On April 16 2012 19:53 Kurast wrote: This is actually a really good idea and I hope that blizzard will look into more things to deter from boring play, but still keep it viable
Why would you want boring play to be viable?
I'm all for giving players lots of options, but generally boring play is easier on the player. They will play as simply as they can and not complicate it for themselves, unless they gain an advantage from it. If boring play is viable, that's what %90 of games will be.
If you give players incentive (reward) to play not boringly, then boring play becomes not viable unless the opponent is also doing it.
Hey everyone, for those who haven't already seen them I just want to post a couple of my favorite vids from the FRB GT. I don't mean anything by them in an analitical sense, I just think they're tremendously entertaining and starkly show the differences between FRB and normal SC2. Enjoy!
Even if battles are mostly centered around 3 bases, the battles can last for quite a while after your main and natural are mined out. So, people are in fact forced to open the 4 and 5 bases. And the timing of opening 4 and 5 bases are crucial since it decides the end-end game where max-outed battles have last for quite a while. The back-and-forth of the indecisive max-outed battles push people to open the 4 and 5 bases. Games in this way are fun, because the indecisive max-outed battles are the most engaging and the expansion in this timing also looks risky and fun.
What you said is flat out wrong. Maxed out forces usually clash in a big fight that ends quite quickly, yes players sometimes do drops or multi-pronged attacks to draw out their opponent, tire them and inflict damage to the infrastructure, but there are few incentives to do so, and it is less effective to do so when the enemy has a small number of bases.
The indecisiveness and unwillingness to commit to a fight, especially in late game TvP (unless one side has a really high advantage), stems from the high amounts of burst damage available and is compounded by the ease of getting on 3 bases and maxing. Sometimes the risk of getting a 4th or 5th also seems to be so high that players are unwilling to do it.
Now contrary to what you may think, games like that are in no way, shape or form fun, neither to watch or to play.
What I mean indecisiveness is that both max-outed armies clash and both suffer equal loses. Then both side need to remax again. This happened a lot in recent tournament. Especially in TvZ. And 4 and 5 expansions are done during this process.
It's not really about the number of bases that get cleared out by a player in a full game, it's the number of simultaneously mining bases - which means you have to spread out to defend more territory at the same time.
And you need to expand more often -before- maxing out, which takes more specialized planning and gives you opponent more predictable timings.
On April 19 2012 05:19 larse wrote: What I mean indecisiveness is that both max-outed armies clash and both suffer equal loses. Then both side need to remax again. This happened a lot in recent tournament. Especially in TvZ. And 4 and 5 expansions are done during this process.
I would say you're right. But that's still actually part of the point that Barrin is making, that is:
1. Build deathball 2. clash with deathballs 3. build up new deathball
I think that some of the critique is also that only one battle decides the outcome, but I think most of the arguments still holds, even if the above is true.
Just reminding everyone that in a little less than an hour we have the Round of 8 of the FRB GT starting! If you can tear yourself away from MLG, the schedule is:
ST_RainBOw (T) vs GoSutgun (Z) GoSuviBE (Z) vs NrGLuckyFool (T) vileIllusion (R) vs cvgFitzyHere (Z)
Unfortunately because of travel and schedule conflicts coLGanZi (T) vs ClashShew (P) will be delayed till next week. We've been working with the players to get a schedule for the upcoming weeks and there shouldn't be any more delays, but because of MLG it wasn't possible to get all the sets played for the live broadcast.
I read the entire OP and I agree with a lot of the points. Indeed, sc2 economics does decrease the dynamics of the game but one thing I'm really not on board with is more micro of individual units. That is starting tO tend more towards war3 or dota. I like the idea of more fights spread across the map but I would rather SC stick to more army movement and positioning "micro" rather than individual unit micro. Honestly, one of the most annoying things to me about micro in this game is how effective move shoot move marines. It looks retarded and is not fun.
More positioning and spreading, less war 3 micro and death balls
I also highly recommend Game 2 between ST_Rainbow and GoSuTgun. You can see it here:
If you like the VoD's be sure to subscribe, and definitely subscribe to Pull's Twitch channel at www.twitch.tv/pullsc. You can also follow the FRB Grand Tournament twitter at @FRBGrandTourney
We move into the semi-finals next week, so now's the perfect time to get caught up on each player's progress so far. VileIllusion in particular is a man to watch, but none of the players in the Round of 4 will be giving up easily.
as nony said, ifnyou want this done, it has to be done with HOTS and deepen this by actually adapting this in publicised games with enough evidence as to that it wont threaten the balance between min and gas and that it supports the more macro frameqork od the game
I read some discussions regarding the gas problem in FRB, here's my solution + idea:
"If" high yield gas is too effective:
An easy fix is to alter the gas amount back to 4 but simply reduce the mining time for gas by 40% (or some other percent). This would mean you can obtain gas faster but you need to invest more workers per gas.
Normally (under "Ability > Gather", you need to do this for all three worker units) the unit takes 1 second to mine gas. So if you reduce the time (under "Resource Time Multiplier (Vespene)") to 0.6, it'd take 5 workers or so to saturate the gas (and that combined with changing the gas amount back to 4 per trip, it'll be balanced out; well sort of. Actually try changing the mining time for gas to 0.65 instead which would mean that 4 workers will mine gas at approx the same rate, the 5th worker will only provide a slight increase in gas).
(The numbers can be adjusted. Reducing the time to 0.6 (by 40%) and allowing 5 workers to mine a gas at a time would mean approximately 70% more gas intake which is 20% higher than 3 on a high yield gas. Reducing the time by 25% (which means 4 workers can saturate a gas) would mean only around 33% increased gas intake while saturated. So I guess to mimic 50% gas in take, try reducing gas mining time to 0.65 or so. This would require 5 workers to saturate a gas but the 5th worker will only slightly speed up gas intake).
Since it's a gameplay change, you'd want to put the change in a mod (then publish) and place it all the maps (by making each map have the dependency/mod loaded).
This may have been discussed before, but I'm wondering what's the reason behind staying on 6 starting workers is? Would it be more benificial to lower to BW:s 4?
Hi BmFBrando it's Omnipotent. Agree with most of what is discussed in this thread. Really excellent write up. I think that for the most part the problems that you present are there but that they are not quite as damaging as you say they are, none the less this thread is a great indicator of some areas in the game that could use some changes. I think the bottom line of what I want to say without going to far into it is that there are aspects of design that Blizzard has added with sc2 that I find great and beneficial despite what may have been stated otherwise in this thread, I think that there is an ideal balance somewhere between sc1 and sc2 as each have their own unique, positive attributes that can be incorporated.
A pretty fair summary I'd say. There definitely has been some fast early aggression, though I'm not quite sure I'd call it cheese. None of the really cheesy strategies like cannon rushing, proxy 2 rax or a 6 pool have been seen in the tournament so far, but I do understand their point. They do mention how awesome some of the games have been (ST_Rainbow vs. PuCK was so well played!) and I hope we can give them even more entertaining games in the upcoming rounds. :D
We also go live for the Semi-Finals on Friday the 27th at 8pm Eastern before wrapping the tournament with the finals on May 4th, also at 8pm Eastern. You can watch at www.cybersports.tv or www.twitch.tv/pullsc
Thanks to all our amazing fans and all the people who have been tuning in. You guys are what makes this event possible, and we can't say enough how much we appreciate your support.
So excited for the semifinals :D Really sad about rainbow getting knocked out though T.T Still, it will be cool to see some ZvZ on FRB maps. Still have nothing but love for this thread <3
EPT
