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Oh, it seems that I got late to the party! But anyhow let me take a jab at it anyways, these are the kind of questions that males me wish I worked at Blizz so I could chat all day with other level designers there.
To first get to the core of it we have to understand the words we will be using and the context these words sprout out from; a Natural expansion is as the name implies: "A expansion that it is only Natural to take given a choicebtween different bases". Now in today's StarCraft maps that phrase may not make much sense, because we already have easy to hold bases near our mains, but the word is old, and it sprouted from the first maps StarCraft 1 had, these maps by design were meant "to create a very visible diversity of playstyles" by doing things like changing the number of total of mineral patches available to the players, or creating big landmarks in the terrain which would then be exploited by players so they would gain an advantage over their opponent by doing so. And here I'm talking of maps such as:
As you can see the maps have places which can be easily exploited in very spectator visible moves for huge gains, on top of the resources for the players be limited.
OP as you can clearly see from the thread, there are many opinions of why maps "need" to have Naturals, they range from "Balance", to "Macro", but the reality is that SC2 is a complex game, and on top of that this lies with user preferences and taste, some people might enjoy playing in Elysium or Arid Plateau forever, but here lies the dilema, a considerable percentage of players will not, and the reasons for that are as varied raging from Metagame development to simply visual boredom and dislike of tilesets. Other even bigger point lies in that even when maps with a limited amount of bases force players to act and be aggressive in search of resources the ways they generate that aggression are limited by the rate of Metagame development, which means that in a Nash Equilibrium players will not have all their options available to them because a big percentage of these options are not viable ones, usually this means that players will be limited to 2 to 3 different strategies per MU at each Metagame timeframe.
One good rule of thumb regarding the way the economy works in StarCraft 2 as well as it does in SC1 is that for each single base you have you can add another arm or branch to your overall strategy, a single base will not give you all the resources you need to get Muta+Hidra/Roach+Ultra+Broodlord at the same time, for that you will need at least 4 to 5 bases worth of (mostly gas) income. And here is where the crash happens, if you want to do something special that branches out from the Meta dictated by the map's non-economic features then you need resources, but if you don't have the extra bit of resources necessary to afford you to branch out then the map will have a very limited Metagame expectancy life, that means that the time the Metagame will develop in the map will be very limited. And when that happens, the map will lose its appeal to that considerable percentage of the population that thrives in the ever changing Meta to keep themselves entertained.
These are the basic reasons why maps with limited resources+very strong map features tend to fare poorly in environments where it is expected of them to last for long gameplay seasons. On top of that we have other more complex things like Income Differential caused by losing Bases, Worker Pairing, DPS density, Unit Efficiency (stats wise), or even the games' UI, not to even talk about Blizzard's itself with his Ladder constrains, which heavily hinder map design.
Anyways, OP, I hope to not come out arrogant by what I wrote , which happens to me when I write stuff sometimes, or at least I have been told so, but if that is the case, I have to blame the internet that stripes away any nuance and feel from the words and such, but anyhow, as a shameless plug OP, if you enjoy playing on older more nonstandard anc curious maps, know that I and other mapmakers have done ports of many BroodWar classics, I'm sure you will be happy to know that I just finished porting Full Circle!
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On March 09 2016 23:52 Eternal Dalek wrote:
At first the discussion was nice, but it looks like a lot of people actually haven't read the OP, and just replied directly to the thread title. I never said natural expansions should be removed. I was simply asking how Starcraft evolved into its current state, where your second base is free compared to other RTS games, including older versions of Starcraft.
To clarify things, I'm not against natural expansions, or even free expansions (which is really what I don't like), as long as there's some variety in the map pool where some maps favor early rushes while others favor greedy economic plays. The problem is that compared to all other RTS games I've played, including early versions of this game, Starcraft 2 bases are essentially free. They're trivially easy to defend compared to other games, including Warcraft 3 (Blizzard's previous RTS).
Also, it seems that I've been conflating pocket expansions with natural expansions. Natural expansions are simply the closest expansion, while pocket expansions are those which are easy to defend. However, the way the game has evolved, the natural expansions of today are almost as easy to hold as the pocket expansions of yesterday.
