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I think this phenomenon of the 8m2g base, along with the implications to the game as a whole of a move toward 7m or 6m, is best shown in PvP, and people looking to study how a shift affects play and overall dynamics should focus on that matchup.
Rationale:
1) PvP currently has the worst 1-base problem. Nearly every game that goes past 12 minutes does so because of a "gentlemen's agreement" type of situation, where both players take a risk (in this case expanding), scout the other person's risk, and choose not to exploit it as PvP allows a player to do. This is less common in the highest tiers of play, where players are best able to exploit others' risks. Each unit is simply too powerful and expensive, and therefore worth micro over macro, that expanding is sub-optimal to win.
2) PvP, as FXOz put it recently, is "pure skill. Pure micro." Each unit is worth so much, especially in the early game, that it throws back, in a way, to the BW style where every unit is precious and micro can be far more rewarding than macro.
3) PvP has the most varied implications from gas and tech timing, as well as the uniquely choice-giving Chrono Boost, which gives it the most capacity for immediate growth in a new resource environment.
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On March 20 2012 05:05 Jebotres wrote:
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.
I agree. It has taken a lot of refinement and playing from the pros for the game to get where it is today, and if you change the way resources work, you are basically putting a reset button on all the progress that has been made thus far with timings, strategy, the metagame, etc.
The OP did mention that this change(as in re-balancing the races to fit a new resource system) could be implemented in one of the expansions, and I believe that is the only real hope. Other than that, maybe we'll just have to wait for a different RTS game(lol that won't happen any time soon  )
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On March 20 2012 02:15 Elldar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2012 02:33 Barrin wrote:
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.
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 =_=!
You need to read the whole OP before asking questions like this.
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+ Show Spoiler +On March 20 2012 06:17 happyness wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 05:05 Jebotres wrote:
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.
I agree. It has taken a lot of refinement and playing from the pros for the game to get where it is today, and if you change the way resources work, you are basically putting a reset button on all the progress that has been made thus far with timings, strategy, the metagame, etc. The OP did mention that this change(as in re-balancing the races to fit a new resource system) could be implemented in one of the expansions, and I believe that is the only real hope. Other than that, maybe we'll just have to wait for a different RTS game(lol that won't happen any time soon )
any word on what pros might be thinking about this change?
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On March 20 2012 06:17 happyness wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 05:05 Jebotres wrote:
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.
I agree. It has taken a lot of refinement and playing from the pros for the game to get where it is today, and if you change the way resources work, you are basically putting a reset button on all the progress that has been made thus far with timings, strategy, the metagame, etc. The OP did mention that this change(as in re-balancing the races to fit a new resource system) could be implemented in one of the expansions, and I believe that is the only real hope. Other than that, maybe we'll just have to wait for a different RTS game(lol that won't happen any time soon )
Its not just the pros either, I mean, imagine all of them are completely for a change in this direction, and they all agree to switch over and what.. stop playing ladder? Have to organize in a chat channel for practice games? Would training be limited to in house partners because of this?
While it is technically a change we can do ourselves, as the OP points out, I dont think its one we can undergo without Blizzard being on board, I firmly believe tournaments and pros will continue playing on whatever resource system is standard on ladder, no matter how good the proposed changes are.
I think the real challenge is convincing Blizzard this is the direction SC2 needs to head in to become a better game.
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On March 20 2012 06:17 Polygamy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 02:15 Elldar wrote:On March 17 2012 02:33 Barrin wrote:
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.
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 =_=! You need to read the whole OP before asking questions like this.
I read the OP what is the point with your remark? Did you read what I quoted and how it was presented I understand what barrin is after which is to reach full satuartion with more bases basically, that is what this kind of change effectively will mean however to get a fourth or fifth base you need some kind of overarching strategy.
My point if you didn't get it was that his qoute didn't take in aspect other changes to reach the same goal, without any good reasoning. However his response were a bit different if you mind to read it (that he believe in equally sized bases for main and nat).
You might wanna read my post before posting.
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On March 20 2012 06:08 drgoats wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 04:33 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 20 2012 03:58 drgoats wrote:On March 20 2012 03:45 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 20 2012 03:34 Barrin wrote:On March 20 2012 03:16 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 20 2012 00:44 Barrin wrote:
@DrowSwordsman
Totally agree. I will make sure something like this happens before too long
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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.
I'd say that the reason you don't see more games like that has far more to do with the quality of the players and inherent racial issues than map design. Stephano and Polt are both so consistent and rock solid with their mechanics that neither one of them is going to throw away the game very easily. The truth is that most foreigners just... aren't very good. You see tons of pros fall apart to major blunders all the time, be it committing to a horrible engagement or falling apart to drops or in macro. These aren't mistakes that are impossible to avoid consistently, yet they're the deciding factor in at least a very large number of pro games, and why games are often so one-sided.
So I guess if you did manage to make maps that encouraged smaller, spread out engagements then there would be less death balls and less opportunities for bad players to butt heads at 200 supply and pray for a one-sided victory. Still though, I seriously don't see the proposed change even having the desired effect. You just aren't going to revolutionize the game that easily, and the more I read this, the more the entire argument seems flawed. Just about every point under the "Less Resources per Base, Less Army, More Time, More Spreading Out" section in OP is very debatable.
