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Just some math musings on injects (times are old starcraft time, not real seconds):
An inject gives you 4 larva and is casted every 40 seconds from a queen that costs 150 minerals. That is 6 larva/min if perfectly done.
A hatchery is worth 350 minerals (300+50 for the drone) and spawns a larva every 15 seconds, so 4 larva/min.
Therefore we get for the cost of a larva produced by a queen compared to hatchery (150/6)/(350/4)=0.2857, so only 28.57% of the cost of a larva produced by a hatchery.
Option 1 of blizzard would raise this to 38.1%.
Option 2 of blizzard would raise this to 57.14%.
In both cases getting queens just for injects would still be mineral-superior to building another hatchery.
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On August 05 2015 19:07 Big J wrote:
Just some math musings on injects (times are old starcraft time, not real seconds):
An inject gives you 4 larva and is casted every 40 seconds from a queen that costs 150 minerals. That is 6 larva/min if perfectly done.
A hatchery costs 350 minerals and spawns a larva every 15 seconds, so 4 larva/min.
Therefore we get for the cost of a larva produced by a queen compared to hatchery (150/6)/(350/4)=0.2857, so only 28.57% of the cost of a larva produced by a hatchery.
Option 1 of blizzard would raise this to 38.1%.
Option 2 of blizzard would raise this to 57.14%.
In both cases getting queens just for injects would still be mineral-superior to building another hatchery.
But... a hatchery costs 300 bro nvm I'm an idiot
In reality though you'd need more hatcheries anyway to keep production levels the same as you can't use a queen for production without a hatchery. So if a normal 3 base 3 queen spawns 30 larva/minute, option 2 only gives 21 larva/minute, requiring a full extra hatchery and queen to resume normal production. I feel this will make heavy ling play pretty hard
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On August 05 2015 20:28 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:07 Big J wrote:
Just some math musings on injects (times are old starcraft time, not real seconds):
An inject gives you 4 larva and is casted every 40 seconds from a queen that costs 150 minerals. That is 6 larva/min if perfectly done.
A hatchery costs 350 minerals and spawns a larva every 15 seconds, so 4 larva/min.
Therefore we get for the cost of a larva produced by a queen compared to hatchery (150/6)/(350/4)=0.2857, so only 28.57% of the cost of a larva produced by a hatchery.
Option 1 of blizzard would raise this to 38.1%.
Option 2 of blizzard would raise this to 57.14%.
In both cases getting queens just for injects would still be mineral-superior to building another hatchery. But... a hatchery costs 300 bro nvm I'm an idiot In reality though you'd need more hatcheries anyway to keep production levels the same as you can't use a queen for production without a hatchery. So if a normal 3 base 3 queen spawns 30 larva/minute, option 2 only gives 21 larva/minute, requiring a full extra hatchery and queen to resume normal production.
Of course, you are absolutely correct. It also doesn't consider that later on in the game you often have too much larva anyways if you inject well - depending also on the units you are playing. E.g. roach/hydra/viper is much less larvaintense than ling/bling/muta in ZvT. Passive play lets you build up 7+ larva on every hatchery and then the efficiency of the inject becomes of a much lesser importance.
I think the interesting thing to take away here is how far off we are from a sweet spot in which injecting is a more strategical decision. I can't really say where this would be in percent - it must be noted that if we nerfed injects to 100% of current hatchery production it would be so weak that you would always spread creep instead - but I believe if it is that far off from 100% there is hardly any decision involved and energy tension will always be bypassed by building extra queens, or the other abilities simply won't be used.
Automated or not, I think that spawning rate of hatchery and queen should be brought closer together which can be achieved both ways, adding to the hatchery and lowering the spawning rate of injects.
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Macro changes
I think macro needs to be harder. My suggestion to fix it up:
- Mules: Make a cooldown for mules, so you can't just throw down 10 at once. It will reward players who constantly drop mules.
