on them. Or morrow's trademark ling/bling drops versus colossus armies.
THAT is a hardcountersituation and those simply didnt exist in BW for the most part.
Lol, not a single marine is made against protoss. Zerg doesn't even bother with mutas any more once irradiate hits the field. Let's not forget the infinte duration neural parasite that allows you to get battle cruisers forever.
(eccept whens omething didnt shoot air, it got hardcountered by air) Corsairs didnt hard counter mutas while still being good vs them
You gotta be kidding me. The corsair/muta relationship is so much more skewed in the corsair's favour than the phoenix/muta relationship which is much more a game of baiting and bluffing.
Lurkers didnt hard counter Marine Medic
True, they didn't. That's why TvZ is the only mu where marines are of some value.
Scourge didnt hardcounter all air (because you could micor vs them and you needed to split them up because of overkill etc)
They didn't. Your point? Name me a single unit in either game which 'hardcounters all air',
For SC2 Colossi hardcounter most all of Zergs ground but Ultras
No they don't they counter hydras and lings, they are actually terribly cost inefficient versus roaches. The point is that roaches eat supply so a roach max is awful because 6 roaches cost the same supply as 3 stalkers and a colossus and shouldn't ever beat it in that ratio because it's so much cheaper. Roaches are extremely cost efficient against stalker/colossus based armies. Just not very supply efficient.
Apart from that infestors are also pretty good against it of course.
Immortals hardcounter all Tanks and Thors hard as fuck
Tanks yes, and that is about as hard as BW tanks counter goons. If you think immortals hardcounter thors you prove you don't know what you're talking about because 120 supply of thor actually beats 120 supply of immortal.
Tempests Hardcounter Broodlords
No shit, a brood lord doesn't hit air.
HTs hardcounter Vipers
Oh wow, it has an anticaster spell. Yeah, I guess it counters it harder than dark archons or vessels counter defilers right?
Good examples for unit interaction would be: Lings and Banelings, while Banes are good against Lings proper micro can turn this around
You have no idea how good banelings versus lings are. Beating lingbane with pure ling is almost impossible. Lingbane vs lingbane however is quite the micro spectacle, but yeah, both sides have the same composition.
Marines and Banes for the same reason
You can never be cost efficient with marines versus banelings unless you are the automaton 2000. For that reason you never see pure marine up against banelings. You see marine/tank versus ling/bane or marine/marauder verus ling/bane which makes a lot more sense. Banes counter marines, marauders counter lings, lings counter tanks/marauders, tanks/marauders counter banes.
so yeah don´t talk about stuff you have no idea about.
Rofl, if you honestly believe that SC2 has harder counters than BW you're out of your mind and you're just reproducing a popular myth. Please, open up a test map in either game and see the difference of say tanks versus goons and tanks versus stalkers or hellions versus chargelots and vultures versus speedzeals. Please look at how you can still to some extend micro against storm without ghosts with pure bio how MKP is known to do. This isn't possible any more in BW and is the reason not a single marine is ever made in TvP. Storm is so powerful in BW it's even good against tanks, marines stand no chance.
Thats interesting, never ever heared about this, neither in any SC2 forums (eccept for now obviously) nor in the BW forums
It's a very common criticism, manly because many people don't like the colossus, which is a pretty boring unit give you that. And it does splash.
There are more of these, such as people saying that protoss has the most splash options which is false by any reasonable way of counting. Terran does, and even more in HotS where they've gotten 2 new splash options and P got no new splash. Or that Terran has the most units. Which is again false, Protoss does, and again, they get the most new units in Hots.
People repeat a lot of popular myths.
Eccept for the fact that its software and software allways has flaws
Flaws in software design mean programming flaws. Not the balance of a game which can be updated from DB's desk if he wants in 5 seconds.
Eccept for the fact that its software and software allways has flaws
Flaws in software design mean programming flaws. Not the balance of a game which can be updated from DB's desk if he wants in 5 seconds.[/QUOTE]
Flawed Software design =/= Flawed Coding Two different things, one is Software design the other is software development.
You realize that i am not talking about balance at all do you? Won´t go into detail on the rest of the junk you wrote because you don´t seem to get it anyway
Yes, you don't talk balance but design. Dislike either game as you see fit. But saying that WoL has harder counters than BW is bizarre. Even IdrA had a whole talk at the start of the beta how he felt that Blizzard went the wrong direction with their more middle of the road units and how he felt that BW units were more interesting because they have very specific strengths and weaknesses and how they could completely obliterate a wrong composition even if it had vastly superior numbers and how WoL didn't seem to have that. In WoL. If you have the wrong composition, if you just have enough stuff you will plow through because the damage system isn't as radical (no units doing 25 or even 50% to the wrong unit most of the time). In BW you sometimes have the idea that you can take on a 4 times as large army as long as the composition is right.
