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On March 03 2014 08:47 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2014 08:21 aZealot wrote:
@ Grumbels, not being required to take extra bases can also be a virtue though. It allows for comebacks from a player who is restricted to a lesser number of players than his opponent. I doubt it should be a hardwired necessity to have more bases. Then this should go for all races, and no race should be forced to outexpand another out of strategical reasons. It makes for some races always having to play the punchbag, because the other race randomly decides that "right now I'd rather not make myself vulnurable by spreading out. I'll just do that after I did damage to my opponent who has been required to make himself vulnerable to the bullshit I can pull on him right now, since equal bases favor me."
I take it you mean Z? Good point. I had not considered that. Of course in SC2, T is most favoured in that respect.
I'll try to formulate what I meant a little better. It's difficult doing so from work. Might need to think about it a little more too.
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68 Posts
On March 03 2014 06:14 Grumbels wrote:
But don't you see that Starbow doesn't "mindlessly reward expanding"? You can't use your new base without having the worker numbers to back it up as there is no point in going from four to six bases if you only have ~45 workers. In my opinion this creates a more natural flow of the game.
What you're describing is also known as whack-a-mole, which is a kid's game. That's what happens when you make expanding extremely rewarding and riskless (i.e. not requiring any investment). If, for instance, you only care about gas then it's such a low investment to constantly place bases everywhere and benefit from it. It's no longer a strategy game then, just a mechanics exercise.
Actually in that specific case your income will be strictly higher as there is diminishing returns on gas income as well (3rd worker is slightly less effective). This means that a base is "soft saturated" at one pr mineral patch and 2 pr gas. 4 bases means 4 gases (often less) and you will then need a total of 37 mineral patches over 4 bases to not get more income from expanding again. No map in the current mappool has such a base layout if you discount middle bases. I'll stop being douchy now.
On March 03 2014 07:57 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2014 06:47 The_Red_Viper wrote:On March 03 2014 06:14 Grumbels wrote:On March 03 2014 06:02 bananafone wrote:On March 03 2014 03:24 Grumbels wrote:
Keep in mind that mindlessly rewarding expanding is not good design. That's one of the reasons why I don't like the (proposed) concept for SC2 to make gas more significant so that your economic strength is mainly related to your gas income, which promotes expanding while not being punishing for having too much worker supply, because gas mining only takes six workers per base obviously. In that case you would have linear scaling for bases vs income, with worker numbers being unimportant. In that case it will be very difficult to come back if you're ever at a base deficit. Not sure I agree with this. I think mindlessly rewarding expansions is very good design, exactly because it makes comebacks easier and games more dynamic. If you reward players for mindlessly expanding all over the place, they will have to do so. This comes with the exciting consequence of thinning their defenses because it requires more focus and more units to defend larger areas. This in turn makes it easier to make comebacks because you will probably be able to do damage somewhere. Also since base counts are likely to be higher if you reward mass expanding, expansion deficits are usually less significant (difference in 1base vs 2base is much more significant than 5base vs 7base). Starbow is definitely a step in the right direction compared to Sc2. However if I was developing i would honestly like to try to reward expansions even more by decreasing either construction time or construction cost of bases (or both!). But don't you see that Starbow doesn't "mindlessly reward expanding"? You can't use your new base without having the worker numbers to back it up as there is no point in going from four to six bases if you only have ~45 workers. In my opinion this creates a more natural flow of the game. What you're describing is also known as whack-a-mole, which is a kid's game. That's what happens when you make expanding extremely rewarding and riskless (i.e. not requiring any investment). If, for instance, you only care about gas then it's such a low investment to constantly place bases everywhere and benefit from it. It's no longer a strategy game then, just a mechanics exercise. I don't quite get your point here. You always need the worker numbers to expand and have a benefit. As long as you need workers to mine ofc. So what is if you have "perfect effeciency saturation" for your 4 bases. You just build 8 (or whatever the mineral numer is) more workers and voila, you have another base "saturated". The important part is that you only need ONE worker per mineral patch to have a benefit with more bases. And what you say about the gas, i don't see why this wouldn't be the case in starbow also, as zerg for example you can always need more gas, i just don't really see your point here. To have more bases is btw only riskless if you can EASILY defend them, that part is mostly defined by the maps though! Depending on maps and harassment options to pressure mass-expanding, assuming that it was mostly riskless and didn't require worker investment and that it gave linear increases in income, would be horribly fragile, with strict constraints on map making and balance. This is what ZvX used to look like in SC2 before they switched to larger maps: inject gives you so many larva for drones that it forces your opponents to all-in just before the zerg can convert his economic lead to an army lead. It's too fragile because every time the zerg gets slightly better at defending all of a sudden they never lose. Let's say that you divide all unit's mineral costs in half, so that gas would by far be the limiting resource, you'd get into a situations where: 1. workers don't matter because you only need 3(6) workers to saturate a base 2. setting up new bases is riskless because they only require a minor cost of a main building to build, the few workers you'd need to mine gas being cheap and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things 3. there's a linear increase in income with more bases, which strongly disadvantages any player that loses map control for even a moment. Every time that happens you will be on the clock with only a tiny window to punish your opponent for taking additional bases.