-Inject: Make a limit on how may larvae can be on a hatch at once. I think it should be limited to around 8. This will force players to use macro hatches.
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Bah did you see how Trust threw that game 3 vs Bomber...
But skill ceiling!!!~~!!@one1
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On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote:
Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be?
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8751 Posts
On August 05 2015 21:07 Quineotio wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote:
Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be?
It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics?
When Blizzard added multiple building selection to SC2, which made macro easier and take less time, they compensated by adding the macro mechanics (and warp gate) which are the subject of this article. That was cool because using the macro mechanics (and warp gate) is more interesting than selecting a bunch of buildings in quick succession. But now they're saying they want less attention to be spent on macro. They'd remove macro mechanics without providing any compensation, on purpose. That's not keeping the balance.
RTS and StarCraft in particular is about macro. The whole premise of playing it instead of some other genre of games is "what if we had to build a base and develop an economy and be the master of all the behind-the-scenes stuff and not just do the fights." I wouldn't say that removing macro mechanics is ruining this but it's a step in that direction. Those of us who don't like that direction, even if this step might be tolerable, need to voice our concerns every step of the way to make sure it doesn't go too far. If the whole community said in unison "YES YES YES" then I 100% believe Blizzard is of a mindset to just roll with it, not caring about the tradition and identity of RTS and StarCraft.
What they're doing to SC2 with LotV is exactly like what they did to get from League/Dota to Heroes of the Storm. Some people like it and some people don't. The things that annoy me are (1) when the people who like it act like they're right, as if it's not a matter of preference, and (2) that Blizzard is transforming StarCraft into this rather than making another game. Isn't this trend obviously better suited for WarCraft 3? Why not let StarCraft be StarCraft for its final expansion rather than leaving us permanently affected by this fad of design philosophy which hasn't even proven itself yet?
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Relevant: www.teamliquid.net
Key excerpt:
-The pacing changes-
As is to be expected, with the removal of macro crutches the pacing changed, but not quite in the way you would expect.
Games didn't turn out slower, timings and build times were mostly unaffected, rather, engagements in the early game became scrappier and with less units. You could make a lot of things work with good control. Things like losing a worker or even a unit tended to hurt a lot, so you mostly tried to save both.
The Mid-game is where the game usually picked up into something that resembled the usual SC2 pacing.
The main difference was the abundance and diversity of higher tech units,accompanied by lower tech units and meat shields, but not as many as you would usually see.
Micro is still a big part of the fights, but your macro dictates the pace of the game since you have to expand more and get more production facilities, the managing of more expansions and buildings than usual starts getting in the way of your micro and your micro in the way of your macro, but up to this point it's not that much harder than the usual macro mechanics.
The Late Game is where the game gets completely insane.
I regret to say that I didn't manage to get many games that lasted this long so I don´t have that much to say except that that if you make it this far the game goes nuts and it gets pretty hard to manage everything.
You have so many bases, so many production facilities,so many different unit types spread just about everywhere, so many different places to defend and attack, both players are already fielding their best units and upgrades.
It gets pretty chaotic, especially with bases and buildings that are pretty far away from each other, and especially with all the fighting going on.
So it starts out Slower and it ends up Faster, why? well, logic would dictate that the current macro mechanics should give a faster game all game no? the reason for this isn't readily apparent until you understand...
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On August 06 2015 00:46 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:07 Quineotio wrote:On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote:
Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be? The things that annoy me are (1) when the people who like it act like they're right, as if it's not a matter of preference, and (2) that Blizzard is transforming StarCraft into this rather than making another game. Isn't this trend obviously better suited for WarCraft 3? Why not let StarCraft be StarCraft for its final expansion rather than leaving us permanently affected by this fad of design philosophy which hasn't even proven itself yet?
Same. I always thought of WC as the micro oriented RTS and of SC as the macro oriented one. This move would take too much focus away from macro to make micro/multitask really appreciable to my taste.
