EPT[D] LotV Economy Discussion - Page 20
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TelecoM
United States10635 Posts
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On November 14 2014 06:59 TheDwf wrote: Oh my God... First, big thanks to you for making this so we can actually test that horror. I tested a CC first into 3 rax Medivacs like you would in TvP. I think the benchmarks speak for themselves. ![[image loading]](http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/344392Timings.jpg) On LotV you can probably max on Roaches by 9 minutes and a bit more (at 9'30 I have 45 0/0 Speedroaches with a badly executed gasless 4 Queens into 2b mass Roaches, which is what... the double? triple of what you can have currently?). The economic growth is absolutely ridiculous. You have no time for anything. It feels like you lose control over the pace of the game; it's simply way too fast (if they wanted to make the famous "casuals" run away yelling, no better way to achieve this). No way there is a proper midgame with that. I would be very surprised if the game was anything but 2b/3b all-ins in that state. When you start building your fourth you're already max with your main empty anyway... Everything snowballs so fast that whoever gets behind is likely dead. Any opening disadvantage would probably result in massive, irrecoverable supply deficits a few minutes later. This 12 workers change sounds like a massive disaster. No way it promotes action all over the map. How could you even be incited to expand beyond a third when you have to systematically face the gigantic wall of a 12' max on any low-tech composition... It simply does everything problematic in a faster, uncontrollable way, when of course the goal should be the exact opposite. The LotV economy is like a stimmed version of HotS one. It's a Formula 1 with space rocket boosters. No one can drive this without crashing into the wall sooner or later. There's also no point designing "harassment units" (which is a bad idea to begin with, since it results in unidimensional units like the Oracle instead of versatile stuff like the Blink Stalker, Medivac drops or Mutalisks) in this new environement. The opposing player just won't care. I want to see the face of a Protoss who invests 300 gas (lol...) and X seconds of robo time in a Disruptor, raises his fists after he killed 15 SCVs, only to find 50 Marines 25 Marauders 15 Vikings ramming his third 2 minutes later. With the LotV economy, whoever focuses on his macro will always come on top against the guy who was too cute and simply didn't make enough stuff to stand on the battlefield at 12-14 minutes. Please leave it at 6 workers and decrease the rhythm at which the economy grows by implementing sharp diminishing returns after the 8th worker. Currently it's ~42/42/18 mineral per minute for the 1-8th, 9-16th, 17-24h workers on a mineral line. Why not try a formula like 42/25/15? Changing the economy is critical, but certainly not to make every bad aspect of the game much worse. You have it backwards. I played "Fast maps" mods in BW for a long time. They removed so much finesse from the game. This is what the LotV economy is. A fast map mod of the current SC2 economy. The sheer power of a massive economy and production invariably makes the game more hollow. The opposite is needed. More time, more control, less stuff so fast. I'm also very surprised by this. How can it be anything else than a constant timeshift (of 1.30 as someone said?) for the starting workers? Maybe with a very marginal speed up from the extra supply of ccs, and a potentially larger slowdown from the fewer minerals per base. I really would like someone to double check that the map is doing what it should, and redo the testing before we draw any conclusions from this. It really looks very strange, and I would think there is some mistake or misunderstanding somewhere. For example: - your natural goes down 40'' earlier in lotv, and I guess you have about the same number of scv by then (14 or 15 or so?). - You don't build a third until 7', even in lotv, so if you keep constant scv production in both your ccs, you would maintain a 40'' difference in number of scv between the two builds. - That would mean also a 40'' difference in economy, or even advantage for hots, as you are likely to oversaturate before that with the fewer lotv patches. - The extra income form the extra scvs and mules from the earlier third in lotv will start kicking in only after 8 mins. So from that argument the entire build before around 8 mins (in lotv time) should be just a constant shift of around 40'', or possibly the lotv build would start slowing down a bit before that due to oversaturation on two bases. Then how come: - stim is ahead 1' 5'' - medivac is ahead 1' 40'' - 50 scvs is ahead 2' 10'' Specailly the 50 scv count is really a sign that something went wrong. If the second cc is 40'' earlier, and you keep contant scv production, then you really really should stay 40'' behind until the third is up, turned into a oc, and the first scv from the third is out. This huge difference means that - you didn't keep contsant scv production in the hots build, or - you didn't measure the times properly, or - the scv build time in the map is different, or - ??? I'm happy to be proven wrong, but this data really doesn't make much sense to me right now. | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1298 Posts