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Warning, baseless speculation follows:
Until very recently, Valve has ignored the competitive aspect of TF2, and as a result, each league imposed its own rules. However, to prevent the esports community from being split, the various leagues stuck to item bans and competitive maps; none of them changed how the game worked because the inability to force consensus would split the community and kill off the scene.
Was the move to Lost Temple due to the inability and unwillingness to change ingame stats? Did something similar happen to early SC1 esports? It seems to me that Blizzard had a more hands-off approach to balance patches compared to SC2, and patches were few and far between and focused mostly on technical issues. It seems to me that the community, unable and unwilling to mod the game to make the necessary balance changes, instead focused on making maps that allowed for the three races to work.
I speculate that had Blizzard been more active in SC1 development instead of leaving it in the hands of Kespa, which didn't have enough clout to change the game (the balance changes would've been rejected by other leagues and even casual players and spectators), maybe we would've had a radically different game where starting locations don't need chokepoints to prevent an automatic Zerg victory, where island maps would still exist because Zerg wouldn't automatically lose on them, and so on.
Just because there were a few, it doesnt mean they worked.
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Short answer: the races are not balanced without it. Zerg is too strong in open maps.
At the beginning of WoL maps were more open. You had natural expansions but they were much more open and harder to defend. Blizzard has 2 options when balancing, they can balance the race or adjust the maps and I think what happened early on was that Zerg might have been over-powered and so entrances to naturals, and even mains, were squeezed. Then when Blizzard tried to introduce more wide open maps there would be huge outcry in forums, even formal posts here on Teamliquid (can't remember the specific map).
Not sure I agree with comments saying that it leads to more divergent play. It discourages early pressure in favour of mid-late game. Obviously there are more options associated with mid-late game.
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I feel like this is a trick question
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why do natural expansions exist?
It really comes down to the community preferences, back when WoL started one base play was common but it was considered frustrating and was often luck based. Either the rush came way too fast to scout or it was possible to deny scouting at the necessary time. This kind of play is still possible but the game evolved against that.
Why do Starcraft players get a freebie expansion that's a no-brainer to defend?
In most maps. Starcraft evolved into a game of constant expanding, if the natural (that doubles the economy when fully saturated) is not safe this cannot happen. Its really a design decision, you can still rush from two bases. There is no reason to not call it a rush merely because you expanded, its an all in, it hits fast.
Why is it okay for town hall first builds (CC first, Nexus first, Hatchery first) to exist?
Why it would not be ok? you need a reason to not allow them to exist.
Why aren't there any maps where a one-base build is viable, and taking a second base is not guaranteed?
The maps must follow a certain set of rules to be balanced. The game was balanced around a small ramp on the main base, a safe natural, two gas in each base, etc. Its possible to diverge from that but too much and its bound to be unfair. You can play custom games on imbalanced maps but the community wants a balanced ladder and is quite vocal about it.
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On March 10 2016 11:49 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2016 11:11 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
It was a slow development in competitive Starcraft that lead to this, it wasn't just the maps changed and suddenly everyone fast expanded. Rather, for a very long time you had zerg opening with mostly fast expand builds, while terran and protoss would open with various 1 base builds into either trying to kill the opponent or pressure into a slower expansion (all the different 2 gate variations pvz, with various levels of commitment to the rush).
Slowly, presumably as the other side got better at defending, people started expanding faster and faster themselves, until finally both sides were mostly fast expanding while mixing in all-ins etc. Even as someone who had liked the forge first expansions and no-gate nexus builds in BW before they were even popular, I remember being a bit sad when the 1 gate/corsair/dt/expansion builds died (and became forge first nexus -> corsair -> dt instead :D) because it was a really fun way of playing with a ton of finesse.
I don't, however, think that this is a problem that should be solved by removing natural expansions. It's like how in Go most of the early game is spent securing territory and extending along the sides, you don't hear people complain that this is the superior way of playing (generally) to opening in the middle of the board. It's just part of what makes the game what it is.
Island maps were fun tho, if really hard to balance (zerg's reliance on an expansion). SC1? What the hell? Just refer to it as BW BeStFAN. Few play Vanilla SC nowadays. As for you FA, island maps in BW were so imbalanced >_<
brood war is starcraft 1: brood war. it's an expansion pack for starcraft 1. lol
only the most insane, hysterical bw nostalgic would complain about someone calling it sc1 when WOL, HOTS and LOTV are all "sc2"
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In all matchups there are still ways to counter nexus/hatch/cc first (although they have to be done blindly).
