I like the idea even more than DH I must say. Looks clean, simple. Still not sure it has much effect in real games (like with DH), but I think it's worth implementing anyway. But I'm still disappointed there is no attempt at making this kind of models interact with LotV-type mineral distributions, which are, in my humble opinion, definitely here to stay, if I'm reading Blizzard correctly.
Any model that doesn't even attempt to cooperate with LotV's current goals is bound to fail.

Uvantak

Uruguay1381 Posts

June 30 2015 21:31 GMT

#42

The thing is that any system proposed until now by Blacklilium or anyone that knows what are the problems will work with LotV. That's a given ZenithM

Also lilium, my big gripe with DH/TH and this new system that you are proposing is that there are too many of them, we need to sum everything up into a single system that complies with that Blizzard wants. And that means maybe accelerate the income rate of the first 8 workers compared to the next 8 so players are more encouraged to expand.

We have two ways to go, simply copy the HotS income rates and add worker pairing based on these numbers (DH9) while keeping LotV mineral lines and the ~12 worker start or create a new-ish system that increase the relative income difference between the first and second workers even more than DH9 (~DH10 maybe), so players are encouraged to expand more.

Davy has said that he wants more aggressive expanding, lets give him that.

RFDaemoniac

United States544 Posts

July 01 2015 04:40 GMT

#43

A while ago, when FRB was in discussion, I had done some exploration of alternative mineral placements. Having some of the patches be significantly farther away instead of only having a single hex of variation created a curve.

+ Show Spoiler [Example Layout and Income Curve] +

This gave way too much income off of a single base, but that's understandable given that there are 12 patches total.
Also note that the layout of them is not very aesthetic but that can be varied.
[image loading]

The point being that we have a ton of options that create the curve that we want. unless blizzard explicitly does not want a curve (it would be really nice if we could ask this), there's no way we won't be able to come up with a system that they're okay with.

Rather than asking about a single system, ask them what their goals are and if they understand why we want an income curve, and whether they are okay with it given some requirements.

For example, their issue against DH was that the income advantage for having 4 bases instead of 3 was 20% more, which they thought was too much. If they would rather that it was only 10% more, then we can tune the numbers (or layouts) to match that.

BlackLilium

Poland426 Posts

July 01 2015 18:46 GMT

#44

On July 01 2015 06:31 Uvantak wrote:
Also lilium, my big gripe with DH/TH and this new system that you are proposing is that there are too many of them, we need to sum everything up into a single system that complies with that Blizzard wants. And that means maybe accelerate the income rate of the first 8 workers compared to the next 8 so players are more encouraged to expand.

While there are two economic system I made, HMH is a straightforward improvement over DH. I see no reason to choose the latter over the former. So, ultimately, there is only one economic system that I am proposing at any given time.

Naturally, the economic system changed and evolved over time. It is a result of maintaining the project, rather than "fire and forget". People make valuable comments, raise concerns, and if I see a way to resolve it - I try to implement it.

It's hard to understand what Blizzard wants, when their statements contradict each other. Initially they claimed DH was too extreme, and then that it is too weak. Still, HMH is a response to it in two ways:

Treating the second Blizzard comment as the valid one - HMH gives a higher efficiency drop in 9-16 range, making the system more pronounced.
Reading the comments of Blizzard as "we don't really know" - HMH is also an answer. It is much easier to tune numbers in HMH as it was in DH. If you tell me now, that "75% efficiency is too low, and we need 78.65231%" in 2 minutes I can give you an updated version of HMH meeting this requirement . Same, if you tell me that initial harvesting should be more efficient.

At this point however I think LotV economic system is set in stone is not going to change. They are in the process of balancing the game around it. However, it should be pointed, that once LotV hits the shelves HMH will not become less relevant!

I think the HMH itself is good where it is, but requires balancing of other aspects of the game around it. That is much harder job to do. I am planning to try doing just that, but I will need much more help from your side.