Take this example:
400 cracklings versus 100 goons. Cracklings win by a vast margin, hey, it's a counter, even though 400 cracklings cost you 10 000 minerals and 100 goons cost you 12 500 minerals and 5 000 gas. Take into consideration the fact that the crackings run into surface area problems with such numbers because they are melee units. It doesn't matter. Why? Because goons do only 50% of their potential damage to cracklings of course.
Now, I just did the same thing in an SC2 unit tester with crackings versus stalkers, lo and behold. I'm left with 18/100 stalkers and this didn't even involve blink micro, this involved two AI's amoving into each other, lings even got a surround because SC2's pathing is superior and still the stalkers won when they even could've blink microed. Why? Well, because for one, stalkers don't do 50% but 70% of their full potential damage to lings.
THe story repeats itself for the most part if you go do vults versus zealots and hellions vs zealots etc. BW just has far sharper counters than WoL or HotS. Far sharper. You can make the wrong unit comp work a lot more for you in WoL than in BW where the wrong comp tends to just mean the end of your army.
On March 08 2013 00:07 Barrin wrote: I have abandoned this project a while ago and denounced it's current iteration multiple times. This is not what I had in mind when I wrote Breadth of Gameplay in SC2, and no other mod that is out right now comes much closer.
Because of recent events, I plan on remaking this from the ground up - possibly under a new name - and which should be much more likely to reflect what I really have in mind - after I write another post more fully explaining it. Hopefully I'll be done long before LotV, but until then I'm
REQUESTING THREAD CLOSE
Hm, I'm curious what else you have in mind. I think that the economy system in itself of FRB is good, but it needs to be combined with some other changes to SC2 to be truly successful. From your OP post on FRB/Breadth, it seemed like FRB is supposed to be a mapmaker's view on how to improve SC2, but SC2 really needs more changes than just with map resources themselves. Only modifying the maps themselves will not fix these issues; a full blown mod is required.
I'm still fixing up my SC2Pro mod with my ideas (i.e. combination of many individual ideas), but I am looking forward to what you come up with.
Probably a good time to revive this thread from the graveyard. Even though Barrin abandoned the project and claimed it didn't live up to his breadth of gameplay post, this is one of the most tested economy variants and offers and interesting counterpoint to Blizzards current changes.
While I do like the economy changes in LotV over the current economy model, I have concerns that makes me much more in favor of the FRB idea rather than the current LotV idea of reducing mineral patch amounts.
The LotV mineral patch change forces faster expanding, thus removing or greatly weakening player decisions as when to expand. As of right now, there is a fair window in which players can decide when to expand before their main/nat/third/etc mines out. This allows builds such as all ins, pressures, or tech before expo to exist. If this window is reduced, it is to my understanding that those builds would be heavily weakened and much worse. If those tech/pressure before expo don't pay off, they become way more harmful and put the player way more behind than currently. Thus, tech/pressure before expo becomes way more riskier and significantly less attractive than expanding. Therefore, expanding almost becomes a no-brain-er. Thus, this change doesn't encourage players to make the decide of fast tech/pressure or fast expo, as expanding is significantly more attractive. Currently, choosing whether to expand now or later allows for a greater amount of viable decisions, and thus allowing better players to set themselves apart by choosing the better decisions. If all players are highly encouraged to expand over earlier tech/pressure, then it becomes harder for better players to stand out.
Secondly, this does not reward spreading out like FRB does, and instead forces the decision to spread out upon the player. Taking more bases, and thus spreading out across the map, should be encouraged with the benefit of a higher income. Yet, the LotV change does not do that. Instead, LotV keeps the 3 base economy max, and forces the player to spread out by having the player mine out bases faster. While both can lead to a similar result, the current LotV idea forces spreading out upon the player. Thus, greatly weakening the decisions involved in the choice of spreading out across the map. Spreading out becomes something the player has to do, rather than a decision they made based on risk vs reward. Players will not be taking more bases and spreading out to get an edge. They'll be doing so because they have to to maintain their 3 base economy max.
Overall, the fact that the current LotV idea gets players to spread out across the map, and thus spread action across the map, is fucking awesome from Blizzard. The community has been demanding more spread out fighting across the map, and this is a clear attempt toward that. However, spreading out across the map should be a decision that can help define a player's skill, not an act forced upon the player to just stay even in the game. Forcing or greatly limiting the decisions in a competitive RTS is generally a bad idea. Hence why I like the logic behind FRB. If my understanding is correct, FRB encourages expanding instead of forcing it, and grants benefits to players who take more than 3 mining bases. Thus, I like FRB better, and would greatly like Blizzard to try out FRB, or a similar variation of it, in the LotV beta.