But as Barrin says, the proof is in the pudding. Keep playing it, keep supporting it. My money's on that you're all still going to be dissatisfied with the game in the end, once the hype dies down a bit.
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Canada13389 Posts
someone really needs to encourage even semi pro players to just mess around with this idea, or better yet introduce it to Koreans and let them also get vocal about it.
Using a simple showmatch series idea we could get solid but not super amazing pro players (who probably don't have the time) to take part in a small tourney where they play the devolution map for example.
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On March 17 2012 03:30 Zanno wrote:
You're actually so close to the mark but whizzing right by the real crux of the problem.
The issue is the saturation curve.
In BW workers are dumb as hell and mining can be totally random at times once you get beyond one worker to per patch.
In SC2 workers are super efficient and you hit maximum saturation on a single base quickly. You can easily take a look at a worker count and make a gauge as to who is ahead or not, whereas in BW need to take a look at whether they control gas bases, mineral only.
BW's awful AI pathing gives you incentive to spread out, whereas SC2 returns seem almost but not quite totally linear. You'll never see zergs be like "whatever, i'll just put like 6 drones at this base because it will probably die anyway" in SC2 because there's no advantage compared to keeping an extra 6 drones in your nat, unless you're at max capacity there.
There isn't a significant enough advantage in SC2 to having equal workers but being up 3 bases to 2.
That's also why you rarely see insane situations where one players is up 5 bases to 2 in SC2 because there's no advantage to being up in bases beyond needing more CCs to grow your worker count faster.
Not to mention that in BW there are infinity ways to make an entire worker line immediately go up in smoke, so holding perfect saturation is not only bad because you put all your eggs in one basket, it means that in certain situations you can't hold perfect saturation for long to begin with. i agree
I was kind of dissappionted when i read the post; after a good start.
I feel however quite positive about the change; not because I think it would (not) work, but because I do appreciate progression; also experimenting with possible progress can never hurt.
It would in fact make sense to redefine aspects of the game, for it took a more macro oriented road then maybe anticipated by blizzard.
I appreciate the post seeing you as a scientist (although i don't think this would be good enough for publishing), but the real value has yet to be determined, because i see a lot of predictions and assumptions without proper backing up. (fe the small "proof" section; understandable, but i feel claims are quite strong, hence 'small')
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Been playing this a little bit the past couple days and its a really new refreshing look onto what the game is right now. I'd be interested to see what the pros have to say about this on SOTG or such. Maybe a small tournament!
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Canada13389 Posts
On March 20 2012 08:02 Yorbon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2012 03:30 Zanno wrote:
You're actually so close to the mark but whizzing right by the real crux of the problem.
The issue is the saturation curve.
In BW workers are dumb as hell and mining can be totally random at times once you get beyond one worker to per patch.
In SC2 workers are super efficient and you hit maximum saturation on a single base quickly. You can easily take a look at a worker count and make a gauge as to who is ahead or not, whereas in BW need to take a look at whether they control gas bases, mineral only.
BW's awful AI pathing gives you incentive to spread out, whereas SC2 returns seem almost but not quite totally linear. You'll never see zergs be like "whatever, i'll just put like 6 drones at this base because it will probably die anyway" in SC2 because there's no advantage compared to keeping an extra 6 drones in your nat, unless you're at max capacity there.
There isn't a significant enough advantage in SC2 to having equal workers but being up 3 bases to 2.
That's also why you rarely see insane situations where one players is up 5 bases to 2 in SC2 because there's no advantage to being up in bases beyond needing more CCs to grow your worker count faster.
Not to mention that in BW there are infinity ways to make an entire worker line immediately go up in smoke, so holding perfect saturation is not only bad because you put all your eggs in one basket, it means that in certain situations you can't hold perfect saturation for long to begin with. i agree
The issue however, is that this cannot be fixed without blizzard intervention, and barrin is trying to start a grassroots movement from the community to encourage Blizz to change their approach with the community being behind it. We also can mess about with the ideas now without waiting to see blizz create or not create changes which may or may not have an impact in real games.
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This is probably the best conceived proposition I've ever read on Team Liquid.
Well done. I hope blizzard listens to this.
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On March 20 2012 09:41 Barrin wrote:
33 people in the '7m' channel on NA...
You guys are awesome ^_^
What about the 6m channel?
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Our numbers are growing! Excitement!!
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While play testing this a few last night with friends and casting, the game, as i'm sure you've all stated in the thread, is simply not balanced around this method of gameplay, especially the hyg. It allows teching simply too strong for certain races, and removes entire meta game styles out, without necessarily adding in new ones to replace them. I don't disaggree that this could be the future IF balance is taken into account along with the mineral changes, but right now it simply doesn't work at any higher level of play. You state things like smaller armies are more powerful in this scenario, when the game distinctly has situations that show unfair advantages in small groups vs small groups depending on race.
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On March 20 2012 10:09 Barrin wrote:
noone in 6m hehe, noone suppose to be there (for now) ^_^
Lol you say that in the same post where you link to quite a few 6m replays and just one 7m.
Maybe ask people which one to push because I think most prefer 6m and not 7m, I know I do ^^
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Barrin, what do you think of 2 "poor" vespene gas geysers (3 gas per trip) per base? It would have the same ratio as 1 rich vespene gas geyser once fully saturated but with a higher initial mineral investment. If were to be implemented it would put even more focus on expanding.
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EPT
