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On March 20 2012 17:47 Iamyournoob wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 17:35 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
I already wrote about this in this thread, but It seems that I need to remind you guys again.
It is inherently unsuccesful to even try out this mineral and gas layout because it is clear from the very start, that it does not work with current game balance starting from maybe even something as basic as price of the barracks, and certainly price and production time of every unit in the game and certainly every other buildings as well.
When I first was thinking about this, it came in to my mind instantly that terran would be overpowered just because their one/two-base marine all-ins, because this proposed mineral/gas-layout prefers "mineral heavy"-allins, just like terrans marine stuff. Probably protos cannot handle those because they are too gas reliant and zergs just are fucked up. I will believe you the second you prove this by executing such a strategy on a 6m2g map. If you don't, all your words - that you write in such a self-convinced manner - are mere theorycrafting. Besides, we are currently in a stage where it is all about the proof of concept, balance is something to worry about later.
Proof of concept? are you kidding? you cannot possibly prove anything else that it just does not fit in this game as it stands now. To be able to "prove" that your proposed base-layout "works", you need blizzard to totally redesign their game.
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On March 20 2012 17:50 Mongolbonjwa wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 17:47 Iamyournoob wrote:On March 20 2012 17:35 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
I already wrote about this in this thread, but It seems that I need to remind you guys again.
It is inherently unsuccesful to even try out this mineral and gas layout because it is clear from the very start, that it does not work with current game balance starting from maybe even something as basic as price of the barracks, and certainly price and production time of every unit in the game and certainly every other buildings as well.
When I first was thinking about this, it came in to my mind instantly that terran would be overpowered just because their one/two-base marine all-ins, because this proposed mineral/gas-layout prefers "mineral heavy"-allins, just like terrans marine stuff. Probably protos cannot handle those because they are too gas reliant and zergs just are fucked up. I will believe you the second you prove this by executing such a strategy on a 6m2g map. If you don't, all your words - that you write in such a self-convinced manner - are mere theorycrafting. Besides, we are currently in a stage where it is all about the proof of concept, balance is something to worry about later. Proof of concept? are you kidding? you cannot possibly prove anything else that it just does not fit in this game as it stands now. To be able to "prove" that your proposed base-layout "works", you need blizzard to totally redesign their game.
I'm sorry but I fail to see how it's clear that balance based on current map design is inherently different from balance using the 6m1hyg or 2g. What is clear is that balance on 8m maps does not necessarily imply balance on 6m maps, but to claim that 6m maps are inherently imbalanced is incorrect. Testing needs to be done first to make any claims about balance.
Furthermore, I'd actually argue that less minerals actually make mineral-heavy all-ins less powerful.
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This game is designed to how mineral and gas income works, you could ask this directly from blizzard and they would say same. It is actually basic rts-design fact that you must balance your game around what the income is.
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Costs and unit relations are the same. U only get them slower and need to expand to tech and get ur army to 200/200.
If there is such a thing as imbalance based on rate of income then please play 10 games where this issue presents itself
and post that replay pack here.
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On March 20 2012 18:11 jurch wrote:
Costs and unit relations are the same. U only get them slower and need to expand to tech and get ur army to 200/200.
If there is such a thing as imbalance based on rate of income then please play 10 games where this issue presents itself
and post that replay pack here.
Thats a fallacy. Blizzard has come long way balancing this game and when you change general income of bases, then you change how for an example protos could match terrans production etc
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Why? Because mule still brings 30 minerals per trip? Give me some proof of your claims. Play it and show that imbalance to us then its time to modify. If u don't want to play just describe the scenario in great detail pls. tyvm
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Canada11265 Posts
Actually, it probably is the case that maps will affect the balance of play. That was the power of map making in BW and I'm sure it still is pretty powerful in SC2. Even consider the disappearance of gold mines or supply buildings blocking bunker wall-ins at the bottom of ramps.
Map making is the one tool the community still kinda have to make rapid balance changes (if only custom games weren't so difficult and ladder was locked away with Blizzard approved maps.)
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Maps do have their effect in balance, but general game design with units and buildings is the major factor. Unless you change how game functions, this income-change does nothing but imbalance.
