On November 10 2014 12:30 Eatme wrote: I wish someone would have asked DK why they didnt just steal the starbow eco instead of this weird solution. Starting with 12workers is one thing, adding the lower mineral count makes it a whole different type of derp.
EDIT:It's not like the shortcomings of SC2 econ hasnt been discussed and experimented on before.
They did (more than likely unintentionally) steal the sbow economy, just the older and worse version we had a while back before moving to a decreasing efficiency curve eco.
I'd be super happy if they tried out a really heavy handed forced gradient approach to the economy.
Perhaps the 1 worker per patch moves at 100% speed when mining, 2 workers on a patch move at 70% speed when mining and 3 workers mine at 50% speed when mining. It gives a visually appreciable different in worker efficiency. Experimentation along those lines could really shake up game flow in a good way.
IMO, 12 workers is just a way for Blizzard to make the games faster for the spectators.
In essence they want to artificially remove the "downtime" that you'll see Tastosis, and other casters cover up. Obviously there are other (very important) in-game implications regarding the starting worker change, But given the direction that the company as a whole is taking with Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch, I feel like this change is primarily motivated to make SC2 as a whole more fast paced and "engaging" for viewers, and more importantly new uninformed viewers.
If you think about it, 90% of tournament games, important decisions (that will immediately impact the other opponent) or risks aren't really taken besides the initial build order. For a non player, the time it takes to get to 16-20 supply (HOTS supplies) flies over his/her head because they don't really understand the significance of the build orders being chosen. Even the most basic interactions (like 2 zerglings chasing down a scouting worker or a zealot/stalker/MSC poke) don't occur for a while.
With 12 workers, in a 5 game set, the pace game to game will be a lot faster. It's kind of a problem now because you can have a really long epic game, and then the immediate game can be very slow into the midgame killing the energy for a viewer.
It'll be more like CS:GO where you can have a really fast game to watch, and then even at the starting round of the next game the intensity can go back up and keep the momentum going.
On November 10 2014 13:50 Gamegene wrote: IMO, 12 workers is just a way for Blizzard to make the games faster for the spectators.
In essence they want to artificially remove the "downtime" that you'll see Tastosis, and other casters cover up. Obviously there are other (very important) in-game implications regarding the starting worker change, But given the direction that the company as a whole is taking with Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch, I feel like this change is primarily motivated to make SC2 as a whole more fast paced and "engaging" for viewers, and more importantly new uninformed viewers.
If you think about it, 90% of tournament games, important decisions (that will immediately impact the other opponent) or risks aren't really taken besides the initial build order. For a non player, the time it takes to get to 16-20 supply (HOTS supplies) flies over his/her head because they don't really understand the significance of the build orders being chosen. Even the most basic interactions (like 2 zerglings chasing down a scouting worker or a zealot/stalker/MSC poke) don't occur for a while.
With 12 workers, in a 5 game set, the pace game to game will be a lot faster. It's kind of a problem now because you can have a really long epic game, and then the immediate game can be very slow into the midgame killing the energy for a viewer.
It'll be more like CS:GO where you can have a really fast game to watch, and then even at the starting round of the next game the intensity can go back up and keep the momentum going.
Of course that's one of the goals of the economic changes, but you could also implement a Brood War style economy, while still increasing the starting number of workers. I don't think anyone is discussing Blizzard's way of accelerating the early game, but rather the way Blizzard is trying to prevent turtling and causing more expanding, the op claiming that BW economics would be a better way of doing so.
The title says LotV Economy Discussion doesn't it?
Admittedly my post skirts around the real meat of the two changes they made (the 900 resources), but I'm not really interested too much in joining the chorus about it as it really speaks for itself.
(And I really don't think the OP's BW vs SC2 bait argument is even worth getting into lol)
On November 10 2014 13:50 Gamegene wrote: IMO, 12 workers is just a way for Blizzard to make the games faster for the spectators.
In essence they want to artificially remove the "downtime" that you'll see Tastosis, and other casters cover up. Obviously there are other (very important) in-game implications regarding the starting worker change, But given the direction that the company as a whole is taking with Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch, I feel like this change is primarily motivated to make SC2 as a whole more fast paced and "engaging" for viewers, and more importantly new uninformed viewers.
