On March 20 2012 00:19 DrowSwordsman wrote: I would chip in a few bucks for a Shoutcraft style tournament on these maps for sure. What we need at this point is some money on the line so pros/semi-pro's look at these maps and not think
"Sweet, let's play a few games on this map and have fun"
but think
"Okay, these are the maps. What can I do to win?",
and thus seeing the results from there.
A lot of cheese and all in play, unfortunately. It's always stronger when the game is less explored.
sc2 is almost finished being explored because of its lack of emphasis on mechanics. HoTs should revamp some things and change up strats a bit. Bw on the other hand is difficult to master because mechanics can decimate bo advantages.
On March 20 2012 00:37 RaiD.RaynoR wrote: sc2 is almost finished being explored because of its lack of emphasis on mechanics. HoTs should revamp some things and change up strats a bit. Bw on the other hand is difficult to master because mechanics can decimate bo advantages.
SC2, the game where amateurs say the skill cap is low while pro-gamers admit the skillcap is a lot higher than expected.
after watching those replays I must say that while it makes the game more diverse, it feels like terran just mines bases out way too fast, I've seen occasions where terran mines out his main at 11 min mark and it might force terrans to expand much too rapidly.
what do you think about changing the mineral count to 3k instead of 2,5?
Why not raise the supply cap? For one, it increases the size of the maximum deathball army, which goes against some micro ideals explained in the OP Furthmore, it makes some lower-end PC's lag, which is why blizzard doesn't want to do it.
I actually disagree that increasing the maximum deathball army goes against your desire for more micro. I actually think it encourages more micro. The reason is that the current deathballs actually do quite well if you box them and move. They're small enough to fit into most areas of the map and not have to worry too much about terrain or getting in each others way. If you increase the size of the deatball, box move is going to work less well. Micro becomes more important.
Furthermore, because the deathballs are relatively small, each unit contribution is large so you are restricted in splitting your army to do multiple attacks/drops/runbuys whilst still defending against another deathball. If you increase maximum deathball size, you make it easier to have units to do these extra, micro actions which are both interesting to watch and fun to play.
The lag is actually the smallest problem. Blizzard has deemed the game playable for 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4. Often those games reach max food for all players and. The increased supply cap need only apply to 1v1 since balance of other formats isn't really affected by the same issue and easily maintain an acceptable level of performance.
On March 20 2012 00:19 DrowSwordsman wrote: I would chip in a few bucks for a Shoutcraft style tournament on these maps for sure. What we need at this point is some money on the line so pros/semi-pro's look at these maps and not think
"Sweet, let's play a few games on this map and have fun"
but think
"Okay, these are the maps. What can I do to win?",
and thus seeing the results from there.
A lot of cheese and all in play, unfortunately. It's always stronger when the game is less explored.
Even that's not a bad thing - seeing how cheese and all-in play works on these maps at the highest levels is just as important as seeing how macro play works out!
omg read the whole thing in one long session lol!!!! Holy crap...i haven't read a better more accurate way to change SC2 into the competitive game it shoulda been!
Just a quick note: You should probably consider adjusting the minerals and total gas in the geysers a bit. Maybe it doesn't have to be exactly the same sum (20.000 minerals and 5.000 gas) but can be a bit less, like 6 * 3.000 minerals and 1 * 5000 gas or whatever, just a little bit more than atm.
On March 20 2012 00:49 EonuS wrote: after watching those replays I must say that while it makes the game more diverse, it feels like terran just mines bases out way too fast, I've seen occasions where terran mines out his main at 11 min mark and it might force terrans to expand much too rapidly.
what do you think about changing the mineral count to 3k instead of 2,5?
p.s. this was with 6m1hyg
Actually--this is a good thing! It naturally balances out the mule and give Terran a reason to get planetaries.
On one hand, I really like the idea of fewer mineral patches per base. It makes expansions more important, but each expansion means a little less individually. On the other hand, it may propel each expansion to be even more valuable than expected, where the game devolves into doing the most off of one base to because expansions won't give you as large of an immediate advantage.
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.
Every current map in brood war I've looked at use this though(9m main,7m nat), why doesn't it encourage 1-base in brood war? I don't feel that 1-2m field extra would help alot more if the other player goes all in. If my opponent goes for a one base play I am not going to be oversatuarated at my nat either(since I have to make units for defence). The reward for expanding is less I am not arguing about that, but to sustain the economical growth you have to expand more rapidly since resources are more scarce.
Yes, 1-base play and risky plays could still be viable if you keep the current format for the main. If you change the format for the nat, it would encourage expanding more for the same reason as I mentioned above (resources). If the opponent 1-base play don't really pay off and I stabilize what should he then do? I am now freely able to expand again and his only option is to take his nat which then would have less resources. If doesn't play risky and takes ninja expo, however ninja expos are exploitable. He would eventually run low on resources since his 1-base didn't pay off, and he would fall more rapidly behind (he can't sustain production since the nat would have less resources). While I am able to expand more rapidly since I secured my nat earlier. If I held his 1-base off, he doesn't automatically has a comeback chance because he can secure his nat and would automatcally have the same amount off resources as I could.
I am just saying that I think you could hold off 1-base strats with less minerals at nat and still be fine, the only concern for 1-base play is 1-1-1 TvP, which theoretically could be solved, if you had hyg in main which overall would give less gas than 2 g.
Something more in the terms main 8m1hyg, nat 6-7m2g.