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On March 20 2012 18:38 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
Maps do have their effect in balance, but general game design with units and buildings is the major factor. Unless you change how game functions, this income-change does nothing but imbalance.
Why don't you try to prove you claims with some kind of evidence instead of just repeating them? This change will effect gameplay, but I do not think that it'll neccesarily create any noticable imbalance.
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It is obvious that income will cause imbalance. When you change income, you will change the dynamics between races.
You just cannot swing around and make such changes how minerals and gas work, if you dont carefully analyze how it is related to every unit and buildings and how they work.
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On March 20 2012 18:44 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
It is obvious that income will cause imbalance. When you change income, you will change the dynamics between races.
You just cannot swing around and make such changes how minerals and gas work, if you dont carefully analyze how it is related to every unit and buildings and how they work.
Yet another case of baseless claims. Why would changes to amount of mineral patches, which are equal to all races, make the game imbalanced? Explain! Convince the rest of us who are excited for this idea which has support in countless awesome explanations of the impact that this will have on the game.
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Because while the income per base remains same for every race, at the same time every race is different in how they are supposed to use that income.
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On March 20 2012 03:45 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +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.
This thread has provided much food for thought, but this post in particular made me want to chip in.
After reading the OP I started to think about extremes of the concept, to get a feel for the game-space the OP is exploring. So, for instance, if there were just one or two mineral patches per base, what then?
Immediately we can see that the opportunity cost of the first expansion is gigantic, and very hard to reduce. Minerals accrue so slowly that placing a nexus represents an enormous length of time during which your opponent could enjoy an army or production advantage, easily long enough for that army to cross the map. Players would be obliged to one-base until they managed to squeeze enough of a lead through better micro or enough of a defender's advantage (which includes containing the opponent or delaying their advance) to drop an expo. Judging this correctly would win them the game; getting it wrong would spell instant disaster. Also, mules: a Terran would only need to squeeze enough of an advantage to afford an orbital to gain an insuperable lead. Losing a worker to a scout would be game-ending.
Surprisingly, however, losing an expansion does not become less significant. The advantage needed to take one is so hard-won that having it undone is a big setback, unless you are already so far ahead that the game is effectively over. Moreover, although expansions require fewer workers to saturate, the effective cost is higher because you're having to build a nexus for every 4-6 workers instead of every 16-24, and the cost of a nexus (and workers) is at any given time a higher proportion of your income than with 8m2g
Next I went the other way, doubling patches per base. Now the risk of taking the first expo rapidly tends to zero, because with so many workers on one base the time by which those 3-400 minerals makes you lag your opponent becomes negligible compared to the time needed to cross the map. Taking an expansion becomes a formality, but losing it is utterly catastrophic. Zerg would also be broken beyond belief if you weren't constantly in their faces.
If this reasoning is accurate, and a sensible curve connects these extremes, it would appear that changing the available resources per base doesn't undermine the importance of retaining an expansion, but it does influence the difficulty of taking them safely.
It also suggests that interesting games lie towards the lower end of the resource curve, with some provisos:
1. The lower the patch count, the more critical map size becomes for preserving defender's advantage long enough to squeeze in an expo.
2. The Protoss warpgate mechanic becomes stronger with fewer patches. I think there might be some wailing and gnashing of teeth in the lower leagues where those proxy pylons WILL go down, and the Protoss WILL get a base ahead while you're trying to break the contain and WILL be able to warp in enough to handle any counterattack by the time you cross the map.
3. I'm a bit concerned about 'all-ins' becoming less all-in. The OP suggests the reverse is true, but I'm struggling to see how. Typically an early all-in means the aggressor cuts workers and does not fully exploit their single base. Reducing the potential yield of that base inevitably brings that potential closer to what the 'all-in' actually exploits, reducing the opportunity cost of the aggression. Mitigating this is the fact that the opponent will be obliged to do SOMETHING other than just make workers, potentially limiting the effectiveness of the aggression.
Overall, I'm looking forward to watching some games 
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I would just like to add, that more maps then "Devolution" would certainly help the cause.
I feel as that maps such as metalopolis, antiga shipyard ect. are not fitted for this low econ more expansion-centric play.
