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On February 11 2014 09:44 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 09:38 SC2Toastie wrote:
Everything comes down to how Warpgate is not as much as a race-defining mechanic that is cool and fun as David Kim makes it out to be.
Bring back decent defenders advantage, weaken the economy, spread out bases, Balance from there. Why was PvP in WoL such a frustration to many? Warpgate reinforcements equalising armies and making it super risky to expo. Rather than look at dealing with that, they just gave the MSC with its defensive utility which 'fixed' the matchup in that way.
I know. And we all know how great that turned out to be.
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The maps are the problem. They are too fortified.
Also, when I first saw the symmetrical maps, I thought it was a joke, like "yeah, right as if..."
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On February 11 2014 10:29 qGSkipper wrote:
Increase the supply cap
That would be insanely fun. How about no limit?
I wonder if the limit is Network Code & CPU related, rather than gameplay.
I've always wondered that.
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On February 11 2014 10:29 qGSkipper wrote:
Increase the supply cap
Don't think that would do much tbh. People would just make bigger death balls.
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On February 11 2014 10:32 WeddingEpisode wrote:That would be insanely fun. How about no limit? I wonder if the limit is Network Code & CPU related, rather than gameplay. I've always wondered that.
Ya I do believe lag would be the main limiting factor on this. I think it's a simple yet efficient change in fixing the turtle issue. Income leads could be constantly turned into army units and army supply leads for a much longer amount of time. Thus, turtling players are at more of a risk of simply being "smothered" by overwhelming amounts of units, as opposed to forcing, say Zerg players, to cut off army production at around 150 supply in order to tech up, or forcing units to be sacked in order to make room for higher tech units.
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Essentially, a higher supply cap would reward players with map control/economic advantages who look to push their advantages with heavy pressure(mass units) and refuse to play the turtle game.
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Just thought i'd add my two cents here considering i've played hundreds of mech vs swarmhost games since the HOTS beta:
Swarmhosts are the main issue that creates boring long 1 hr turtle games. Mech cannot ever attack into free units and expect to win - much like Protoss cannot do the same in PvZ, and Protoss and Terran mech operate in a very similar fashion.
Protoss has no way to beat swarmhost + static defense until turtling into a 200/200 deathball with a LOT of tempests.
Terran has no way to beat swarmhosts other than accumulating ravens for the point defense drone because this allows your mech units to not take damage and actually allow you to advance into swarmhost locust waves + static defense.
This is not the fault of Protoss design or Terran design, or ravens, or tempests, or deathballing. It is the terrible design of the swarmhost which forces the opponent to do sit there and amass cost efficient units or otherwise lose the game.
Swarmhosts provide free units that are not even energy dependent. It's simply on a cool down and will infinitely spawn free units that trade for the opponent's minerals and vespene gas.
Swarmhost is the issue. Do not put Terran players at fault or start an anti-raven bandwagon because when a Zerg goes swarmhosts the only response is to start accumulating ravens from Terran's side, or a deathball of air units from Protoss's side.
A question we all have to ask right now is: is Zerg capable of beating Terran mech and Protoss without the swarmhost in the game in it's current form? The answer would be most definitely yes they can, through tech switches and use of vipers.
The swarmhost needs a massive re-design or balance tweaks.
As for the other issues Morrow has pointed out and many others like Lalaush in the past - the economy of SC2 promotes getting to 3 bases and maxing out and then the game is about whoever's army is more efficient than their opponent's.
A good example of a mod that changes the economy to matter is Starbow, or just look at good ol' Brood War (SC1). You had to mass expand all over the place in Brood War because you would run out of money otherwise.
TvP in Brood War...was literally the Terran turtling to a cost efficient mech army with tanks that killed things, and the Protoss sometimes being 1 or even 2 expansions ahead wittling away at the Terran mech army through recalls, carrier switches, etc.
But i don't think blizzard will honestly change the economy of SC2 at this point and i would actually recommend they never do because it would kill the game. I have seen another RTS, Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath go through a massive economy overhaul in a patch...and the game entirely changed but too much to keep the player base stable.
At this point it is better if blizzard simply fixes obvious imbalances like blink/MSC and promotes more viable strategies in each match-up (cough mech TvP...)
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On February 11 2014 05:38 LaLuSh wrote:
Defender's advantage is beneficial for games that have asymmetrical elements. If one race can outproduce another, then strong defender's advantage is needed for the numerically inferior race to survive.
But in a game with more symmetrical elements (economy + 200 cap being reached with great frequency): defender's advantage can be directly detrimental to the entertainment value of that game. A strong defender's advantage in a game where the incentives for attacking are already weak will only lead to deadlocked stalemates.
