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I've been giving this topic a lot of thought ever since LaLuSh first posted it. In particular I've been thinking of how map makers might change map design to alleviate the fast max saturation problem. One solution LaLuSh has mentioned several times in this thread is the idea of changing the number of mineral nodes per base (though it is mentioned in passing).
I've toyed around with this idea, and in my testing on various maps with friends, I believe that increasing the number of patches at the main and natural from 8 to 10 whilst decreasing the minerals per patch from 1500 to 900 improves game flow.
Specifically:
1) Bases take more workers to saturate.
2) Bases mine out a touch faster because you have more mining surface area, more workers AND slightly less base minerals.
This encourages players to expand both because they get an economic advantage in doing so, but also because bases tend to mine out faster.
In our testing we decided it was better to keep the number of patches at additional bases (i.e. 3rd, 4th, etc) at 8 to encourage further expanding as the game progresses.
I highly encourage players to try this out for themselves. It is easy to change any of the blizzard maps to have 10 patches at mains and naturals and then play a game with your friends online.
If that is too much work, test it out on "Orbital Station" on the NA server. Note, this a map I threw together in an afternoon when we were toying around with ideas regarding map size and macro dynamics. It is NOT a professional map and is NOT designed for competitive play. I thought I would post it here as a sort of "proof of concept" for those who are still intrigued by how map makers might change the metagame by trying to improve macro dynamics.
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In regards to players being discouraged to expand in SC2,
Could gold expos be an attempt to remedy this, since they provide more minerals with less workers (only 6 patches)?
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On March 04 2011 04:26 Scufo wrote:
In regards to players being discouraged to expand in SC2,
Could gold expos be an attempt to remedy this, since they provide more minerals with less workers (only 6 patches)?
yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches:
- takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?).
- higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
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yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches:
- takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?).
- higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate?
Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected...
Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct.
...and decided to test these predictions out with some friends (which turned out to be A LOT of testing!).
The problem is two-fold, and not as simple as "why ever expand?"
First there is the early-mid game problem, where players rapidly saturate their bases, but macro mechanics such as MULE allow them to cut workers and all-in (or SL or CB which allow a player to saturate a base more rapidly, giving them the timing push advantage). This mechanic discourages players from expanding because they simply cannot keep up with the aggressing player (see LaLuSh's 5th graph and the discussion thereafter). I propose that having more patches at the main and natural may alleviate this problem because it will take players longer to saturate their bases, and allow the fast expanding player more time to catch up to the 1-base aggressing player, get scouting information, and get defenses in place.
Second there is the 3-base ceiling, which is that there is little benefit to expanding past your 2nd base because the effects of adding more workers spread between multiple bases is negligible between having 3 bases. LaLuSh proposes that increasing the supply cap could alleviate this some because then people could produce more workers AND still have a sizable army. I propose that the problem with the 3-base-ceiling is that bases do not mine out fast enough, meaning a player and can stay on 3-bases for a very long time, and it is not until the begin to be mined out that they have any incentive to expand past that. I would argue that there is not actually a problem with there being no incentive to have more than 3 MINING bases so long as trying to maintain that position requires the player to still expand frequently because bases mine out faster.
Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things:
1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place.
2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly.
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Wow amazing post as usual LaLush.
As a Zerg player, this really depressed me though.
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Perhaps it would be less intrusive to simply lower the capacity of all mineral patches by 250. With 2k less minerals at each base, the early and mid-game could remain unmodified, however builds that are not expansion heavy will be riskier as they will struggle economically in the late game.
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On March 04 2011 12:16 SpaceYeti wrote:Show nested quote +yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches:
- takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?).
- higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate? Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected... Show nested quote +Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct. Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things: 1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place. 2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly.
It takes more time to saturate, yes, but when you're saturated your income will be 25% higher than it is today! Mining out faster doesn't matter when you still get the same amount of resources. If you can have more workers per base then you don't need as many bases. That's the issue we have today, one base can support too many workers.
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Lalush, I absolutely loved your analysis. I appreciate you taking time to test and explain something that seems so obvious after reading your thread, but something that I never would have had the idea/curiosity to test myself as a casual(ish) player.
