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On September 14 2010 00:38 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 00:13 andrinho wrote:On September 13 2010 23:58 Klive5ive wrote:On September 13 2010 23:54 andrinho wrote: Very interesting, I see 2 big issues with the sockfolding;
- Rush/cheese builds being even more effective, nobody wants all ins every single game. - Mules... nuff said. I really like the idea of playing with my harvesters early on but those 2 points might make this a "must fix". How can you possibly come to the first conclusion. If both players use the technique the offence/defence advantage cancels out. The income increase encourages players to use it for early aggression, even thought both players can do it and theoretically even each other out, I still think it's more beneficial for rushes than for tech speeding therefore making up for quick all-in low tech games (specially cause it only works for minerals not gas). Personally I enjoy games with more development, depth and mix of units, I don't mind quick games, I just don't want to see it becoming the standard. I think this can add about 2-3 seconds to a fast banshee which equates to a extra volley :D
My point is that it is beneficial to low tech rushes, banshees need gas.
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On September 14 2010 00:42 z00t wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 00:38 Ndugu wrote: Theoretically, if Blizzard patches this the easiest way-- making it so that workers just work most efficiently-- it might end up being the kind of little nudge-buff that would help Zerg players survive aggressive all-inish stuff while macrong. Would push the game in a great direction to give a tiny little boost to macro players over non-macro players. But since all races' workers would benefit from such a 'fix', wouldn't it just end up being the same as it is now  ? Why would macro players get any more of an edge over non-macro players than they do at the moment?
Because it's a compounding advantage and zerg can produce multiple workers at a time in the early game.
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My point is that it is beneficial to low tech rushes, banshees need gas.
Ever thought of the fact you are able to get your 2nd gas a whole 50 minerals earlier?
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On September 13 2010 16:20 Jaeger wrote: My experimental results seem to show the potential gain is larger than 7%.
Steps: - Run yabot steppes of war - choose basic mode - reset as protoss (-r p) - train worker - box and 3:3 split - rally first 2 probes to empty patches - reset and leave rally at middle patch - pylon on 9 @ 100 minerals adjacent to nexus - chrono boost 11th probe and continue to pump probes until 18 - pause when 18th probe spawns
I got 2:58 with 685 minerals and 25 energy on my nexus
Now open up the map in galaxy editor f7 for data module data type behaviors select neutral>minerals change stats return delay from .5 to 0 this should simulate optimal micro if we understand this trick correctly.
Rerun the test with this map. I got 2:56 with 770 minerals and 24 energy on my nexus
A little math gives us a relative percent difference of mineral per second rate here as ~12.8% which seems much higher than 7%. Probably not possible to reach that level of efficiency in practice but seems interesting. Ending with 12% more minerals doesn't mean mining increased by 12% -- remember you spent 600 minerals on probes, 100 on a pylon, and you start with 50. If you add 750 to both numbers, you'll see 6-7%.
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I hope you're all aware that this isn't in any way gamebreaking. 7% is a definite advantage, but it's a small one. Considering you have to do it to EVERY one of your workers constantly to achieve 7% (trust me, it would require absolutely amazing handspeed), the benefits while real will be minimal. I'm definitely an advocate of 'every little bit helps', but you have to realise that this increase has less bearing than scouting before gateway, attacking cross positions, not putting workers in gas for 2-3 seconds.
It's a small advantage. A good one, but a small one.
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The balance arguments - i.e. this race gains from it - or: it will fix the mid-game of that race - should not be part of the argumentation for why this should or should not be part of the game. The balance problems can be solved in other ways.
We don't have to clutch like drowning men to every little precious exploit to make the game more interesting, either. If the game is not interesting enough as it is, that needs to be addressed.
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tested this with mule on close mineral normally give 270 with this mineral boost it gives 300
u can que up about 3-4 times per returning so ud have to baby watch the mule for 3 trips to que him enough so he can get it for his entire life
worth it? yes, but only if u dont have anything better to do. im gonna start doing this but only for my first 1-2 mules and not my scvs ^^
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On September 14 2010 00:56 Endorsed wrote:Ever thought of the fact you are able to get your 2nd gas a whole 50 minerals earlier? Good point, although you would be basically "wasting" workers on gas since in the big picture you could get more benefit off of minerals since you can through special micro gather more than it is "intended".
