|
NEW IN-GAME CHANNEL: FRB |
On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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
If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur.
|
This is honestly one of the best OP's I've ever had the pleasure of reading!
Please, I beg you to post it in it's entirety on Bnet's forums! A little snippet is great, but there are many who won't click the link, and I really think Blizz needs to have this on file 
Great work!
|
On March 20 2012 19:44 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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 If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur.
I'm not so sure about that, you know. I mean, if we're talking about one-base play, you're effectively saying there are builds that (for instance) Terran can do right now on standard maps using only 6 of the eight patches in his base that require all eight patches for a zerg or protoss to stop. That doesn't sound like a given to me. And once you get beyond one base games are a lot more analogue. There's just less money sloshing around for any given base count.
Personally, it was a breath of fresh air watching one of those VoDs and seeing a Protoss take six bases, and seeing a Terran smashed because he only took three. Really looking forward to seeing more of this if it takes off.
|
On March 20 2012 13:47 OldManSenex wrote:Hello everyone, this is Senex and for those who might be interested I've started using my youtube channel to cast 6m1hyg games in the hopes of drawing attention to this awesome variant. I'm relatively new to casting, but the games I've been watching and playing have been so good it would be criminal not to cast them, mistakes be damned! I hope people who haven't yet had the chance to play Barrin's variant will be able to watch these casts and get inspired to explore its amazing possibilities on their own as well as have fun watching the games. I'll be uploading more games as fast as I can gather, cast and encode them, so keep checking back to the channel for more content. The URL is: http://www.youtube.com/user/WiseOldSenexAlso, anyone who has really good games to share should definitely send them to me, I'll be casting as many as possible and would love to start sharing games from the community. My e-mail is wiseoldsenex@gmail.com P.S. Obviously all credit goes to Barrin for his excellent idea and work in actually making the maps for us to play, I just hope to help popularize his accomplishment. Barrin, thanks so much, this has been the most fun I've had with Starcraft 2 in months. 
Just watched your casts. Dude, you're awesome. Keep it up. One of the better casters I've ever seen. If 6m2/1g doesn't end up working out, please cast regular games.
Although this 6m stuff is looking very sick. :D
|
On March 20 2012 20:10 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 13:47 OldManSenex wrote:Hello everyone, this is Senex and for those who might be interested I've started using my youtube channel to cast 6m1hyg games in the hopes of drawing attention to this awesome variant. I'm relatively new to casting, but the games I've been watching and playing have been so good it would be criminal not to cast them, mistakes be damned! I hope people who haven't yet had the chance to play Barrin's variant will be able to watch these casts and get inspired to explore its amazing possibilities on their own as well as have fun watching the games. I'll be uploading more games as fast as I can gather, cast and encode them, so keep checking back to the channel for more content. The URL is: http://www.youtube.com/user/WiseOldSenexAlso, anyone who has really good games to share should definitely send them to me, I'll be casting as many as possible and would love to start sharing games from the community. My e-mail is wiseoldsenex@gmail.com P.S. Obviously all credit goes to Barrin for his excellent idea and work in actually making the maps for us to play, I just hope to help popularize his accomplishment. Barrin, thanks so much, this has been the most fun I've had with Starcraft 2 in months. Just watched your casts. Dude, you're awesome. Keep it up. One of the better casters I've ever seen. If 6m2/1g doesn't end up working out, please cast regular games. Although this 6m stuff is looking very sick. :D
I agree! Barrin please add this to the OP, or your Post below that :D.
Edit: also if 6m doesnt pan out, we always have 7m :D
|
I still think that actually playing a lot of games on these maps is far, far, far, far more valuable than any theorycrafting that is happening here. There are good arguments on both sides of the issue, sure, but it's near impossible to tell who is right and who is wrong (if it is that easy) without actually trying out these theories. So if you think that this cannot possibly work, go ahead, play a few games and see if you're concerns are valid. If you think that this is the bestest idea, ever, go ahead and see if you're having more fun playing the game.
It has been said above that the maps are the only thing the community still has to balance the game themselves. I'd go a step further and say that the maps are a tool the community has to actually force Blizzard to change the game for the better. Look at the ladder map pool from season 1, and then look at the current map pool. Blizzard was forced to change the map pool because no single tournament used their shitty maps, and then Blizzard was forced to react to the imbalances in the game that only came up when played on proper maps.
If the 6m/7m maps turn out to be more fun to play and more exciting to watch, then we can do it again. Get the tournaments to use these maps, get the pro gamers to play on these maps, and, ultimately, get Blizzard to acknowledge that this kind of map design is to be used in the ladder as well. And then Blizzard will design the game balance according to these maps.
