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qxc's thoughts: The Removal of Macro Mechanics - Page 9

Forum Index > SC2 General
227 CommentsPost a Reply
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nottapro
Profile Joined August 2012
202 Posts
August 25 2015 23:28 GMT
#161
On August 26 2015 05:51 LSN wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 03:57 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
This IMO makes comebacks even harder....

also w/o mules harassment on terran is much more substantial. how many games have you heard a caster say (he's down # workers but he has 2 orbitals so he's fine)
This means successful harassment is rewarded greater in given matchups

zergs can't just make a huge round of drones and be fine because larva are a precious commodity now
Protoss can't just chrono out probes instead of other things when behind
And terrans can't drop the mule hammer to make a comeback

.There is a very limited amount of scenarios where these mechanics allow you to come back in reality. In 95% of cases they simply serve as advantage accelerators.



This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.
Charoisaur
Profile Joined August 2014
Germany16022 Posts
August 26 2015 00:16 GMT
#162
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.
Many of the coolest moments in sc2 happen due to worker harassment
Deleted User 132135
Profile Joined December 2010
702 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 01:18:54
August 26 2015 00:19 GMT
#163
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.


Now what can I tell you to drop this false belief?

The extreme example:
Harrassment on a 3 nexus protoss drops him to 0 probes. Restarting with probe 3, 6, 9, ... (chronoboosted)
Harrassment on a 3 OC terran drops him to 0 SCV. Restarting with 3 mules (= 12 SCVs? 15 SCVs? whatever) + SCV 3, 6, 9, .... (non chronoboosted)

It is simple math to scale this up to the amount of workers that you like. The advantage will stay but get negligible at higher numbers of existing workers.

At the early game, tho, the mule mechanic is defining and deceicive for the metagame and thus for the viable strategies that P/Z can go with. Mules are clearly narrowing the strategical diversity of P/Z in early game in the respective matchups. As limited strategical diversity (roughly said: either fully commit on an all-in or macro up to 200/200 and try to commit as few as possible on attacking/harrassing the terran eco but fight his army and only harras his eco when you are in minimum risk/commitment situations) is not only boring to play and watch and highly repetitive but also reduces the amount of different scenarios a player can exerience and has to learn to deal with on both sides. This makes it easier to undersand the metagames and the potential options of the respective matchups for lower skill players while higher skill players get strategically underchallanged and bored with always ending up in same or very similar scenarios. Therefore it is very true to say that mules (as well as the macro mechanics of the other races for different reasons) reduce the skill cap in the respective matchups, make SC2 more casual and are overall detrimental to the game (notice: I am not talking about hots balance here but about game design).

Additional aspects:
- You can completely circumvent the mule mechanic by all-ining the terran. It is basically enforcing a coinflip where you either lose or win and mules don't matter anymore. ->
- When harrassing the terran eco early to mid and manage to kill several SCVs at the cost of own probes/drones or at the cost of an own earlier additional expansion, then you also increase the %-impact of mules on the total economy of your opponent. This is something that you don't want to do usually. You usually only do it when you don't have to commit own growth on it.


On August 26 2015 08:28 nottapro wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 05:51 LSN wrote:
On August 26 2015 03:57 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
This IMO makes comebacks even harder....

also w/o mules harassment on terran is much more substantial. how many games have you heard a caster say (he's down # workers but he has 2 orbitals so he's fine)
This means successful harassment is rewarded greater in given matchups

zergs can't just make a huge round of drones and be fine because larva are a precious commodity now
Protoss can't just chrono out probes instead of other things when behind
And terrans can't drop the mule hammer to make a comeback

.There is a very limited amount of scenarios where these mechanics allow you to come back in reality. In 95% of cases they simply serve as advantage accelerators.



This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.


Yes! Not only that. They also argue with wrong facts!


On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.


This is not about whining and it is not about balance. It is about what is true and what is false.

roythereaper
Profile Joined April 2013
Canada4 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 01:21:48
August 26 2015 01:10 GMT
#164
An interesting opinion but I feel that if macro is taking too big of a step back. Bad players will be over performing and thats what you and blizzard want? Starcraft is a game of mechanics. The player with better mechanics should win not some bs strategy. Oh sorry I mean "micro, map control, or positioning". Like really if you think about it and honestly take your own personal biases out, Lotv will ruin starcraft. No mechanics = no skill = dead game. Sorry to say it but its the truth. If you dont have your macro to fall back on when your put under pressure and are on the defensive, one bad engagement means gg. If thats you and blizzard feel that this dramatic change fix starcraft. Why didnt you do this is hots and use Lotv to balance it correctly? Right because blizzard put out hots with no thought *cough* swarmhosts. So now blizzard is gonna gamble and ruin a great game. I am disappointed in you QXC. We need people defending how bad of an idea this is and we need pros to step up and voice the truth. Your a smart guy but if you think this is a good idea, you just lost a fan.