If you think about it, 90% of tournament games, important decisions (that will immediately impact the other opponent) or risks aren't really taken besides the initial build order. For a non player, the time it takes to get to 16-20 supply (HOTS supplies) flies over his/her head because they don't really understand the significance of the build orders being chosen. Even the most basic interactions (like 2 zerglings chasing down a scouting worker or a zealot/stalker/MSC poke) don't occur for a while.
With 12 workers, in a 5 game set, the pace game to game will be a lot faster. It's kind of a problem now because you can have a really long epic game, and then the immediate game can be very slow into the midgame killing the energy for a viewer.
It'll be more like CS:GO where you can have a really fast game to watch, and then even at the starting round of the next game the intensity can go back up and keep the momentum going.
Of course that's one of the goals of the economic changes, but you could also implement a Brood War style economy, while still increasing the starting number of workers. I don't think anyone is discussing Blizzard's way of accelerating the early game, but rather the way Blizzard is trying to prevent turtling and causing more expanding, the op claiming that BW economics would be a better way of doing so.
Another way to do it is to copy Warcraft 3's economy. It also had less turtling and more aggression.
We just need to make bases mine out more quickly and remove the early game need to make as many workers.
i'm initially against the 12 worker change, i agree with gamegene that blizzard is making the decision for spectators and not the long term longevity of the game.. I also think that there's more than a good chance that blizzard is adding it so that new players don't feel so "down and out" when they get 6pooled or proxy gated (similar to when they made rax require a depot to be built in early WOL beta to nerf bbs). there's a ton of implications for changing scouting timings while giving a bigger economy, on 4 player maps players will have defensive units to deny scouting almost immediately, if they're not already proxying robos/factories.. the change might fuck over pro level meta with optimal scouting, but you can be absolutely sure that it'll make scouting/defending against cheese for anything below diamond a living hell... cheese will rule the lower leagues
On November 09 2014 18:00 mishimaBeef wrote: Sorry man but I'd gladly gut 5% of builds for 95% of idle time.
what you don't see is if you favor safe and macro builds too much (which the 12 initial workers change may do, I think) you will get to 100 % iddle time no matter what and the same builds 100% of the time.
My concern is about the ability to make radical choices in the first 2 minutes of the game and the mind games.
Two examples :
1- DRG vs Flash, GSL ro16 final match game 3 merry go round. DRG gambles on the fact Flash will open with the same build once again (reaper expand reactor with no scout), he goes for a 10 pool, denies Flash's expansion, gets a huge advantage and wins the game
2 - Life vs Taeja, WCS grand finals ro4 game 5(edited). Life sees Taeja's CC first on high ground, goes for the ultra greedy 3 hatches->gaz->pool, he's not contested, gets a hugge economy with plenty of queens and drones, destroys Teaja with relentless gling banes attacks.
These things happen in what you call the "idle" time, it's the time of decision making, mind games and gambles. That's a huge part of the sc2 I personnally like.
What Im' afraid of is not seeing this anymore because with 12 workers every race will have one jack of all knives build that will be the one way to go, killing the variety in openings. (Hmm... unless steppes of war is back in map pool... omg it was the plan with dreampool all along!!! )
If currently the 2'30 first minutes of the games are dull to you, don't you think a better solution would be to give more viables openings to play with instead of just skipping them?
(note : ofc, I'm just speculating here, we won't be sure until we can actually test this change ourselves...)
I dislike this part of SC2. The choice to do such a build is not a reaction that comes from the gameplay in the particular game that you are in. 12worker start is like paradise for me.
Ok I've tested a bit with the mods available (thx guys for these btw). I m still concerned about the 12 workers. Here's why :
- I admit current setting are a bit boring, the "pair the workers" game during first minute of the game is dull.
- In another hand, I like the idea of having 3 routes : economy, army, technology to choose from and the fact taht when you choose one you sacrifice a bit on the other. I don't say it's perfectly done in sc2, but at least if you go gaz first as a T you delay your expand a lot, and if you go CC first your first banshee won't come out before 6'30 or something.
- with optimal saturation and 12 workers at start you can just do everything before your opponent as any chance to scout or attack you. Basically you have a new build and it's called "gaz first fast expand" and it gives you economy, technolgy and army all at the same time with such a speed that it has basically no counter. It's not even like it's a choice cause actually you have to this build to spend all the crazy money you get at start.
- so every opening will alway be the same (once units new units are balanced and counters are known - hi cyclone ) and the begining of the game will be 10 times more boring than it is now. Ofc, at start there will be the whatever new cheese that will come with LotV, but within 2-3 months pros will have figured out all the counters and it will be one race one build, end of the story.
