Analysis of Macro - Page 14
Forum Index > SC2 General |
RevRich
United States218 Posts
| ||
Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On February 11 2011 02:53 Amanitar wrote: Rofl @ 300 food cap. It would be waaaay imbalanced, but towards zerg! I mean, with a production as big as zerg they would be at 300 supply waaaaay before p/t could even think of being there. Which would be imba. It would imbalance T Mech. Its like BW mech except Z has no swarms and your AA has AOE... and your vultures have splash that can't accidentally blow up your tanks. That being said, having 30 range 11 cliff walking splash units that are probably cloaked at that point would certainly be hilarious as well. | ||
JJoNeEightY
United States509 Posts
Protoss, BW, with 54 workers equally distributed on 6 bases: 18120 minerals over 5 minutes. Terran, BW, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 13200 minerals over 5 minutes. Zerg, SC2, with 54 workers equally distributed on 4, 5 or 6 bases: ~15384 minerals over 5 minutes. Protoss, SC2, with 54 workers confined to 3 bases: 14586 minerals over 5 minutes. This was one of the more interesting parts of this post to me. Especially with how difficult many 3rd bases, 4th bases, etc, are to take on these maps, players who are taking risks and making investments by securing and defending additional expansions should be rewarded for doing so. Currently, as I understand it, the first and second worker on each mineral patch harvest with optimum efficiency, the third worker per patch is not as efficient as the first two, and adding more than three workers per patch does next to nothing. What if this was changed so that efficiency per worker decreased with the 2nd worker on each patch, and, additionally, the first worker per mineral patch harvested at a higher rate than the 1st and 2nd workers per patch harvest at now. To clarify my above ideas (note that these numbers are just examples used to illustrate proportions, and not the actual rates): Current Harvester Efficiency - 1st worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 2nd worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 3rd worker per patch: 75 minerals/minute My Idea for Harvester Efficiency - 1st worker per patch: 125 minerals/minute 2nd worker per patch: 100 minerals/minute 3rd worker per patch: 75 minerals/minute This would add greater incentive and reward for securing additional bases, which I think is something that we can all agree is good for game balance/just makes sense. I haven't given this a great deal of thought, but the one thing that immediately comes to mind as a possible concern, is how this might improve very early aggressive attacks (early pools, proxy gateways, etc) and lead to a whole slew of new 8 worker 'cheeses.' What think you all? | ||
Chiburi
United States166 Posts
| ||
WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
The part about "three base is the best" just made me so sad because I really love going for 5 bases... | ||
Thetan
240 Posts
I wanted to test it myself until i realized i know nothing about making custom maps ![]() | ||
bLuR
Canada625 Posts
On February 10 2011 20:51 cursor wrote: Pleas Please... don't forget to factor in that Zerg has at least 6-8 supply tied up in Queens... just to macro... Zerg needs more drones, for more income, for more production... yet because of queens, high psi cost units (2+), and the extra drones... ends up having a smaller army. IMO the units cost too much food. If you're going to have less range, be smaller, be confined on creep, have PSI tied up in macro units, and be constrained by more drones, FFS ease up on the cost of the Zerg in food. Edit: Another solution I can see, is make the movement speed of drones (Mining, Transfering) on creep substantially greater. lol this quote is a joke right? please, please, dont forget, queens allow creep spread and anti-air, zerg units already cost a small amount of food, and making drones faster on creep is just an outrageous "solution". | ||
GreatFall
United States1061 Posts
| ||
mahnini
United States6862 Posts
On February 11 2011 04:58 GreatFall wrote: I knew mules were strong but damn these figures make them look downright amazing. Also, I think that a macro based game like SC2 would be better off with a 300 supply cap. Such a nice summary and writeup man. You did a lot of work here. mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands. i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you? | ||
Beef Noodles
United States937 Posts
On February 11 2011 05:12 mahnini wrote: mules look great because they are being used constantly so you see a nonstop growth in mineral intake which brings your attention only to the huge jump that occurs in mining when the first mule lands. i don't think people realize what they are asking for when they want a 300 supply cap. that's a 50% increase in the number of units currently available, if anything it would have the opposite effect of late-game zvp the op wanted where in this situation protoss can turtle to 300/300 instead of 200/200 and move out and roll everything. what's the point of saturating additional bases if your opponent can have a nearly 100% larger army supply-wise than you? I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing) | ||
Beef Noodles
United States937 Posts
If the future of SC2 is to be played out on GSL-sized maps, one proposition would be increasing the supply cap of the game so you can support ~110 workers and about 5 bases. One of the greatest proponents of an increased supply has long been day[9] himself. My main argument for an increased cap is that the strategies in the game likely will become streamlined and predictable very quickly if kept back by a 3 base ceiling. The main counterargument? It wouldn’t be balanced at all in the game’s current state, and would likely require a lot of rebalancing. @mahnini At least that's how I interpret this paragraph | ||
Jayrod
1820 Posts