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Gwavajuice
France1810 Posts
On November 14 2014 17:25 Cascade wrote: I'm also very surprised by this. How can it be anything else than a constant timeshift (of 1.30 as someone said?) for the starting workers? ... It can't be a constant time shift, it would make no sense mathematically, cause what is important is not the number of workers, it's the rate at which you gather ressource. Faster income gives you a faster 2nd base and that faster 2nd base gives even faster workers which gives you enven more income and so on. It's even more true if you're Zerg, cause you can produce several workers at once. Think about the time you need to train your 3 first drones when you start with 6, then see how long you need to produce them when starting with 12, the time you gain will also be a time with even more workers that gives you more money to train even more workers, and so on... In the end you're not only have a growing income, but the rate at which this income is growing is also growing... call this a snow ball effect if you want. That's also why killing 2 workers at 2 minutes in the game is a bigger deal than killing 5 at 5 minutes. I'm not surprised at all by what TheDwf found it's just like it was expected. 12 workers kills the early game big time. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On November 14 2014 06:59 TheDwf wrote: Oh my God... First, big thanks to you for making this so we can actually test that horror. I tested a CC first into 3 rax Medivacs like you would in TvP. I think the benchmarks speak for themselves. On LotV you can probably max on Roaches by 9 minutes and a bit more (at 9'30 I have 45 0/0 Speedroaches with a badly executed gasless 4 Queens into 2b mass Roaches, which is what... the double? triple of what you can have currently?). The economic growth is absolutely ridiculous. You have no time for anything. It feels like you lose control over the pace of the game; it's simply way too fast (if they wanted to make the famous "casuals" run away yelling, no better way to achieve this). No way there is a proper midgame with that. I would be very surprised if the game was anything but 2b/3b all-ins in that state. When you start building your fourth you're already max with your main empty anyway... Everything snowballs so fast that whoever gets behind is likely dead. Any opening disadvantage would probably result in massive, irrecoverable supply deficits a few minutes later. This 12 workers change sounds like a massive disaster. No way it promotes action all over the map. How could you even be incited to expand beyond a third when you have to systematically face the gigantic wall of a 12' max on any low-tech composition... It simply does everything problematic in a faster, uncontrollable way, when of course the goal should be the exact opposite. The LotV economy is like a stimmed version of HotS one. It's a Formula 1 with space rocket boosters. No one can drive this without crashing into the wall sooner or later. There's also no point designing "harassment units" (which is a bad idea to begin with, since it results in unidimensional units like the Oracle instead of versatile stuff like the Blink Stalker, Medivac drops or Mutalisks) in this new environement. The opposing player just won't care. I want to see the face of a Protoss who invests 300 gas (lol...) and X seconds of robo time in a Disruptor, raises his fists after he killed 15 SCVs, only to find 50 Marines 25 Marauders 15 Vikings ramming his third 2 minutes later. With the LotV economy, whoever focuses on his macro will always come on top against the guy who was too cute and simply didn't make enough stuff to stand on the battlefield at 12-14 minutes. Please leave it at 6 workers and decrease the rhythm at which the economy grows by implementing sharp diminishing returns after the 8th worker. Currently it's ~42/42/18 mineral per minute for the 1-8th, 9-16th, 17-24h workers on a mineral line. Why not try a formula like 42/25/15? Changing the economy is critical, but certainly not to make every bad aspect of the game much worse. You have it backwards. I played "Fast maps" mods in BW for a long time. They removed so much finesse from the game. This is what the LotV economy is. A fast map mod of the current SC2 economy. The sheer power of a massive economy and production invariably makes the game more hollow. The opposite is needed. More time, more control, less stuff so fast. Interesting, thanks for doing this. So a few things to pick on/analyze why they happen: Your barracks would usually start somewhere between 1'30-1'45. With the changed eco though you are at 12workers without a depot, so you have to delay the first barracks quite a bit to wait for the depot. Also the starting money is still at 50(?). So compared to a current Build