But maybe thats just my own personal bias. If the game ends up being balanced. This might be worth the dramatic change.
AgamemnonSC2
Profile Joined October 2012
Canada254 Posts
August 26 2015 01:37 GMT
#165
I agree with QXC wholeheartedly. Not only have I been enjoying SC2 a lot more since the removal of Macro Boosters, but I think it will make the game more viable to balance properly.
Co-Founder of SC2 Mistakes
Cloak
Profile Joined October 2009
United States816 Posts
August 26 2015 01:57 GMT
#166
Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.
The more you know, the less you understand.
FabledIntegral
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
United States9232 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 03:14:41
August 26 2015 03:13 GMT
#167
I completely disagree with the statement "The interesting part of macro in Starcraft is the decision of what to make, not the execution of actually making it." Decisions in themselves are only partially interesting and will always take a backseat to execution.

This isn't necessarily saying macro mechanics themselves are necessary, just that I find execution far more interesting than general decision making, overall strategy, etc.
CursOr
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United States6335 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 03:28:20
August 26 2015 03:26 GMT
#168
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.

False.

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.

Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.

That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran
CJ forever (-_-(-_-(-_-(-_-)-_-)-_-)-_-)
Superbanana
Profile Joined May 2014
2369 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 05:26:46
August 26 2015 05:23 GMT
#169
On August 26 2015 01:49 QSpec wrote:
On the Chronoboost changes (the 'why'), instead of giving my opinion, I'll just quote MorroW's opinion as he articulated it twice before. I've said it before, Chronoboost was easily the most interesting of the 3 mechanics, and in some sense I'm sorry to see it go. But anyway, on to why it needed reworked/removed.

Show nested quote +

The bad part being that Protoss can naturally become easier or more forgiving in the fact that you can line up build orders and timings as you go along in the game. (pushing out storm in time for a Terran timing with chronoboost is arguably less impressive than pre-planning storm in time for the Terran timing in the first place). Or realizing halfway through you started storm and archives too late for your 1-1 storm timing to finish you start chronoboosting where as without your timing is fucked and you need to wait (punished instead of forgiving)


Show nested quote +

2: Chrono Boost removed

I also talked about this in my previous post in the macro mechanics topic but I'll try to not sound too repetitive. Chrono boost has pretty much always been the back bone of every single Protoss all in or timings in general. Without chrono boost the possibilities of Protoss go down. The ability to just shove all your energy down one direction is mostly what has enabled Protoss to push their "cheese" to the limits.
To be more concrete, a Protoss that is allinning will not be able to squeeze out warp tech quicker than a Protoss who is playing macro game for example.
The "five different blink timings" that you had to consider will now be maybe only a couple.
Suddenly as a Terran or as a Zerg you pretty much have an easier time deducting what the Protoss is doing. Not only are their timings weaker in itself through chrono boost removal - but having fewer options to begin with makes the choices you have left weaker as well (this is a big deal).


Its all true.
But i don't think he said it should be removed, as i read it i agree with him. Chrono should stay, those are good reasons to keep it.
In PvZ the zerg can make the situation spire out of control but protoss can adept to the situation.
QSpec
Profile Joined October 2010
United States23 Posts
August 26 2015 06:00 GMT
#170
He had proposed an alternative change in his first post.

He said:
I like this change but completely removing chronoboost might not be the best move. There are parts about chronoboost I like which I think is reason enough to keep it in the game. The "improvised" chronoboosts to forgive yourself from the original mistakes you've done is the part that I don't like. I think having the best of both worlds might be a possibility just by making chronoboost more exclusive (cooldown, energy cost, resource cost?).


I gathered that he wants chrono to be a part of macro while being nerfed as a way of fixing mistakes.

That said, his post a few days later seemed to imply that he was okay with it being removed. He's only ever taken umbrage at the auto-injects.

