Breadth of Gameplay in SC2 - Page 14

On March 17 2012 03:55 DrN0 wrote:Personally I think the best option would be to throw the communities' weight behind an entirely different RTS game, one designed with competitive play in mind, however organising a mass exodus like this is damn near impossible. I hate to say it but we are entirely at Blizzard's mercy at least for a few more years.

nteresting post. But I still believe 8m2g to be superior to 6m1hg in SC2. I think you failed to consider all the negative consequences of moving to 6m1hg.

1. Fewer resources per base will increase the size of deathballs. Right now 1 base requires approximately 26 supply in workers. As you correctly pointed out, the cap in SC2 stands around 3 mining bases max, which translates into 80 supply of workers. However, by moving to 6m1hg we shed 8 workers per base. Which frees up 24 extra supply to increase the size of deathballs from 120 to 144 supply. More than a 20% increase in military strength.

2. Fewer resources per base will make it more difficult to defend third and fourth mining bases. This wasn't a problem in BW because defender's advantage was strong. In BW, it was possible to repel 120 food deathballs with just 30-40 supply of defending units, as long as they were properly positioned. But in SC2, the only thing that can stop a deathball is another deathball. By choosing an "economy" strategy in 6m1hg SC2, you will already be down 20% on military supply. By taking a fourth mining base, you will also need to defend 33% more area.

3. Fewer resources per base will make the process of remaxing more difficult. This will discourage agression, as everyone would become more fearful of losing their perfect 200/200 army. This will force players to bank more money and build more production facilities before thy feel safe to engage. Deathball games are boring enough to watch as it is, this change will simply add an extra boring SimCity game on top of it.

4. Fewer resources per base discourages fast tech builds. Its already very difficult (if not impossible) to successfully execute 1 base high tech builds such as 1 base BC/Collosus/Muta. Reducing resources by 20% will also delay any tech advantage you gain by 20% as well. Moving to 6m1hg would remove even more early attack options from the game, such as 1 base Banshee/Void Ray, while not affecting Zerg very much. Not only would that unbalance the game, it would also make early game play far more predictable and much more stale.

On March 17 2012 07:00 Catocalipse wrote:
Barrin, I understand where you're coming from in saying that this would make the game more dynamic. However, there are some glaring racial balance problems this would cause, or so I believe, anyhow.

The biggest problem would be that it would favor Zerg considerably because they generally have a much easier time expanding than T or P. Or rather, they have a much easier time defending expansions than T or P for two reasons: Firstly, because they are less positionally reliant (for example on building walls, running back up ramp to main to choke, etc...), and because their early and mid-game units are extremely mobile in comparison to T or P. This has a lesser effect on T due to reactor hellion openings in TvZ essentially being able to contain Z and deny map control for some time at least. Nonetheless, having to defend more bases as T vs Mutas in the mid-game could still give Z a considerable edge.

In the case of PvZ, the situation is considerably more dire. Firstly, FFE is effectively nerfed because the investment in forge+cannon (or 2) becomes considerably more expensive relative to the amount of minerals and mining rate gained. Secondly, because a fast third from Z becomes even more powerful because instead of 2 base saturation being 52-56 harvesters it would drop to ~40. This obviously makes Zerg considerably less unhindered in their ability to expand their economy. FFE would probably die out I believe. This basically takes protoss back to gateway expands again, because they do not suffer from the now much more relatively expensive forge and cannon(s). However, I do not believe there is any reasonable gateway expansion timing for P currently that would be both safe and able to keep up with Z in a world where 1 base saturation was 18-22 probes. Again, this is because due to the fast 2nd base, Z is considerably less hindered economically by oversaturation. Even a 1 gate expand from P, (which frankly is reasonably unsafe on most maps) would suffer from a considerable amount of lost mining time due to oversaturation (while Z would suffer of it much less due to their faster expansion timing).

And this doesn't even take into account the nightmare that mutas would be in PvZ. It's hard enough to defend 3 bases vs muta builds. Defending a potentially required 4 or 5 would be insanity. The problem isn't just limited to having to defend more points of attack, but also due to the fact that 6m1hyg mineral-shifts your income. What I mean by that is that mineral gathering rate is reduced by 25% while gas gathering drops by 33%. So relative to 8m2g, you have ~12% less gas income. It might seem like it's a small difference, but it's very significant and could result in P being unable to eek out those all-important templars vs mutas.

Essentially I believe PvZ would be completely unplayable (unless you put a natural in the main or something), but that would defeat the purpose of this change. TvZ would also suffer some vs muta play, but T units and turrets are much more effective at defending muta harass than P units and cannons. I'm sure most people will see this, but in case it needs proving, T is consistently able to move out vs mutas in TvZ but the moment P does so in PvZ he enters an all-in baserace. This is due to the fact that a much more significant investment in units or static defences is necessary to fend off mutas for P.

PvT would also be affected because drops would become more effective (again, due to more attack points due to more bases). However, I believe this could be potentially balanced because P can also take advantage of this.

Another final point worthy of note would be the MULE. Currently T is already able to mine at a faster rate per base than P or Z due to MULEs. This is because MULEs ignore base saturation. However, the proportion by which they can 'oversaturate' a mineral line with MULEs increases if the number of mineral patches is dropped. This would probably have a minor effect, but is still worthy of consideration.

Ultimately, this change aims to make SC2 a much more aggressive expansion and harassment focused game. However, Protoss does not have the tools to keep pace with Z in such a game -- neither in terms of expanding nor in terms of harassment or defending harass. And T may also suffer, to a lesser extent. Thus, I believe that unless very radically extreme changes are made to map design, or changes to units and buildings, that this would really break the game.