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I think one problem that exists right now as other people have said is that there's really no use to having a 4th base other than for gas. You have 66 workers on 3 bases (16 * 3 for minerals and 6 * 3 for gas) If you get a fourth base you might go up to 72 (16 * 3 for minerals and 6*4 for gas) or at most for a shirt amount of time if you're zerg 80 (16 *3 + 8 for minerals and 6*3 for gas.)
There's practically no advantage to holding a lot of bases. Blizzard is trying to change this by having expansions run out faster so that people expand faster and more often, however that's not how the risk-reward for the expansions pans out. Expansions are first of all generally hardest to defend right after they're up, so when a player expands he generally banks on the reward of having the expansion for the rest of the game and not use it for a quick buck. The mineral count change obviously doesn't support this cost-benefit analysis. Also, players can't just freely double expand in the middle of the game without suffering from timing attacks and harass.
If anything I think that this change will encourage lower worker counts and timing attacks which cut workers before full saturation on 2 or 3 bases. After all, why build so many workers if in an action-filled game by the time your third is fully saturated your main is almost mined out, you may has well have cut worker production and built army instead, because soon enough you'll be transferring workers from your pain and there's no guarantee that you will have a fourth base for them to fill up.
I actually am a fan of low economy games, but I don't think that this is what blizzard intended with this change. If Blizzard wanted to encourage more expansionary play they need to start reducing the effectiveness of all additional mining workers after 8. For example if workers carried back 8 minerals per worker like in broodwar, but took significantly longer to mine the minerals.
Another thing they could do is decrease the amount of mineral patches, but this would obviously slow down overall economy.
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I believe there is an advantage to having 4 bases instead of just 3 (or 5 bases instead of just 4, whatever the case is where one of your bases doesn't need to be mined). Gives you the option of evacuating the workers to the other base (maintaining your economy) and giving up the position instead of forcing you to defend the position with your army (to maintain your economy).
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However, having only one gas geyser per base have one major drawback.
Far less upgrades/tech units per base. You can see it as a problem or a benefit though.
Slower and fewer upgrades / tech units (a.k.a medivacs/tanks, collossus/HT, Muta/banes/Infestor...) means first that theses units can be tuned up a lot, and each and every technology can add a LOT to your army composition, ability to push or defend.
Furthermore, the upgrade thing increase the number of timings windows AND the ability for a player to change his army composition (Going from melee to range units for Zerg, from 1/1 bio to mech/biomech etc...) Compare it to actual switch from 3/3 main comp to 0/3 roaches, 1/0 mech...
IMHO this can lead to more skirmish games easily. If having one collossus/tank/infestor could change that much your gameplay and your brute force, and if the necessity to expand more for the sole purpose of gas mining was in the game, I don't see how it could be a bad thing.
Just my 2 cents
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I think the idea is if there were only 1 geyser it would produce twice as much.
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On November 18 2014 08:14 Yoav wrote:
I think the idea is if there were only 1 geyser it would produce twice as much.
But *should* it?
For example, could you do
Main: 2 norm gas
Nat: 1 rich gas
Third: 1 norm gas
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I just want to say that I agree 100% with what was said here.
We should have incentives to expand, not be artificially forced to do so. A 2 base terran with 60 SCV (fully fully saturated) and 3 orbitals should perform about the same as a 3 base zerg on 66 drones(current optimals) and much worse than a 4 base zerg on 66 drones (which currently does the same thing as 3 base 66 drones)
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Does anyone even know why exactly blizzard settled on the current design for SC2 for workers to mine 5 per instead of BWs 8? (and why was BW decided to be 8 as well?). IIRC they said something about it being a nice even number, but that doesn't even really matter because of canceling stuff giving you x% uneven numbers and repairing etc.
Like really, why does it matter if it's 5? couldn't they just increase the workers to gather more and keep the bases mineral supplies the same?
Could they also return the depleted geyser mechanic from BW? (gather less instead of dead).
TL;DR if they are going to change the mechnics on gathering, why not just copy it all back from BW since they know it worked?
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game reviewers will bash them for not being innovative at all, and simply copying most of the game from brood war. probably will hurt their revenue.
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That's not true. People bash anything, people will bash this if it sucks. People will bash it if it's good.
Besides, it's such a minor thing for casual reviewers to notice. So if it were a hardcore reviewer, they would understand and not bash it.
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On November 18 2014 09:38 MarlieChurphy wrote:
Does anyone even know why exactly blizzard settled on the current design for SC2 for workers to mine 5 per instead of BWs 8? (and why was BW decided to be 8 as well?). IIRC they said something about it being a nice even number, but that doesn't even really matter because of canceling stuff giving you x% uneven numbers and repairing etc.