Additionally a race like Zerg is not really viable on 1 base but needs at the very least the 2nd base (due to the way its production works) to open up any kind of options.
I also think the game would become stale rather quickly if it was a lot more difficult for races to secure enough economy to open up more tech than tier 1.
Its an interesting question but the way the game works out right now I think it would be really boring if players were forced to tech/produce units on 1 base.
In a player perspective, as a zerg player I hate maps where im forced to do a 2 base build (maps where trying to take a third in a timing that would be feasible is not an option, like the 2 GSL maps for example) because it highly limits my options and forces me to either a) nydus or b) muta opening.
I can only imagine that a "1base map" would limit my options even more.
Essentially it would just force units being made before taking the initial expansion and make the game slower than needed?
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interesting post... thanks for taking the time to make it.
On March 09 2016 07:07 Eternal Dalek wrote:
In most RTS games, you cannot get away with expanding before training a few military units first.
In C&C-style games, creating an extra harvestery or refinery is a huge investment: 1400 for a new harvester, or 2000 for a new refinery (which comes with a free harvester, so it's only 600 credits). Basic infantry in C&C games cost 100 credits, so this would be the equivalent of Starcraft workers costing 350 minerals each.
very early expands occurred in RA3.
you mentioned you started with RA1. Well, in RA3 .. 3 Refinery openings happened at all levels of play. They were not predominant but they happened. Most good players had a 3-Refinery opener in their repetoire. There was one crazy mofo from Finland who could beat top players with 1-refinery openings into very, very early aggression. i use the term crazy affectionately. to conclude, RA3 could open with 1 player attempting to secure TRIPLE the economic output of their opponent.
if RA3 had Blizzard level of support i'd still be playing it today because the core game play is a bit more fun than SC2.
On March 10 2016 20:28 Superbanana wrote:
why do natural expansions exist?
It really comes down to the community preferences, back when WoL started one base play was common but it was considered frustrating and was often luck based. Either the rush came way too fast to scout or it was possible to deny scouting at the necessary time. This kind of play is still possible but the game evolved against that.
remember SjoW's no-scout, 1-base deathball timings 
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On March 10 2016 15:56 Uvantak wrote:
Anyways, OP, I hope to not come out arrogant by what I wrote , which happens to me when I write stuff sometimes, or at least I have been told so, but if that is the case, I have to blame the internet that stripes away any nuance and feel from the words and such, but anyhow, as a shameless plug OP, if you enjoy playing on older more nonstandard anc curious maps, know that I and other mapmakers have done ports of many BroodWar classics, I'm sure you will be happy to know that I just finished porting Full Circle!
Oh, not at all, man. This was the type of detailed answer i was looking for. I really was right when I said that the maps have changed dramatically since I stopped playing in around 2001 to when I learned about the SC1 scene in South Korea in 2005. Because I was used to the old maps, and because I had seen the old maps in the first place, map aspects that people took for granted in 2005 and even today seem out of place to me.
What I'm getting from your reply is that the game slowly evolved into being more spectator-friendly: larger maps, more bases, larger armies, etc. I favor RTS games with limited resources, and the seemingly unlimited stream of minerals and gas in SC2 feels jarring to me.
Another thing I'm getting from your post is that the community wanted a larger variety of strategies to be viable on each map. I didn't think to consider that I was fine with having a limited number of strategies per map, as long as there was a larger variety of strategies in the overall map pool. Island maps pretty much limit what you can do in the early game, which means that it was bad from a spectator/early SC1 esports community perspective, but okay from my perspective since it forced you to do something different than on other maps.
To sum it from, from my POV, the maps are stale because they allow for the same general strategies to be used on all of them. I prefer a map pool where a different strategy is required for each map. From the esports community's perspective, the maps are good for the same reasons that I dislike them, and the varied map pool that appeals to me is bad for the same reasons that I like them.
It's a matter of diversity of strategies on each map, vs. diersity of strategies on the overall map pool.
Thank you for posting this. I now have a much better understanding of the current mapmaking philosophy of Starcraft.