Whether you remove swarm hosts or not, this will still remain the case with SC2. Removing swarm hosts maybe makes the stalemate game half an hour to an hour shorter. But why would a zerg ever want to leave the comfort of their spines and spores versus mech (whether they have swarm hosts or not)?
New units or changed unit designs won't do much to affect the general game flow of SC2 in LotV. SC2's biggest problem is its lategame and it's always been its biggest problem ever since every progamer learned to macro on an equal level (~12ish months after release).
These problems will always exist as long as players are reliably able to reach ~65-70 workers and max out. The only way you prevent the great stagnation that is the SC2 lategame is if players never reach optimal worker counts and never max out.
For that you need less defender's advantage and not more.
Or... you could just redesign the game and not have these problems.
Less of a defender's advantage for LOTV and perhaps a redesign for SC3, no?
What are some reasonable things they could change, creating less fo a defender's advantage, for LOTV?
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Morrow, Blizz have already stated they wont do design changes. Hell, ppl have been asking them to change things about SC2 since it was released. History has shown us that Blizz will do the game THEY want. And it is an ok game, playable, interesting and fun in it's own way. Stalemates are only becoming common with introduction of the swarmhost, which I think Blizz will change as games are getting too long and its embarrassing for them. I think if we get the odd very long game, it is actually a good thing.
I know you and many others love BW, but SC2 doesnt want to be BW, I think that is starkly clear. That is why mods are the answer if you want to play a game that is designed differently. I think suggesting small changes to units will be more beneficial in influencing Blizz, as that is the model they stick with, no matter if a section of the community wants parts of SC2 redesigned. It wont be till LOTV till we see more drastic shifts imho.
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how about a tax on minerals above a certain supply to discourage Max 200 Supply then attack games
such as the tax in warcraft 3, which helped the unit count stay low and constantly doing "something" and not just turtling
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On February 11 2014 10:32 WeddingEpisode wrote:That would be insanely fun. How about no limit? I wonder if the limit is Network Code & CPU related, rather than gameplay. I've always wondered that.
Physical limitations are definitely not an issue when 4v4 games are composed of 8 players potentially maxing out and the game is still bearable with good pc. While I disagree with no supply cap, I definitely think the game should have a higher supply cap as games quickly stagnate after you reach the limit. Already in beta I was under the impression that this game was simply not made to have a 200/200 cap because it stopped being an exotic thing, but a standard in every game. Blizzard should have balanced the game around well-established fundamentals and only then fixed the minuscule details and tweaks. Pace of economy is simply too fast for the game, and you can solve it two ways. Either slow down the economy (which starbow did brilliantly) and/or increase the supply cap. I even see many people talk about maps being the problem, but again, you can only design maps based on the principles of the game and if those are flawed, then the maps will just amplify them. Big maps would never be an issue to play on if the game itself didn't promote turtling 3-4 base gameplay.
Units would never need such nitpicky balancing and players would be given many more solutions than just one to deal with a specific play style. Dynamic expanding player against a turtling player is a primitive example, and the turtling player would be forced to move out and fight for control of the game before it gets out of hand (of course it is much more complex than that, as turtling player can still harass the expanding player with mobile units that they have at their disposal) - likewise would the rapid expanding player be forced to keep the turtling player's army OR economy low. Right now there simply is no way to overwhelm an opponent with superior economy, and in the end it always boils down to one fight regardless of how many bases you have. There would have never been any need to add swarm hosts or tempests into the game, no need for mass static and spore strats because you would have the option to go for an inefficient, but massable route.
Having a higher supply cap would not only fix the turtling issues that this game has, but also allow for bigger maps to be in map pool, which would also lead to a more dynamic war of attrition that is currently almost non-existant. The more bases you take, the more exposed and stretched you would be, but in return you would get a better economy. It would allow you to leave more units for defense while still having a healthy main army.
But of course, knowing blizzard they will never make such a rehaul because they are too concerned about the minuscule details while missing the big picture. Sometimes the solution is almost too simple.
edit: I have already tried a few games on customized ladder maps like frost and altrezim and gave them 300 supply. From my experience, I kinda felt sorry that these games weren't the standard of starcraft 2.