Order at 12workers your build is behind but your income is the same, which means your first benchmarks all come later than one would expect. (sorry, messed that part up. You were doing a CC first build and I only looked at the time differences, not for what the benchmarks exactly stand... should still be a similar argument though) For later on it doesn't matter anymore that your depot was late and you delayed your tech past 12workers. All the benchmarks normalize to the ~1:30 difference that comes from starting 1:30 into the game. 9'30 roach max would also mean 1'30 faster than 11' which are/were the fastest roach maxes. So I think in general it isn't an unfixable problem, but either they also should start more similar to the current game, i.e. with a supply depot done and a bigger starting bank, or they should decrease times of nearly all early techs to allow for more of a midgame. I think the midgame gets devoured from the early game here. At the times you usually have tech, you are now playing catch up with the worker count because you are always that one depot/1barracks behind until the current builds reach their teching downtime. On November 14 2014 17:48 Gwavajuice wrote: It can't be a constant time shift, it would make no sense mathematically, cause what is important is not the number of workers, it's the rate at which you gather ressource. Faster income gives you a faster 2nd base and that faster 2nd base gives even faster workers which gives you enven more income and so on. It's even more true if you're Zerg, cause you can produce several workers at once. Think about the time you need to train your 3 first drones when you start with 6, then see how long you need to produce them when starting with 12, the time you gain will also be a time with even more workers that gives you more money to train even more workers, and so on... In the end you're not only have a growing income, but the rate at which this income is growing is also growing... call this a snow ball effect if you want. That's also why killing 2 workers at 2 minutes in the game is a bigger deal than killing 5 at 5 minutes. I'm not surprised at all by what TheDwf found it's just like it was expected. 12 workers kills the early game big time. What you describe is true for the current economy as well. Exponential growth happens regardless of whether you start at 6 or 12workers. His point holds, the exponential growth doesn't change at all that you should still only be ahead exactly the time you headstart in the game, which is ~1'30. Like in the zerg example you give say zerg had 12workers and nothing else at 1:30. Now we start a LotV game with 12workers and nothing else. What happens from there would be exactly the same. Just that on the one clock it is 11' and on the other 9'30 when the fastest roach max occurs. But as I mention above, the prerequisites aren't 100% the same. Compared to a current 1:30 situation with the proposed LotV change you have some things that slow you down in the short run. One-time investments that you have to make and money to collect but which you already have in HotS. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On November 14 2014 17:31 Meavis wrote: theres various other factors, the first being that while you start at 12 workers you don't have any mineral bank you would have, next to that you also have different supply for CC's, which is actually huge, as you can delay spending 100minerals for a much much earlier CC, accelerating eco much faster, and with less depots building you also save the mining time on an scv building, accelerating economy again. mineral bank: also constant time shift different supply for ccs: I still think the effects is small, 126 minerals or whatever it is for a depot and lost mining time, but at the very least it should not stop you from building constant scvs from both your ccs. There is no way it explains the disparity in time between building the second cc and reaching 50 scvs. | ||
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On November 14 2014 17:48 Gwavajuice wrote: It can't be a constant time shift, it would make no sense mathematically, cause what is important is not the number of workers, it's the rate at which you gather ressource. Faster income gives you a faster 2nd base and that faster 2nd base gives even faster workers which gives you enven more income and so on. It's even more true if you're Zerg, cause you can produce several workers at once. Think about the time you need to train your 3 first drones when you start with 6, then see how long you need to produce them when starting with 12, the time you gain will also be a time with even more workers that gives you more money to train even more workers, and so on... In the end you're not only have a growing income, but the rate at which this income is growing is also growing... call this a snow ball effect if you want. That's also why killing 2 workers at 2 minutes in the game is a bigger deal than killing 5 at 5 minutes. I'm not surprised at all by what TheDwf found it's just like it was expected. 