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8748 Posts
Natural expansions are the way for SC to strike the right balance between the three basic investment paths: army, technology, economy. If there wasn't a natural expansion, then the only way to invest in economy less would be choosing to make fewer gatherers, which produces less diversity than the base-building mechanic. And if expanding early does not get some assistance from a choke point to the main and some protective terrain around the expansion, then other interactions become corrupt and the game becomes simpler.
I think you might be thinking of RTS game design in the wrong order. The goal is to have tension between all the strategic choices and all the stylistic choices. When that tension is absent, you want the gameplay available at that moment to be fun and challenging. SC has some basic tenets on where it wants there to be tension between choices and what it considers fun and challenging gameplay and then works from there to design the units, tech, econ and maps. If you try to create more tension somewhere, it's very likely to reduce tension somewhere else. SC has been successful because it has tension in the right spots and its formula has a lot of tension overall. And when there aren't significant choices to be made, you still have units that are fun to control and a healthy battlefield for them to use. Another game may have tension somewhere SC does not, but there's no simple tweaking to be done to add that into SC without losing something else.
A short answer is that having no natural expansions would result in a ton of strategies not working in competitive play and the game would become simpler, not freed by having no obligation toward a natural expansion. Players who do not 100% play to win, or are just not very good, might enjoy this freedom as neither of them do the things that'd invalidate the other's strategy.
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Natural expansions are the way for SC to strike the right balance between the three basic investment paths: army, technology, economy. If there wasn't a natural expansion, then the only way to invest in economy less would be choosing to make fewer gatherers, which produces less diversity than the base-building mechanic. And if expanding early does not get some assistance from a choke point to the main and some protective terrain around the expansion, then other interactions become corrupt and the game becomes simpler.
When 90% of all viable build orders involve fast expands (with very small variations), it should be clear that the current format doesn't actually reward strategy diversity from the get go. Rather the question seems to be when you should get your 3rd. As it is now, it would make more sense if there were 50-75% more mineral patches in the main and then the first expansion you take should be difficult to secure.
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8748 Posts
On March 11 2016 01:05 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Natural expansions are the way for SC to strike the right balance between the three basic investment paths: army, technology, economy. If there wasn't a natural expansion, then the only way to invest in economy less would be choosing to make fewer gatherers, which produces less diversity than the base-building mechanic. And if expanding early does not get some assistance from a choke point to the main and some protective terrain around the expansion, then other interactions become corrupt and the game becomes simpler. When 90% of all viable build orders involve fast expands (with very small variations), it should be clear that the current format doesn't actually reward strategy diversity from the get go. Rather the question seems to be when you should get your 3rd. As it is now, it would make more sense if there were 50-75% more mineral patches in the main and then the first expansion you take should be difficult to secure.
90% of strategies do not lose their viability when you alter the build order to stay on one base a little longer for whatever reason (safety against enemy early pressure, put on your own early pressure, mind games, etc). This can be seen pretty clearly in the PvP matchup, for example, where fast expand is a popular build but staying on one base for a bit is not that uncommon, and when the two face each other, the one base build is able to even things out with pressure or outright kill the fast expander. Of course, the fast expander is also able to come out ahead in some cases as well -- it's pretty balanced. If you watch all the pro PvP games over the last few months you'll see players choosing to not fast expand on every map.
I don't think you're giving a fair evaluation to the different options players have. Something has to be the standard way to play. Most players prefer finding a way to gain an advantage or win in the mid or late game so they play the early game conservatively. So most games do not have diversity early on and it's the fast expand build that is the default way for players not interested in the early game to play the early game.
It's very hard for a pro player to be consistently successful with aggressive early game play because early game options are limited by the low amount of resources and technology available that early in the game. With fewer options, they're more predictable. But to the extent that an RTS can have tension between investing in tech or army or econ from the start, SC does a good job.
Anyway, I don't think the question was specifically about LotV and the last few months of play. It's true that LotV has made fast expand feel like the normal course of action for Protoss and Terran more than ever before because of the increase in workers at spawn and increase in supply and decrease in minerals per patch. Despite all that, we still see one base all-ins and a number of one base pressure into expand build orders. And nearly any mid game or late game strat can have its build order modified to begin with some early game pressure instead of rushing to invest in a two or three base economy. The game is still very fluid in the sense that any build order can suspend its long term goals at any time in order to make a move on the enemy and that starts before the very first expansion.