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On August 06 2015 00:46 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:07 Quineotio wrote:On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote:
Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be? It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics? When Blizzard added multiple building selection to SC2, which made macro easier and take less time, they compensated by adding the macro mechanics (and warp gate) which are the subject of this article. That was cool because using the macro mechanics (and warp gate) is more interesting than selecting a bunch of buildings in quick succession. But now they're saying they want less attention to be spent on macro. They'd remove macro mechanics without providing any compensation, on purpose. That's not keeping the balance. RTS and StarCraft in particular is about macro. The whole premise of playing it instead of some other genre of games is "what if we had to build a base and develop an economy and be the master of all the behind-the-scenes stuff and not just do the fights." I wouldn't say that removing macro mechanics is ruining this but it's a step in that direction. Those of us who don't like that direction, even if this step might be tolerable, need to voice our concerns every step of the way to make sure it doesn't go too far. If the whole community said in unison "YES YES YES" then I 100% believe Blizzard is of a mindset to just roll with it, not caring about the tradition and identity of RTS and StarCraft. What they're doing to SC2 with LotV is exactly like what they did to get from League/Dota to Heroes of the Storm. Some people like it and some people don't. The things that annoy me are (1) when the people who like it act like they're right, as if it's not a matter of preference, and (2) that Blizzard is transforming StarCraft into this rather than making another game. Isn't this trend obviously better suited for WarCraft 3? Why not let StarCraft be StarCraft for its final expansion rather than leaving us permanently affected by this fad of design philosophy which hasn't even proven itself yet?
And yet you do the same thing when you decide what is Starcraft's identity, which is very much one's personal perception as well.
I personally can 100% agree that Starcraft is about macro. It's the build up of epic armies and a huge empire of multiple bases that I love - something that SC2 more or less pioneered compared to the much smaller scale RTS games it succeeded. And then pair it with a lot of micromanagement - something that only blizzard has really understood in the RTS genre up to these days.
What I don't agree with is that the build-up part must be inherently hard mechanically for SC's identity, even if your opponent doesn't try to make it hard for you (i.e. force you into strategic choices, force you to cut economy for defense, force you into playing aggressive, force you into playing it slow).
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Damn, nony expresses exactly what I'm feeling about those announced changes (or at least things blizzard is thinking about). Starcraft is about macro and micro, and there is a beauty in a well crafted build, a perfect macro, there is a great feeling of accomplishment when you manage to not be supply block, when you manage to not forget one probe, as well as there is beauty in a perfectly controlled army, managing to save each of your few early stalkers, managing to do lot of damage with your small commando of units while still handling your base right and spending your money.
And I dont get why the starcraft team seems to let the run to audience drive the game design, as if lowering the skill cap will help bring more people to sc2 or more people to watch sc2. This is to me the wrong way of handling the game, wich has competition and difficulty at its heart. People who are struggling with the 1v1 difficulty and complaining its no fun have already many options : team game, arcade mode, FFA, and soon the archon mode wich is a great thing in this regard. They also can play any other game more micro oriented, like blizzard's new moba even. What is the need to simplify the macro mechanics ? Will this really bring new people to the game, people probably struggling with the idea of 1v1 competition anyway ? And isnt there the risk to lose the core starcraft fans on the way ?
On a side note I can see some people saying lotv is already faster and more difficult than hots, so this idea of removing macro mechanics will not really make sc2 easier. Well, i dont really know about that, to be honest I dont like the new economy model like it is right now, I dont like the 12 workers start and I dont get why blizzard didn't try more things during this looooong beta. But still, the starcraft licence is an RTS, may be an "old school" RTS, but its part of its identity to have very distinct parts, macro, and micro. Why throw that away and not make an entire other game ? :/
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Here is a very nice counter to this argument. It is naive to think that simply removing the macro mechanics will make the game "easier" or in some way lower the "skill ceiling". This is just typical theory crafting without any real data.
New Macro=Good?
