[D] Alternative to neutral supply depot - Page 4

On August 10 2012 05:23 Diamond wrote:
Still can't remove it to be able to wall ur ramp. Can't change up 2+ years of how people play for a sub par solution when a perfect solution exists. Just have to deal with the fact Blizzard is absolutely stupid about this issue. Let tourneys be smart, Blizzard dumb.

Don't try and re invent the wheel, just ask the car manufacturer why they are shipping theirs without them.

On August 10 2012 05:09 a176 wrote:
i like the positioning of the no-pathing. it does not break any maps as mappers would just need to reposition the nat literally a square or so in a direction. good job.

On August 10 2012 05:44 Blazinghand wrote:


The big issue with the so-called "no-pathing solution" is that it's not actually a solution. Here's what you need to be a solution:

1) stop pylon blocks and bunker blocks at the bottom of a Zerg ramp.
2) allow Terran and Protoss players to make walls at the bottom of their own ramps for defensive purposes once on 2 bases-- either to wall across a choke, wall between the CC/Nex and the ramp, or wall off the bottom of their own ramp. You might think this sounds rare, but in a small number of pro games this has made a difference.

Now, everyone seems to be focusing on #1 when really you need to solve both #1 AND #2. Just stopping rushes isn't good enough, you need to not bastardize the sim-cities of Terran and Protoss. Your goal is only to stop OFFENSIVE low-ground walls. Stopping defensive low-ground walls would be really really bad.

Any solution that uses LoS blocking grass, or unbuildable pathing, does not address part 2 of the solution. The only options I could see that really address both parts 2 needed to be a solution are:

1) burrowed neutral depot
2) (not sure if this is possible) 2x2 creep patch that waits for 3 minutes then fades away

And honestly, burrowed neutral depot is way better.

On August 10 2012 05:46 iamcaustic wrote:

I've updated the OP with a more refined pathing and demonstrations of FFE and Terran anti-ling walls on 2-bases with this new pathing. Basically, nothing is negatively impacted, which means both items #1 and #2 should be considered solved IMO.

On August 10 2012 05:23 Diamond wrote:
Still can't remove it to be able to wall ur ramp. Can't change up 2+ years of how people play for a sub par solution when a perfect solution exists. Just have to deal with the fact Blizzard is absolutely stupid about this issue. Let tourneys be smart, Blizzard dumb.

Don't try and re invent the wheel when you get a car with none, instead ask the car manufacturer why they are shipping theirs without them.

On August 10 2012 05:51 Blazinghand wrote:


I saw your sim-city screenshots but you're missing 1) the ability to wall between your main and your nat, which is crucial for protoss in PvZ-- a quick player can stop a ling runby from getting into the main and 2) the fact that not every map has the Nat mineral line that close to the ramp.

Now, for #2 you could argue that maybe all maps SHOULD have their nat mineral lines that close to the ramp from now on. But the fact of the matter is, the pathing solution reduces the diversity of possible nat orientations, since the protoss has to start his wall further forwards, he can't extend it as far outwards, it has to come backwards.

This is not as good as neutral depot. It's an acceptable solution maybe for a map that already has a natural that's hugging the main like that, and where you're okay with removing one of Protoss' solutions to ling-runbys, but otherwise it's really still not solving #2.

On August 10 2012 07:42 a176 wrote:


im not sure what you're trying to argue against here. the only difference between his solution and the current ramp pathing is that you need to start the wall one square up. the wall always has to 'go backwards' towards the nexus for nexus walls. the change has nothing to do with terrain-based choke wall offs. lastly, even with the additional no path protruding from the ramp, defensively no one ever builds anything there as to block their own ramp.

On August 10 2012 07:58 Blazinghand wrote:


Right, but now it has to go backwards an extra square. When you're working with 5-6 squares of wall, that's a large change. It changes where and how you can locate naturals-- they MUST be slightly more inwards now. This is clear to anyone who's ever made a map they anticipated a PvZ happening on.

The idea that no one every builds anything as to block their own ramp is incorrect. Protoss players will slap down 1-2 pylons to stop a ling runby if it happens early in a PvZ. These pylons get cancelled, of course, but they prevent early speedlings from getting into the main, which is defenseless, in an FFE. Having to slap down a 3rd pylon to do so changes this dynamic. A lot. The pylons typically get cancelled, but you still have to bank more.

Also, terrans wall the bottom of their own ramps with depots all the time.

On August 10 2012 07:46 NewSunshine wrote:
The problem is, you'd be changing something that 1) players have been used to for 2 years now, and 2) has no actual problems concerning gameplay. And actually, a permanent no-build section would be more irritating, since it would always be a small infringement on build space, where a depot can be cleared up for more stuff.

The only problem with the depot is that Blizzard has refused to use them in ladder maps. If they don't want neutral depots in a map, how do you think they'll treat a totally new ramp footprint? Not to mention one that's only used on main ramps. This has been thought out, clearly, but it's not a solution, because there's not a problem.