What I am hearing you say is that making economic decisions easier is bad because it takes away from the strategy of the game and turns it into a game of pure mechanics. There is more to it than that, but that is the gist of it and it's a very valid concern.
Now I completely agree that Sc2 zerg style worker production is bad. Especially if that style of production isn't given to all races. Once again Starbows model is much better!
However the bolded part is where we disagree. Setting up additional bases is never risk-free in my opinion. Even if the cost of workers and the actual base was set to 0 minerals you will still need to defend the base with something that would otherwise have been used to defend something else (or attack). Expanding is inherently risky. It's just the nature of things.
If we for a second continue the absurd thought experiment of making workers and bases free (noone is actually suggesting that!) I am still not convinced that it will somehow degrade into whack-a-mole with mechanics. Sure the economic part of the game becomes a no brainer. Once you have workers above the "soft saturation threshold" you expand, simple as that. However you still need to come up with a strategy to defend said bases and come up with one to deal damage to the opponents mineral line. Personally i find that to be the fun part of rtses.
On the flipside if we make "should I expand?" a strategically much harder question it actually has the potential to dumb down the overall strategy of the game. WoL ZvZ and PvP are good examples of this. In both cases the risk (and reward) associated with expanding was so high that one successful (or not successful) expand beyond the 4 minute mark more often than not decided the game. I think you would be hard pressed to define WoL ZvZ or PvP as strategically deep so i don't buy your "expansion whack-a-mole is bad!"-argument. 
The reason i bring all of this up is that the invitational showcased a lot of sc2-style play, meaning "expand very safely to some amount of bases that can fuel a decent army while still being very easy to defend and then never expand again". Time will tell if that style of play is actually superior to mass expanding or whether the players we're just stuck in sc2 mentality. I just think it's something to keep an eye on.
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The different play styles in BW allowed races to switch between these expander/defender roles, which in my opinion is one of the big benefits of allowing for asymmetrical economies. You choose what sort of cost-efficiency you want to aim for by your strategy.
TvZ bio = terran aggressor. Zerg gas focused.
TvZ mech = zerg aggressor/outexpander.
PvT gateway centric = protoss outexpander by at least 2 bases
PvT arbiter centric = protoss can get by on equal or 1 base ahead
PvT carrier centric = protoss can win with equal or less bases
ZvP sauron zerg = outexpand by 2
ZvP lurker/tech centric = outexpand, but by less
Then there are loads and loads of variations with timing based strats. Like 3 base hydra into a muta switch to pick off templars. These sort of timing based strats are being used in Starbow as well. My favorite player in BW (Stork) favored playing like this. Big 3 vs 3 base busts before expanding further.
You can't expect every game to be a multibase macrofest. Especially not on most of the 2 player maps. If you played the entire tournament on circuit breaker you might get a higher proportion of those games.
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@bananafone,
It's mainly to caution people from oversimplifying the issue into "more expanding is good". I know I should be a bit careful with my hypotheticals, but I hope I got the point across.
A more general point is imo that linear growth (or even exponential growth) in effectiveness is typically bad because it removes comeback potential and makes any small advantage potentially gamewinning. BW had a lot of effects to counteract this (not going to list them as I'm writing on mobile, but one example is that having two times the worker count does not typically translate to two times the income).
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Just watched the tournament - and seriously, THIS is what the starcraft scene has been waiting for! Good job Kabel and guys. Some comments, purely regarding the cool-factor of the mod. Not balance related in any way:
Viper abduct: Looks extremely lame, and has done so since introduction in HOTS. The defiance of physics makes my brain hurt everytime I see it used. Add the fact that there is no separate animation for pulled units and its pure nonsense: A sieged tank flying (sieged) through the air, and landing (still sieged) but unharmed in a new position? urgh...
Also, from pure gameplay perspective, it´s basically a "kill one unit for free" ability that only works if the viper is kept with an overwhelming army, thus promoting deathball play, and precluding use of the viper as stand-alone unit. I´ve never seen it generate even remotely interesting scenarios.
Battlecruiser: The laser-battery firing animation was one thing SC2 got right. The one-shot "pew ... pew" laser from BW and SB feels underwhelming on what is supposedly a heavily armed capital ship.
Nukes : Have been practically useless since BW, since any good player will move his army, and damage to structures is so low that its cost-inefficient to use on buildings. Everytime you see a nuke used, I get this "ooohhh a nuke! .... oh, nevermind nothing actually happened" feeling. Increasing damage to structures to actually enable base-sniping would make it a much more interesting ability. No idea about balance in this regard.
Lurkers : Both sound and animation of lurker spines is very subtle - in stark contrast to the effect. Increasing spine contrast colors, and adding a more BW-like sound would give more of a "spikes suddenly exploding from the ground" feeling, and less of a "soft wave of tentacles" feeling.