But first, we need to test these maps. In practice, not in theory.
|
I'll give my opinion about that idea:
This modification in Sc2 mean alot of imbalance and change:
-AoE Spell will be stronger since less unit will be made.
-Chronoboost will be less used on nexus, so more used on forge/gate/robo/stargate.
-The number of larvae per inject is too much.
-Less gas mean more minerals unit, less gas unit (like sentry, so early protoss game will be hard)
and more Tower defense (Canon, spineCrawler), + they'll be more powerfull since there is less unit.
-less macro in the early/middlegame, but certainly more at the late game.
-More Multitask
-Cheap unit (T1-T2) will need a small nerf.
-T3 unit will need a small buff.
No more "UP Lategame Terran" and "OP Lategame Protoss"
There, that's was my first tho about this change.
And my opinion: Well, i feel like i really needed to more micro and multitask, it looked like BW.
But remember, Sc2 is pure Macro game, so i doubt that Blizzard wil make this change...
Wait&See!
|
On March 20 2012 19:44 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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 If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur.
Indeed, it's impossible to avoid imbalancing the game with this kind of change. Mongolbonjwa is right when he says that RTS games are balanced around income and unit costs. The problem is, do we want to break Sc2 right now with these changes? If we made these changes through maps ourselves, we could irreparably harm the balance of the game. Changing the income would also necessitate a massive redesign of many units, buildings, abilities, etc, which the community simply cannot do. While this idea is an interesting one that interested people can try out in custom games, that's where it needs to stay for now. Maybe when HotS or LotV come out, Blizzard will make such a redesign, since they're the only ones actually qualified to do so, seeing how they have made several actual RTS games before. Players of RTS generally know nothing about actually designing one, and especially not us random forum goers. This is not something we can do.
Maybe, just maybe, people who want to play BW can play BW? And OP can go try to make his own RTS and let the makers of Sc2 actually make their own game? In the end, it is really someone saying, I like your thing there, but I personally would do it different. Can I see it for a moment? *change*change*change*change*change* Ok, here's your thing back. It's nothing like it was at the start, but I personally like it more now, so it's better! Enjoy the "no longer yours" thing.
|
On March 20 2012 13:47 OldManSenex wrote:Hello everyone, this is Senex and for those who might be interested I've started using my youtube channel to cast 6m1hyg games in the hopes of drawing attention to this awesome variant. I'm relatively new to casting, but the games I've been watching and playing have been so good it would be criminal not to cast them, mistakes be damned! I hope people who haven't yet had the chance to play Barrin's variant will be able to watch these casts and get inspired to explore its amazing possibilities on their own as well as have fun watching the games. I'll be uploading more games as fast as I can gather, cast and encode them, so keep checking back to the channel for more content. The URL is: http://www.youtube.com/user/WiseOldSenexAlso, anyone who has really good games to share should definitely send them to me, I'll be casting as many as possible and would love to start sharing games from the community. My e-mail is wiseoldsenex@gmail.com P.S. Obviously all credit goes to Barrin for his excellent idea and work in actually making the maps for us to play, I just hope to help popularize his accomplishment. Barrin, thanks so much, this has been the most fun I've had with Starcraft 2 in months.
Loving the VoDs
I hate to be critical of someone doing something cool for the community, but... oh man, please work on that 'ahy..ahy..' mannerism you've picked up. Whiplash vs Fezz got quite difficult to watch in stretches. Talk a fraction slower, maybe; give your mind time to buffer up the sentence
Other than that, brilliant - really engaging and infectiously enthusiastic, with plenty to say throughout.
|
On March 20 2012 22:01 Fyrewolf wrote:
Indeed, it's impossible to avoid imbalancing the game with this kind of change. Mongolbonjwa is right when he says that RTS games are balanced around income and unit costs. The problem is, do we want to break Sc2 right now with these changes? If we made these changes through maps ourselves, we could irreparably harm the balance of the game. Changing the income would also necessitate a massive redesign of many units, buildings, abilities, etc, which the community simply cannot do. While this idea is an interesting one that interested people can try out in custom games, that's where it needs to stay for now. Maybe when HotS or LotV come out, Blizzard will make such a redesign, since they're the only ones actually qualified to do so, seeing how they have made several actual RTS games before. Players of RTS generally know nothing about actually designing one, and especially not us random forum goers. This is not something we can do.