On August 10 2012 08:56 Plexa wrote:

Actually a solution like this might actually be useful for the reason you point out in your second paragraph. Blizzard are objected to using depots, and it doesn't take much to think of why. (Because having to put depots on the bottom of ramps illustrates that there is a broken strategy in a very visible way i.e. joe noob asks his friend why there are depots on his ladder maps and he replies 'becuz cannons too stronk' or equivalent). A subtle change like this means that ramp wall offs don't register as imbalanced with lower level players and hence is a solution that blizzard could (and should) look into.

On August 10 2012 10:52 XenoX101 wrote:
Mm another thing I don't quite like about this is that the unpathable terrain will be unexplainably larger below the ramp than it will be above it. I think it would be very strange to a player that the top of a ramp can make a clean 3 building tight wall-off, yet the bottom of a ramp has 5 extra squares that no building can touch. And to make matters worse this unfortunately isn't explained visually like the neutral supply depot is, since both top and bottom of the ramp naturally look the same, which would further add to the confusion of placement errors.

I did think however of perhaps one way Blizzard could fix this, and maybe map makers depending on whether this can be done with the footprint editor and if the footprint editor is working in patch 1.5 (I believe it was fixed earlier but I'm not sure).

I was thinking perhaps a small adjustment to the ramp footprint may fix this problem. Basically buildings have very rounded off corners on their footprint that, if they are placed diagonally against each other like below, allow units with less than a 0.5 unit radius to pass through; this includes zerglings, drones and marines. See spoiler for visual example.

+ Show Spoiler +

However when it comes to ramps, for some strange reason the corners of the ramp are less rounded off than those of buildings and, as we all know, don't allow these such <0.5 unit radius units to escape when diagonally adjacent buildings are placed such as the pylons below. The gaps are too small.

+ Show Spoiler +

So, my obvious suggestion would be that if one were to round/cut-off the bottom part of the ramp's footprint, then that would allow units with a <0.5 radius to pass through diagonally, the same way as if the ramp were a building. It's elegant in that it wouldn't prevent the buildings from going up, but would still eliminate their main imbalanced purpose: to stop units from exiting the ramp, and as stated would do this the same way that every other diagonally adjacent building does.

+ Show Spoiler +

And if one wanted to intentionally wall their own ramp at a later point, it would still be possible only with an extra building or two at the sides.

One potential downside to it is that it would also suffer from the same asymmetry problem I mentioned above in the building placement fix, however this could be fixed by mirroring the effect on both sides, as I imagine it would not affect standard in-base wall-offs too much, but this would obviously need to be tested.

The main problem with this solution however is that it may not be possible to do with the footprint editor, and so it might only be something Blizzard would have to do. But, if it is possible, apart from having the same downside as the original suggestion in this thread of not being visible, I think this would probably be the most elegant solution to the problem. Interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this suggestion and/or if it's possible to implement, I might do some tinkering later and see what I can come up with.

On August 10 2012 08:56 Plexa wrote:

Actually a solution like this might actually be useful for the reason you point out in your second paragraph. Blizzard are objected to using depots, and it doesn't take much to think of why. (Because having to put depots on the bottom of ramps illustrates that there is a broken strategy in a very visible way i.e. joe noob asks his friend why there are depots on his ladder maps and he replies 'becuz cannons too stronk' or equivalent). A subtle change like this means that ramp wall offs don't register as imbalanced with lower level players and hence is a solution that blizzard could (and should) look into.

On August 10 2012 11:15 NewSunshine wrote:

I don't think it would work. For one, as is noted above, the ramp would have an odd footprint at the bottom and not the top, and at that it's one that doesn't make intuitive sense. Two, the strategy isn't actually broken/OP yet, because it hasn't been proven to be OP, and there are maneuvers such as the worker drill which can be used. The main reason that tournaments use the supply depot is to bar that sort of strategy in a tournament setting, because nobody wants to watch games like that. To this end, a supply depot is well within the realm of plausibility and understandability. That Blizzard doesn't do this falls in line with their rationale behind enabling things such as the 6-pool - to allow all forms of strategy on the ladder, which is their right to do.

On August 10 2012 10:29 SiskosGoatee wrote:
However, that they don't indicates something. Blizzard has the full capacity to modify the footprint of ramps, and they in fact have done so, you used to be able to wall with only 2 pylons, they changed it to three, which shows they are willing to change this, and could change this to four if they consider it imbalanced (they considered 2 to be imbalanced), but they don't.

Now, honestly, I have more faith in Blizzard than in anyone else regarding this or any decision regarding balance, some of the things they did seemed mad at first glance and later on ended up making sense, in fact, that they seem mad exactly illustrates it, David Kim has a university degree, he's not stupid, and assuming that he's supposedly stupid and we know it better is just hubris, he has access to all the statistics regarding everything that we don't, if his decisions seem mad, I choose to believe that it means that he knows something that we don't. He could probably in five minutes change the footprints of ramp from his desk to require 4 pylons to be walled off or whatever he wanted, but he doesn't, even though he has shown in the past to be more than willing to make such changes, which indicates one thing, he doesn't consider it imbalanced. And he has access to all the stats and designed the game, so I would definitely put more faith into him than in the 'community'.