I have a couple things to chime in on. 1) Expanding more to get more gas geysers: As a protoss player I can't help but feel that additional expansions past a certain point for the purpose of gas only will be far more useful to protoss in zerg than for terran. P and Z have better gas dumps than terran, with protoss, I feel, clearly having the most powerful gas dump in templar/archons. I'm afraid another side effect of these big maps in conjunction with your points is that protoss will be able to utilize expansions 4 5 and 6 better than the other two races. 2) Having said the above point, I think it is too soon to tell what impact these maps will have because the extremely long games are not so common yet. I believe that we have yet to see a proper infrastructure from any race on a large number of bases on a consistent basis. It could be that a protoss player on 10 geysers can increase his infrastructure to 4 robos and 4 stargates + X number of gateways, for instance. Simultaneously, their opponent might have 5 factories 4 starports and X number of barracks with a ghost academy. At this point, the game is going to be having that max army, both players losing some of it, and replacing it with different units to adapt to what they think their opponent is doing. I think there may be a level of depth in that type of game that we are overlooking. It could also be that its just a big crapshoot. I think with bigger maps and when we get to see increased infrastructure, we will see if its feasible to have all races play that "remaxing" style that zerg currently plays. That could end up being the strategic game we end up with... Its different than broodwar, but still strategic. 3) Question for anyone that may have noticed this... Last week I went into Yabot and just picked a random map. For some reason Desert Oasis was up there so I went on that map. I noticed the minerals seems farther from my nexus than on other maps. I'm not sure if I'm mistaken or what, but it just looked that way. After running my build a couple times it really felt like my timings were way behind. I tried it on YABOT Metalopolis next and my timings were fine. Are the patches on Desert Oasis different? Could something as simple as patch mining distance affect the game as a whole? | ||
Jaeger
United States1150 Posts
| ||
mahnini
United States6862 Posts
On February 11 2011 05:20 Beef Noodles wrote: I think you are missing the OP's point. He isn't complaining about how hard it is to kill a maxed protoss ball. He is complaining that the 200 supply cap limits you to 3 saturated bases in order to combat the ball. At 300 supply cap, you would be at 4-5-6 bases to deal with the 300 supply protoss ball. The OP is arguing that 4-5-6 bases is simply more fun and more management, and therefore better. He's not arguing it would balance the ZvP (in fact he says it would completely throw off the balancing) the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit. increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball. if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd. | ||
BeastofManju
United States79 Posts
| ||
theBlues
El Salvador638 Posts
| ||
Beef Noodles
United States937 Posts
On February 11 2011 05:57 mahnini wrote: the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit. increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball. if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd. I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap). Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and larger engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying. | ||
Johnranger-123
United Kingdom341 Posts
On February 11 2011 05:57 mahnini wrote: the way i see it the 300 cap max is related to the 3 base ceiling. there is only a 3 base ceiling because of the 200 supply limit. increasing the supply limit serves to enable zergs to take more than 3 bases to gain a macro advantage, but in doing so it has the potential to increase army size by nearly 100% (assuming you are using ~100 supply for workers). so even if a zerg were to saturate 4 bases and gain an economic advantage their army size would be 25% smaller than that of someone on 3 base, if they take fully saturate 5 bases it will be 50% smaller, etc. a larger max army size only serves to increase the efficiency of the late-game protoss ball. if we take into consideration the time to saturate for zerg vs the other races a 300 supply cap makes some sense but not because of the supply itself but because that is the point at which zerg reaches a ridiculously low time to saturate. so the underlying effect of a 300 supply cap is that it moves the zergs ability to saturate to an earlier game time relative to total game time. so if we were to accept all the stipulations made by the OP, the same effect could be achieved on 3 base if zerg could saturate that 3rd base faster than the other races could saturate their 2nd. Yeah but getting to 300/300 food will be much easier for the zerg with an economical advantage. If you allowed your P opponent to get to 300/300 that would be your fault. It would be like it is now with 200 food zergs against 150 food protoss trying to decrease their ball but they could possiblely get an even larger army before they had to slow down the protoss on their way to the ball. | ||
tehemperorer
United States2183 Posts
Either that or have every worker after the optimal amount for 3 base saturation cost only .5 food, and then .3, similar to War3's upkeep concept | ||
mahnini
United States6862 Posts
On February 11 2011 06:14 Beef Noodles wrote: I agree with your post/analysis of what a 300 supply cap might do, but I don't think that is the point the OP is trying to make. Also, if zerg growth is on an exponential graph, then the difference in supply/army strength will be greater in comparison to their opponent's with a 300 supply cap (as opposed to a 200 supply cap). Said differently, if zerg maxes out at 200 when the protoss is at say... 150 supply (50 supply difference), then -- if the cap was 300 -- zerg would max out at 300 when the protoss is at <225 supply (>75 supply difference). This will possibly benefit the zerg in a straight up fight (except your point is that splash damage unit efficiency (read collosi) also grows exponentially in larger numbers and engagements). But if the maps have wide areas where a 300 supply zerg army can get a good concave, I think it would help balance. Still no one can be sure which race it will benefit the most. It is worth trying. your scenario takes place with the assumption that the zerg is not using the extra supply to saturate which is a fair assumption because it is entirely possible to reach 300 supply on 3 base. however, in the scenario the OP describes, in which the zerg would look for an economic advantage a protoss, on 3 base would have 225 supply army whereas a zerg on 4 base would have a 200 supply army. i am assuming maxed army engagements here because this is what was stipulated in the OP as optimal for protoss and therefore what they would do on large maps. the point is, the problem (if we accept that there is a problem) isn't necessarily the supply cap, which i think is what people are not understanding, rather, the problem is zerg maximizes their economic advantage too late in a 200 cap game too late for it to matter. understanding this point can lead to more elegant solutions than everyone just saying 'yeah 300 supply cap!'. | ||
| ||