Like really, why does it matter if it's 5? couldn't they just increase the workers to gather more and keep the bases mineral supplies the same?
Could they also return the depleted geyser mechanic from BW? (gather less instead of dead).
TL;DR if they are going to change the mechnics on gathering, why not just copy it all back from BW since they know it worked?
They have not stated a reason. My best, most educated guess is:
Workers were changed purely for aesthetical reasons. Blizzard thought it looked ugly when they bounced. So they lowered the amount of time harvesters spent mining at a node, but at the same time compensated for it by also lowering the amount harvested. The output of a single mineral node was therefore not changed. The math checked out. Nothing seemed to have changed, aside from workers becoming more orderly.
I highly doubt Blizzard in 2008 realized their change would have implications on expanding and saturation.
NOTE: Image contains an error, BW harvest time is in fact approx 3.2 seconds
You will notice that
5/2 = 2.5 minerals per second spent mining
8/3.2 = 2.5 minerals per second spent mining
On top of the attribute changes they also added an AI change to make harvesters less likely to bounce. I'm writing about it in a different thread I'm drafting.
Most likely the 2.0 second harvest time and 5 minerals harvest amount came about as a result of some Blizzard dev mathcrafting a solution to what some designer considered to be inelegant and aesthetically displeasing mining behavior. I doubt there was a motivation beyond that.
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Marketing, sales, product development, all have a say on "elegance/beauty/metrics" for all things including worker bounce and color scheme. It's not a purely developer decision.
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On November 18 2014 10:01 LaLuSh wrote:
Most likely the 2.0 second harvest time and 5 minerals harvest amount came about as a result of some Blizzard dev mathcrafting a solution to what some designer considered to be inelegant and aesthetically displeasing mining behavior. I doubt there was a motivation beyond that.
I wouldn't even be surprised if a dev took it upon himself to make this change; as a software engineer myself I can tell you that 5 minerals with a 2 second mining time is much nicer to play with mathematically than 8 at 3.2 seconds, especially if you get the same "result" on paper. I certainly don't fault the dev team for making such a change, but we can retroactively see that it impacted the game's economy in ways that would be impossible to initially realize.
We should also keep in mind that Blizzard originally expected the game to play very similarly to BW, with faster games on lower base counts for an average game. This can be clearly seen with their original map designs from Beta/S1. Those maps are the closest in terms of base counts and map dimensions compared to BW maps. With those expectations, incentive for 4 bases isn't exactly high on the priority list.
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I highly doubt that they didn't realize that there is a difference tbh.
At least not if they had the exact numbers from BW
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On November 18 2014 10:33 The_Red_Viper wrote:
I highly doubt that they didn't realize that there is a difference tbh.
At least not if they had the exact numbers from BW
If you'll note, they matched the "on paper" numbers from BW to SC2 in terms of individual worker mining (2.5 minerals per mining second). While all bases do mine more efficiently in SC2 compared to BW, the biggest difference lay in income efficiency on 4+ bases, which is a base count beyond their original scope for game design. If you played during WoL beta or early release, you'll have seen the style of game play they were originally going for (p.s. if anyone can find the actual interview where they talk about designing the game in a way where matches typically end on 2 or 3 bases, that'd be awesome).
Simply put, if they did know of the consequences for 4+ mining bases (debatable), I wouldn't be surprised if it was considered a non-issue at the time.
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On November 18 2014 13:27 iamcaustic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2014 10:33 The_Red_Viper wrote:
I highly doubt that they didn't realize that there is a difference tbh.
At least not if they had the exact numbers from BW If you'll note, they matched the "on paper" numbers from BW to SC2 in terms of individual worker mining (2.5 minerals per mining second). While all bases do mine more efficiently in SC2 compared to BW, the biggest difference lay in income efficiency on 4+ bases, which is a base count beyond their original scope for game design. If you played during WoL beta or early release, you'll have seen the style of game play they were originally going for (p.s. if anyone can find the actual interview where they talk about designing the game in a way where matches typically end on 2 or 3 bases, that'd be awesome). Simply put, if they did know of the consequences for 4+ mining bases (debatable), I wouldn't be surprised if it was considered a non-issue at the time.
Well in the end it comes down to the time workers spend mining in comparison to the time they need to travel. (right?^^)
I don't think it is a coincidende that the closer mineral patches work pretty much perfectly for 2 workers (i am not sure if that was the case on the early maps though tbh)
Either way, i think people in game design can do that math :D
I actually think they wanted to make the economy easier to understand, which makes kinda sense when you did design the game for 2 or 3 base play in the first place
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On November 18 2014 09:38 MarlieChurphy wrote:
Does anyone even know why exactly blizzard settled on the current design for SC2 for workers to mine 5 per instead of BWs 8? (and why was BW decided to be 8 as well?). IIRC they said something about it being a nice even number, but that doesn't even really matter because of canceling stuff giving you x% uneven numbers and repairing etc.