It would definetly be more detrimental to 2-base plays and 2-base timings, which is what really ruin the game, imho.
ps. 1-base plays is retarded :o but that is another thing.
edit: I think that your proposal is good but is to significant to be directly aborted to current gameplay, a less radical approach might change gameplay exactly as you invisioned it. Good post too I only miss index to keep track of all headings =_=!
On March 20 2012 00:49 EonuS wrote: after watching those replays I must say that while it makes the game more diverse, it feels like terran just mines bases out way too fast, I've seen occasions where terran mines out his main at 11 min mark and it might force terrans to expand much too rapidly.
what do you think about changing the mineral count to 3k instead of 2,5?
p.s. this was with 6m1hyg
Actually--this is a good thing! It naturally balances out the mule and give Terran a reason to get planetaries.
yes, my main point is really to compensate for the mineral loss of these 1/2 patches that aren't there anymore to preserve the same amount of minerals per base, same goes for gas (since in BW, you can still mine a 1/4 of resources from gas even when it's out of resources').
this would keep terrans from mining out their resources too fast while still maintaining a base lifespan while you still gather less resources from it. Please take this into consideration, OP.
Seems to make sense even tho i'm a low skill player. I'm up for it, maybe the players that think this is worth a shot should organize a tournament to see how it goes, maybe throw in a few bucks. I guess there might be lots of unhappy players that wouldn't mind to try this out.
Good job Barrin, it's always nice to see good post that bring something fresh and new to our "sport"
On March 20 2012 00:37 RaiD.RaynoR wrote: sc2 is almost finished being explored because of its lack of emphasis on mechanics. HoTs should revamp some things and change up strats a bit. Bw on the other hand is difficult to master because mechanics can decimate bo advantages.
SC2, the game where amateurs say the skill cap is low while pro-gamers admit the skillcap is a lot higher than expected.
Not that I don't believe you, but I would like some links to where pro's have said that :D
I would like to argue my PoV on this which includes both sides.
I think a lot of the skill cap in the game right now lies with micro. It's obviously other things too, but I think the most POTENTIAL lies here. MorroW explains,
On January 02 2012 00:24 MorroW wrote: the reason u dont see more micro or more cute moves is not because it doesnt exist. its because this game is fucking hard, i want to do so much more stuff with my units and builds, and use so many timing windows to do stuff but its very hard.
wait for players to become better and im sure youll find that awesome :p
just look back on micro control or games in general 1 year ago, they just amoved their armies and walked around in a death ball all game long. where as now its alot better, but its far from perfect, trust me
MorroW is feeling two things here.
(1) The game is hard. There is a lot to do with your units! After all, you have so many units indeed. Clearly, the skill cap potential is high.
One thing you need to realize about skill caps is that in pretty much any competitive game with the dimension of time, the skill cap is soft. A completely hard skill cap would be like tic tac toe; you can in fact perfect a strategy in tic tac toe. Pretty much any game more complicated than that only has soft skill caps though. But how soft are we talking here?
(2) The soft cap is not very soft. The hard cap is indeed remarkably high, but even given that, the soft cap starts remarkably low. I am particularly talking about the "risk vs reward when choosing to micro over macro" part.
Obviously this is one of the most extreme examples, but you get the idea.
Let's pretend for a second that a human could do that. It's essentially possible, but it's also essentially implausible. Okay that was fun, pretend-mode off.
Let's say you were TRYING to do what was done in the video. I mean, you obviously always want your units to be as efficient as possible. So there you are, clicking your butt off trying to make your zerglings into uberzerglings. MUST REACH SKILL CAP, RIGHT?!
....Fuck! I can't macro at all while microing uberlings. I'm now floating 2000/1000, I tried to make lings uberlings (and lets say I'm the best in the world at it), and I still couldn't make them cost effective against the siege line! AND he was macro'ing that whole time, he's NOT floating 2000/1000, he's moving across the map with the rest of his army + reinforcements that were building the whole time!
Obviously this is an unlikely scenario and the effects aren't going to be exactly that drastic, but it does give you the idea of what 'skill cap' is in SC2. Yes, the potential hard skill cap is insanely high, easily comparable to BW IMO.
But (1) the "beginning" of the "soft" cap starts super early and (2) the "soft" part of the skill cap isn't very soft at all, it's actually quite sharp, on the low end. This is the complicated way of saying "Improper risk vs. reward when choosing to micro over macro".
BTW you don't want the soft cap to be too soft either. But the way it is now (very sharp) is probably too sharp.
And to be clear, a difference in skill between equally small sets of actions only goes as far as the game lets it. I am saying that the game doesn't let it go as far as it should.
I fail to see how you have distinguished the skill caps of BW and SC2 in this post. If you focus on micro too much in BW, the exact same thing happens as in your example, the other person rolls you with superior macro. There is nothing that explains why the so-called "soft" skill cap is sharper than BW. While the ratio may be different for Sc2, that doesn't make it "improper risk v reward" just different risk v reward. And it isn't that the risk has somehow decreased or the reward has increased, but rather that superior macro is no longer as big of an advantage to overcome that risk by itself (you actually have to use strategy now) because macroing is easier overall, and your opponent won't be as far behind.
In my personal view, the mechanical skill required may be less than BW, but that only results in the strategical aspect of Sc2 being more important in the skill cap. And strategy has most certainly not hit a skill cap yet. For a strategy game, strategy is where the skill cap should be, not in the mechanics necessary to pull it off.
EPT
Furthmore, it makes some lower-end PC's lag, which is why blizzard doesn't want to do it.