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This can be seen pretty clearly in the PvP matchup, for example, where fast expand is a popular build but staying on one base for a bit is not that uncommon, and when the two face each other, the one base build is able to even things out with pressure or outright kill the fast expander. Of course, the fast expander is also able to come out ahead in some cases as well -- it's pretty balanced. If you watch all the pro PvP games over the last few months you'll see players choosing to not fast expand on every map.
If you watch Terran on any map except ulreana, all they do (and their opponent) is to fast expan In terms of design, the objective should be to figure out how we can get the players to make as many essential decisions as soon as possible.
And in that regard, I don't believe its a super essential decision whether a terran goes for reaper or reactor expand. That's the type of difference that most casters (and casual players) won't notice and instead talk about pokemon or ask about what games Artosis has played recently.
Thus, I believe that players from the get-go in all of the matchups should start with 3 different types of decisions:
1. Economy?
2. Tech?
3. Or Army?
Each one of them should ofc have multiple variations.
Something has to be the standard way to play.
Why? From my perspective, it's only a consequence of suboptimal game decision if that's the case.
Most players prefer finding a way to gain an advantage or win in the mid or late game so they play the early game conservatively.
Well usually early game is so luckbased as there is little mechanics involved over a controlling a small army. Hence what if production was much faster from the get-go? Or what if most early types of aggression was more harassbased than all-in/timing attack related?
The point being is that if the very early game doesn't have interesting mechanics or decisions, its not an ideal way of desigining the game.
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On March 09 2016 07:07 Eternal Dalek wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I've been playing RTS games for a while. I started in around 1997, with Command & Conquer: Red Alert. I've played many different types of RTS games, and I've seen many companies known for RTS games die, leaving only one real RTS developer: Blizzard. Essentially, I've seen RTS done so many ways that I'm more open to gameplay elements that would be unacceptable in SC2. I stopped playing Starcraft 1 in around 2001. That was before the rise of Starcraft in South Korea. I was completely ignorant of Starcraft esports until around late 2005. + Show Spoiler + That year, Age of Empires 3 was released, and the best player then was iamgrunt (I am Grunt). I actually ran into him on the ladder and got completely crushed. Running into a South Korean progamer on the ladder made me curious, and I discovered that Starcraft had somehow grown into a legitimate sport that was played in actual sports stadiums.
Perhaps the most shocking thing to me, as a player, was that the game I played in high school was completely different from what I was seeing on stream. Island maps were gone, there were no team games, and everyone started with a free expansion, known as a natural expansion in SC2 slang. The last one was what I found most disconcerting.
In most RTS games, you cannot get away with expanding before training a few military units first.
In Warcraft 3, for example, all expansions are guarded by neutral creeps who will kill your worker if you try to expand without killing them first.
In C&C-style games, creating an extra harvestery or refinery is a huge investment: 1400 for a new harvester, or 2000 for a new refinery (which comes with a free harvester, so it's only 600 credits). Basic infantry in C&C games cost 100 credits, so this would be the equivalent of Starcraft workers costing 350 minerals each.
And finally, in Age of Empires, resources are all outside your base. There are buildings which generate unlimited resources, but they are very inefficient compared to resources outside your base (they're safer since you can build them in your base, but they produce much less than going out and taking map resources.
From my perspective as a longtime RTS player, it feels like the no rush 20 minutes crowd are now in charge of the game. All builds are some variant of Boom, with Rush and Tech/Turtle builds being completely nonviable (generally, Tech gets pwned by Boom, and Boom is so strong in SC2 that Rush can't keep it in check).
Anyway, my main question is why do natural expansions exist? Why do Starcraft players get a freebie expansion that's a no-brainer to defend? Why is it okay for town hall first builds (CC first, Nexus first, Hatchery first) to exist? Why aren't there any maps where a one-base build is viable, and taking a second base is not guaranteed? Why are Starcraft maps so big?
I'm sorry that your 4v4 and FFA styles sucked and you didn't learn the game despite playing it for longer than most korean progamers have been alive, but you are really a douche.
The fact that people in this thread give you good reasons and explanations and you choose to ignore the key points and argue shows that literally you are just being a douche. This isn't a legit thread with a legit question and you want people to not say you are dumb, is just dumb.