In any case, I was just trying to explain to a few posts why Blizzard might be interested in removing Chrono.
Superbanana
Profile Joined May 2014
2369 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 08:28:10
August 26 2015 06:21 GMT
#171
On August 26 2015 15:00 QSpec wrote:
He had proposed an alternative change in his first post.

He said:
Show nested quote +
I like this change but completely removing chronoboost might not be the best move. There are parts about chronoboost I like which I think is reason enough to keep it in the game. The "improvised" chronoboosts to forgive yourself from the original mistakes you've done is the part that I don't like. I think having the best of both worlds might be a possibility just by making chronoboost more exclusive (cooldown, energy cost, resource cost?).


I gathered that he wants chrono to be a part of macro while being nerfed as a way of fixing mistakes.

That said, his post a few days later seemed to imply that he was okay with it being removed. He's only ever taken umbrage at the auto-injects.

In any case, I was just trying to explain to a few posts why Blizzard might be interested in removing Chrono.


Im ok with changing chrono, making it more exclusive is an interesting idea. However i don't think thats the reasoning from blizzard.
It sounds like blizzard removed for the same reasons they removed inject and mule, but i think the point doesn't stand. They only pretend it applies to chrono to "make it fair", but thats absolutely unnecessary as things must be rebalanced anyway after such macro changes.
In PvZ the zerg can make the situation spire out of control but protoss can adept to the situation.
Deleted User 132135
Profile Joined December 2010
702 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 08:19:18
August 26 2015 07:13 GMT
#172
On August 26 2015 10:57 Cloak wrote:
Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.




expected this one:

1. Inject yes, chrono yes, mules no!

2. lets pick injects as an example: with removal of 2 larva it takes little longer to get back to temp/global income cap but I'd strongly assume this is proportional to the reduced ability of your opponent to pull ahead in the same time with its army size. So it is basically a matter of general slowed down game pace, the slower scaling applies to both players, not only to the player that took damage on his eco. Taking that into account I see better recovery potential with lowered larva count still as in a ZvZ took damage in 3 hatch scenario there will be 6 less drones per inject cycle to recover with but also 6 less lets say roaches of the opponent that stand against you in the next fight what might/will put you behind again and therefore reduce advantage scaling with the removal of these macro mechanics.
AbouSV
Profile Joined October 2014
Germany1278 Posts
August 26 2015 07:39 GMT
#173
On August 26 2015 12:26 CursOr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.

False.

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.

Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.

That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran


Yes it does, you are right.
Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives:
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.

Or

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.
Deleted User 132135
Profile Joined December 2010
702 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 08:25:15
August 26 2015 07:41 GMT
#174
On August 26 2015 16:39 AbouSV wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 12:26 CursOr wrote:
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.

False.

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.

Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.

That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran


Yes it does, you are right.
Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives:
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.

Or

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.


On high worker numbers this is true, on low numbers mules will give the advantage. In early game decision making therefore mules have a huge impact on chosen and viable strategies of P/Z opponents. The popularity of 3OC openings is as it provides better eco defense than a PF and at the same time is the straight way into offense and putting that much economical pressure on your opponent that he has no choice but macro up as much as possible himself or kill you with an all-in, but barely anything in between. (just to make it clear: sure there are few things inbetween but those will get more with the removal).

In lategames with mule economies it is even worse at some points. Killing economy means exchanging your time, supply and cost intensive units vs. mules = free, supplyless, respawning units. It is like fighting against locusts.
Polis
Profile Joined January 2005
Poland1292 Posts
August 26 2015 09:59 GMT
#175
I am mostly a sc:bw player, and I did watch mostly sc:bw. In bw even the best players couldn't micro without loosing on they macro, you had to know where you can go back to your base to macro, you had to predict how the fight go for the next few sec and go back to base when you could afford it. This was the big part of what had made BW interesting, if you can do almost all macro by just using your keyboard you loose important part of the game.
cheekymonkey
Profile Joined January 2014
France1387 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 11:43:16
August 26 2015 11:41 GMT
#176
On August 26 2015 09:19 LSN wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.


Now what can I tell you to drop this false belief?

The extreme example:
Harrassment on a 3 nexus protoss drops him to 0 probes. Restarting with probe 3, 6, 9, ... (chronoboosted)
Harrassment on a 3 OC terran drops him to 0 SCV. Restarting with 3 mules (= 12 SCVs? 15 SCVs? whatever) + SCV 3, 6, 9, .... (non chronoboosted)

It is simple math to scale this up to the amount of workers that you like. The advantage will stay but get negligible at higher numbers of existing workers.

