On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
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.
"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."
[It's not that I find these things wrong exactly. They're actually completely right. I just think they're incomplete; they're not the whole story. Basically, they are suggesting to increase the depth of SC2 (which I completely agree with), while Less Resources per Base mostly increases breadth. It's important to understand that depth and breadth are intrinsically connected, though it could be said that breadth has a bigger effect on depth than vice versa (at least in SC2's case). The biggest difference is that we can actually increase breadth without blizzard (basically).]
As written above,
When your army is smaller, each individual micro move you make has a greater effect as a % of the whole. Properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 20 units against an army of 20 units is going to have a much greater effect on the whole than properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 100 units against an army of 100 units.
[In other words, when armies are smaller each individual unit becomes more important. The armies as a whole are just as important as they were before, but each individual unit can more easily have a bigger impact on the game. A unit's stats/abilities are unchanged, but whatever it could do to multiple it's power becomes amplified in the context of finite actions per minute.]
Consider the 'Micro vs Macro' dynamic, choosing which one to focus your time on at any given time. When microing each individual unit becomes less effective, it relatively increases the effectiveness of macro'ing instead; it is still important to do the wide strokes of micro (positioning - micro's big brother), but instead of microing little things you might as well just keep your macro up (which is self-perpetuating). + Show Spoiler +
"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." - Morrow (Direct Link)
Consider the "Impossible" series of maps in BW. You would start with a single big unit or a small group of small units - almost nothing. You had friends with you too and you worked as a team. But they didn't call it "Impossible" for no reason - there was an insanely nutty "obstacle course" (essentially) of stuff in your way, dense packs of stuff (turrets, tanks, everything) that you had to slowly and methodically pick apart - though it was actually possible. Basically you were forced to make your unit(s) become a hundred times more powerful than it would normally be. And you could do it largely because you had nothing else to worry about.
Consider the lowly Zergling. Microing around a single zergling isn't going to be very effective quite simply because it is such a small piece of the overall picture.
Consider WC3. Economy is almost a non-issue, you can get all the economy you need extremely easily (you could say it is low economy oriented). IMO it is largely because of this that there is a huge focus on micro in WC3.
So these units have this potential, x (in relation to each other). That's there. That doesn't change.
What can change is what the players actually do with that potential. This is what less resources per base targets. I feel stupid saying this, because it's not really this simple, but at the same time in lay terms it really is this simple: less resources per base gives players more time to work with the potential. It does this not only because "there is more time between each stage of the game", but also largely because spending the time microing an individual unit instead of doing something else is less detrimental to those "something elses" by virtue of the fact that you are spending each individual action more efficiently when the armies are smaller.
This is arguably the most complicated part of the whole idea. Improper risk vs. reward. Either you see it or you don't.
I know you're not the one who claimed they exist, but I'm still waiting for link to pro to saying that skill cap is high. I know there are some (even recently) that have said it is low, but I don't want to bother finding them if we can't find one that says it's high.
Indeed it is a very complicated thing. The thing is, I don't see the current balance as being improper. + Show Spoiler +
And tbh, the balance as it is in BW isn't what I would go for. Don't get me wrong, I love BW and it was my life for many years, but macro was too big a piece and not in balance with the other aspects to my liking, strategy and micro were only secondary concerns instead of in balance together.
While less resources per base does give more time to the stages of the game and thus more time to work with the potential, it also changes the pace of the game. I like how blizzard made Sc2 games go much faster than BW games, you have to make choices with the time you have, you are supposed to choose to micro those units or not. If I played on normal speed I could micro and multitask and do more, but that doesn't make it better competitively. Spending too much time on one thing is supposed to be detrimental to everything else, we shouldn't dumb it down so that we can do every single action we could possibly want to do. The choosing of what to do because you can't do it all is essential to what makes strategy strategy.
