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NEW IN-GAME CHANNEL: FRB |
On March 17 2012 04:36 SwirlQ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 17 2012 03:12 TG Manny wrote:+ Show Spoiler +At the moment it is "let me get my decent tech and a few ups and push while you're upgrading". Because of the high damage content and high rates of fire, upgrades are so important and AoE being so killer, you want to get a ton of sustainable army and keep your opponent from making a better one. TvT is a great example of pushing when you see an opening, controlling space, and placing units in opportune positions to do damage. Those 8 marines and a medivac? Won't do shit walking into a siege line alone. Safely landed in the opponent's main? Oh there goes 1/3 of your workers, your next upgrade, and/or some reactors! Did you unsiege too many of your tanks in a vulnerable location? Here comes the huge wave of replaceable bio to lower the tank count considerably. I think you are forgetting that if you have less mineral patches per base that means a higher percentage of your early game income is going to building infastructure. So lets take 2 rax zvt for example, you probably wouldn't be able to build off both and afford a CC relatively quickly making your pressure much more a commitment. That means that everything is worth more, and you will have less marines then you would with 8m2g. Now zerg would also have less zerglings but I really wouldnt see that as a problem because in small numbers zerglings can trade cost effectively with marines. Its only when terran has alot of marines that they become a threat. Another thing is if everything is more valuable people are going to do less gimmicky attacks that can do TONS of damage but if they dont you are screwed. A big problem with 8m2g is that you can be considerably behind but if you go out for a gimmicky attack and your opponent doesn't capitalize on it immediately you can actually go from almost dead to winning the game.
I agree with the last statement, assuming both players on equal bases.
However, gimmicky attacks will happen more. How much does a warp prism cost, or an unsafe 8 marine drop, or even a whole bunch of banelings? The first one is a resource that can be kept through the game, although made in a gimmicky purpose. The second is a risk with extremely high reward. The third is something that should, almost without a doubt, do a good amount of damage to the enemy army but also could allow for an early kill (IE banes kill everything-morph 20-50 lings depending on your larva economy to followup and destroy the opponent's economy). If they fail to do a "deathblow" they still have kept their opponent on their heels and presumably have had some success.
Maybe I am looking at this in a less than pro level. Diamond level players will heavily invest in risks that can pay off immediately or be able to break even rather than be more safe.
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wow this is amazing, gonna go trough all of this when i have time, and was considering learning map making, thanks for this!
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one of the best post i have read since SQ by whatthefat .
Hella good job.Barrin. I really hope Blizzard take a look on this and consider it.
I really believe by playing this map and getting used to 7m (or even 6m) vs 8m will help you become a better player. of course timing and everything will be different but the control, strategy, micro, and macro will come into play ^_^
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Holy shit I'm still reading, not even kinda finished, but I still want to say "make sc2 into bw2" isn't my cup of tea. I like your idea for resource reduction, it would make the game a lot more fun in my eyes, but lets withhold the logic of "because it's more BW like"
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Katowice25012 Posts
On March 17 2012 04:16 darkscream wrote:
You know any other time someone suggests changes to starcraft 2, the mods shut it down and tell them to go post on battle.net
..but if a mod posts a suggested change to sc2..
We have always allowed well thought out posts discussing different parts of the game, especially so when they go further than simple balance tweaks. In fact, right now there is even a huge thread about the UI that is generating good discussion.
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This is an amazing post, best OP I've read in 2012 so far.
With respect, I think you need to add a section to address the politics of map design. The crux of the problem, I feel, is the tension between the GSL/ESL/IEM map pools and the ladder map pools. As we've seen, Blizzard had to be dragged kicking-and-screaming from the small rush maps like Blistering Sand and Steppes of War, and GSL was the one who did it. They introduced bigger maps, and removed gold, by themselves. This changed game flow drastically, and altered unit and race balance as well. The pros began to map out the metagame on these bigger maps, and Blizzard was forced to respond with unit balance changes, which also forced them to go to larger maps on ladder. Blizzard wanted a rush-friendly, casual-friendly game. If you remember the Beta, they wanted games to end in 10-15 minutes. The community disagreed, and Blizzard has been forced to change.
Another aspect that deserves analysis are ramps on the main. Obviously, changing this would create a significant impact, but I think this could also add more complexity to gameplay. The ramp is a way to increase defender's advantage in PvX and TvX, mostly through high-ground sight, force-fields and wall-ins. The ramp also makes one-base all-in play more viable, as the all-in player can turtle behind his defensive advantage, quickly saturate his resource-rich 8m2g base, then switch to army production. Removing or widening ramps would force more early game investment in army/static defense, slowing down the one-base play. There are probably other counter-acting effects I'm not accounting for, but you get the idea. Playing around with ramps is another big tool for map-makers to change gameplay.