Firebats and marauders : First off - Marauder = stupidly generic name, with no hint to what the unit does. Why not rename to something more fitting? Secondly, both seem awkwardly big in clumps of tiny marines and medics. Decreasing model size would make bioballs look more coherent, and maybe make it easier for firebats to actually make it to the front where they are needed.
Air units: The only interesting thing about air combat, is the manouverability of the units. Thus muta-micro is fun, while HOTS viking-micro is not. Compare muta vs wraith from the old BW Leta games, to HOTS viking vs corruptor-everything-standing-still-midair, and you´ll know what I mean. SB takes many steps in the right direction, but esp vikings, banshees and carriers still play like hovering ground units. More speed, less hp would make air-air and air-ground battles a lot more fun to watch.
That´s all. More of this good stuff please!
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On March 03 2014 20:02 Ygg wrote:
Viper abduct: Looks extremely lame, and has done so since introduction in HOTS. The defiance of physics makes my brain hurt everytime I see it used. Add the fact that there is no separate animation for pulled units and its pure nonsense: A sieged tank flying (sieged) through the air, and landing (still sieged) but unharmed in a new position? urgh...
Agreed, I absolutely hate Abduct. I honestly can't believe that it made it out of Blizzard's "idea room" into the actual game; it's SO STUPID. How about removing it and replacing it with the "Spawn Broodling" spell that Queens in brood war used to have? It would somewhat fill the same purpose, and does not look totally retarded.
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I don't like abduct either, it just looks dumb. When you pull an object that's much heavier than you, you actually pull yourself towards the object, not the other way around. Unless vipers are somehow massive, dwarfing even battlecruisers and the in-game model just happens to be scaled down. Or if vipers would be ground units that could tether themselves to the earth. But they're not, they're smallish flying unts that can pull tempests and motherships and battlecruisers.
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On March 03 2014 20:19 Grumbels wrote:
I don't like abduct either, it just looks dumb. When you pull an object that's much heavier than you, you actually pull yourself towards the object, not the other way around. Unless vipers are somehow massive, dwarfing even battlecruisers and the in-game model just happens to be scaled down. Or if vipers would be ground units that could tether themselves to the earth. But they're not, they're smallish flying unts that can pull tempests and motherships and battlecruisers.
Lol, lets complain about realism where units cast Psionic Storms, Teleport around or Morph into big building in 30 seconds 
BTW, I am +1 for a suggestion to let Lurkers burrow faster.
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On March 03 2014 20:14 labbe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2014 20:02 Ygg wrote:
Viper abduct: Looks extremely lame, and has done so since introduction in HOTS. The defiance of physics makes my brain hurt everytime I see it used. Add the fact that there is no separate animation for pulled units and its pure nonsense: A sieged tank flying (sieged) through the air, and landing (still sieged) but unharmed in a new position? urgh...
Agreed, I absolutely hate Abduct. I honestly can't believe that it made it out of Blizzard's "idea room" into the actual game; it's SO STUPID. How about removing it and replacing it with the "Spawn Broodling" spell that Queens in brood war used to have? It would somewhat fill the same purpose, and does not look totally retarded.
Yea I agree!! This should really be considered. I would approve of it!
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Russian Federation610 Posts
Leaving aside such thing as realism (which has nothing to do with Starcraft), what the problem with abduct? I think its much better ability than queen broodling, at least it isn't just insta-killing things (which will be too easy with smartcast).
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On March 03 2014 22:01 Ardias wrote:
Leaving aside such thing as realism (which has nothing to do with Starcraft), what the problem with abduct? I think its much better ability than queen broodling, at least it isn't just insta-killing things (which will be too easy with smartcast).
every spell is too easy with smartcast, i think we should remove ALL spells
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It's kinda sad that there are so few people playing, even when it's new and shiny. Or does no one use ladder?
I mean making a good game is great and all, but if there's no one to play it against, does it even matter in the end?
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If you're trying to find a game at this hour, you're gonna have a bad time...Wait for the EU--->NA Primetime
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Russian Federation610 Posts
On March 03 2014 22:12 The_Red_Viper wrote:
every spell is too easy with smartcast, i think we should remove ALL spells
To clarify my position, I'm not against removing smartcast, it would be fine by my opinion. But devs decided it should be in the game for now at least, so spells should be balanced respectively, In this regard I believe abduct is better than broodlings.
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I too would prefer having smartcast be changed. =/ It's soo strong, even if spells are nerfed.
I don't like seeing storms being thrown around without any effort sooo fast. Neither do I like doing it myself. I can't really appreciate the skill behind the spellcasting at the moment.
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On March 03 2014 23:03 Jawra wrote:
I too would prefer having smartcast be changed. =/ It's soo strong, even if spells are nerfed.
I don't like seeing storms being thrown around without any effort sooo fast. Neither do I like doing it myself. I can't really appreciate the skill behind the spellcasting at the moment.
So, you never used Storms in Sc2?
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EPT
Let me know, ofc, so I can add it to OP / liquipedia.