And at the end of the day, I want to play a strategy game where I have to think about how to win. Not one where I won because solely I clicked faster and microed so godly that I didn't have to put any thought into it.
played a few games a few minutes ago on the 6m1hyg and on the 6m2g...
wow. just wow. the game isnt just about who can get the strongest economy faster because
1. as a zerg, you cant power drone because you over saturate way too fast. to compensate Im forced to make lings which quite honestly i dont mind. 2. poking around is becoming like second nature on this map because i dont focus so hard on my macro that i dont have the spare apm with my terrible skill level which is a lot more fun. 3. its a lot harder to all in and conversely a lot easier to defend all ins 4. you have less drones but it somehow feels like you have more cash to spend on army, its a strange but awesome feeling. 5. this shits way more fun!
multi pronged drops are less predictable later on and harder to defend the more bases you have but missing a drop isnt nearly as unforgiving and game changing if you let one slip by. protecting tech is a lot more important and sniping tech can actually be a lot more rewarding if you can get it right. ive played about 6 games and even though a few games got to the 20 minute mark, it never got to tier 3 and there was never a deathball vs deathball turtle like a fucker on 3 base and a-move stage and there were definitely a lot more back and forth micro wars. I love this shit.
only problem is that im struggling to find games on eu server. anyone game?
BTW Barrin, Thank you! I think you fixed SC2!
Edit : Btw I think the 6m2g map works better, the 6m1hy seems to mine out way too fast and you are way too gas heavy early game and when you suddenly run out you are gas starved. keeps the 2 gas, it works well
On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
Why again do we we not want less workers per base? This is why we do:
If it was 24 workers per base (3 per patch, 8 patches), and you were to try to saturate on 4 bases (we're trying to break the 3-base ceiling here), you would have 96 workers mining. Plus 3 per gas geyser (up to 24 more for a total of 120), where's all the room for the army?
2 per patch for optimum? 88 worker- Oh wait, that's "less workers per base". Might as well just stick with the 3-base ceiling?
If you're actually arguing that you can have more army with 6m because you need less workers (and if you're not, sorry, but some people were)... umm... that's not really how it works... Sorry. But I guess I will entertain this notion:
Basically, it takes a lot of time to have a bigger army with less resources per base. Within that time you might as well expand, which actually reduces the time to max. Even if you expand again, and even again. And as you're so well aware, you might run out of resources if you don't expand, so if you lose your army against someone who did expand guess where that leaves you.
Where's the room for the army? I like that that choice is forced on the player. In BW, it was common for zerg to expand solely for the gas, and not saturate the minerals fully but have the gas running. We can do the same in Sc2, full saturation isn't a requirement for a base. We can make the choice of how much army vs how much workers we want.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Overall I just think the issue is way more complicated and can't simply be solved by less workers per base, and that less workers per base could also have a lot of negative side effects that aren't realized.
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.
"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."
[It's not that I find these things wrong exactly. They're actually completely right. I just think they're incomplete; they're not the whole story. Basically, they are suggesting to increase the depth of SC2 (which I completely agree with), while Less Resources per Base mostly increases breadth. It's important to understand that depth and breadth are intrinsically connected, though it could be said that breadth has a bigger effect on depth than vice versa (at least in SC2's case). The biggest difference is that we can actually increase breadth without blizzard (basically).]
As written above,
When your army is smaller, each individual micro move you make has a greater effect as a % of the whole. Properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 20 units against an army of 20 units is going to have a much greater effect on the whole than properly micro'ing 1 unit in an army of 100 units against an army of 100 units.
[In other words, when armies are smaller each individual unit becomes more important. The armies as a whole are just as important as they were before, but each individual unit can more easily have a bigger impact on the game. A unit's stats/abilities are unchanged, but whatever it could do to multiple it's power becomes amplified in the context of finite actions per minute.]