At the early game, tho, the mule mechanic is defining and deceicive for the metagame and thus for the viable strategies that P/Z can go with. Mules are clearly narrowing the strategical diversity of P/Z in early game in the respective matchups. As limited strategical diversity (roughly said: either fully commit on an all-in or macro up to 200/200 and try to commit as few as possible on attacking/harrassing the terran eco but fight his army and only harras his eco when you are in minimum risk/commitment situations) is not only boring to play and watch and highly repetitive but also reduces the amount of different scenarios a player can exerience and has to learn to deal with on both sides. This makes it easier to undersand the metagames and the potential options of the respective matchups for lower skill players while higher skill players get strategically underchallanged and bored with always ending up in same or very similar scenarios. Therefore it is very true to say that mules (as well as the macro mechanics of the other races for different reasons) reduce the skill cap in the respective matchups, make SC2 more casual and are overall detrimental to the game (notice: I am not talking about hots balance here but about game design).

Additional aspects:
- You can completely circumvent the mule mechanic by all-ining the terran. It is basically enforcing a coinflip where you either lose or win and mules don't matter anymore. ->
- When harrassing the terran eco early to mid and manage to kill several SCVs at the cost of own probes/drones or at the cost of an own earlier additional expansion, then you also increase the %-impact of mules on the total economy of your opponent. This is something that you don't want to do usually. You usually only do it when you don't have to commit own growth on it.


Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 08:28 nottapro wrote:
On August 26 2015 05:51 LSN wrote:
On August 26 2015 03:57 Ignorant prodigy wrote:
This IMO makes comebacks even harder....

also w/o mules harassment on terran is much more substantial. how many games have you heard a caster say (he's down # workers but he has 2 orbitals so he's fine)
This means successful harassment is rewarded greater in given matchups

zergs can't just make a huge round of drones and be fine because larva are a precious commodity now
Protoss can't just chrono out probes instead of other things when behind
And terrans can't drop the mule hammer to make a comeback

.There is a very limited amount of scenarios where these mechanics allow you to come back in reality. In 95% of cases they simply serve as advantage accelerators.



This should be obvious to people... but I get the feeling that most people who are against removing the macro-mechanics aren't interested analysizing why they are bad.


Yes! Not only that. They also argue with wrong facts!


Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.


This is not about whining and it is not about balance. It is about what is true and what is false.



Dropping down to 0 workers from harassment is completely unrealistic. Yes, mules are effective in base-trade scenarios, but this has nothing to do with the opinion that harassing Terran is less effective than harassing protoss. Rather compare losing 1-10 workers.
cheekymonkey
Profile Joined January 2014
France1387 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-08-26 11:48:53
August 26 2015 11:47 GMT
#177
On August 26 2015 12:26 CursOr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.

False.

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.

Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.

That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran


This is kind of a ridiculous comparison. Zerg on 50 drones and Terran on 50 SCV's is not a comparable scenario, Terran is ahead here if they are even on army. Zerg generally have more drones than Terran have SCV's.
AbouSV
Profile Joined October 2014
Germany1278 Posts
August 26 2015 11:51 GMT
#178
On August 26 2015 16:41 LSN wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 16:39 AbouSV wrote:
On August 26 2015 12:26 CursOr wrote:
On August 26 2015 09:16 Charoisaur wrote:
On August 26 2015 07:56 cheekymonkey wrote:
The idea that a terran is not punished as badly as other races by harrassment is nonsensical. Terran losing 4 scvs or Protoss losing 4 probes has exactly the same economic impact, mules or not. Mules generate a fixed income regardless of how many scvs you have.

exactly. so many people don't understand how mules work and still whine about them. Considering how often this has been explained I think those people just don't want to listen.

False.

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.

Terran has 50 scvs, loses 4. Does not lose 8% income, because that "fixed" income mules are providing is, lets say, 20% of their income. They only lose something like 5 or 6% from the scv losses.

That fixed amount mules ALWAYS provide is exactly why SCV's don't matter as much to Terran


Yes it does, you are right.
Which is why you cannot say: 'Terran has 50 SCVs' without counting the mules in them. This gives:
Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs (44 SCVs + 2 mules or whatever), loses 4. Terran loses 8% income.