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On February 10 2014 22:14 neptunusfisk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 10 2014 22:07 TRaFFiC wrote:
I never played broodwar, but I played other rts. I don't see any problem. I'm loving the diversity of strategies recently. There are so many ways to deal with mech. I enjoyed the match. Only problem I see is boring the noobie rts fans who aren't used to it or costing tons of extra money to power the studio lol If you had a BW background the diversity would perhaps not seem so big as you find it now 
Lol you really think BW had "diversity of strategy" ? There was the standard composition for each matchup, and this never changed, but there were small tweaks you could do with each composition for each matchup. Definitely not diverse.
I think the major point in the OP is that the economy of SC2 really gives incentive to sit back and turtle because of the 3 base max saturation. If sc2 had the BW economy, I think we'd see a huge improvement in things honestly. Just the fact that 3base is the max bases you need really limits the game, you should gain exponentially with each base up to a certain point, but limiting it to 3 really screws with things.
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Looking at this another way, the REAL problem with something like Soulkey vs. Reality was NOT swarm hosts or ravens.
It was MULES.
Think about it: Until he's mined out, Soulkey needs to keep establishing a bank to replenish units. That takes drones - a lot of 'em. There's an opportunity cost to this: his maximum army size will be that much smaller, always.
Soulkey cannot afford a straight-up engagement in most cases once it progresses from mid-to-late, because his half-army, half-drones composition can't beat a nearly-all-mech, some-MULES composition.
The real advantage of building so many orbitals is that you are basically paying to free up more army supply than would otherwise be possible. It allows terran to build a critical mass of end-game units that is THAT MUCH closer to a "true" 200/200, whereas zerg army supply is much lower. You simply don't need SCVs, whereas zerg will still need drones.
And if zerg DOES throw away his drones to get on equal army size footing with terran, he won't be able to get back in the economy game - whereas terran can have both: a maxed out army AND an exploding, growing bank.
That's what is ridiculous about it. And no player should, at end-end-end game, suddenly be able to pull in thousands of minerals per minute with low worker count. I've seen so many games change because of float over + mule shower that it's scary.
Also, specifically on the Soulkey fight: the audience was right, he should have move-commanded his hosts. Rather than waste their shots on endless PDTs, they could have cuddled to tanks and let friendly fire do its thing. Game would have been much different: literally hundreds of waves where it would have been helpful.
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On February 11 2014 12:10 EonuS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 11 2014 10:32 WeddingEpisode wrote:On February 11 2014 10:29 qGSkipper wrote:
Increase the supply cap That would be insanely fun. How about no limit? I wonder if the limit is Network Code & CPU related, rather than gameplay. I've always wondered that. Physical limitations are definitely not an issue when 4v4 games are composed of 8 players potentially maxing out and the game is still bearable with good pc. While I disagree with no supply cap, I definitely think the game should have a higher supply cap as games quickly stagnate after you reach the limit. Already in beta I was under the impression that this game was simply not made to have a 200/200 cap because it stopped being an exotic thing, but a standard in every game. Blizzard should have balanced the game around well-established fundamentals and only then fixed the minuscule details and tweaks. Pace of economy is simply too fast for the game, and you can solve it two ways. Either slow down the economy (which starbow did brilliantly) and/or increase the supply cap. I even see many people talk about maps being the problem, but again, you can only design maps based on the principles of the game and if those are flawed, then the maps will just amplify them. Big maps would never be an issue to play on if the game itself didn't promote turtling 3-4 base gameplay. Units would never need such nitpicky balancing and players would be given many more solutions than just one to deal with a specific play style. Dynamic expanding player against a turtling player is a primitive example, and the turtling player would be forced to move out and fight for control of the game before it gets out of hand (of course it is much more complex than that, as turtling player can still harass the expanding player with mobile units that they have at their disposal) - likewise would the rapid expanding player be forced to keep the turtling player's army OR economy low. Right now there simply is no way to overwhelm an opponent with superior economy, and in the end it always boils down to one fight regardless of how many bases you have. There would have never been any need to add swarm hosts or tempests into the game, no need for mass static and spore strats because you would have the option to go for an inefficient, but massable route. Having a higher supply cap would not only fix the turtling issues that this game has, but also allow for bigger maps to be in map pool, which would also lead to a more dynamic war of attrition that is currently almost non-existant. The more bases you take, the more exposed and stretched you would be, but in return you would get a better economy. It would allow you to leave more units for defense while still having a healthy main army. But of course, knowing blizzard they will never make such a rehaul because they are too concerned about the minuscule details while missing the big picture. Sometimes the solution is almost too simple. edit: I have already tried a few games on customized ladder maps like frost and altrezim and gave them 300 supply. From my experience, I kinda felt sorry that these games weren't the standard of starcraft 2.