Consider the 'Micro vs Macro' dynamic, choosing which one to focus your time on at any given time. When microing each individual unit becomes less effective, it relatively increases the effectiveness of macro'ing instead; it is still important to do the wide strokes of micro (positioning - micro's big brother), but instead of microing little things you might as well just keep your macro up (which is self-perpetuating). + Show Spoiler +
"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." - Morrow (Direct Link)
Consider the "Impossible" series of maps in BW. You would start with a single big unit or a small group of small units - almost nothing. You had friends with you too and you worked as a team. But they didn't call it "Impossible" for no reason - there was an insanely nutty "obstacle course" (essentially) of stuff in your way, dense packs of stuff (turrets, tanks, everything) that you had to slowly and methodically pick apart - though it was actually possible. Basically you were forced to make your unit(s) become a hundred times more powerful than it would normally be. And you could do it largely because you had nothing else to worry about.
Consider the lowly Zergling. Microing around a single zergling isn't going to be very effective quite simply because it is such a small piece of the overall picture.
Consider WC3. Economy is almost a non-issue, you can get all the economy you need extremely easily (you could say it is low economy oriented). IMO it is largely because of this that there is a huge focus on micro in WC3.
So these units have this potential, x (in relation to each other). That's there. That doesn't change.
What can change is what the players actually do with that potential. This is what less resources per base targets. I feel stupid saying this, because it's not really this simple, but at the same time in lay terms it really is this simple: less resources per base gives players more time to work with the potential. It does this not only because "there is more time between each stage of the game", but also largely because spending the time microing an individual unit instead of doing something else is less detrimental to those "something elses" by virtue of the fact that you are spending each individual action more efficiently when the armies are smaller.
This is arguably the most complicated part of the whole idea. Improper risk vs. reward. Either you see it or you don't.
I know you're not the one who claimed they exist, but I'm still waiting for link to pro to saying that skill cap is high. I know there are some (even recently) that have said it is low, but I don't want to bother finding them if we can't find one that says it's high.
Indeed it is a very complicated thing. The thing is, I don't see the current balance as being improper. + Show Spoiler +
And tbh, the balance as it is in BW isn't what I would go for. Don't get me wrong, I love BW and it was my life for many years, but macro was too big a piece and not in balance with the other aspects to my liking, strategy and micro were only secondary concerns instead of in balance together.
While less resources per base does give more time to the stages of the game and thus more time to work with the potential, it also changes the pace of the game. I like how blizzard made Sc2 games go much faster than BW games, you have to make choices with the time you have, you are supposed to choose to micro those units or not. If I played on normal speed I could micro and multitask and do more, but that doesn't make it better competitively. Spending too much time on one thing is supposed to be detrimental to everything else, we shouldn't dumb it down so that we can do every single action we could possibly want to do. The choosing of what to do because you can't do it all is essential to what makes strategy strategy.
And at the end of the day, I want to play a strategy game where I have to think about how to win. Not one where I won because solely I clicked faster and microed so godly that I didn't have to put any thought into it.
Then the UI and things like MBS are things you should love.
I'm sorry, but smaller, more frequent, spread out engagements with more time between each stage of the game etc will do anything but make it take less thought...
I want smaller, more frequent, spread out engagements for Sc2 as well. That is good strategy. I want good strategy in the game. I just don't think this is the way to do it.
And my point was that a slower game doesn't necessarily result in a better one. Remember basketball before the invention of the shot clock? It made people have to choose what to do. It made them use strategy better.
It's cool how big expensive units like the colossus are really difficult to afford and make and also won't be worth it nearly as often because armies being smaller and less clumped up means less splash dmg effectiveness. I don't have to worry about 3 base broodlord pushes or 2 base mass muta (it still happened but it was easier to deal with since there were less mutas and cannons were exponentially better at defending) or any of the strategies that were "problem strategies" because of the less resources. Units that felt OP or like they needed a nerf now feel completely fair :3
1. as a zerg, you cant power drone because you over saturate way too fast. to compensate Im forced to make lings which quite honestly i dont mind.