You really want nearly every game 1 base vs 1 base, where its nearly impossible to tell who the better player is and you get less compositions and risk? One of the best things about LOTV is the majority of games never hit max supply (one of the things that happened in hots) and you aren't only 1 base against 1 base every game (4 gate vs 4 gate wol). There is more risk from constantly expanding and not just deathballing in boring safe slow games. This whole thread is a joke from you...... All your posts are just whines that you don't get retarded maps and things that don't allow the better players to differentiate their skill..
Why you get attention for how naive and completely ignorant you are and how limited you want the game to be is beyond me. Fact:You don't even watch the competitive scene to see 1 base builds winning games from major, has, etc. Fact:You don't even play the game well and you don't follow the scene. Fact:Unlike other people, you need a guide to tell you how to do everything in the game that's why you are asking for them. Just watch some pro matches and watch the one base build that win. Fact: some 1 base builds-14/14, lings drops, proxy void, proxy widow mine drops, tanks, proxy 3 gate. Proxy robo/Mocore. They exist, you just are too lazy to look for them and to work on your 1 base execution to punish the opponents.
I don't see why you are making the argument that you want the better player to be cheesed out by a lesser one on a regular basis for trying to make the game more interesting and complex and doing more with the maps. I'm sorry that you are so set on island maps... But there is legitimately something wrong with your claims, serious misunderstanding of how the game works, and lack of evidence, plus ignoring many facts. I don't see how with your replies you don't expect people to be condescending. For the sake of continuing with the retardedness and naivity here's a look at your post history.
+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2016 10:01 Eternal Dalek wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2016 09:26 blade55555 wrote:
Actually Blizzard did try your approach for too long. It made sc2 a horrible game and a lot less fun. At first it was fun and ok because the whole game was new. Then it was just 1 base all day everyday which ruined the game. They tried experimentation that failed and just made the game not as fun. Close positions metalopolis, steppes of war, etc.
That is why the maps are designed the way they are, the provide the most strategies and a lot more fun then staying on 1 base forever.
What they should have done however, is have 2 separate ladder systems. The competitive ladder system with Tournament maps only and a Casual ladder system with funky maps such as island maps, 1 base, etc. That would have been a good decision imo as I know a lot of casual players prefer those kind of things.
None of those qualify as "drastic" in my book. When I say drastic, I mean changes that completely change how the game works. + Show Spoiler + The last drastic change I remember that was received well by the community was the complete removal of macro boosters in the LotV beta. For the first time in many years, we had a clearly-defined early game, mid game, and late game. Building units first wasn't an automatic loss. Expanding first was actually risky and not easily held off by what few units you had when the enemy came knocking on your door.
One of the earliest and most drastic changes I encountered in Starcraft 1 was in 1.02, when Photon Cannons were changed from explosive damage to normal damage. Suddenly, Photon Cannons could now hold off early game infantry instead being dead weight. This simple change doubled the amount of DPS cannons dealt to zerglings, marines, and zealots.
A drastic change I'd like to see would be a rework of zerglings so maps no longer require mandatory chokepoints so that Zerg doesn't automatically win. Some maps should have the aforementioned chokepoints, but not all of them should have it, and the natural expansions that always come with them.
I also really miss island maps. If you read old, old strategy guides and forums back in the day, people talked about Terran's easy access to expansions on island maps as a real advantage. That was what the flying buildings were made for; in fact, in one mission, you started with your buildings in space and had to land on a space station and take over the place.
Anyway, to the other poster in this thread. It's good to hear that King David is open to different types of maps. It's been a long time since I've seen anything other than the standard SC2 map. On September 03 2015 08:13 Eternal Dalek wrote:
Guys, the skill floor is not being raised. It is being lowered.
Things that raise the skill floor: No multiple building selection, 12 unit selected maximum, no automine, poor pathfinding.
Things that lower the skill floor: MBS, unlimited unit selection, automine, auto-inject, auto-MULE, permanent chronoboost, etc.
Starcraft is a high skill floor, high skill ceiling game. Not everyone can play Starcraft, and very few of those will reach the top.