That's actually not correct at all. If (and that's a big, hypothetical "if") these maps become the new standard, then Blizzard would patch the game accordingly so that the game would be balanced on these maps. You know, just like they balance the game around big tournament maps nowadays instead of Steppes of War. That, or they will fight tooth and nail not to have these maps anywhere. And Blizzard will lose that fight, as they cannot dictate which maps tournaments will use.
So, really, it's up to us to decide whether we want these maps, and "These maps will bring slight imbalances to the game" is not really a valid argument.
|
On March 20 2012 22:01 Fyrewolf wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 19:44 Big J wrote:On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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 If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur. Indeed, it's impossible to avoid imbalancing the game with this kind of change. Mongolbonjwa is right when he says that RTS games are balanced around income and unit costs. The problem is, do we want to break Sc2 right now with these changes?
I have to keep disagreeing here. I'm not saying these changes certainly won't lead to imbalance, but I take exception to this insistence that they must and that no supporting evidence is needed.
For an imbalanced strategy to arise from this change, that strategy must be something a race can do on standard maps right now using 6m per base that requires their opponent to have 8m per base in order to defend it. Does that sound like a safe assumption to you? Because to me it sounds like something that might be true, but probably isn't.
Maybe, just maybe, people who want to play BW can play BW? And OP can go try to make his own RTS and let the makers of Sc2 actually make their own game? In the end, it is really someone saying, I like your thing there, but I personally would do it different. Can I see it for a moment? *change*change*change*change*change* Ok, here's your thing back. It's nothing like it was at the start, but I personally like it more now, so it's better! Enjoy the "no longer yours" thing.
If Blizzard didn't want the community to help shape the game they wouldn't support custom map creation and they wouldn't have made the changes to the map pool that have already happened.
Besides, this is not 'changechangechangechangechange'. It's an adjustment to the maximum saturation of bases.You're assuming reducing the mineral patches will require huge changes elsewhere in the game, and using that to justify your objection. To me it seems spurious. Why not put in the effort, play the games, demonstrate the imbalance?
|
interesting, but not gonna happen - community is too crappy :-*
|
On March 20 2012 22:26 Umpteen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 22:01 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 20 2012 19:44 Big J wrote:On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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 If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur. Indeed, it's impossible to avoid imbalancing the game with this kind of change. Mongolbonjwa is right when he says that RTS games are balanced around income and unit costs. The problem is, do we want to break Sc2 right now with these changes? I have to keep disagreeing here. I'm not saying these changes certainly won't lead to imbalance, but I take exception to this insistence that they must and that no supporting evidence is needed. For an imbalanced strategy to arise from this change, that strategy must be something a race can do on standard maps right now using 6m per base that requires their opponent to have 8m per base in order to defend it. Does that sound like a safe assumption to you?
no it does not. Just imagine a Terran strategy that beats everything but a 6pool. So Zerg can defend it, it would still be broken because the only way to play safe as Zerg would be to 6pool and thereby lose to every other strategy. SC2 is a game with restricted information, so just the existence of a counter does not make the strategy balanced. It's only balanced if playing strategies that don't lose to it grant a ~50% winrate;
+ Show Spoiler +(which in this theoretical example would mean that the game can only be balanced if Terran has 2choices and Zerg has 2 strategic choices:
Terran goes for it and Zerg doesn't 6pool - Terran wins;
Terran goes for it and Zerg goes for 6pool - Zerg wins;
Terran doesn't go for it and Zerg goes for 6pool - Terran wins;
resulting: Terran doesn't go for it and Zerg doesn't go for 6pool - Zerg has to win to achive balance)
Of course that change does not have to imbalance the game, but complex RTS games like SC2 usually have alpha and beta testphases to balance the game around the resulting metagame and when they are released they still need a lot of work. Using logic, there is the chance that it might be balanced, using statistics, it's close to impossible for the game to be balanced after such a change.
|
We should make this happen. Think Day[9] or another procaster could organize and cast a small tournament of pros working with the new lrpb maps?