I think this is such a great point, it forces zerg to make units at what I would say is more interesting intervals, as opposed to just trying to rush and beat their opponent to full saturation on X bases and reaping the reward.
On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
Why again do we we not want less workers per base? This is why we do:
If it was 24 workers per base (3 per patch, 8 patches), and you were to try to saturate on 4 bases (we're trying to break the 3-base ceiling here), you would have 96 workers mining. Plus 3 per gas geyser (up to 24 more for a total of 120), where's all the room for the army?
2 per patch for optimum? 88 worker- Oh wait, that's "less workers per base". Might as well just stick with the 3-base ceiling?
If you're actually arguing that you can have more army with 6m because you need less workers (and if you're not, sorry, but some people were)... umm... that's not really how it works... Sorry. But I guess I will entertain this notion:
Basically, it takes a lot of time to have a bigger army with less resources per base. Within that time you might as well expand, which actually reduces the time to max. Even if you expand again, and even again. And as you're so well aware, you might run out of resources if you don't expand, so if you lose your army against someone who did expand guess where that leaves you.
Where's the room for the army? I like that that choice is forced on the player. In BW, it was common for zerg to expand solely for the gas, and not saturate the minerals fully but have the gas running. We can do the same in Sc2, full saturation isn't a requirement for a base. We can make the choice of how much army vs how much workers we want.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Overall I just think the issue is way more complicated and can't simply be solved by less workers per base, and that less workers per base could also have a lot of negative side effects that aren't realized.
I think that lowering the risk of loosing an expansion will be good for the game. I like strategy games where mistakes build up throughout the entirety of the game that eventually leads to the victor. As SC2 stands right now, I feel that both people build up to 200/200 army and then they fight. The winner of that battle wins the game. If I was Zerg and my 3rd got dropped and taken down it would almost be impossible to come back. I would rather see it that I can fight back from a situation like that. In the end, the person who makes the most mistakes loses as opposed to the person who makes the first mistake loses.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Expanding should have some reward to it too. And as Lalush proved, after 3 bases, there's no reward to expanding as T or P except mining out. Which makes the game very very boring - macro to 200/200 then pray.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Expanding should have some reward to it too. And as Lalush proved, after 3 bases, there's no reward to expanding as T or P except mining out. Which makes the game very very boring - macro to 200/200 then pray.
Just because you don't necessarily need a 4th for your first max and upgrades, doesn't mean it doesn't have a reward. It just means you can't use the reward at that time. It provides benefit at a later time. Like any expansion.
On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
Why again do we we not want less workers per base? This is why we do:
If it was 24 workers per base (3 per patch, 8 patches), and you were to try to saturate on 4 bases (we're trying to break the 3-base ceiling here), you would have 96 workers mining. Plus 3 per gas geyser (up to 24 more for a total of 120), where's all the room for the army?
2 per patch for optimum? 88 worker- Oh wait, that's "less workers per base". Might as well just stick with the 3-base ceiling?
If you're actually arguing that you can have more army with 6m because you need less workers (and if you're not, sorry, but some people were)... umm... that's not really how it works... Sorry. But I guess I will entertain this notion:
Basically, it takes a lot of time to have a bigger army with less resources per base. Within that time you might as well expand, which actually reduces the time to max. Even if you expand again, and even again. And as you're so well aware, you might run out of resources if you don't expand, so if you lose your army against someone who did expand guess where that leaves you.
Where's the room for the army? I like that that choice is forced on the player. In BW, it was common for zerg to expand solely for the gas, and not saturate the minerals fully but have the gas running. We can do the same in Sc2, full saturation isn't a requirement for a base. We can make the choice of how much army vs how much workers we want.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Overall I just think the issue is way more complicated and can't simply be solved by less workers per base, and that less workers per base could also have a lot of negative side effects that aren't realized.