I cannot help but find a major contradiction in Blizzard’s conceptual outline of how the zerg race is supposed to be played in SC2 with what the game’s economical system actually allows for. Zerg are supposed to keep outexpanding, outmacroing and outproducing their opponents.Based on these data, the only way to secure a macro lead in SC2 seems to be by rushing to 3 fully saturated bases as quickly as humanly possible. The entire objective for zerg in SC2 seems to have been reduced to recklessly rushing to a macro lead as quickly, stupidly and foolishly as possible before the game caps the chance for any macro lead to develop.
As a zerg player myself, this strengthens something I've been wondering about for a while. When zergs use FE builds, they usually like to motivate their risky(er) decision with the phrase "I FE'd to get an economical lead" when in fact at a closer lookup it's more of a catch-up race than a lead against an economy-focused T or P.
I'm completely fine with this, since we have the ability to get those extra 20 workers that even things out with MULES/Chronos faster due to the larva mechanic, but in the early game this means we're using all that mineral surplus trying to catch up economically, whereas T and P can use it for army production (which, again, we can easily catch up later...if we ever get to the later part). Hence why stim-pushing, 4-gating and other early pushes are so efficient vs a zerg and why I feel it's so, incredibly more important for zergs to scout early than it is for any other race (and we have shitty, unreliable scouting abilities beyond lings which can be easily walled off against).
Consequently, the current game design FORCES us to take the early risk in order to be able to compete toe-to-toe beyond the 5th minute where the 1-base economies of T and P really start kicking into overdrive. We trade early safety for better mobility and army replenishing capabilities later on. Is this a fair trade, or is it imbalanced? I would say it's a fair trade, with the zerg having the best risk/reward proportionality in the game.
To conclude, I don't think zerg play style is broken, I actually like the risk/reward foundation the race is built upon, but I do think scouting is somewhat broken as it's a roll of the dice sacrificing an overlord. If you're going to force us to risk, also give us the option to invest some of that reward into reducing the risk  Sort of like going to war, yet wearing a helmet.
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"there is certainly less of an effect of expanding before you are beginning to supersaturate your first base" - lalush
I dont understand this. This doesnt make sense.
At 15th worker, there is 4300 minerals mined per 5 minutes. And at 29th workers the minerals are 5800 per 5 minutes.
This should prove, that if you divide your 30 workers to 2 different bases (16 for each base) then you should have 8600 minerals mined per 5 minutes. Which is alot more than supersaturating your one base.
So is lalush wrong?
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On March 07 2011 03:34 hugman wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2011 12:16 SpaceYeti wrote:yes, unlike the post above you, I also think LESS patches (maybe just at expansions) would provide more benefit.
If you have more patches:
- takes more workers to saturate. This will require more supply for workers and less for army. Also, expanding will actually occur later (why expand if you have less than 2 workers per patch?).
- higher income. Why expand if I'm already mining at a 25% higher rate? Originally, I too thought that decreasing mineral patches per base would produce the desired effect. I was corrected... Less mineral patches would worsen the problem described in OP, allowing players to cut workers even earlier without hurting their econ.
Increasing the mineral patches would be more beneficial if lalush's theory is correct. Increasing the number of mineral patches at the main and natural whilst decreasing total base resources accomplishes two things: 1) It increases the time it takes to reach max saturation, delays early game timings for all-in play, affording the player more time to get relevant scouting information, re-establish their economy after fast expanding, and get defenses in place. 2) It increases the rate at which bases mine out by increasing both "mining surface area" and the number of workers mining less minerals at each base when saturated (i.e. faster harvest rate at saturation). This increases the incentive to expand by decreasing the amount of time you can stay on 1-2 bases. Furthermore, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc bases have only 8 patches AND fewer minerals per patch, players are encouraged even more to expand into the late game as bases these additional bases will not accommodate the same saturation levels as the early bases, and will also mine out swiftly. It takes more time to saturate, yes, but when you're saturated your income will be 25% higher than it is today! Mining out faster doesn't matter when you still get the same amount of resources. If you can have more workers per base then you don't need as many bases. That's the issue we have today, one base can support too many workers. You don't get as many resources because total base resources is lower despite there being more patches. In fact, it is 25% lower, so despite income being 25% higher at full saturation you cannot remain on one base very long because it mines out in 40% less time. It means that the timing window for 1-base all-in play becomes tighter and riskier.