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On September 14 2010 01:03 spydR wrote: I hope you're all aware that this isn't in any way gamebreaking. 7% is a definite advantage, but it's a small one. Considering you have to do it to EVERY one of your workers constantly to achieve 7% (trust me, it would require absolutely amazing handspeed), the benefits while real will be minimal. I'm definitely an advocate of 'every little bit helps', but you have to realise that this increase has less bearing than scouting before gateway, attacking cross positions, not putting workers in gas for 2-3 seconds.
It's a small advantage. A good one, but a small one.
How can an advantage be good but small? The magnitude of the advantage defines how good it is. An advantage cannot be big, but bad - and hence cannot be good, but small.
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This is great. I hate spamming but also looking like a slow chump on the replay when my apm is much lower because of the first two minutes of no activity. Its really cool because I find I start having enough things to occupy my time around 18 workers right when the technique isn't useful. True it is mindless clicking but its still better then mindless waiting.
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On September 14 2010 00:42 z00t wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 00:38 Ndugu wrote: Theoretically, if Blizzard patches this the easiest way-- making it so that workers just work most efficiently-- it might end up being the kind of little nudge-buff that would help Zerg players survive aggressive all-inish stuff while macrong. Would push the game in a great direction to give a tiny little boost to macro players over non-macro players. But since all races' workers would benefit from such a 'fix', wouldn't it just end up being the same as it is now  ? Why would macro players get any more of an edge over non-macro players than they do at the moment?
Well, its not a HUGE advantage haha, but compare say, a 4gating Protoss who stops at only like 16 workers to make his push extra effective versus a 2-base Zerg who droned extra hard and has both bases close to saturated before the push comes. He'll have eeked out SLIGHTLY more of an economic advantage from it and perhaps have a bit more money to throw into defense.
Odds are it would never actually be a noticeable advantage, but it a slight effect of patching this (which I think will happen).
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On September 14 2010 01:17 Ndugu wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 00:42 z00t wrote:On September 14 2010 00:38 Ndugu wrote: Theoretically, if Blizzard patches this the easiest way-- making it so that workers just work most efficiently-- it might end up being the kind of little nudge-buff that would help Zerg players survive aggressive all-inish stuff while macrong. Would push the game in a great direction to give a tiny little boost to macro players over non-macro players. But since all races' workers would benefit from such a 'fix', wouldn't it just end up being the same as it is now  ? Why would macro players get any more of an edge over non-macro players than they do at the moment? Well, its not a HUGE advantage haha, but compare say, a 4gating Protoss who stops at only like 16 workers to make his push extra effective versus a 2-base Zerg who droned extra hard and has both bases close to saturated before the push comes. He'll have eeked out SLIGHTLY more of an economic advantage from it and perhaps have a bit more money to throw into defense. Odds are it would never actually be a noticeable advantage, but it a slight effect of patching this (which I think will happen).
I believe you have to do it for every individual worker. Doing it with 16+ workers simply doesnt seem feasible to me. The race which might benefit more would be Terran. As Morrow stated above, it can give 30 minerals extra per Mule, which sounds like a big deal to me.
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How many times have you tested this? Doing this for 5 minutes only one time and seeing a 7% mineral increase doesn't mean this is legit and happens every time, it could very well depend on other factors and only work in certain situations. Interesting nonetheless, especially with MULE's.
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On September 14 2010 01:15 Stromming wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 01:03 spydR wrote: I hope you're all aware that this isn't in any way gamebreaking. 7% is a definite advantage, but it's a small one. Considering you have to do it to EVERY one of your workers constantly to achieve 7% (trust me, it would require absolutely amazing handspeed), the benefits while real will be minimal. I'm definitely an advocate of 'every little bit helps', but you have to realise that this increase has less bearing than scouting before gateway, attacking cross positions, not putting workers in gas for 2-3 seconds.
