Having thought about it a little, the problem with this idea is that while it is good, the whole game will need to be changed around it.

Take protoss (which btw i consider in dire need of a complete reworking or even removal) - protoss has 2 ways to play atm; turtle to massive deathball or all-in/timing attack. These are the only things keeping protoss in pro-level tournaments.
How on earth is protoss supposed to defend 4 expansions from things like roach or mmm, which are by design stronger in small numbers than gateway units?

My point is that zerg and terran bio units get less cost-efficient as armies become more deathballish and aoe is used more, while the opposite is true for protoss. As a zerg player i'm very happy to trade armies with the protoss to keep him from getting to his super-efficient deathball. Reducing the resources available per square inch of map basically does this for me.

I love the idea of the OP but it requires a rework of many units.

megapants

United States1314 Posts

March 16 2012 20:46 GMT

#183

i think the issue with excess gas can be alleviated by the player by simply mining with less than 6 workers. having two gas in this game is innovative and allows for more flexibility in resource expenditure, so i think that 1hyg isn't the way to go when players can simply mine from each geyser however they see fit. the only issue with this is that players still have to spend the money to get the extractor up, but i feel that is a small price to pay for the flexibility.

DrJohnFever

Canada17 Posts

March 16 2012 20:48 GMT

#184

Wow. I pray that someone at Blizz reads this, gets their head out of their ass, and finally does what will ultimately make their game better and last longer.

Gheed

United States972 Posts

March 16 2012 20:48 GMT

#185

I'm wondering if Blizzard is testing something like this for HotS, since it seems to be taking so long. The jump from WC3 RoC to TFT changed a ton of things beyond just adding new units, maybe they have similar plans for HotS. I'm sure they've heard the complaints about deathballs. This would be one way for them to address that without eliminating UI elements or making the units significantly worse.

Twiggs

United States600 Posts

March 16 2012 20:48 GMT

#186

Recently I bought BW and downloaded a couple of replays from none other than BISU. Specifically Bisu vs Savior and Bisu vs Nada games. I did this to sort of find inspiration in my PvZ and PvT play, even though SC 2 and BW are not very compatible. BUT I noticed that BW had these cool distinct stages to the game. Almost like the game was broken up into chapters of a novel. I feel so wholeheartedly that SC 2 lacks these separation of stages. Or at least they evolve too fast to see them separately.

If your proposal fixes this then hell, lets try it.

bgx

Poland6595 Posts

March 16 2012 20:48 GMT

#187

Are you sure you are only a mere banling? For me you can start the revolution, i will follow you.
Because you are the stallion who will mount the world.

+ Show Spoiler +

This will have more impact on SC2 than Flash switching, positive impact

Wegandi

United States2455 Posts

March 16 2012 20:50 GMT

#188

On March 17 2012 05:28 Seronei wrote:
Reducing the minerals patches will make some 1 base allins stronger (20 workers 4 gate for example) as it will not get weaker from this but all standard builds will have less economy to defend it from, not sure if this is a actually an issue though. Lowering the amount of resources from each mineral patch seems like a smarter idea to encourage more expanding, not that I've put in much thought in this.

Pretty sure you cannot produce from 4 Gates with only 6 mineral patches.

Grumbels

Netherlands7032 Posts

March 16 2012 20:50 GMT

#189

I think this is a bit of an arbitrary fix. Why not argue for reducing the number of minerals per patch or making the increase of income per worker less linear? or increasing the supply cap, or designing units with less synergy (for crafted death ball compositions)?

edit:

I wanted to add an idea of mine: suppose you have the distinction between close and far away mineral patches more pronounced. In that case building more workers gets increasingly diminishing returns as eventually you're only building them to saturate far away patches and you'd be better off taking a new expansion to take advantage of its close patches once more.

dicedicerevolution

United States245 Posts

March 16 2012 20:52 GMT

#190

If you can get TL to host a tournament based on this map-set (not unlike 4v4 and new maps tournaments of the past), then I think that could be one of the most powerful ways to demonstrate the merits or lack thereof (or a new direction to adjust) of your theories.

It's well thought out and I think it deserves a considerable amount effort to try and test this.

Randomaccount#77123

United States5003 Posts

March 16 2012 20:53 GMT

#191

--- Nuked ---

TelecoM

United States10750 Posts

March 16 2012 20:54 GMT

#192

Amazing post man, Took me a long time to read but seriously I think that you are absolutely correct, if these changes were implemented I think it would be breathtaking to see how much the game would change, I'm all for it ! Bookmarking this post to read it again because it has so much info..