I encourage experienced and talented map makers, with the ability to create playable balanced maps, to start venturing and creating maps that fall in line with this new mineral/gas style.
thanks.
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What you need to with your custom maps, is that you have to carefully make analysis how the units function and from that basis make correct changes to units and how much they cost.
This income thing could make game more interesting but it just does not work with current game design.
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On March 20 2012 19:10 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
What you need to with your custom maps, is that you have to carefully make analysis how the units function and from that basis make correct changes to units and how much they cost.
This income thing could make game more interesting but it just does not work with current game design.
Seriously, how do you know that this is the case? Can't you tell us how you tested this in order to become so sure?
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On March 20 2012 18:48 UniQ.eu wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 18:44 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
It is obvious that income will cause imbalance. When you change income, you will change the dynamics between races.
You just cannot swing around and make such changes how minerals and gas work, if you dont carefully analyze how it is related to every unit and buildings and how they work. Yet another case of baseless claims. Why would changes to amount of mineral patches, which are equal to all races, make the game imbalanced? Explain! Convince the rest of us who are excited for this idea which has support in countless awesome explanations of the impact that this will have on the game.
Ok, so I would love it if blizzard were to take money out of the game, exactly for the claims of the OP, but I completly agree with Mongolbonjwa, that there might have to be balance changes going with it.
Just one example:
TvP, Terran starts 1rax FE, Protoss starts with a usual gateway opening. Both parties have pretty much equal amounts of harvesters at that time, but protoss is mining gas as well, while Terran is not. The usual amount of harvesters at the time the rax finishes is 15-16. With that amount Terran is saturated if you only have 6mineral patches and extra SCVs are not initially useful unlike with 8m (which allows for another ~5), while Protoss with his one gas has only 12-13workers on minerals at the same time and building extra probes is still providing extra income. Though this may balance out once both people have expanded, it gives the protoss player a temporary advantage that could snowball (stalker pressure builds possibly being able to delay expos even longer than they are nowm, which leads to even less money for Terran...)
And this is only one simple example. It becomes even more complicated, when you go PvZ, the only matchup in which one race (zerg) really has a +1 (mining) base advantage most of the time; With 6m the zerg will still be able to reasonably spread his 50workers over 3bases (at 8-9min), Protoss on the other hand on two bases has to readjust completly, and start to cut workers earlier, leading to various builds that need good 8m saturation just not being viable anymore.
The problem is simply timingwise things won't work out anymore as they do right now and there certainly have to be changes. (that's why you can only do it when making a big change, like HotS)
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Call it BW nostalgia but necessity to expand to be able to tech properly and gain map control while giving urself
an insane economy to macro like a madman. And that is simply not achieved with 3 bases but with 5 or more.
Now that brings back memories... Unit mechanics is still very different and it feels... not the same but in my
opinion it gives u more strategic depth in terms of small fights that need to be picked out. Timings still exist
micro is as important as ever, mistakes are still punished hard and pure skill is still the deciding factor. It's more
of an interesting game overall.
I admit the current system of m/g might not be perfect but works for now and honestly i wanted to see gameplay like
this since the release. All of those ''give the game time'' arguments are getting old...
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On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 18:48 UniQ.eu wrote:On March 20 2012 18:44 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
It is obvious that income will cause imbalance. When you change income, you will change the dynamics between races.