12 workers kills the early game big time. It is indeed a constant time-shift that would make sense mathematically. I'll let you think it through another time before I bring out the maths.  That is why everyone are saying that you gain a fix time by starting with 12 workers (roughly the time it takes to build from 6 to 12 in hots), not that you gain 6 workers. 6 workers does indeed diminish in value over time, but being x seconds ahead of a build will keep you x seconds ahead all the way through the build. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On November 14 2014 18:22 Grumbels wrote: Just look at TheDwf's CC starts timing. It's certainly not a clean 90 seconds time shift. I assume you are talking about the 4th CC?! I didn't comment on that, but I think 4th CC timings currently are just not too much build order but gameplay dependent. You don't build a 4th in TvP before 15' because you can't hold it and don't really benefit from it (all bases still mining). You have probably lost the one or other SCV or structure in the process of the game to harass. You have probably lost army that you now need to replace, rather than building another CC. Like in TvZ pre-WM nerf the original version of the INnoVation build in TvZ would regulary start a 4th CC around 12', sometimes even earlier. I think if you are just doing a simulation with nothing to worry about and an economy focused build*, you could just build a 4th CC at 12mins even with the PvT build and I wouldn't be surprised if such a thing had already happened on a map like Deadwing. Would be happy to hear some Terran expertize on this though. In general, when I say 1:30 that is a rough number (production time of 6SCVs would be 1'42, but that implies 100% constant production and execution) . And dependent on which benchmark you choose you can be ahead or behind in time dependent on the actual build order. (you are not going to go 12rax/12gas reaper when you start with 50minerals/12workers  )*TheDwf does a CC first, never cuts SCVs and lands his 3rd CC the moment the OC is done or even builds on location. | ||
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On November 14 2014 18:22 Grumbels wrote: Just look at TheDwf's CC starts timing. It's certainly not a clean 90 seconds time shift. So when you get results that don't fit with theoretical predictions, it is important to double-check that the test results are accurate, as well as think through which parts of the theory may have to be changed. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
No, the first CC. It's built way later than you would expect assuming you get a bonus of ~102 seconds, obviously because the new economy is not just a time shift. But maybe there was something wrong with TheDwf's test? (Someone be nice and replicate it please!) | ||
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Meavis
Netherlands1298 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On November 14 2014 19:00 Grumbels wrote: @Big J No, the first CC. It's built way later than you would expect assuming you get a bonus of ~102 seconds, obviously because the new economy is not just a time shift. But maybe there was something wrong with TheDwf's test? (Someone be nice and replicate it please!) I think it is fine. He starts with only 50money and 12/15supply compared to ~100minerals 12/19 (11workers+1in production) in HotS. The most important part is that you have a supply depot for the tech and more free supply. If you do a CC first in HotS you do it at 14-15 (14delays a worker) and then you can start a barracks and don't need a second depot. The build TheDwf does has to include a supply depot before the Command Center or he is going to be supply blocked for a long time while building it and he can't start a barracks. I guess what he does is: 1) 13 or 14depot and has a lower money bank to begin with 2) because of 1) he doesn't have 400minerals at 15supply 3) he keeps on making SCVs until he has 400minerals banked 4) he starts his CC between 17-19supply --> the build order delays the CC by 3-5workers compared to the HotS BO, because of the depot/starting mineral difference. Edit: I think the big point is that the current midgame gets crushed between a delayed tech but the same economy. The fundament of the midgame is that people delay/damage one another's economy through tech play. If the tech comes later, only economy focused play stays viable in the midgame. | ||
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Yorbon
Netherlands4272 Posts
The start of the thread has some really interesting posts, mainly thanks to hider and lalush. Overall I feel that the suggestion to increase mining time is easiest way to implement the 2 base 8 workers > 1 base 16 workers idea, which is imo the biggest adn most important among possible sc2 improvements. But as some people have pointed out, I just say this because I am a bw fanboy, there is no way I'll ever be positive about anything not bw. | ||
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kuroshiro
United Kingdom378 Posts
