This is something I have thought about for quite some time, and I would like to discuss it with the TL community.
As we all know, the mineral saturation has drastically changed from sc1. It has gone from a slow diminishing return to a abrupt end in increased benefit. For example, in a base with 8 patches in SC2, every worker up to the 16th will yield the same amount of increase in income. Worker 17 to 24 will yield very, very tiny, almost unnoticeable increase in income, and starting with worker 25, absolutely no increase will happen.
In SC1, up to 8th worker will provide same amount of increase in income, and starting with worker 9 the diminishing returns would occur, but it will never quite die down to zero in a practical game. Now, how does this affect game play?
Case 1:
Let us assume you had 16 workers. What incentive do you have for making more workers?
SC1: 1. for future expansions 2. increased income
SC2: 1. for future expansions 2. marginally increased income compared to sc1.
In fact, the in SC1, you would never practically reach a point where an additional worker yielded zero increase in income.
Case 2:
Assume you have some excess minerals and you have the option of single or double expanding. You have about 30 workers, and you aren't quite sure if you will have the time to saturate the bases before you opponent moves out (which is especially the case for many zerg players).
SC1: Of course you would double expand. 10 workers in 3 bases yield more income than 15 workers in 2. Even if you don't spend money to saturate all 3, there is a good enough incentive to double expand
SC2: Unless you know for a fact that you can get away with making more workers, there is no reason to double expand. 10 workers in 3 bases yield the same amount of income as 15 workers in 2, and it spreads out your defenses.
It looks like SC2 isn't rewarding expansions as much as SC1. Not only that, it rewards someone who just makes 16 workers and tries to rush, rather than getting a strong economy. The defender would have more minerals relative to the attacker in the SC1 system than in SC2. Not to say rushing is a bad thing, but it is clear that SC2 rewards rushers more than SC1 did.
Do you think the mining change was for the better? For worse? Discuss!
I think along with the lethality of units (e.g. how easy it is to do crippling damage with one banshee / voidray / etc.) it just combines together to give the attacker a nice advantage - perhaps this is blizzards design choice, where they wanted a game to be pushing players towards attacking each other.
This can be seen in the kind of unit design in the game - units like the reaper also are obviously supposed to be used for early and 'cute' high-risk high-reward aggression.
Also in the map design, expansions are often difficult to defend or there are rocks that need destroying, so makes the 'cost' of trying to macro / turtle higher in comparison to playing an aggressive 'stop / cripple the enemy' game.
Obviously there are games like supreme commander where the game is heavily heavily weighted towards macro where cutting economy for an extra few early units would just be suicide and on the other hand games like C&C3 if anyone played that where unit lethality was so high that aggression was heavily favoured (the cost / benefit ratio of cutting economy to launch attack to do damage was very good).
I don't think it's necessarily a bad or good thing though, it just speeds the pace of games up a bit and makes people a bit more aggressive. Things like baneling busts and devoting larvae to zerglings wouldn't be as viable if economy / macro was always the best option - you would just hold off attacks until you got a midgame / lategame deathball. But so many of the advice on here pays testament to the design: "oh, he got a load of thors / mutas / collossus, how do i beat it?" - do not let him get to that position in the first place.
I think its important to underline that there are a lot of strategy games where that kind of 'stop their economy, limit their options, harass them and hurt them lots' really isn't a major factor, and it tends to come down to mainly the big endgame battles.
Tl;dr - its one of a package of design choices that is in my opinion there to stop the game just being about who has the better macro - decisions that basically encourage aggression.
It's obviously very bad game design. SC2 right now does not feel like an RTS.
I have only played 3-4 beta games at my cousin's house, and it struck me how cheesy and small-scale it felt back then compared to BW, and I was quite a bad (but experienced) iccup player, but whatever. So alright, I gave them some time to fix things up for release.
To my surprise nothing much really changed on release. It was still baneling busts, 4 gate galore, MMM, bunker rush, reaper bunker, 6 pool or 2port banshee. And people said give the game some time. After the first patch when zealot build time was increased, 6 pools started becoming some kind of standard play against P. Give the game time to stabilise so we see the macro games, they said.