Or

Zerg has 50 drones, loses 4. Zerg loses 8% income.
Terran has 50 scvs 2 mules loses 4. Terran loses 7.1% income, but he was already a bit ahead.


On high worker numbers this is true, on low numbers mules will give the advantage. In early game decision making therefore mules have a huge impact on chosen and viable strategies of P/Z opponents. The popularity of 3OC openings is as it provides better eco defense than a PF and at the same time is the straight way into offense and putting that much economical pressure on your opponent that he has no choice but macro up as much as possible himself or kill you with an all-in, but barely anything in between. (just to make it clear: sure there are few things inbetween but those will get more with the removal).

In lategames with mule economies it is even worse at some points. Killing economy means exchanging your time, supply and cost intensive units vs. mules = free, supplyless, respawning units. It is like fighting against locusts.


I get you point.
My post was mainly to react on the given example, that -as the stand alone it was- was too biased.
Cascade
Profile Blog Joined March 2006
Australia5405 Posts
August 26 2015 12:46 GMT
#179
In the end I guess it is all about which part of sc2 you like to be more challenging, macro or micro.

A lot of people (including qxc) come in and say "Sc2 is all about m[a/i]cro!", "the interesting part of sc2 is m[a/i]cro" and so on, but it is close to impossible to make those statements into more than a personal preference I feel. Yeah, people talk about micro being more visible to an observer, macro is what separates sc2 from other games and so on, but neither are really defining properties of micro or macro. In the sense that it is possible to make macro more visible, and it is possible to have sc2 micro that separates it from other games.

I almost feel that instead of trying to argue the perceived shortcomings of m[a/i]cro, maybe we should think about how to address these shortcomings across the game, be it in m[a/i]cro or m[i/a]cro or other areas. How can we make skill be more visible (whatever that skill may be) and how can we make sc2 into a more unique game (in any aspect).
Cloak
Profile Joined October 2009
United States816 Posts
August 26 2015 17:28 GMT
#180
On August 26 2015 16:13 LSN wrote:
Show nested quote +
On August 26 2015 10:57 Cloak wrote:
Macro boosters can be advantage accelerators, but the major three macro mechanics at least satisfy the criteria that there is diminishing return, contingent on the saturation of a base, and diminishing return contingent on the effective worker cap. So, not necessarily will a macrobooster to a behind player be equal to a macrobooster to an ahead player.




expected this one:

1. Inject yes, chrono yes, mules no!

2. lets pick injects as an example: with removal of 2 larva it takes little longer to get back to temp/global income cap but I'd strongly assume this is proportional to the reduced ability of your opponent to pull ahead in the same time with its army size. So it is basically a matter of general slowed down game pace, the scaling applies to both players, not only to the player who took damage on his eco. Taking that into account I see better recovery potential with lowered larva count still as in a ZvZ took damage in 3 hatch scenario there will be 6 less drones per inject cycle to recover with but also e.g. 6 less lets say roaches that stand against you in the next fight that might put you behind again.


1. I will admit that the Mule barely makes it because it's a difference of relative impact, as an economy grows larger so does the fixed income bonus become less % of the pie. Also, having a fixed basal mineral income rate irrespective of worker count has its own benefits, mostly in worker genocides and cash grab expansions. I have railed enough against Injects and Mules to make my intentions clear they could be better developed.

2. Inject will favor the one with a lower drone count over the one with a higher drone count. Not only in relative impact, but also the additional drones of the behind player will be less susceptible to saturation DRs. You are right that dealing with less numbers across the board will extend comeback time, but that doesn't necessarily preclude one from using macro mechanics, just an argument of scale. I think we've moved past that point since we acknowledged just how potent Inject was pre-removal.

So instead of just theory posturing, I've been thinking about Zerg and Terran ideas. Zerg is about DNA and isolating strains, so perhaps special drones can be produced periodically, such that their building is faster and their harvesting is faster, both gas and mineral. They would be prime targets for harass, and rare enough that it doesn't break the game. Another idea for Zerg is focusing on the larva themselves for unit design. Perhaps Larvae being able to migrate in some form? The Zerg Warpgate? But they run the risk of leaving larvae and eggs exposed.

For Terran, I've always wanted to expound upon their structure based macro style. Tech Lab, Reactor, OC, PF. Perhaps some structure system can be designed aside from Tech Lab/Reactor that eases production switches more. The Mule can return for spot repairs and possibly superimposed building help, and of course, Manner Mules.
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