You just cannot swing around and make such changes how minerals and gas work, if you dont carefully analyze how it is related to every unit and buildings and how they work. Yet another case of baseless claims. Why would changes to amount of mineral patches, which are equal to all races, make the game imbalanced? Explain! Convince the rest of us who are excited for this idea which has support in countless awesome explanations of the impact that this will have on the game. Ok, so I would love it if blizzard were to take money out of the game, exactly for the claims of the OP, but I completly agree with Mongolbonjwa, that there might have to be balance changes going with it. Just one example: TvP, Terran starts 1rax FE, Protoss starts with a usual gateway opening. Both parties have pretty much equal amounts of harvesters at that time, but protoss is mining gas as well, while Terran is not. The usual amount of harvesters at the time the rax finishes is 15-16. With that amount Terran is saturated if you only have 6mineral patches and extra SCVs are not initially useful unlike with 8m (which allows for another ~5), while Protoss with his one gas has only 12-13workers on minerals at the same time and building extra probes is still providing extra income. Though this may balance out once both people have expanded, it gives the protoss player a temporary advantage that could snowball (stalker pressure builds possibly being able to delay expos even longer than they are nowm, which leads to even less money for Terran...) And this is only one simple example. It becomes even more complicated, when you go PvZ, the only matchup in which one race (zerg) really has a +1 (mining) base advantage most of the time; With 6m the zerg will still be able to reasonably spread his 50workers over 3bases (at 8-9min), Protoss on the other hand on two bases has to readjust completly, and start to cut workers earlier, leading to various builds that need good 8m saturation just not being viable anymore. The problem is simply timingwise things won't work out anymore as they do right now and there certainly have to be changes. (that's why you can only do it when making a big change, like HotS)
why would the opening still be the same? its just a claim you make without further testing. theorycrafting might be fun but i doubt its very usefull here
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On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 18:48 UniQ.eu wrote:On March 20 2012 18:44 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
It is obvious that income will cause imbalance. When you change income, you will change the dynamics between races.
You just cannot swing around and make such changes how minerals and gas work, if you dont carefully analyze how it is related to every unit and buildings and how they work. Yet another case of baseless claims. Why would changes to amount of mineral patches, which are equal to all races, make the game imbalanced? Explain! Convince the rest of us who are excited for this idea which has support in countless awesome explanations of the impact that this will have on the game. Ok, so I would love it if blizzard were to take money out of the game, exactly for the claims of the OP, but I completly agree with Mongolbonjwa, that there might have to be balance changes going with it. Just one example: TvP, Terran starts 1rax FE, Protoss starts with a usual gateway opening. Both parties have pretty much equal amounts of harvesters at that time, but protoss is mining gas as well, while Terran is not. The usual amount of harvesters at the time the rax finishes is 15-16. With that amount Terran is saturated if you only have 6mineral patches and extra SCVs are not initially useful unlike with 8m (which allows for another ~5), while Protoss with his one gas has only 12-13workers on minerals at the same time and building extra probes is still providing extra income. Though this may balance out once both people have expanded, it gives the protoss player a temporary advantage that could snowball (stalker pressure builds possibly being able to delay expos even longer than they are nowm, which leads to even less money for Terran...) And this is only one simple example. It becomes even more complicated, when you go PvZ, the only matchup in which one race (zerg) really has a +1 (mining) base advantage most of the time; With 6m the zerg will still be able to reasonably spread his 50workers over 3bases (at 8-9min), Protoss on the other hand on two bases has to readjust completly, and start to cut workers earlier, leading to various builds that need good 8m saturation just not being viable anymore. The problem is simply timingwise things won't work out anymore as they do right now and there certainly have to be changes. (that's why you can only do it when making a big change, like HotS)
I totally agree with everything you wrote, yet I do not want to call this imbalance. The only thing that this proves is that the change will force changes in gameplay. The old builds which worked great when there were 2 extra mineral patches/base will not be as great on the 6 or 7 mineral patches/base maps. Obviously players are going to have to experiment with new builds and timings, and what I am arguing about is that these new timings do not necessarily have to be imbalanced, this could very well balance out just fine.
Let's take ZvT for example; some people have been arguing that the MULE will become op on these maps. Now, let's bring up the marine vs zerglings early game discussion. Since marines are ranged they have a certain critical mass. This means that while 4 zerglings will kill 2 marines, 60 zerglings might die to 30 marines. The initial MULE argument is that 1 base plays will become incredibly strong because of the higher %-increase of income compared to 8m bases. BUT, since the marine count will be lower in general with one base plays on 6m maps, the marine count will take longer time to reach critical mass and therefore be easier deflected by the zerg player, even though the MULE was supposed to make one base plays better.
Now, I do not say that this is the case for every example and I do not claim that 6m maps will be balanced, but I claim that it is very hard for us to know how things will play out! Therefore, I think that we should try this option since it forces players to be more spread out and opens options for multi-pronged and small attacks (which I think is awesome).
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