Fast forward to December. Hey, guess what, it's still cheese! It's 2 rax against zerg, mass marines by foxer, MMG bumrush against Toss - you do NOT want to play heavy macro TvP, PvP is borderline retarded with warpgates and collosi, ZvZ has always been volatile, and all these at top levels of play.
As a Terran it seems to me that blizzard is making gas and tech heavy builds less and less viable with each patch. Maps have no intuitive way to expand to a third and hold it. 2 base play is king. Tanks nerfed twice, BCs nerfed, now Thor repair is getting nerfed, and phoenixes buffed. I'm not even complaining about balance, because frankly I wouldn't be given a damn about those nerfs if I were playing to win, not playing to have fun - who needs anything more than MMG/VB in TvP?
The mining change also plays a significant role, I'd say.
What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
This seems to me like another by-product of the poor map design. Secret expansions and double-expanding for instance, are risks that you can take to come back from behind or to secure an insurmountable advantage over your opponent. This however is not the case because on most maps, any base past your natural will be quite hard to defend and many of the maps are so small expansions can be easily sniped by just marching a bunch of t1 units down from your main to it. There are only a few maps where secret or double expanding can be reasonably pulled off, ie metal or lt, in most maps like jungle basin it takes about 10 seconds to walk units from their production facilities over to where the enemy's third or fourth is at.
Then there are the maps where even the natural will be very hard to defend, but let's not get into that.
Constant expansion and strong economy play should be rewarded, this is after all an RTS. But that's currently not the case, I agree, and I think a large part of it has to do with the map design.
I would think that it gives mules quite the advantage wouldnt you agree, if the game rewards single base, play. But it also keep zerg in check with the mid-late game explosion of drone possibility.
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
it's a good idea, but I think the game has too much emphasis on mineral heavy gas cheap units atm with the exception of zerg, because naturally they can get more gas.
in this game if you cut workers and hide that fact from the enemy, you can actually do more economic damage and come out on top with a semi all-in.
Ignoring zerg-specific situations, double expanding is almost always initially as income-effective as single expanding (who has 40+ workers on 1 base anyway?), and is usually used to double-pump workers. The same holds with fast expanding as T or P, you won't have enough workers to initially have an increase in income, rather than just saturating your main, but it helps you get saturated on two bases faster than just pumping out of one base and waiting until full saturation.
Regarding your assumption of double expanding in SC1: + Show Spoiler +
SC1: Of course you would double expand. 10 workers in 3 bases yield more income than 15 workers in 2. Even if you don't spend money to saturate all 3, there is a good enough incentive to double expand
Expanding still has an initial sunk cost and it will take a while for an expansion to pay for itself, this assumption seems a little drastic when you have no idea when the enemy would attack...there's still risk associated to this opposed to just single expanding
Regarding your assumption about 2-3 workers per patch: + Show Spoiler +
3 scv's collect 12-24 minerals more per minute, depending on distance of patch from the CC, not a completely insignificant amount (between 28.8-61.5% of an SCV's base rate on the patch) - Two SCVs on one mineral patch harvest 78-90 minerals per game minute, depending on distance. - Three SCVs on one mineral patch harvest ~102 minerals per game minute. This is fully saturated and does not depend on distance. (source)
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
it's a good idea, but I think the game has too much emphasis on mineral heavy gas cheap units atm with the exception of zerg, because naturally they can get more gas.
in this game if you cut workers and hide that fact from the enemy, you can actually do more economic damage and come out on top with a semi all-in.
couldn't another option be to start with mineral patches significantly farther away? (as hilarious as that is)
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
I thought maynarding was proven to be very whorthwhile move, but the article does not think so. This thread ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155609 ) discusses mineral saturation and the effect of maynarding. Not to derail the original post, but I think this is directly related and it's got me thinking about it again.