... I am very interested to see how the harassment options / timings would change due to these changes, will def. be trying out the 6m2g maps, thanks!

recklessfire

United States373 Posts

March 16 2012 20:54 GMT

#193

I doubt blizzard will take the time and resources to try this idea out in real games thousands and thousands of times too see its validity. Instead of posting how good the idea is, we need to play on the suggested map and give replays using the limited resources and we will have concrete proof whether its valid or not. If its valid, then we can present this to blizzard and there sure as hell will be a riot if they dont accept it.

Ryndika

1489 Posts

March 16 2012 20:55 GMT

#194

I read most of it. Very good post imo, maybe not something I want to show to my bronze friends (they would claim that this is why they are in bronze

).
I really hope that this is posted in bnet forums and emailed to kim.

They would need to change protoss functioning TOTALLY but if you make it work I'd prefer less deathbally toss, and less turtly too. I want more versatile toss.

Domus

510 Posts

March 16 2012 20:55 GMT

#195

I am not sure this is the best approach. Have you considered:

- Increasing worker cost, or
- Decreasing worket pickup rates
- Decreasing minerals per base

Personally, I think mineral patches should be smaller, but also, workers should pick up less minerals on each run. But there is something I think is more important for the game, giving units lower damage output/more life. Currently, I feel that in SC2 the entire game always revolves around a single big mistake instead of various smaller mistakes.

Catch the opponent off-guard once, do a quick build order win, and it is over. I think it should not work this way, a game should have multiple battles, and a battle should have influence, but not completely decide the games outcome on its own. There is no room for recovery, and things are decided in a split-second. Just some examples, a big baneling hit, some storms hitting completely destroying a bio ball within 2 seconds, muta flock catching/destroying a mineral line, a standard PvP where one player has 1-2 more stalkers and auto-wins.

cmen15

United States1519 Posts

March 16 2012 20:57 GMT

#196

Holy shit this is a manly post!!!! Dude this is a good way of thinking about how to make sc a better game. Amazing job ^__^

13JackaL

United States577 Posts

March 16 2012 20:58 GMT

#197

hoo boy that was one hell of a read. It was an excellent post though, I agree with you in that less resources, more bases is a better way to make the game more thrilling. I actually can't wait to try this out.

AlmightyRaiden

Mexico59 Posts

March 16 2012 20:58 GMT

#198

nice work! makes sense

a176

Canada6688 Posts

March 16 2012 20:58 GMT

#199

On 8m Mains, Less At Expansions :

For whatever reason, I kept hearing "what about 8m mains with less resources at expansions?". This encourages 1-base play and is therefore retarded. Sorry.

I see you still have these one-less-patch bases even in your 6m maps?

Saechiis

Netherlands4989 Posts

March 16 2012 20:59 GMT

#200

While I don't disagree with the points you make, I still feel such drastic changes are extremely premature. You make it sound like the game has stagnated whereas it has always moved towards more bases and more harass oriented styles. If Protoss players can't defeat a player like Stephano with deathball tactics or 2 base all-ins they'll eventually have to adopt a HerO'esque harass and expand style to have any hopes at winning.

I also feel like players like Grubby, Zenio and Stephano have shown that there's styles where you can expand a lot, constantly lose bases, but still come out ahead in the long run. The fact that you max out at 3 bases in terms of mineral income doesn't mean that players don't have use for extra vespene geysers, since gas becomes more and more important the longer the game goes. 4th and 5th vespene gas bases also make for great drone refugee camps where Zergs can send drones when they're not in a position to save one of their bases and still retain their 3 base mineral income.

Only now in the development of SC2 we start to regularly see strategies that are aimed at trading armies to limit the opponent's possibilities, scout, and buy time to expand/ tech. Like Feast's 3 gate pressure after expand vs Terran, Marineking's constant mass bio vs Zerg, gas first hellion banshee pressure versus mass marine expands in TvT.

What if mech play gets so solid TvT, that it becomes a mech only MU like BW? Players will keep pushing the boundaries of getting as many geysers as possible whilst finding solutions to defend. Dropship mech? Who knows.

Personally I think the hellion is one of the most unexplored units in the game in terms of micro and positioning (mostly because the marine is such a reliable and straight forward mineral sink). I've been able to make them extremely cost efficient as early game harassment in TvT combined with scv repairs whilst taking myself an early expansion and getting reliable scouting with a rax float. Point being that there's so much left unexplored in professional play because most players are just trying to perfect current strategies to win, rather than focusing on a long-term development that isn't going to net them tournament results in the coming months.

I got kinda lost while writing but you'll ge tthe gist of it I hope xD Kudo's on your research regardless, Barrin, you've clearly put a lot of thought into this.