I think that lowering the risk of loosing an expansion will be good for the game. I like strategy games where mistakes build up throughout the entirety of the game that eventually leads to the victor. As SC2 stands right now, I feel that both people build up to 200/200 army and then they fight. The winner of that battle wins the game. If I was Zerg and my 3rd got dropped and taken down it would almost be impossible to come back. I would rather see it that I can fight back from a situation like that. In the end, the person who makes the most mistakes loses as opposed to the person who makes the first mistake loses.
I've seen games where a zerg has come back from having their third sniped. With any strategy game that involves time, the earlier the mistake the more it hurts, even chess. But conversely Sc2 is also a game of correct decisions, and the last correct decision is the one that helps the most. Both people macroing to 200/200 is a sign the game is close. And even in BW completely losing a 200/200 army was crippling. If your opponent makes 10 mistakes, but your mistake came first and was to send all your workers to his base, the person with less mistakes loses. It's a combination of who made the most crippling mistakes at the worst time (not necessarily quantity) and who made the best correct decisions at the correct time (also not necessarily quantity). The quantity has an effect, but a strategy game isn't so simple as to boil down to he won because he made less mistakes. Your opponent could make zero mistakes, but you win (with mistakes) because you made a better strategic choice.
Valiant effort, brilliant analyisis and a lot of seriously amazing reasoning behind these great ideas.
And yet, reading the OP only made me sadder as I went through it - because I feel this will never "catch on" and become standard - even if some tournaments try out lower resource maps, its essentially changing the entire metagame and almost completely nullifies all of the evolutions in strategy based on 8m2g, and I dont think most of the pros would be on board with this unless Blizzard decided to completely switch to something like 6m1hyg and rebalanced anything that might be op/up as a result.
I really really wish it was different, but I just cant see a scenario in the future where something like this would happen, especially given Blizzards attitude in recent years.
On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
Why again do we we not want less workers per base? This is why we do:
If it was 24 workers per base (3 per patch, 8 patches), and you were to try to saturate on 4 bases (we're trying to break the 3-base ceiling here), you would have 96 workers mining. Plus 3 per gas geyser (up to 24 more for a total of 120), where's all the room for the army?
2 per patch for optimum? 88 worker- Oh wait, that's "less workers per base". Might as well just stick with the 3-base ceiling?
If you're actually arguing that you can have more army with 6m because you need less workers (and if you're not, sorry, but some people were)... umm... that's not really how it works... Sorry. But I guess I will entertain this notion:
Basically, it takes a lot of time to have a bigger army with less resources per base. Within that time you might as well expand, which actually reduces the time to max. Even if you expand again, and even again. And as you're so well aware, you might run out of resources if you don't expand, so if you lose your army against someone who did expand guess where that leaves you.
Where's the room for the army? I like that that choice is forced on the player. In BW, it was common for zerg to expand solely for the gas, and not saturate the minerals fully but have the gas running. We can do the same in Sc2, full saturation isn't a requirement for a base. We can make the choice of how much army vs how much workers we want.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Overall I just think the issue is way more complicated and can't simply be solved by less workers per base, and that less workers per base could also have a lot of negative side effects that aren't realized.
I think that lowering the risk of loosing an expansion will be good for the game. I like strategy games where mistakes build up throughout the entirety of the game that eventually leads to the victor. As SC2 stands right now, I feel that both people build up to 200/200 army and then they fight. The winner of that battle wins the game. If I was Zerg and my 3rd got dropped and taken down it would almost be impossible to come back. I would rather see it that I can fight back from a situation like that. In the end, the person who makes the most mistakes loses as opposed to the person who makes the first mistake loses.