Consider that Brood War didn't have these macro mechanics and it seems this community likes to compare SC2 to its predecessor in nearly every way, right? Was the macro not difficult enough in that game? Are we saying those pros had it to easy? I think not.
Give it a read with an open mind and see where you stand.
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8751 Posts
On August 06 2015 01:16 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2015 00:46 NonY wrote:On August 05 2015 21:07 Quineotio wrote:On August 05 2015 18:20 TRaFFiC wrote:
Managing your economy while at the same time controlling your army has been a fundamental part of every RTS I ever played.
And it still will be? It still will be but the balance between the two is getting messed up. How would people who love micro feel if Blizzard just flat out told them the thing they like isn't actually fun or appreciated by viewers of tournaments so they're removing force field, fungal and stim to allow players to focus more on the fun stuff, the macro mechanics? When Blizzard added multiple building selection to SC2, which made macro easier and take less time, they compensated by adding the macro mechanics (and warp gate) which are the subject of this article. That was cool because using the macro mechanics (and warp gate) is more interesting than selecting a bunch of buildings in quick succession. But now they're saying they want less attention to be spent on macro. They'd remove macro mechanics without providing any compensation, on purpose. That's not keeping the balance. RTS and StarCraft in particular is about macro. The whole premise of playing it instead of some other genre of games is "what if we had to build a base and develop an economy and be the master of all the behind-the-scenes stuff and not just do the fights." I wouldn't say that removing macro mechanics is ruining this but it's a step in that direction. Those of us who don't like that direction, even if this step might be tolerable, need to voice our concerns every step of the way to make sure it doesn't go too far. If the whole community said in unison "YES YES YES" then I 100% believe Blizzard is of a mindset to just roll with it, not caring about the tradition and identity of RTS and StarCraft. What they're doing to SC2 with LotV is exactly like what they did to get from League/Dota to Heroes of the Storm. Some people like it and some people don't. The things that annoy me are (1) when the people who like it act like they're right, as if it's not a matter of preference, and (2) that Blizzard is transforming StarCraft into this rather than making another game. Isn't this trend obviously better suited for WarCraft 3? Why not let StarCraft be StarCraft for its final expansion rather than leaving us permanently affected by this fad of design philosophy which hasn't even proven itself yet? And yet you do the same thing when you decide what is Starcraft's identity, which is very much one's personal perception as well. I personally can 100% agree that Starcraft is about macro. It's the build up of epic armies and a huge empire of multiple bases that I love - something that SC2 more or less pioneered compared to the much smaller scale RTS games it succeeded. And then pair it with a lot of micromanagement - something that only blizzard has really understood in the RTS genre up to these days. What I don't agree with is that the build-up part must be inherently hard mechanically for SC's identity, even if your opponent doesn't try to make it hard for you (i.e. force you into strategic choices, force you to cut economy for defense, force you into playing aggressive, force you into playing it slow).
I'm not deciding StarCraft's identity -- I'm starting the conversation on it. No one else seems to care. It seems like people assume a utilitarian approach for SC2 game design while I think it's obvious that, since there's such a great variety of games, a utilitarian approach for each individual game is a horrible idea. But I appreciate you weighing in on what you feel is core to StarCraft.
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On August 06 2015 02:13 rigginssc2 wrote:Here is a very nice counter to this argument. It is naive to think that simply removing the macro mechanics will make the game "easier" or in some way lower the "skill ceiling". This is just typical theory crafting without any real data. New Macro=Good?Consider that Brood War didn't have these macro mechanics and it seems this community likes to compare SC2 to its predecessor in nearly every way, right? Was the macro not difficult enough in that game? Are we saying those pros had it to easy? I think not. Give it a read with an open mind and see where you stand.
The brood war argument is a really shitty one, considering lack of automine and multiple building selection more than made up for lack of macro mechanics. Macroing in brood war was a bigger factor in differentiating players than it is in sc2.