- so okay we will fight much faster, with all tech unlocked and we'll test our micro and multitask. But we ll loose a lot of the strategic aspect of the game, the neat timings, the mind games.
Again, we'll have to see it live to be sure and maybe I'm overreacting, but I'm amazed that skiping the first 2 minutes of the game seems such a little deal to so many people.
On November 10 2014 13:50 Gamegene wrote: IMO, 12 workers is just a way for Blizzard to make the games faster for the spectators.
In essence they want to artificially remove the "downtime" that you'll see Tastosis, and other casters cover up. Obviously there are other (very important) in-game implications regarding the starting worker change, But given the direction that the company as a whole is taking with Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch, I feel like this change is primarily motivated to make SC2 as a whole more fast paced and "engaging" for viewers, and more importantly new uninformed viewers.
If you think about it, 90% of tournament games, important decisions (that will immediately impact the other opponent) or risks aren't really taken besides the initial build order. For a non player, the time it takes to get to 16-20 supply (HOTS supplies) flies over his/her head because they don't really understand the significance of the build orders being chosen. Even the most basic interactions (like 2 zerglings chasing down a scouting worker or a zealot/stalker/MSC poke) don't occur for a while.
With 12 workers, in a 5 game set, the pace game to game will be a lot faster. It's kind of a problem now because you can have a really long epic game, and then the immediate game can be very slow into the midgame killing the energy for a viewer.
It'll be more like CS:GO where you can have a really fast game to watch, and then even at the starting round of the next game the intensity can go back up and keep the momentum going.
Of course that's one of the goals of the economic changes, but you could also implement a Brood War style economy, while still increasing the starting number of workers. I don't think anyone is discussing Blizzard's way of accelerating the early game, but rather the way Blizzard is trying to prevent turtling and causing more expanding, the op claiming that BW economics would be a better way of doing so.
Another way to do it is to copy Warcraft 3's economy. It also had less turtling and more aggression.
We just need to make bases mine out more quickly and remove the early game need to make as many workers.
yeah WC3 where every tech available within 6 minutes and then micro battle everywhere...
WC3 had no macro beside pumping a few units out when you lost some.
(Forgive me if this theory is dumb. I'm just getting back into the game)
What will this change mean for map design? There's no way that the current maps could still be functional, right? Not only will there be 33% minerals available, but this will put greater significance on rotating quickly from expansion to expansion, making the task of creating and holding a 3rd, 4th, or even 5th base more of a necessity than now. Modern maps with even semi-difficult-to-hold 3rd's and 4th's will be incompatible with this style, or force conflict once each player gets to the point of trying to take expansions
It's not like they can just use similar sized maps with more bases, too, right? Otherwise, the entire map would just be congested with close-by bases. Won't the maps have to be considerably larger to accommodate this change? I can't imagine them being less than 20% bigger. This will create a significantly larger focus on mobility and speed, and make whole-army pushes more difficult with greater distances needed to be crossed, increasing the defender's advantage. Also, larger maps would mean it is more difficult to contain your opponent, or have any really strong sense of map control, having everything more spread out.
Maybe I'm overestimated the effects of this change, but a 33% drop in minerals at each base seems to me, at least, to have a lot more implications than just faster expanding.
@TALegion: I don't think they necessarily have to be bigger, but definitely they have to be more packed with mineral lines. But I think most mapmakers will just make the maps bigger because that will be easier than redesigning current sizes.
On November 09 2014 18:00 mishimaBeef wrote: Sorry man but I'd gladly gut 5% of builds for 95% of idle time.
what you don't see is if you favor safe and macro builds too much (which the 12 initial workers change may do, I think) you will get to 100 % iddle time no matter what and the same builds 100% of the time.
My concern is about the ability to make radical choices in the first 2 minutes of the game and the mind games.
Two examples :
1- DRG vs Flash, GSL ro16 final match game 3 merry go round. DRG gambles on the fact Flash will open with the same build once again (reaper expand reactor with no scout), he goes for a 10 pool, denies Flash's expansion, gets a huge advantage and wins the game
2 - Life vs Taeja, WCS grand finals ro4 game 5(edited). Life sees Taeja's CC first on high ground, goes for the ultra greedy 3 hatches->gaz->pool, he's not contested, gets a hugge economy with plenty of queens and drones, destroys Teaja with relentless gling banes attacks.