Like really, why does it matter if it's 5? couldn't they just increase the workers to gather more and keep the bases mineral supplies the same?
Could they also return the depleted geyser mechanic from BW? (gather less instead of dead).
TL;DR if they are going to change the mechnics on gathering, why not just copy it all back from BW since they know it worked?
Yeah i think i know but i have no link.
Workers mined so fast so with 8 per trip, the economy got to much. Therefore, they reduced it to 5.
They said this before the beta.
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Double geysers make gas mining 'cost' more minerals. Blizz accounted for this by lowering the costs midgame tech structures, such as the factory (200 / 100 to 150 / 100) and the robo (200 / 200 to 200 / 100), as well as for miscellaneous buildings (50 / 50 machine shops or control towers vs 50 / 25 techlabs, no observatories for Protoss).
While this is incidentally a nice way to slow down economy buildup with the new macroboosters, it sucks in the late-game, since you have to dump 30 supply into workers just to mine gas from your 5 or so bases. How many times have you seen Idra games in WoL where he takes the whole map while his opponent faps in a corner, then dies to protoss with 3000+ gas and no minerals? That's double geysers in action.
We've also lost those weird mutaspam builds where people take an early third and build 20 drones or so, then proceed to go nuts once their spire is done 
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On November 18 2014 14:57 PineapplePizza wrote:Double geysers make gas mining 'cost' more minerals. Blizz accounted for this by lowering the costs midgame tech structures, such as the factory (200 / 100 to 150 / 100) and the robo (200 / 200 to 200 / 100), as well as for miscellaneous buildings (50 / 50 machine shops or control towers vs 50 / 25 techlabs, no observatories for Protoss). While this is incidentally a nice way to slow down economy buildup with the new macroboosters, it sucks in the late-game, since you have to dump 30 supply into workers just to mine gas from your 5 or so bases. How many times have you seen Idra games in WoL where he takes the whole map while his opponent faps in a corner, then dies to protoss with 3000+ gas and no minerals? That's double geysers in action. We've also lost those weird mutaspam builds where people take an early third and build 20 drones or so, then proceed to go nuts once their spire is done
Not sure this goes hand in hand.
BW-factory was alot stronger, therefore facory cost more.
SC2-factory is pretty weak in general.
SC2:robo has no reaver->early game threat and observers arent as relevant as in broodwar.
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What if the Mineral patch was divided into three depletion levels, lets say Bountiful, Fair, Scarce
If a mineral patch is Bountiful, it means your worker returns 5 minerals pr. trip.
If a mineral patch is Fair, it means your worker returns 4 minerals pr. trip.
If a mineral patch is Scarce, it means your worker returns 3 minerals pr. trip.
At 1500->1000 Minerals it's Bountiful, 1000->500 Minerals it's Fair, 500->0 Minerals it's Scarce.
100 trips to earn the first 500 Minerals.
125 trips to earn the second 500 Minerals.
167 trips to earn the last 500 Minerals.
It means there's still 1500 Minerals on a patch that you can earn from it.
You still get fast into the midgame, unlike changing the amount of patches. But this way there's this incentive to take new bases that a lot of you talk about, instead of getting snowballed into defeat, if you can get no mining base for a while.
I think this is a sweet compromise and actually fit the changing model for the Mineral Field when it gets to look more depleted the more you mine from it.
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On November 18 2014 22:22 ejozl wrote:
What if the Mineral patch was divided into three depletion levels, lets say Bountiful, Fair, Scarce
If a mineral patch is Bountiful, it means your worker returns 5 minerals pr. trip.
If a mineral patch is Fair, it means your worker returns 4 minerals pr. trip.
If a mineral patch is Scarce, it means your worker returns 3 minerals pr. trip.
At 1500->1000 Minerals it's Bountiful, 1000->500 Minerals it's Fair, 500->0 Minerals it's Scarce.
100 trips to earn the first 500 Minerals.
125 trips to earn the second 500 Minerals.
167 trips to earn the last 500 Minerals.
It means there's still 1500 Minerals on a patch that you can earn from it.
You still get fast into the midgame, unlike changing the amount of patches. But this way there's this incentive to take new bases that a lot of you talk about, instead of getting snowballed into defeat, if you can get no mining base for a while.
I think this is a sweet compromise and actually fit the changing model for the Mineral Field when it gets to look more depleted the more you mine from it.
Interesting idea. Basically fresh base>old base, but old bases aren't useless.
I think 5-->3 is a bit harsh, but I like the concept. Maybe just 5-->4 with a cut at 750 or 500.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/P2U13ne.png)