Chess and Go/Baduk are low skill floor, high skill ceiling games. Virtually anyone can play these games, but very few will reach the top. Saying that mechanical issues make the game high skill ceiling lol. (fighting the engine does not make the game more fun or have a higher skill ceiling.) On February 08 2015 12:40 Eternal Dalek wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I've been quiet on this thread because I'm waiting for the FPS fix. Once the game is more optimized, I can actually do a Let's Play of this game at max settings.
Also, low concurrent player count is not that big of a deal when you look at what this game's target audience is. I mean it's pretty low, lower than I expected, but do note that a lot of people don't play games every day, and those that do sometimes don't play the same game every day. And finally, this game can be played offline; in fact, one of their high priority fixes in the latest patch was for offline play; apparently, it was saving games to the Steam Cloud by default and didn't allow offline players to properly save games.
I will admit that there are many things that hurt this game's player count:
1. The high price. USD 49.99 is a bit too much. I actually got this game from G2A for USD 35.32, which is a much more acceptable price.
2. Lack of a commentator community due to lack of replays and observer mode. Part of what sustains older RTS games are YouTube commentators. Even ded gaems like Age of Empires 3 and Kane's Wrath can scrounge up over USD 1000+ in prize money due to their active YouTube commentator community.
3. Inability to share and analyze strategies (again, thanks to the lack of replays/obs). Destiny and Huk are excellent Starcraft 2 players but when I last watched them play, they were terrible at Grey Goo. They built way too many refineries, or they kept their armies in one big deathball (a very bad idea in Grey Goo due to the insanely powerful artillery). Also, they were trying too hard to micro their one single deathball instead of launching multiple simultaneous attacks all over the map. Basically, they were playing Grey Goo like Starcraft 2, and made the game look like a skill-less spamfest. If we could easily share gameplay footage (replays), then we'd be able to share how to properly play the game more easily.
4. Poor performance on high end systems. The game performs poorly despite not using even half of a high-end CPU or GPU's processing abilities. It seems to severely limit its own hardware usage even on a system which can handle its workload, resulting in poor performance.
Classic RTS games, as mentioned earlier, are niche games. I figure that this game will have a decent enough competitive community to sustain itself for some time. It doesn't have to have Starcraft's hundreds of thousands of concurrent users to have a stable multiplayer community. The fact that there is a classic RTS alternative to Starcraft 2 will hopefully inject some life into this dying genre. Starcraft 2 has stagnated too much because of sheer lack of competition. Saying that huk doesn't understand how rts works or that starcraft lacks competition........... really? Huk played more than a dozen RTS, and could beat you at any of them, because you don't understand them. There is a reason why Huk had incredibly high win rates in grey goo beating all the top players..... On July 18 2012 14:24 Eternal Dalek wrote:
Damn I came here thinking that he died. Well, hire edumacation is difficult but rewarding goal. Good luck! Not cute, not funny...... [B]On November 04 2012 18:54 Eternal Dalek wrote:
Just found this article after not being here for months, and I must say that Destiny is correct. Starcraft 1 for me was 8-player FFAs and continental 4v4s (each team started on their own massive island, their continent, so to speak). The first time I learned about Brood War's Korean scene was in GameReplays.org, when I was playing C&C 3. If I recall correctly, they had just added a Starcraft section, and I was quite surprised to see a "dead" game doing so well.
Anyway, I mostly play team games now: Team Fortress 2, Tribes: Ascend, etc. These games have high skill ceilings but are not so stressful because you can rely on the other 11 or 15 players to cover your weaknesses. I've been thinking of playing DotA 2 for my RTS fix. It's a lot less lonely than Starcraft 2, and it's made by Valve. Two good things in my book. Yep, sorry that you find other games better because you rely on your teammates to win games for you. You sit and bash players and the community and complain that people tell you too much that you have no skill, when you don't have any skill at all.
The game is in a great state, best its ever been. (albeit a few tweaks are needed.) All evidence point to the fact you have no idea what you are talking about, I've done this backed with facts as you requested.................. Literally one of the dumbest people to ever have touched the game and to make thread with question that you completely ignore all the answers to.