These things happen in what you call the "idle" time, it's the time of decision making, mind games and gambles. That's a huge part of the sc2 I personnally like.
What Im' afraid of is not seeing this anymore because with 12 workers every race will have one jack of all knives build that will be the one way to go, killing the variety in openings. (Hmm... unless steppes of war is back in map pool... omg it was the plan with dreampool all along!!! )
If currently the 2'30 first minutes of the games are dull to you, don't you think a better solution would be to give more viables openings to play with instead of just skipping them?
(note : ofc, I'm just speculating here, we won't be sure until we can actually test this change ourselves...)
I dislike this part of SC2. The choice to do such a build is not a reaction that comes from the gameplay in the particular game that you are in. 12worker start is like paradise for me.
Ok I've tested a bit with the mods available (thx guys for these btw). I m still concerned about the 12 workers. Here's why :
- I admit current setting are a bit boring, the "pair the workers" game during first minute of the game is dull.
- In another hand, I like the idea of having 3 routes : economy, army, technology to choose from and the fact taht when you choose one you sacrifice a bit on the other. I don't say it's perfectly done in sc2, but at least if you go gaz first as a T you delay your expand a lot, and if you go CC first your first banshee won't come out before 6'30 or something.
- with optimal saturation and 12 workers at start you can just do everything before your opponent as any chance to scout or attack you. Basically you have a new build and it's called "gaz first fast expand" and it gives you economy, technolgy and army all at the same time with such a speed that it has basically no counter. It's not even like it's a choice cause actually you have to this build to spend all the crazy money you get at start.
- so every opening will alway be the same (once units new units are balanced and counters are known - hi cyclone ) and the begining of the game will be 10 times more boring than it is now. Ofc, at start there will be the whatever new cheese that will come with LotV, but within 2-3 months pros will have figured out all the counters and it will be one race one build, end of the story.
- so okay we will fight much faster, with all tech unlocked and we'll test our micro and multitask. But we ll loose a lot of the strategic aspect of the game, the neat timings, the mind games.
Again, we'll have to see it live to be sure and maybe I'm overreacting, but I'm amazed that skiping the first 2 minutes of the game seems such a little deal to so many people.
You start with 12 workers, you send 1 to scout right away, it does not change a thing besides being sure not to face any old pre-12 workers cheeses, which were not that common anyway (apart from some early pool builds or stupid 2 gates that were not that efficient anyway). 95% of build orders are mathematically the same.
And no, metagame does not change that much because you "know the other guy cannot build anything before 12". Greedy builds were already the norm, I never say a Terran not going for 15 CC because he was being afraid of 6 pool.
Efficient, agressive builds would still counter greed. Again, cutting the first two minutes of a movie does not change the ending. Too few games were dependent of what happened before 12 workers, even in a indirect way.
Only exception might be ZvZ, the most instable early game matchup, that required great micro and mind games, and that's a definite loss of some game complexity, but again... every "good" player having nice macro, it was more often than not rock-paper-scissors fest.
Maybe the LotV system is not best one but I still consider it an upgrade over HotS. If these posts end up returning things to HotS way I will be very sad.
You start with 12 workers, you send 1 to scout right away, it does not change a thing besides being sure not to face any old pre-12 workers cheeses, which were not that common anyway (apart from some early pool builds or stupid 2 gates that were not that efficient anyway). 95% of build orders are mathematically the same.
But all of these "95%" (which is hyperbole) builds are balanced with the assumption that you CAN be rushed. So you're forced to play a certain (safer) way. Just because someone doesn't rush in a game doesn't mean that rush strategies don't make an impact.
Furthermore some of the greatest stories of Starcraft are based on rushes. Boxer bunker rushing Yellow thrice is one example. Naniwa's proxy gates vs Hyun and JD in games 5.
Rushing is awesome. Starting with 12workers DOES NOT remove rushing. It does not remove early agression. The more important decisions start alot sooner.
The proxy gates and stuff are just boring in general. Ofcourse some game can still make excitement. But its not a good excuse to not like the 12worker start. Finally, they want to make the early game More fun.
Macro builds can involve beeing agressive. Macro builds are not synonym to passive, deathball. No, far from it. Thats the sc2 syndrome. But not the RTS syndrom. Hopefully its changed in lotv - making it possible to be agressive on 2base without beeing tremendously behind.
On November 10 2014 23:59 Foxxan wrote: Rushing is awesome. Starting with 12workers DOES NOT remove rushing. It does not remove early agression. The more important decisions start alot sooner.