The most likely avenue for going to 6mXg maps is through GSL, and I agree, the best time to do it is with HotS. If there is a TL consensus that lower-resource bases are a good thing, we should host a map-making competition, and a tournament with these lower-resource maps. Call it beta-testing. Hash it out a bit, figure out if 6m2g, 7m2g, 6m1hyg, or 7m1hyg is best, then give GSL a call. If we can push these maps into GSL, that's pretty much victory.
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Good read I didnt want it to stop ! I agree 100%. Now im gonna try those maps on b.net.
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You're work is incredible; I'm having a hard time writing because the quality of this post is so jaw-dropping.
Last night, I kid you not, I downloaded the iccup launcher and threatened myself with quitting sc2. It almost seems like and act of God that your thread showed up when it did. I love sc2, but the esports scene, if I'm really honest, is not nearly as satisfying to me as it once was. There are a lot of reasons for that, but I think you nailed the biggest one.
So, in short, I think you're headed the right direction. Of course, the specific numbers on how many mineral patches and what kinds of gas yielding would need broad testing across all of the match ups to get settled into place for balance purposes, but I'm ready to spend my sc2 time on almost exclusively working with this concept.
Would it be appropriate to start a thread for people who want to practice on these maps to swap b.net info?
EDIT: took out shit that didn't need to be there.
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On March 17 2012 04:47 YMCApylons wrote:
This is an amazing post, best OP I've read in 2012 so far.
With respect, I think you need to add a section to address the politics of map design. The crux of the problem, I feel, is the tension between the GSL/ESL/IEM map pools and the ladder map pools. As we've seen, Blizzard had to be dragged kicking-and-screaming from the small rush maps like Blistering Sand and Steppes of War, and GSL was the one who did it. They introduced bigger maps, and removed gold, by themselves. This changed game flow drastically, and altered unit and race balance as well. The pros began to map out the metagame on these bigger maps, and Blizzard was forced to respond with unit balance changes, which also forced them to go to larger maps on ladder. Blizzard wanted a rush-friendly, casual-friendly game. If you remember the Beta, they wanted games to end in 10-15 minutes. The community disagreed, and Blizzard has been forced to change.
Another aspect that deserves analysis are ramps on the main. Obviously, changing this would create a significant impact, but I think this could also add more complexity to gameplay. The ramp is a way to increase defender's advantage in PvX and TvX, mostly through high-ground sight, force-fields and wall-ins. The ramp also makes one-base all-in play more viable, as the all-in player can turtle behind his defensive advantage, quickly saturate his resource-rich 8m2g base, then switch to army production. Removing or widening ramps would force more early game investment in army/static defense, slowing down the one-base play. There are probably other counter-acting effects I'm not accounting for, but you get the idea. Playing around with ramps is another big tool for map-makers to change gameplay.
The most likely avenue for going to 6mXg maps is through GSL, and I agree, the best time to do it is with HotS. If there is a TL consensus that lower-resource bases are a good thing, we should host a map-making competition, and a tournament with these lower-resource maps. Call it beta-testing. Hash it out a bit, figure out if 6m2g, 7m2g, 6m1hyg, or 7m1hyg is best, then give GSL a call. If we can push these maps into GSL, that's pretty much victory.
You sir have put together a good plan of action. Maybe we will see this in HotS release, if anything. I sincerely doubt that the GSL will alienate their players with a major difference in the game so far into the metagame of WoL. It must be done while HotS is young, and its metagame is volatile by the sheer unknown of how the game works at a deep level. Showmatches now, official tournies for HotS, and then GSL!
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On March 17 2012 04:42 ElPeque.fogata wrote:GREAT work. SC2 is what happens when you let a C&C designer take over Starcraft 
lol what? can you tell me more about this. Also,great read.
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so cool that people are really applying themselves when thinking how to better the game. thanks!
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Wow, great post. I'm pretty willing to play/see a 7 or 6mineral map on ladder, would be interesting to see how it works out... I would like to see/ play out more harass and skirmishes as a protoss.
Unfortunately i haveNo high level friends that play sc2 to test these...
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I just finished reading the whole post, and my conclusion is that this is a great idea and I would love to see some progamers play on these maps and submit replays for us to see and watch how it unfolds.
Of course with the changes all new builds would need to be created but that's part of the fun.
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Brilliant, really good job making this. I agree with your ideas completely, can you plz post this on bnet too..so they can read it?
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Download links don't work for me... I get "Invalid or Deleted File."
Are they broken or am I doing something wrong?
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Excellent post, great read. I'd love for this to be tried. too bad Blizzard holds the ultimate power here
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I totally agree.
Let's hope that the community creates some new 7m2g base maps for smaller tournaments to test them out, and if they produce better games maybe GOM will consider adopting them too.
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I just wanted to chime in to express my support for this thread. I feel this would really increase the entertainment value of pro matches as each unit would be worth more providing a stronger outlet for micro battles.
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EPT