Thus UNTIL you get a new CC, the 12 worker change translates to a simple time-shift. AFTER that, we're talking about exponential growth/ Now if you timeshift one exponential from another identical exponential, and look at the differences (say in income), then the size of the difference is also an exponential (maths in wolfram alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Plot e^(t+1) - e^(t)). I hope this helps to explain the results you're seeing. | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On November 14 2014 07:09 DoubleReed wrote: Most of the time all you're doing is making workers until you have 12 anyway. How did you get such massive discrepancies in your timings? If all you do is make workers until 12, it should be more-or-less a time-shift with some error for supply differences. It should not compound. You start with double the income, so you make your town halls earlier, and those earlier town halls give you even more worker production time and macro accelerators (more MULEs, more larvae, more chrono, earlier third town halls). Of course the result is that the game is propelled to unheard of speeds of development. On November 14 2014 17:25 Cascade wrote: I'm also very surprised by this. How can it be anything else than a constant timeshift (of 1.30 as someone said?) for the starting workers? Maybe with a very marginal speed up from the extra supply of ccs, and a potentially larger slowdown from the fewer minerals per base. I really would like someone to double check that the map is doing what it should, and redo the testing before we draw any conclusions from this. It really looks very strange, and I would think there is some mistake or misunderstanding somewhere. For example: - your natural goes down 40'' earlier in lotv, and I guess you have about the same number of scv by then (14 or 15 or so?). - You don't build a third until 7', even in lotv, so if you keep constant scv production in both your ccs, you would maintain a 40'' difference in number of scv between the two builds. - That would mean also a 40'' difference in economy, or even advantage for hots, as you are likely to oversaturate before that with the fewer lotv patches. - The extra income form the extra scvs and mules from the earlier third in lotv will start kicking in only after 8 mins. So from that argument the entire build before around 8 mins (in lotv time) should be just a constant shift of around 40'', or possibly the lotv build would start slowing down a bit before that due to oversaturation on two bases. Then how come: - stim is ahead 1' 5'' - medivac is ahead 1' 40'' - 50 scvs is ahead 2' 10'' Specailly the 50 scv count is really a sign that something went wrong. If the second cc is 40'' earlier, and you keep contant scv production, then you really really should stay 40'' behind until the third is up, turned into a oc, and the first scv from the third is out. This huge difference means that - you didn't keep contsant scv production in the hots build, or - you didn't measure the times properly, or - the scv build time in the map is different, or - ??? I'm happy to be proven wrong, but this data really doesn't make much sense to me right now. Currently, CC first should reach 50 SCVs as early as ~9'20-30 but you have to cut SCVs around that time to fuel everything (third and/or extra production, bio tech, supplies), which is why I left 50 SCVs at 10'. On the other hand, since you bathe in resources in LotV you don't need that cut at all. Sorry about that confusion, it's a technical subtlety from Terran builds that isn't necessarily known. As for the rest, I'm top50 GM so even if there can be small inexactitudes here and there in the builds, rest assured I can produce constantly SCVs until 10' just fine.  For the LotV build, I scouted at 14 and went 13depot 16CC (from memory) after a depot. I'm not sure there is any advantage going CC first compared with a gasless 1 rax CC since both expand at the same time in LotV, but whatever, the point is not about exact LotV builds that I can't guess from scratch but about the economic system and its effects. There are no fewer mineral patches in LotV, and there is no slow down of the economy before 11', when you start losing mineral patches in your main, with a sudden decrease in mineral income as a result. Having your natural temporarily "oversaturated" (compared with the optimum, not the maximum) slows your economy relatively, but not in the absolute. For those who wonder, the ~10'40 fourth in LotV comes from the fact you have to expand around that time if you want to maintain your 3b income; the expand at the fourth needs to be ready by the time your main is mostly exhausted + worker transfer time. By comparison there is no need for a fourth earlier than 15' in TvX bio in HotS. You can build it earlier than that but you won't benefit at all from it if you have only 66 (= 48 in mineral) SCVs, and only marginally if you went 67-75 (= 49-57 in mineral); if at all considering you may have to saturate your 7th-8th geysers. The only case where you can build super quick fourths are mech TvZ (and naturally it's for gas), or huge maps like Alterzim/Deadwing where your usual timings are so weakened by the distances you don't have much business maxing as fast as possible