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
I thought maynarding was proven to be very whorthwhile move, but the article does not think so. This thread ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155609 ) discusses mineral saturation and the effect of maynarding. Not to derail the original post, but I think this is directly related and it's got me thinking about it again.
the article i linked to says that maynarding isn't immediately beneficial unless u have a huge amount of workers
To me it just sounds like another attempt at a UI upgrade, where an easy rule is used to determine full base saturation (3 workers per patch, 3 per gas), along with unlim. army size, multi-building select, etc.
To say that there is no benefit to double expanding is straight out false. Sure, it's one of those risks that can make you lose the game, but there are SPECIFIC instances which call for that move, like in PvT where T is turtling his heart out (and yes, this happens at diamond level too), or PvZ lategame where the map gets split in half.
You're not really considering all aspects of the game, instead just focusing on 1-base play SOMETIMES owning 2-base, or 2 owning 3, etc. etc. I'm here to tell you that 2-base in all matchups and all races can be held against 1 base, considering that you know what you're doing and have practiced that build. 3rd base is a matter of timing and game flow: if you have been losing every skirmish to where you don't have the army size that you normally would, then yes, you won't capture a 3rd most likely and you will probably just lose. If you have been owning the guy left and right, you can undoubtedly get away with double expand (it will be risky, but will almost guarantee a win). EDIT - A stalemate will give both players the opportunity to put up their third. Sneaky players can try to get away with fourth. See? I'm getting mindf%&ked just thinking about it.. x)
I don't know, maybe I'm understanding the OP wrong, but... the change really isn't that serious. If an opponent is a Foxer, then none of anyone's comments are valid as thats a whole nother scenario.
TL;DR - X+1 base economy is always better and always yields more than X base economy. Thus, the Army vs Economy debate rages on.
I don't want to parrot "the community" but I still think the meta game is evolving, and that when bigger (i.e., half-decent) maps come out, and the people who play starcraft to have a break between madden and halo finally stop logging on, that macro will be king.
But I agree with you, this 2base nonsense is pervasive. There are few games where I get a 4th up anymore, and it's probably because the maps reward all-ins and fast paced rush type builds. Im sure when blizzard implements iCCup maps, or at least really big maps with nice expansions, that these shenanigans will be less viable.
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
I thought maynarding was proven to be very whorthwhile move, but the article does not think so. This thread ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155609 ) discusses mineral saturation and the effect of maynarding. Not to derail the original post, but I think this is directly related and it's got me thinking about it again.
the article i linked to says that maynarding isn't immediately beneficial unless u have a huge amount of workers
that doesn't mean it isn't eventually beneficial
Right, but it is pretty much saying maynarding is a tactic that has very minimal benefits, if any. However, I feel that that there are many variables involved with mineral saturation in general. Is maynarding worth it for your first expansion? How about your second or third? Do you want all your bases to be mining around the same pace? Which maps would encourage you to change your mineral saturation rate at your bases? These are just things off the top of my head that I don't have a good handle on.
I try to keep my bases evenly saturated so that I can have all my Nexi on one hotkey and make one probe for each base.
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
it's a good idea, but I think the game has too much emphasis on mineral heavy gas cheap units atm with the exception of zerg, because naturally they can get more gas.
in this game if you cut workers and hide that fact from the enemy, you can actually do more economic damage and come out on top with a semi all-in.
I agree and disagree with your assertion that SC2 has too much emphasis on mineral heavy units. Here's what I think:
If you look at SC1, you'll see that in each matchup, races tend to macro more than they do in SC2. The only exception is TvP, where expands generally come later, though obviously things like four gate builds and two gate robo are still quite rare. Now, looking at mineral/gas costs and collection rates, two things are important:
1.) Gas in SC1 was collected from a single geyser, where workers would pull 8 gas per trip for an extractor that cost 100 minerals. Now in SC2, you have more control over gas, but you need to spend an extra 50 minerals and 3 extra workers to get the same gas production off one base. 2.) Gas costs in SC2 are significantly higher than they were in SC1. Looking at a few units, we can see this plainly:
Siege tanks are 25% more expensive in terms of gas in SC2 than they were in SC1. Since gas is often the limiting factor in how many tanks you can make, this essentially cuts tank production by 20-25%. This is partly offset by the difference in cost between the machine shop and tech lab, but not as the game progresses.