I've seen games where a zerg has come back from having their third sniped. With any strategy game that involves time, the earlier the mistake the more it hurts, even chess. But conversely Sc2 is also a game of correct decisions, and the last correct decision is the one that helps the most. Both people macroing to 200/200 is a sign the game is close. And even in BW completely losing a 200/200 army was crippling. If your opponent makes 10 mistakes, but your mistake came first and was to send all your workers to his base, the person with less mistakes loses. It's a combination of who made the most crippling mistakes at the worst time (not necessarily quantity) and who made the best correct decisions at the correct time (also not necessarily quantity). The quantity has an effect, but a strategy game isn't so simple as to boil down to he won because he made less mistakes. Your opponent could make zero mistakes, but you win (with mistakes) because you made a better strategic choice.
i really think you should try this map. you really have no idea. this idea is so much better than blizzard maps is ridiculous. everything flows so well from early to mid to late game. Trust me play a few games to get the hang of timings and what you can afford and you will never want to play 8m maps again.
This shit is way more fun to play and watch
edit : I dare say that the macro mechanics seem way more balanced too.
I have thinking about this the past few days, i very much like the OP and the suggestion but in a way I feel its not quite, but almost, there.
Im still very poor with the map editor so itll be some time before im able to release a map with what i have proposed but here is a general layout.
The reasons for these suggestions is because the ultimate goal is: -to slow the rate at which the races increase their income and slow the pace of the game overall to offer more choices -to encourage expansion beyond 3 bases to spread the map out, kill deathball play and force many smaller engagements/map control type of play
The first is to try mains, nats and other expansions operating on 7m,2g. however, each worker will harvest 3 gas per trip rather than 4, a nerf of 25% gas per base.
Gas is a very valuable resource and every death ball relies heavily on gas, a player will have near mineral income on 3 base but will not have enough gas for his tech or army. in order to get out higher tech units the player will be forced to expand more. this also keeps the idea of having 2 geyser per base in keep options for no gas, gas light, and gas heavy strats in existance
next would be to nerf macro mechanics. currently i would like to experiment with:
-Mules mining 20 minerals per trip downn from 30 -Chrono boost increases speed by 35% down from 50% -Inject larva produces 2 larva per 40 seconds -or- causes the hatchery to produce larva 75% faster for 40 seconds (this is what has me stuck in the editor)
all of these changes are a nerf of around 30%, 33.33% for T, 30% for P and 30% fewer larva per minute per hatchery for zerg.
Wow, an amazing post with great points. I still loved this:
" I really don't want to offend anyone here, but quite literally Blizzard is catering to casual players at the expense of competitive/intellectual/hardcore players; essentially for the sake of making money and not for love of the game. Personally, I am really not cool with this."
It's so true. Long live BW. I currently play both Sc2 and BW, and I feel like SC2 is much more of a mindless game(not just mechanically, but strategically). This slight change could have huge effects...and I don't see any of them being negative. Great idea.
On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote: @DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
----
I really like the idea of spreading out minerals. It's a lot like moving some minerals farther away from the CC (which I already acknowledged as good)... except it's better. Minerals will mine out more evenly because the workers won't be mining unevenly, which is far more Blizzard Quality Assurance approve-able.
***Note that this does indeed smooth out the base saturation (collection rate) progression curve. VERY GOOD. BTW, even in SC2 when there is 3 workers per mineral patch, it will take a while for exactly 3 workers to settle on EVERY patch. Some will settle pretty quickly, but most wont (for a long time). I wouldn't be surprised at all if this lets workers settle exactly 3 per patch faster (because the alternative minerals they would choose to move to would be farther away, reducing the likelihood), but it's possible that it does the opposite too.
But just like moving some minerals farther away from the CC, it increases the number of workers at each base. Because of this, I do not feel comfortable doing it with 8m bases. Because 6m bases are pretty much as slow as they should be, I wouldn't do it with them too much, but it is a nice way to increase the maximum number of workers with 6m so probably a little is good.
Doing this with 7m bases sounds like a fantastic idea.
What about those of us who do not want less workers per base? Maybe the income rate is an issue, but decreasing the workers isn't the only solution and I personally find it detrimental to the game. Workers mining less minerals, patches having less minerals, minerals farther away, these are all alternate solutions that don't mess with the number of workers needed to saturate a base. The balance of worker supply to army supply and the amount of workers needed at bases makes them vulnerable and important, and decreasing the saturation cap could have negative impacts.