in the first place. But there is more far serious than those technicalities. This change would be so nefarious for the game I can't believe they seriously considered it. As for the "but new units/stuff?" argument I can already tell you that with that economy, you can forget about half of them. If they don't provide extremely strong crowd control, if they're not easily massable by midgame or if they don't carry devastative threats for the adverse economy, they won't matter because they won't be built. I already don't see niche stuff like Dark Templars, Oracles, Banshees (hence the buffs I guess...) stand the test of the new environement at all because they delay the production infrastructure while falling completely flat against defensive structures that now represent a derisory investement for the defender compared with HotS. By contrast this also means than any harassment/AoE damage unit they want to implement will have to follow the "terrible, terrible damage" model to have any meaningful impact; brace yourselves for the worst. I thought I was half-joking when I was talking about Zerg dying to an attack after building a bunch of new SHosts but clearly, you see the problem: if the unit cannot stand the power of 7 Reactors spitting 34 Marines/minutes as early as 10', it won't be built. If the Lurker cannot stand a massive stalk/colo deathball—that is to say, if ZvP ever goes beyond the stage of 2b Protoss all-ins or 3b Roaches all-ins—it won't be built. As for blink Battlecruisers (lol), thanks God we won't ever see that nonsense because no one will ever build a capital ship in that jungle anyway. The other very worrying aspect is that people will max around the time their main is exhausted. This will further emphasize the bad TvP model of "one battle to rule them all," a very high stake single engagement between two massive armies that crowns the winner. My guess is that the new eco model will automatically make people all-in between 12 and 14 minutes. Whoever prevails in the first big clash wins: he denies his opponent his fourth while settling his own, then auto-wins through the starvation of his opponent (3 active bases vs 2, and soon 2 vs 1 when naturals disappear, i.e. a 50-100% eco advantage). In macro games, I don't see how the whole tension of the game would not be focused around that 12-14 minutes window where players are forced to take action because of the sword of Damocles that is the clock. The weaker side on the long run, i.e. the side whose first max starts losing supply efficiency the more he waits, will never accept that both sides take a passive fourth: as soon as he's max he'll attack and the game would likely stop there. (Rinse/repeat if by accident a draw occurs.) As it stands now I see this change: 1. completely flattening the early/midgame we know; 2. failing to produce a gameplay centered around low-risk skirmishes that result in incremental advantages; 3. worsen all the already problematic aspects of the game and subject the already fragile asymmetric design to incredible tension. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
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Cascade
Australia5405 Posts
On November 14 2014 21:29 TheDwf wrote: You start with double the income, so you make your town halls earlier, and those earlier town halls give you even more worker production time and macro accelerators (more MULEs, more larvae, more chrono, earlier third town halls). Of course the result is that the game is propelled to unheard of speeds of development. Currently, CC first should reach 50 SCVs as early as ~9'20-30 but you have to cut SCVs around that time to fuel everything (third and/or extra production, bio tech, supplies), which is why I left 50 SCVs at 10'. On the other hand, since you bathe in resources in LotV you don't need that cut at all. Sorry about that confusion, it's a technical subtlety from Terran builds that isn't necessarily known. As for the rest, I'm top50 GM so even if there can be small inexactitudes here and there in the builds, rest assured I can produce constantly SCVs until 10' just fine. For the LotV build, I scouted at 14 and went 13depot 16CC (from memory) after a depot. I'm not sure there is any advantage going CC first compared with a gasless 1 rax CC since both expand at the same time in LotV, but whatever, the point is not about exact LotV builds that I can't guess from scratch but about the economic system and its effects. There are no fewer mineral patches in LotV, and there is no slow down of the economy before 11', when you start losing mineral patches in your main, with a sudden decrease in mineral income as a result. Having your natural temporarily "oversaturated" (compared with the optimum, not the maximum) slows your economy relatively, but not in the absolute. For those who wonder, the ~10'40 fourth in LotV comes from the fact you have to expand around that time if you want to maintain your 3b income; the expand at the fourth needs to be ready by the time your main is mostly exhausted + worker transfer time. By comparison there is no need for a fourth earlier than 15' in TvX bio