The problem with decreasing the number of patches is that it solves one of the problems LaLuSh has pointed out, but complicates the other. Specifically, it increases incentive to expand frequently, but it complicates the strength of 1-base all-in play because of the effects of MULE, Chronoboost, and Spawn Larvae. Macro abilities (particularly MULEs) have more dramatic effects the fewer workers there are at saturation.
Consider, for instance, a situation of 6-patch bases, where it only takes 18 workers to fully saturate a base. If we estimate the effectiveness of MULE as having 4 additional workers then the 1-base MULE-ing player has an immediate 22% higher mineral income than the expanding player who just sunk 400+ minerals into expanding and is playing catch-up for the next few minutes. Compare that to a situation in which there are 10 patches, AND fewer total base minerals. Now a MULE is only a 13.3% advantage AND there is the added factor that your base is going to mine out faster and so relying on MULE to power your way to victory on 1-base is going to shorten the the time you can spend on one base more dramatically.
NOTE: I only use MULE in this example because it is easier to quantify and demonstrate in an example. You can think of the other macro abilities in similar fashion. This is NOT a balance post about the balance of MULEs.
So yes, while increasing the number of patches does allow a base to support more workers, the decrease in patch minerals from 1500 to 900 means that the base has 25% less minerals, decreasing the amount of time you can spend on 1 base, and increasing incentives to expand frequently while also making 1-base all-in timing attacks more risky and encouraging macro-style play.
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Now I know this is a total tangent to the early game expansions discussions, so I apologise in advance, but it seems very relevant to this thread in the context of worker counts, mule usage and expansion taking.
In TLO vs sixjaxViBe on Terminus RE in the NASL day 1, as TLO reaches max supply and has taken all the nearby bases already, he plants 5 orbital commands in addition to the 3 he already has (and 1 PF). He then continues to mine for the rest of the game using multiple mule drops at very remote expansions.
Given he was playing mech (a very gas heavy style) he had the minerals to invest in this and essentially transitioned into a mule based economy allowing both incredible over-saturation of these remote bases and simultaneously freeing up supply for more mech.
It seems to me to be a very solid reaction to the '200 supply problem' and gives you the possibility to increase your economical advantage in a way that is very different to the typical 'more expansions and more workers' type of econ advantage that we normally see. Transitioning from SCV to mule has a large starting cost but given each OC has a fixed cost and provides constant mules for the rest of the game the resulting economy saves a significant amount of supply and is very resilient to harassment due to the temporary nature of the workers and very short time to mine out each expansion.
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People have been doing late game mass OCs for ages. The problem is that it's something only terran can do.
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On February 23 2011 19:47 mnck wrote:
6 mineral patches instead of 8?
If it is changed from 8 to 6, races will need to expand faster to maintain the same income as before in the same time. This will likely favour the race that expands first in the early game, and give more value and incentive to expanding faster, and more.
So I propose making the standard perhaps 6 instead of 8 patches per mineral line. As currently there are so many minerals patches per base in Blizzard maps, that having more than 3 bases (and thus 18 mineral patches) is not worthwhile.
If it is changed to 6 mineral patches per base, you will need 4 bases to reach 18 mining mineral patches. How this balance the ratio of mineral and gas, I don't know. But maybe these are things to consider and test and see how it ends working out. Perhaps changing the amount of gas per base to balance it out. Or maybe the increased gas will help SC2, as currently many feel there are too little gas in this game, and at least as a Zerg player, I only feel I expand to secure more gas when I go into lategame.
It's actually not difficult to work out. Currently you get pretty much exactly 114 gas per minute per full geyser (228 per fully saturated base) and 670 minerals with 2 workers per patch. That's just under 3.0 minerals per gas. Change the number of mineral patches from 8 to 6 and you now get 503 minerals per base. That's just over 2.2 minerals per gas.
We'll assume 2 bases, with 2 workers per mineral patch and 3 per gas geyser. That gives us 456 gas per minute, and 1,340 minerals with 8 patches. Constant Probe production costs 200 minerals per minute on average (4 probes - more if you're chronoing all the time, less if you're not at all, but it's an easy number to use).