Why again do we we not want less workers per base? This is why we do:
If it was 24 workers per base (3 per patch, 8 patches), and you were to try to saturate on 4 bases (we're trying to break the 3-base ceiling here), you would have 96 workers mining. Plus 3 per gas geyser (up to 24 more for a total of 120), where's all the room for the army?
2 per patch for optimum? 88 worker- Oh wait, that's "less workers per base". Might as well just stick with the 3-base ceiling?
If you're actually arguing that you can have more army with 6m because you need less workers (and if you're not, sorry, but some people were)... umm... that's not really how it works... Sorry. But I guess I will entertain this notion:
Basically, it takes a lot of time to have a bigger army with less resources per base. Within that time you might as well expand, which actually reduces the time to max. Even if you expand again, and even again. And as you're so well aware, you might run out of resources if you don't expand, so if you lose your army against someone who did expand guess where that leaves you.
Where's the room for the army? I like that that choice is forced on the player. In BW, it was common for zerg to expand solely for the gas, and not saturate the minerals fully but have the gas running. We can do the same in Sc2, full saturation isn't a requirement for a base. We can make the choice of how much army vs how much workers we want.
And the reason I complain about the worker saturation is because I worry about what expanding means in this format. Less workers are needed to invest into the expansion, expansions are overall not as valuable as before. If you have 3 bases and lose 1 its a lot. If you have 5 and lose 1 it's not as important you still have others, and you don't lose as many workers when you lose the base with the lower cap. Expanding should have some risk to it, and I think lowering the number of workers per base will unbalance that risk.
Overall I just think the issue is way more complicated and can't simply be solved by less workers per base, and that less workers per base could also have a lot of negative side effects that aren't realized.
I think that lowering the risk of loosing an expansion will be good for the game. I like strategy games where mistakes build up throughout the entirety of the game that eventually leads to the victor. As SC2 stands right now, I feel that both people build up to 200/200 army and then they fight. The winner of that battle wins the game. If I was Zerg and my 3rd got dropped and taken down it would almost be impossible to come back. I would rather see it that I can fight back from a situation like that. In the end, the person who makes the most mistakes loses as opposed to the person who makes the first mistake loses.
I've seen games where a zerg has come back from having their third sniped. With any strategy game that involves time, the earlier the mistake the more it hurts, even chess. But conversely Sc2 is also a game of correct decisions, and the last correct decision is the one that helps the most. Both people macroing to 200/200 is a sign the game is close. And even in BW completely losing a 200/200 army was crippling. If your opponent makes 10 mistakes, but your mistake came first and was to send all your workers to his base, the person with less mistakes loses. It's a combination of who made the most crippling mistakes at the worst time (not necessarily quantity) and who made the best correct decisions at the correct time (also not necessarily quantity). The quantity has an effect, but a strategy game isn't so simple as to boil down to he won because he made less mistakes. Your opponent could make zero mistakes, but you win (with mistakes) because you made a better strategic choice.
I was definitely exaggerating a bit for more effect. I realize that people can come back and the person who makes the first mistake doesn't always lose. Just watch last night's games between Polt and Stephano and you can see some amazingly close games that involved multiple big mistakes and 200/200 army clashes. However, I do feel that we do not see enough games like the ones from last night.
Yes, macroing to 200/200 can be a sign of a game being close, but I feel that in most cases it is just a sign of passivity due to the current maps. For example, once zerg is on 3 bases he can easily macro to 200/200 with just a few rounds of larvae. There is no necessity to engage before he reaches that max because the time invested is minimal to the effect it produces. Why fight with a 120 food army when in 2 minutes you will be maxed? However, if he has to get a fourth to reach that point he will be forced to engage before max. Either to defend his new base, defend map control, or just to harass to keep his opponent off of his back. Making each player require more bases will naturally force more engagements with smaller armies. This is a good thing in my mind.
EPT