Davy has said that he wants more aggressive expanding, lets give him that.

If that is the only goal - why not simply reduce the cost of Nexus/CC/Hatchery?

Pontius Pirate

United States1557 Posts

July 01 2015 23:19 GMT

#45

On July 02 2015 03:46 BlackLilium wrote:

Show nested quote +

If that is the only goal - why not simply reduce the cost of Nexus/CC/Hatchery?

I'm not convinced all three of them need to be cheaper, but the Nexus could probably use a bit of a once-over. Maybe also a slightly quicker build time, or some mechanic that gives it shield armor while constructing. Yes, it's a bit band-aidy, but it's an area that Protoss needs attention in.

BlackLilium

Poland426 Posts

July 02 2015 21:14 GMT

#46

Some of you are raising an issue that when an economy mod is significant enough, you have to balance the rest of the game around it. DH games, for example, have shown that either the overall income is too low, or cheese can become hard to scout making the game coin-flippy.

For that reason, I am taking on this much harder task. With HMH as the starting point I would like to build a game around it. But I can't do that without you!
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-maps/489163-project-starcraft-improved

RoomOfMush

1296 Posts

July 02 2015 21:26 GMT

#47

I hope you meant to write "I cant do that without you!".

BlackLilium

Poland426 Posts

July 03 2015 05:32 GMT

#48

On July 03 2015 06:26 RoomOfMush wrote:
I hope you meant to write "I cant do that without you!".

Ooups.... of course that's what I meant!
Fixed.

HypertonicHydroponic

437 Posts

July 09 2015 08:27 GMT

#49

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=23382287
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=24086804

I think this idea is cool because I had mentioned the idea in both your double harvesting thread, and in Zeromus's thread, which, by the time I got to that thread my post was lost in the sea of responses. I think it is great you came up with an implementation for it, and found what seems like a pretty balanced approach (I haven't fully digested your numbers yet, so I don't know how close they match some of what I had worked on). I'm not trying to be a d!ck about it, but I'd like to be acknowledged at least for fueling the idea (you can look back at your PM's to see that you told me you thought this would be too hard to implement ... and now here it is).

To that end, I'd like to give a shout out to Qancakes, the creator of Kobold Tribes who gave me the idea of this implementation, basically applying a "buff" at mining time. I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone else came up with the same solution ... which is why I was willing to pay someone who knew the data editor to collaborate on it. Oh well, maybe next time...

BlackLilium

Poland426 Posts

July 09 2015 09:10 GMT

#50

HypertonicHydroponic, with all respect to your idea I think it is very different. Here are some problems I had, and still have with your approach:

Your model puts a saturation point at 3 or even 4 workers. That's a lot of workers, effectively putting a soft cap at 1-2 bases and making 3-rd only optional. The model would work reasonably if the number of mineral patches per base was reduced tremendously.
You propose decreasing harvest time for completely different reasons to why HMH harvest time is altered. Your approach assumes that for every X workers (X in [2..5]), there is always 1 mining, but with more workers in the queue its mining time is reduced and returns less minerals.
The original HMH didn't touch harvest time, and its further interaction did it only because of the integer nature of minerals.
Your suggestion assumes multiple (around 4 or 5) different states of minerals. That is much harder to implement.
I think the solution might fit Warcraft 3 harvesting better than Starcraft 2 as there is a single source of gold per base. I imagine that Kobold Tribes (never heard of it) is very different in terms of resources and bases.
Finally, you never even attempted to implement your approach. Not knowing the editor is not an excuse. When I started working on Double Harvesting mod, I also touched the SC2 editor for the first time, besides mapping. Since then I learned a lot by experimenting and checking how things are done in Standard as well as other mods, such as Starbow.

HMH was created as a solution to problems of Double Harvest, while having more degrees of freedom for economy balancing. It was not a result of fiddling with Kobold Tribes economy or your idea. If there is any dependency, I am afraid the connection is very very thin.