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On August 06 2015 01:37 tamino wrote:
Damn, nony expresses exactly what I'm feeling about those announced changes (or at least things blizzard is thinking about). Starcraft is about macro and micro, and there is a beauty in a well crafted build, a perfect macro, there is a great feeling of accomplishment when you manage to not be supply block, when you manage to not forget one probe, as well as there is beauty in a perfectly controlled army, managing to save each of your few early stalkers, managing to do lot of damage with your small commando of units while still handling your base right and spending your money.
No one is suggesting removing supply, simplify building probes, simplify controling an army, simplify spending your money. No one! Macro elements are going to stay.
The suggestion is about the additional macro mechanics, in terms of Mules, Larva Inject, Chronoboost. They add up to macro, but are not the main bulk of it. So don't worry: SC2 has and will have macro components 
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SC2 is still going to have a ridiculous skill ceiling that can't be reached, even just when discussing macro. People need to understand this.
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I imagine that the point of this is to have players have to go back to their base less often. If so, I don't think you can change the mule mechanic without touching addons. I think add on management forces me to go back my base far more often than muleing.
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On August 06 2015 05:04 BrokenSegment wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2015 01:37 tamino wrote:
Damn, nony expresses exactly what I'm feeling about those announced changes (or at least things blizzard is thinking about). Starcraft is about macro and micro, and there is a beauty in a well crafted build, a perfect macro, there is a great feeling of accomplishment when you manage to not be supply block, when you manage to not forget one probe, as well as there is beauty in a perfectly controlled army, managing to save each of your few early stalkers, managing to do lot of damage with your small commando of units while still handling your base right and spending your money. No one is suggesting removing supply, simplify building probes, simplify controling an army, simplify spending your money. No one! Macro elements are going to stay. The suggestion is about the additional macro mechanics, in terms of Mules, Larva Inject, Chronoboost. They add up to macro, but are not the main bulk of it. So don't worry: SC2 has and will have macro components
That's true. I'm pushing this a little bit too far because it feels like a small step in this direction : reducing the macro part of starcraft for more micro. Those mechanics were not part of brood war either, but macro in brood war was much more present due to what people called artificial mechanics constraints like no MBS, no auto mining and the limitation of 12 units per group wich forced you to go back to your base so often. And this added to the difficulty of the game so much, and it was part of the show too : when you watched the game from the player's perpespective, this was so impressive to see, the speed of constant point of view change, this was something and everyone new the game was difficult and every micro move was difficult also cause you needed good macro while microing.
The macro mechanics were introduced for this reason if I recall correctly, and they are somewhat working and having the same effect while adding some strategy in the macro part (what do I chrono ? Should I mule or save energy for scan ? On wich direction should I creep spread first ?). You have to go back to your base regularly in order to gain some macro advantage, even during fights. And now what, blizzard saying this is not really interesting nor adding to the show ? Damn this is touching to the flow of the game (not sure this is the right word) , the way starcraft feels when you play it, and a great way to see the game difficulty when you go on player's perspective too.
The argument of artificiallity of those mechanics also bothers me. Of course it is artificial, it is a rule in a game. But having to micro is also somewhat artificial too. The AI could be tweaked to handle much more things automatically if blizzard wanted to, and the game could play all by itself at some point. But we dont want that, we want our units to need us and we want to be able to prove a better player than the opponent by micro... and macro.
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Methinks considering the Terrible, Terrible Damage issue, we shouldn't necessarily conclude that it was, in hindsight, a bright idea to compensate for the lost macro mechanic difficulties from Brood War by introducing artificial macro boosters in SC2.
Some have raised the point that those macro boosters helped to energize a slow game flow that existed in Wings of Liberty, but is quite energized in Legacy of the Void.
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What is funny is that I find myself defending the macro mechanics of sc2 from complete removal while I think they deserve some rework, especially the mule thing wich leads to some aberration in my opinion like being able to mine without workers or the mass CC in late game.
So well, since we have no real choice here and blizzard is doing whatever they want despite they recent effort in communication, we'll see how this will turn out...
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EPT