Spending your gas, say, on 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, and a 100/100 upgrade (yes, they increase with time, but let's make it easy on ourselves) leaves you with enough spare minerals for 3.5 Zealots (or 3 in one round, 4 in the next round).
If you have only 6 mineral patches, then you have just 1,005 minerals to spend. You can now only afford 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, 1 Upgrade, and 1/3 of a Zealot (or 1 Zealot every 3 rounds).
Just to make this little exercise complete, with 7 mineral patches instead, the numbers are 1,170 minerals (2.6 per gas), buying you 1 Sentry, 5 Stalkers, 1 Upgrade, and 2 Zealots.
The only real difference would be fewer mineral-dump units in each army composition. That might be enough to make the game more interesting, or create some genuine creative choices. When you don't have a ton of extra minerals to dump on Zealots, the decision to spend gas on upgrades or units becomes more important because the units you have to cut make up a greater proportion of your army. And the choice between units becomes more important too - do you want an extra Colossus for siege dps or some more Stalkers to tank for the Colossi you already have? Currently that tactical choice boils down to just 'how do I want to dps/harass?', because you have the Zealot mineral dump to be the tank.
Apparently I've convinced myself that reducing the amount of available minerals (even if it is just by the equivalent of 1 patch per base) could be very good for the game. It would also be very very easy to test, since existing maps can simply be altered to have different mineral configurations.
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Way too many posts to read the whole thread but I definitely agree with the OP about economy being a little messed up.
I tended to lean towards the gas -- the gas requiring twice as many drones to hit saturation and also gas heavy units tending to feel a little mineral heavy compared to BW. But, drones having such huge value all the way to 16 on minerals + pretty decent value for the next eight are also an issue.
My intuition tells me that the best way to deal with this is lots of toying with patch counts + rich minerals/gas at expansions and especially lowering mineral counts for each mineral. If it becomes hard to get three working bases simultaneously it will support a very nomadic style, economy will separate from production (meaning several targets to attack/protect), and the game will get more exciting and roller coastery.
The mule could make things ugly though. I think we've only begun to see how crazy mule farming can get
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3-base ceiling is misleading. What you mean is that it is optimal to have 3 active fully saturated well stocked bases and no more. This hardly means that the metagame is going to devolve into rushing to get a saturated third. Hell, by the time you have a saturated third your main is almost mined out anyway.
I also disagree that raising the supply cap would magically unbalance the game. This is something that would require extensive testing to make that claim.
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It's too bad that there is no way that a mod for this could ever gain the support of the pro community. I think the ladder is just to convenient for practice.
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weird blizzard still didnt adress this problem, i also think that limiting mineral patches per base would increase importance of new expansions compered to what we have now when 3 bases mine with almost the same rate as 6.
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On May 05 2011 21:44 ridonkulous wrote:
weird blizzard still didnt adress this problem, i also think that limiting mineral patches per base would increase importance of new expansions compered to what we have now when 3 bases mine with almost the same rate as 6.
Yes but, again, that would make MULEs so much better. You can't just reduce the number of patches in each base, it would break the game.
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There is zero chance of Blizzard changing things like minerals per patch or mineral patches per base, before an expansion. Even then it is highly unlikely - they would almost certainly instead balance around 1500/8.
That's assuming this is a problem for some reason, which I'm not at all convinced about. So many of the predictions in the OP simply aren't happening. Nexus/CC first builds are becoming more and more popular. Protoss aren't - despite what whiners say - doing well on the big GSL maps. Terran, despite their moaning, are doing just fine on them.
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I felt the OP was a well-written post and I'm proud to see the community respond so constructively to possible flaws within the game.
For my part, I think this all comes down to Map Design and playstyle.
1). There may never need to be a time when you need to be on more than 3 bases at once, but if you are evenly matched and the races are balanced then you're going to need a 4th-5th in anticipation of mining out one of your other bases, or to prevent the other player from getting position - a la ZvZ.
This brings me to
2). Current maps reward 2 base complacency because they are built to handhold players into the mid and late games. The most balanced Blizzard maps - Xel'Naga, Metalopolis - threw a wrench and made the games better for it. When your natural/expo requires a significant investment to defend, more strategic behaviors arise. I think map makers should seek to make more exposed naturals or more closed-off-but-less-valuable ones, like Crevasse.
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EPT