(Glad to see Senex is, but we need some recognizable names too!)
|
On March 20 2012 22:39 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 22:26 Umpteen wrote:On March 20 2012 22:01 Fyrewolf wrote:On March 20 2012 19:44 Big J wrote:On March 20 2012 19:29 TRAP[yoo] wrote:On March 20 2012 19:21 Big J wrote: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 If you change the viability of builds and the timings of races, you change the balancing. As this efffects (nearly) every build (differently) and every race, it is close to impossible that no imbalances will occur. Indeed, it's impossible to avoid imbalancing the game with this kind of change. Mongolbonjwa is right when he says that RTS games are balanced around income and unit costs. The problem is, do we want to break Sc2 right now with these changes? I have to keep disagreeing here. I'm not saying these changes certainly won't lead to imbalance, but I take exception to this insistence that they must and that no supporting evidence is needed. For an imbalanced strategy to arise from this change, that strategy must be something a race can do on standard maps right now using 6m per base that requires their opponent to have 8m per base in order to defend it. Does that sound like a safe assumption to you? no it does not. Just imagine a Terran strategy that beats everything but a 6pool. So Zerg can defend it, it would still be broken because the only way to play safe as Zerg would be to 6pool and thereby lose to every other strategy. SC2 is a game with restricted information, so just the existence of a counter does not make the strategy balanced.
You're quite right; my mistake. What I should have said is:
For an imbalanced strategy to arise from this change, that strategy must be something a race can do on standard maps right now using 6m per base that requires their opponent to either have 8m per base or assume that strat is incoming and pre-empt it with a build that loses to everything else.
I'm still not getting the sense we can safely assume such a build exists. Nothing feels that fragile as SC2 stands right now.
|
On March 20 2012 22:40 Sunrunner wrote:
We should make this happen. Think Day[9] or another procaster could organize and cast a small tournament of pros working with the new lrpb maps?
(Glad to see Senex is, but we need some recognizable names too!)
This. Also, I wanna see this topic in State Of The Game.
This thread deserves a hundred pages.
|
I've just finished watching VTWhiplash vs Fezz casted by Senex. Was a really interesting game, and I didn't expected such a good play. I'd love to see more of these.
|
I think it's strange how many people complain about possible imbalances when drastic changes occur - I mean, you do realize that we are playing nothing than a glorified beta right now until LotV comes out, yes?
Just look back at starcraft vanilla - nobody gives a damn anymore how this game was balanced. It's all about how BW turned out in the long run. So yes, Blizzard should change the game drasticly, they should do it often, they definitely should do it with HotS. Because in the long run all that matters is, that the basic layout is perfect when LotV hits. After LotV it's more or less over, you can't release a 3rd expansion-pack just to alter poor design-choices. Nobody is ever going to buy that.
So now with HotS it's "the" perfect opportunity to use the insights gained from WoL to try something new. To try - in fact - many new things. Because the worst thing that's gonna happen is that stuff gets redesigned later on...because everything is going to change AGAIN with LotV, since LotV will have to implement new stuff.
|
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.
We're not forgetting and needing reminding. We're disagreeing and you need to lift your game.
On March 20 2012 17:35 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
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.
This is the part that is escaping you. We have had a number of GM's try this in a very quickly arranged tourny (btw: well done guys) along with however many others are in channel. This is being tested. It has not been found "inherently unsuccessful".
On March 20 2012 17:35 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
Probably protos cannot handle those because they are too gas reliant and zergs just are fucked up.
Let me guess... You're in Grandmaster league right? Do want to know how I guessed? It was more of a deduction really. The insightful analysis and clear authority with which it was given made any other conclusion inconceivable.
On March 20 2012 17:50 Mongolbonjwa wrote:
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.
What if instead I "prove" that there was an "OP" from "Barrin" who covered this point "already". You go look. I won't spoil the surprise.
Oh, and to the but-I-just-like-theorycraft-cause-its-easier brigade. It took me 3min 48seconds to change YABOT Xel'naga Caverns to 6m1HYG and 4:30 for Metalopolis. And I am as far from a map maker as it is possible to be. So you all seem to need reminding that replays rule and your back-of-the-envelope calculations showing that 1 race will rape should be the easiest thing in the world to prove. If so this could then be sorted out for HoTS/LotV (whoops, spoilt that surprise) but at the cost of any "inherently unsuccessful to try" arguments since this is exactly what supporters of this would deem a success.
To those who are sending replays: thankyou! They have been the most fun I've had in a while.
|
Hey guys! Senex and I had the awesome opportunity to do some Dual-Casting of a couple of these games last night. I'll post a link to one of them. It's not finished uploading but I felt I should go ahead and post this since I'm off to school and won't have a chance to do so later. Here's one of them...
+ Show Spoiler +
(Should be finished uploading in about 81 minutes)
Also feel free to check out both my youtube and his youtube channel. Subscribe if you want to be update on when more of these sick variants will be posted. Thanks guys!!!!
Pull's channel: youtube.com/pullsc
Senex's channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/WiseOldSenex
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