The proxy gates and stuff are just boring in general. Ofcourse some game can still make excitement. But its not a good excuse to not like the 12worker start. Finally, they want to make the early game More fun.
Macro builds can involve beeing agressive. Macro builds are not synonym to passive, deathball. No, far from it. Thats the sc2 syndrome. But not the RTS syndrom. Hopefully its changed in lotv - making it possible to be agressive on 2base without beeing tremendously behind.
Well, timings are still unclear, of course. But if you start with 12 workers then the discrepancy that's created between a - say - 10/10 gates in your natural versus the defending players 13 gate in their main - will be greater than the discrepancy between 12/12 gates (or whatever) versus in-base defending players 13-gate.
i fear that the economy change will make people turtle even harder than they do now. because the first 3 bases will be mined out much faster you have to expand earlier. but this will discourage aggression because if you lose a part of your army you can't rebuild it very often which means players won't attack as much as they do now because the risk of losing the army is to high. Probably the game will end up with both players turtling to 4-5 bases and then the game gets decided in one culminating fight.
I don't like the economy change. I like that little bit of time that you have to think about strategy and get warmed up. Not looking forward to 1 minute Reapers in my base...
What this did was provide a minor advantage to the player who expanded over someone sitting on lower base numbers. This is a clear incentive for players to expand without thoroughly punishing players who wanted to play an aggressive game and expand later.
For some reason when people bring up the effects up BW economy, they only look at one side. It's extremely important to remember that BW economy never forced players to take additional bases. It only rewarded the players who could. Since the mobile race typically could defend several locations at once, they could take extra while the immobile race would stay on fewer bases than what we see in SC2. If you have 60 workers on 2 bases in BW, you have a higher income than 60 workers on 2 bases in Sc2.
But I think the only way to make it possible for each extra worker to gather less income (BW model) is to make the workers dumber, but I doubt Blizzard would opt for that approach.
I agree with Hider.
Economy should be designed so it provides incentives to expand. As it stands now the LotV model enforces expanding. It puts the defensive player in a desperate position.
It is also misleading to say that this change encourages expanding more. It merely puts players on an artificial clock to replace their current bases at a faster rate.
Another artificial game design restriction that is designed to punish rather than provide incentives.
Perfectly sums up the problem. Well put!
Huk also talks about the ecnomy in the first few minutes of this video if anyone didn't see it yet and is interested.
On November 10 2014 13:50 Gamegene wrote: IMO, 12 workers is just a way for Blizzard to make the games faster for the spectators.
In essence they want to artificially remove the "downtime" that you'll see Tastosis, and other casters cover up. Obviously there are other (very important) in-game implications regarding the starting worker change, But given the direction that the company as a whole is taking with Hearthstone, HoTS and Overwatch, I feel like this change is primarily motivated to make SC2 as a whole more fast paced and "engaging" for viewers, and more importantly new uninformed viewers.
If you think about it, 90% of tournament games, important decisions (that will immediately impact the other opponent) or risks aren't really taken besides the initial build order. For a non player, the time it takes to get to 16-20 supply (HOTS supplies) flies over his/her head because they don't really understand the significance of the build orders being chosen. Even the most basic interactions (like 2 zerglings chasing down a scouting worker or a zealot/stalker/MSC poke) don't occur for a while.
With 12 workers, in a 5 game set, the pace game to game will be a lot faster. It's kind of a problem now because you can have a really long epic game, and then the immediate game can be very slow into the midgame killing the energy for a viewer.
It'll be more like CS:GO where you can have a really fast game to watch, and then even at the starting round of the next game the intensity can go back up and keep the momentum going.
Of course that's one of the goals of the economic changes, but you could also implement a Brood War style economy, while still increasing the starting number of workers. I don't think anyone is discussing Blizzard's way of accelerating the early game, but rather the way Blizzard is trying to prevent turtling and causing more expanding, the op claiming that BW economics would be a better way of doing so.
Another way to do it is to copy Warcraft 3's economy. It also had less turtling and more aggression.
We just need to make bases mine out more quickly and remove the early game need to make as many workers.
yeah WC3 where every tech available within 6 minutes and then micro battle everywhere...
WC3 had no macro beside pumping a few units out when you lost some.
Do we really want to remove macro from sc2?
Macro will be very important without heroes to do the heavy lifting. Units still die and have to be replaced--or are you going to ban using successful games as inspirations if it isn't BW?
EPT
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