It's a small advantage. A good one, but a small one. How can an advantage be good but small? The magnitude of the advantage defines how good it is. An advantage cannot be big, but bad - and hence cannot be good, but small.
good was redundant in that sense. Sorry grammar police. Contribute to the thread next time please instead of nitpicking for your own ego trip.
I've already played around with this a couple of times, and it does require a fair amount of concentration to be useful past the 15-16 supply mark. It's definitely a cool find, but don't scream doomsday.
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On September 14 2010 01:25 Stromming wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2010 01:17 Ndugu wrote:On September 14 2010 00:42 z00t wrote:On September 14 2010 00:38 Ndugu wrote: Theoretically, if Blizzard patches this the easiest way-- making it so that workers just work most efficiently-- it might end up being the kind of little nudge-buff that would help Zerg players survive aggressive all-inish stuff while macrong. Would push the game in a great direction to give a tiny little boost to macro players over non-macro players. But since all races' workers would benefit from such a 'fix', wouldn't it just end up being the same as it is now  ? Why would macro players get any more of an edge over non-macro players than they do at the moment? Well, its not a HUGE advantage haha, but compare say, a 4gating Protoss who stops at only like 16 workers to make his push extra effective versus a 2-base Zerg who droned extra hard and has both bases close to saturated before the push comes. He'll have eeked out SLIGHTLY more of an economic advantage from it and perhaps have a bit more money to throw into defense. Odds are it would never actually be a noticeable advantage, but it a slight effect of patching this (which I think will happen). I believe you have to do it for every individual worker. Doing it with 16+ workers simply doesnt seem feasible to me. The race which might benefit more would be Terran. As Morrow stated above, it can give 30 minerals extra per Mule, which sounds like a big deal to me.
Oh yeah, I was talking about if they patch it-- with the assumption being that the patch would just speed up the queued movement and give everyone a 7% mineral boost across the board. I would like this, as atm I see too many macro players end up just not having enough units due to the mass supply workers take up, the cost of workers, etc. A small boost to macro-style play would be great. Alternatively, they would just keep this micro trick from working somehow and mineral amounts would be the same as they are now.
But that could just be the game needing to evolve and my opinion could be totally off base 
Edit: note that I'm not saying they SHOULD patch this, but rather, that I think they WILL. It seems to be their design philosophy to remove unintended micro/macro and I'm not sure I disagree.
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People here are making such a big fuss over this . It's a good find , but it's nothing game changing for us . You either choose to do it if you can or you don't . In any ways this won't affect an average diamond player's game . It will only affect to the slightest the top level players that are way out of your league . Because lets face it Flash and Jaedong would have not become the best players in BW if they don't exploit every little thing the game offers them . This won't change in SC2 either if it reaches to the same or similar level to that of BW . Every small movement you make , every tinny advantage you get will in the end separate Flash and Jaedong from the other progamers . Unless you are dedicated as them you have no reason to fuss over something so small that isn't game changing to you .
Why would you even bother Blizzard to change this ? It will only lower the skill gap of this game and that will make it more boring on a professional level . Even if they do patch it other things like this will be expolited in the future . Blizzard has much bigger balance issues right now to be bothered with this ...
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On September 13 2010 23:54 Ruien wrote: Maybe someone has mentioned this, but it seems like "C" isn't necessary anywhere during this process. While an SCV is mining, select him and shift-right-click the mineral patch he is currently mining. Strangely enough, he will return with cargo immediately instead of pausing.
At least, it seems to work on 'slowest' in a single-player match.
There has been a lot of discussion about "shift-right-click CC, then press "C" when he starts going back, then shift-right-click the mineral patch". So I just wanted to point out that I'm getting identical results by just shift-right-clicking a mineral patch without ever needing the "C" (return cargo) command at any point.
Can anyone else confirm this?
I don't have access to SC2 right now(at work =x) but I was wondering if anyone else can confirm this? Is including 'C' in the shift-queue unnecessary in performing this trick? Seems like it would make this trick a little easier to perform for apm-challenged folks such as myself.