Reavers were 200/100 and arguably more useful than colossi in the same numbers. One reaver could easily kill dozens of units; the single shot kill record for a reaver is 72. Now, colossi cost 300/200 at a greater gas to mineral ratio, as well as costing more gas in general, but are less effective.
DTs are 25 gas more expensive and the DT tech is separate from HTs. This makes DTs quite a bit less useful than they were in SC1 (and HTs as well; you often have to pick one or the other and then transition into the one you opted not to choose)
And I could go on. These two things result in less tech units on the field and more basic units. For Terran, since marines have been buffed from SC1 and now sync very well with marauders, we often see bio-balls where the majority of gas goes into the medivacs healing them. This is true even in TvP, where it would have been suicide to mass bio in the midgame in SC1. For Toss, it results in all the gas being dumped into stalkers and one tech unit, usually colossus. Lategame this begins to change, but we don't see as many DTs, HTs, etc. Heavy gas tech strats are not as viable as in SC1.
However, I do think that as mechanics improve, players will start seeing that they can dump minerals into defense and economy, and use gas to field powerful units earlier. This was a trend in the P matchups in SC1, as protoss players would FE and put minerals throughout the game into cannons. Often they would expo in PvT as much as a Zerg would normally. The sheer income would allow them to mass zealots and dragoons, and spend all their gas on HTs and arbiters.
I think this is still possible in SC2, it just hasn't seen much playtime because of all the 1 base strategies.
Nice link Travis. I think it would be interesting to see differences in mineral collection rates with maynarding vs. not maynarding. I'm going to try this out later and see if I can actually get any information that may be remotely useful.
On December 17 2010 04:00 travis wrote: What about some maps having like 2 more mineral patches?
btw, 16 is way too low. it's too low even if u don't count gas (6 workers). u will notice a very significant mining difference between 24 on minerals and 16 on minerals.
To me it just sounds like another attempt at a UI upgrade, where an easy rule is used to determine full base saturation (3 workers per patch, 3 per gas), along with unlim. army size, multi-building select, etc.
There is an easy rule to determine saturation now. I am exploring the possibility that it is a bad thing.
To say that there is no benefit to double expanding is straight out false. Sure, it's one of those risks that can make you lose the game, but there are SPECIFIC instances which call for that move, like in PvT where T is turtling his heart out (and yes, this happens at diamond level too), or PvZ lategame where the map gets split in half.
It is one thing to take a third, and a totally different thing to double expand. I never said there is no benefit to double expanding. I said there is no reason to double expand if you don't have enough time to make more workers, which is the case in many match ups as any competent player will try to abuse the greed by staging a timing attack, and you really can't be spending money on additional probes when you already spent 400(300 for zergs) putting down the extra base.
You're not really considering all aspects of the game, instead just focusing on 1-base play SOMETIMES owning 2-base, or 2 owning 3, etc. etc. I'm here to tell you that 2-base in all matchups and all races can be held against 1 base, considering that you know what you're doing and have practiced that build.
I don't know how this is relevant, as I am talking about double expanding, as in making 2 nexuses at the same time, and not about whether you should expand or not.
Moreover, I would like you to consider this. I am going to use PvT as an example because you and I both seem to be protoss players. Terran blocks off. You have no idea what he is doing. Instead of taking your nat with just 2 gate, you decide you want an ob before you do anything, which I think you would agree is very reasonable.
And lo and behold, the terran has FE'd.
Question here is, is there a benefit to double expanding here? At this point, you probably will have around 30 workers at your main, with 2 gate and 1 robo. Almost the exact same situation I describe in the OP. Can you afford to double expand and still survive? Maybe if you don't try to make too many more probes. Even then, you will be hard pressed to defend your third. So, is there enough incentive to double expand? No, not in my mind, due to all the reasons I have listed on the OP.
EPT