I totally agree, the 200/200 supply cap really fit the BW style of economy, but sc2 has a totally different economy and the games stagnate immensely when it is reached. This would also solve a lot of problems with the 3base max saturation, because there would be more supply for workers = more room to expand without cutting into your army value.
But once again, I seriously doubt they would think about doing something like this, only time I could see them doing something like this is with LotV, but even then i'd doubt it. I honestly think an overhaul of the economy or something like that would be fucking huge for this game, because there's a basic underlying problem and that is the abundance of resources making intense battles of attrition extinct, and economical tactics like that are just non existant in sc2. It's severly hampering gameplay in my humble opinion.
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Reduce worker HP by 50% and change them so they cost 0 supply.
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On February 11 2014 14:56 nullroar wrote:
Reduce worker HP by 50% and change them so they cost 0 supply.
Many people have actually proposed changing them to 1/2 supply, which I think would be a great change. Of course it would completely screw up early game timings, but those would be figured out again and settle pretty quickly I think.
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If so many people are so against how SC2 games play out then why isn't there a huge starbow player base? Most people don't have the apm for a game like starbow or broodwar to be a rewarding experience. From what I can tell there are far more people that like SC2 than people that would like a game like starbow. We all have to keep in mind that people on TL are generally the more hardcore player base of SC2, and are playing, or have played, at a higher level than most of the player base, most likely. Because of this, we see problems that lower level players would never even think about, as unit composition matters far less at lower levels. Because of this, Blizzard doesn't really have an incentive to listen to us, and would would probably even take a loss in sales if they reworked the game.
In terms of game play, it seems pretty obvious to me that the pacing of the game is the biggest issue in SC2, not swarm hosts. Swarm hosts are a problem right now I guess but every other compositional problem in SC2 really stemmed from the fact that everything happens too fast and 3 base mining is optimal. I honestly don't think the units of SC2 are bad ideas at all, they just fail to be what they could be because of the crap pacing and economy. If BW units were put into SC2 people would bitch even more than they do now, imagine a skytoss army that gets killed by one remax of scourge lol.
Of course, as people have said, if the economy were to be reworked, along with pacing of battles, things would have to be tweaked a lot before the game became playable again. However, the game would be so so much easier to balance, because the control of the game would be more in the players hands than it is now. I.e. with more battles across the map that are longer, it gives players more ability to micro said battles, along with macroing across their bases, which would be of greater number than they would be in sc2.
TL;DR more people like sc2 in it's current state than people who don't, so ultimately nothing will change. If you don't like sc2 go play starbow.
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If the economy is solely the issue holding back SC2 couldn't this be fixed via Gold Minerals and Rich Vespene Gas?
Both of these collect considerably more resources per minute than their normal counterparts which in turn makes expanding more rewarding. Even if you cut back on the amount of patches/gases per expansion you'd require less workers which would then feed into the army supplies raising the effective cap.
We used to see Gold Patches a fair amount in WOL prior to Antiga. My understanding is the reason they were never used was because of Mules collecting 42 (7 x 6 trips) minerals instead of the 30 (5 x 6 trips) on regular minerals. However, this was fixed way back in Patch 1.4.3.
So, if the economy is the issue why aren't we using Gold and Rich Vespense bases? It seems like half the people in this thread are talking about re-working the economy which would fuck-up the entirety of the games balance. Something like this would at least be map specific.
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On February 11 2014 02:43 Liquid`Snute wrote:
What is the problem exactly?
You get a late-game, players expand towards each other, split the map and then they trade. Whoever trades better (this takes skill) wins.
There's not more to it and there is nothing wrong about it from a game perspective except for most humans finding it boring.
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Blizzard have all the options in the world to promote expanding and aggressive plays in SC2 by making gas units more worthwhile (buff), introducing gas units to T3/T4(!) tech, shifting the mineral:gas ratio of powerful units more towards gas ...
6 workers mining gas get 228 gas per minute.
6 workers mining minerals get 270 minerals per minute.
However:
Gas income is limited to 6 workers per base.
Mineral income is limited to 16-22 workers per base.
If massing gas units was more valuable than mineral units, there would be more incentive to expand without raising the supply cap. A player running on 14gas could very easily break a 8gas (4base turtle) player after accumulating a small bank.
But there are very few units that are heavier on gas than minerals. This is an opportunity that is currently not utilized by SC2.
Claiming the macro design in itself to be terrible is not entirely true because it's the unit costs and resulting compositions that are causing issues, not the mineral/gas game in itself. Very few seem mindful of this.
snute you should be on blizzard team
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EPT