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I don't understand how this could be considered fun for anyone. The game would have a higher skill cap and require even more APM if automining was removed entirely and you had to manually command each worker to collect and then return resources - would TL be supportive of that? I probably won't play SC for too much longer, but I expect to be watching for a long time if the SC2 scene stays around as long as BW, and I'd rather the future players practice something more useful and entertaining than maintaining this skill as long as possible.
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And again it's much easier and much more rewarding for Terran.... -.-°
Mules really need to start colliding with SCV's when mining or they better remove this piece of gold-diggin' imbalance.
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On September 13 2010 12:08 SiNiquity wrote:Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 11:37 oberon wrote:+ Show Spoiler [No] + I suspect this is caused by the use of battle.net. As everyone knows, no game is now played on "LAN latency" -- all commands you issue have a delay integrated so that, should you have a brief lagspike, your computer already knows what should happen over the next chunk of time. Since this delay would be applied when a command is issued, not executed, my guess is that workers who have just harvested issue such a command (it's not previously queued). By issuing it earlier, yourself, you can eat the delay when it's irrelevant, and have instant response as the queue is executed.
If I'm right, this would apply to any automatically-provided order. The problem is knowing which orders are complex, and which orders are simple but automatically provided. The biggest example in my mind is target selection. If your roach finishes blowing up one stalker, and starts looking for the next one, is that all part of one "attack" command? Or is a new attack command enqueued when the first enemy is eliminated? If the latter, you're losing DPS, and optimal combat micro becomes absurdly intensive (not only must you manually select all targets, you must do it one step ahead -- always having the next target queued up). This should be testable -- throw a unit against a few enemies, and time the kills, then do the same with each enemy queued up.
If this is the case, I can think of two fixes:
1) "Linked" commands. When you mine something, the return is enqueued at the same time, and linked to the mining action. If the mining is canceled so is the return. This would be an easy fix for workers, but to have every combat unit always have a secondary target queued up would be a pain.
2) Complex commands. "Harvest" has to include both gather and return. "Attack" has to include target selection, etc.
Can anyone think of other (potentially) automatically issued commands?
Show nested quote +On September 13 2010 10:23 SiNiquity wrote:Having done a ton of research on worker mechanics in this game, and since I haven't seen a full explanation of this technique, allow me to explain the game mechanics behind it. How this trick worksWorkers in the game go through 7 stages cyclically (that is, at the end of stage 7 the worker proceeds to stage 1) when harvesting resources. This is straight from the Galaxy Editor: - Approach Resource - The initial stage where the worker travels to the resource.
- Wait at Resource - If the resource is already being harvested.
- Harvest - The harvest stage where the unit either plays the harvest mineral animation, or disappears into the vespene geyser.
- Wait to Return - The worker waits for some number of seconds which I shall refer to as N. This is a resource dependent stage (that is, it depends on a property of the resource). For minerals, N = 0.5, but for gas, N = 0.
- Wait for Drop Off - This stage is only executed if a drop-off location is not available (i.e there is no reachable Nexus, or the last Command Center is lifted).
- Approach Drop Off - Worker travels back to the base
- Drop Off - Worker deposits the resources into the base.
At the beginning of stage 4, the "Gather" ability changes into the "Return Cargo" ability, as the unit now has cargo in its possession. Thus by spamming C / Right-click repeatedly into the worker's action queue, one can skip stage 4 and jump immediately to stage 5. Theory does not lie. This technique works. However, as a result, it will not work for gas.edit: I don't think it's going to get patched, because the 4th stage is arbitrary anyway. They [Blizzard] could've just added 0.5 seconds to the harvest time without that 4th stage, but instead the put it in the game. I think this is intentional. TL;DR: It works. Probably not going anywhere. Game on.
OK, I found those steps, but they're sorted by alpha, and no details seem to be available (they seem to be inherited from a built-in behavior, CAbilGather or something like that). Are there more docs somewhere I'm missing? I'm especially curious where you're getting N=0.5, obviously.
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