Overall, the fact that the current LotV idea gets players to spread out across the map, and thus spread action across the map, is fucking awesome from Blizzard. The community has been demanding more spread out fighting across the map, and this is a clear attempt toward that. However, spreading out across the map should be a decision that can help define a player's skill, not an act forced upon the player to just stay even in the game. Forcing or greatly limiting the decisions in a competitive RTS is generally a bad idea. Hence why I like the logic behind FRB. If my understanding is correct, FRB encourages expanding instead of forcing it, and grants benefits to players who take more than 3 mining bases. Thus, I like FRB better, and would greatly like Blizzard to try out FRB, or a similar variation of it, in the LotV beta.
^totally agree
glad to see this dredged up. great idea. i had forgotten that this much work had been done already. i'm very excited to see that they are willing to change this now. there are new horizons ahead...
the maps 2 years from now will be absolutely insanely awesome i feel...
Does anyone know exactly what happened to this idea? From what I understand, it seems like it wasn't favoured because it just had the same deathball problems, just slower, and on 4 base. Are they implying that it's a unit design issue? It also looks like it wasn't really tested in HotS, after all those crazy changes to promote aggression came in.
On November 15 2014 06:01 Plexa wrote: Probably a good time to revive this thread from the graveyard. Even though Barrin abandoned the project and claimed it didn't live up to his breadth of gameplay post, this is one of the most tested economy variants and offers and interesting counterpoint to Blizzards current changes.
Glad to see the FRB thread bumped. As one of the people who put a lot of time playing and drawing attention to FRB at the time, I was really excited to see that LotV's economic changes had similar goals to what Barrin was trying to accomplish.
I organized a tournament casted by two of the FRB community's most devoted members, Senex and Pull, featuring players like Ganzi, RainbOw (HopeTorture), MaSa, puCK, Vibe, Goswser, Illusion, Axslav, Shew, SaroVati, and several others. People who are interested in this concept can check out the tournament VODs here: https://www.youtube.com/user/WiseOldSenex/playlists
On November 20 2014 14:16 jcr2001 wrote: Does anyone know exactly what happened to this idea? From what I understand, it seems like it wasn't favoured because it just had the same deathball problems, just slower, and on 4 base. Are they implying that it's a unit design issue? It also looks like it wasn't really tested in HotS, after all those crazy changes to promote aggression came in.
In general, we found that when people were playing macro-oriented styles, games did tend to be scrappier and feature more multi-pronged play. One issue from the tournament that we ran is that this was just a one-time thing for these players, and only a few of them played on FRB maps at all leading up to the event, so there was a lot of early cheese that ended games quickly. As a result of the changed economy, players didn't know how to defend the early aggression, and there weren't enough games played or attention given to the gamemode for a real meta or standardized builds to develop. That being said, there were some really interesting games. The optimist in me believes that if players were to play FRB over the course of several months, we would start to see a healthier balance between early aggression, viable expansion defense, and exciting games.
On November 20 2014 14:16 jcr2001 wrote: Does anyone know exactly what happened to this idea? From what I understand, it seems like it wasn't favoured because it just had the same deathball problems, just slower, and on 4 base. Are they implying that it's a unit design issue? It also looks like it wasn't really tested in HotS, after all those crazy changes to promote aggression came in.
In general, we found that when people were playing macro-oriented styles, games did tend to be scrappier and feature more multi-pronged play. One issue from the tournament that we ran is that this was just a one-time thing for these players, and only a few of them played on FRB maps at all leading up to the event, so there was a lot of early cheese that ended games quickly. As a result of the changed economy, players didn't know how to defend the early aggression, and there weren't enough games played or attention given to the gamemode for a real meta or standardized builds to develop. That being said, there were some really interesting games. The optimist in me believes that if players were to play FRB over the course of several months, we would start to see a healthier balance between early aggression, viable expansion defense, and exciting games.
Ah yes, I remember watching your casts back when it was 6m1g FRB. Thank you for casting those games!
What exactly do you mean by "scrappier"? Is that in some sense, the aim of the experiment: to encourage all-over-the-map action? I thought it was a good idea but I never saw any games from it and HotS came out.
I'd like to see Blizzard experiment more with economy rates to encourage multi-base play than just putting a timer on players. Then again, everything needs testing; maybe Blizzard's idea is better.
EPT