in HotS. You can build it earlier than that but you won't benefit at all from it if you have only 66 (= 48 in mineral) SCVs, and only marginally if you went 67-75 (= 49-57 in mineral); if at all considering you may have to saturate your 7th-8th geysers. The only case where you can build super quick fourths are mech TvZ (and naturally it's for gas), or huge maps like Alterzim/Deadwing where your usual timings are so weakened by the distances you don't have much business maxing as fast as possible in the first place. But there is more far serious than those technicalities. This change would be so nefarious for the game I can't believe they seriously considered it. As for the "but new units/stuff?" argument I can already tell you that with that economy, you can forget about half of them. If they don't provide extremely strong crowd control, if they're not easily massable by midgame or if they don't carry devastative threats for the adverse economy, they won't matter because they won't be built. I already don't see niche stuff like Dark Templars, Oracles, Banshees (hence the buffs I guess...) stand the test of the new environement at all because they delay the production infrastructure while falling completely flat against defensive structures that now represent a derisory investement for the defender compared with HotS. By contrast this also means than any harassment/AoE damage unit they want to implement will have to follow the "terrible, terrible damage" model to have any meaningful impact; brace yourselves for the worst. I thought I was half-joking when I was talking about Zerg dying to an attack after building a bunch of new SHosts but clearly, you see the problem: if the unit cannot stand the power of 7 Reactors spitting 34 Marines/minutes as early as 10', it won't be built. If the Lurker cannot stand a massive stalk/colo deathball—that is to say, if ZvP ever goes beyond the stage of 2b Protoss all-ins or 3b Roaches all-ins—it won't be built. As for blink Battlecruisers (lol), thanks God we won't ever see that nonsense because no one will ever build a capital ship in that jungle anyway. The other very worrying aspect is that people will max around the time their main is exhausted. This will further emphasize the bad TvP model of "one battle to rule them all," a very high stake single engagement between two massive armies that crowns the winner. My guess is that the new eco model will automatically make people all-in between 12 and 14 minutes. Whoever prevails in the first big clash wins: he denies his opponent his fourth while settling his own, then auto-wins through the starvation of his opponent (3 active bases vs 2, and soon 2 vs 1 when naturals disappear, i.e. a 50-100% eco advantage). In macro games, I don't see how the whole tension of the game would not be focused around that 12-14 minutes window where players are forced to take action because of the sword of Damocles that is the clock. The weaker side on the long run, i.e. the side whose first max starts losing supply efficiency the more he waits, will never accept that both sides take a passive fourth: as soon as he's max he'll attack and the game would likely stop there. (Rinse/repeat if by accident a draw occurs.) As it stands now I see this change: 1. completely flattening the early/midgame we know; 2. failing to produce a gameplay centered around low-risk skirmishes that result in incremental advantages; 3. worsen all the already problematic aspects of the game and subject the already fragile asymmetric design to incredible tension. Thanks for reply, that clarifies things. So all in all, it seems pretty consistent with a constant 90 second shift, if you don't hold your economy back. - The cc is less than 90 seconds ahead, as it is built an scv later and less starting resources. I'd expect a bit closer to 90'', but within errors I'd say. - stim is 65'' early, which is close enough to 90 I'd say. - medivacs 100'' early, close enough to 90''. - 50 scv would have been 1'30'' according to your information, if you had continued building them in hots. Not done due to wanting more production. - third 120''-150''. More than 90'', but again seems to mainly due to choice (preferring production and units). - Everything after that is delayed due to scv hold and later third. So I think the reason lotv feels faster is that you go for an earlier third, while the hots build holds economy (both scvs and expansion) around that time. I'd guess that you were behind in units with the lotv build around 8-9min compared to the hots build 90 seconds later? If you take into account that any toss timing will be about 90 seconds early as well, would you be vulnerable and have to hold economy at the same spot? | ||
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Espers
United Kingdom606 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On November 15 2014 03:38 Espers wrote: Hahaha that sounds hilarious. I look forward to the wild west LotV beta that consists solely of smashing low tech units against each other. I wouldn't recognize the change if that's all. | ||
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