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On March 11 2016 02:51 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +This can be seen pretty clearly in the PvP matchup, for example, where fast expand is a popular build but staying on one base for a bit is not that uncommon, and when the two face each other, the one base build is able to even things out with pressure or outright kill the fast expander. Of course, the fast expander is also able to come out ahead in some cases as well -- it's pretty balanced. If you watch all the pro PvP games over the last few months you'll see players choosing to not fast expand on every map. If you watch Terran on any map except ulreana, all they do (and their opponent) is to fast expan In terms of design, the objective should be to figure out how we can get the players to make as many essential decisions as soon as possible. And in that regard, I don't believe its a super essential decision whether a terran goes for reaper or reactor expand. That's the type of difference that most casters (and casual players) won't notice and instead talk about pokemon or ask about what games Artosis has played recently. Thus, I believe that players from the get-go in all of the matchups should start with 3 different types of decisions: 1. Economy? 2. Tech? 3. Or Army? Each one of them should ofc have multiple variations. Why? From my perspective, it's only a consequence of suboptimal game decision if that's the case. Show nested quote +Most players prefer finding a way to gain an advantage or win in the mid or late game so they play the early game conservatively. Well usually early game is so luckbased as there is little mechanics involved over a controlling a small army. Hence what if production was much faster from the get-go? Or what if most early types of aggression was more harassbased than all-in/timing attack related? The point being is that if the very early game doesn't have interesting mechanics or decisions, its not an ideal way of desigining the game.
Standard play is not a design, its an optimization solution. If there are right or wrong decisions, standard play becomes "found" with standard play normally equating to the builds that makes the bang for your buck. It is only a game where decisions don't matter that you don't find standard play.
All strategies are merely tangents or calibrations of standard play. Economic decisions are ones where you sacrifice army/tech for more econ. Technological decisions are ones where you sacrifice econ/army for more tech. Army/Agression focused play is sacrificing econ/tech for a bigger/stronger army. But how you define "sacrifice" is respective to what we call "standard play." (Which itself is very relative)
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On March 11 2016 03:45 Naracs_Duc wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2016 02:51 Hider wrote:This can be seen pretty clearly in the PvP matchup, for example, where fast expand is a popular build but staying on one base for a bit is not that uncommon, and when the two face each other, the one base build is able to even things out with pressure or outright kill the fast expander. Of course, the fast expander is also able to come out ahead in some cases as well -- it's pretty balanced. If you watch all the pro PvP games over the last few months you'll see players choosing to not fast expand on every map. If you watch Terran on any map except ulreana, all they do (and their opponent) is to fast expan In terms of design, the objective should be to figure out how we can get the players to make as many essential decisions as soon as possible. And in that regard, I don't believe its a super essential decision whether a terran goes for reaper or reactor expand. That's the type of difference that most casters (and casual players) won't notice and instead talk about pokemon or ask about what games Artosis has played recently. Thus, I believe that players from the get-go in all of the matchups should start with 3 different types of decisions: 1. Economy? 2. Tech? 3. Or Army? Each one of them should ofc have multiple variations. Something has to be the standard way to play. Why? From my perspective, it's only a consequence of suboptimal game decision if that's the case. Most players prefer finding a way to gain an advantage or win in the mid or late game so they play the early game conservatively. Well usually early game is so luckbased as there is little mechanics involved over a controlling a small army. Hence what if production was much faster from the get-go? Or what if most early types of aggression was more harassbased than all-in/timing attack related? The point being is that if the very early game doesn't have interesting mechanics or decisions, its not an ideal way of desigining the game. Standard play is not a design, its an optimization solution. If there are right or wrong decisions, standard play becomes "found" with standard play normally equating to the builds that makes the bang for your buck. It is only a game where decisions don't matter that you don't find standard play. All strategies are merely tangents or calibrations of standard play. Economic decisions are ones where you sacrifice army/tech for more econ. Technological decisions are ones where you sacrifice econ/army for more tech. Army/Agression focused play is sacrificing econ/tech for a bigger/stronger army. But how you define "sacrifice" is respective to what we call "standard play." (Which itself is very relative)
Not only is there theoretically going to be a standard way to play, but also in reality with players who have limited amount of time to master the various strategies available to them, most people will gravitate toward doing similar things.
Altering something at the start of the game means a player has to rethink all of the decisions they're making for the rest of the game. They can still stay the course of their intended strategy but how the specifically get there step-by-step will be more complex. For example in PvT, if Protoss opens Oracle, both the terran the protoss players need to learn how to play the rest of the game based on whether the oracle lives or dies, whether it gets 0-2 SCV kills, or 3-6 or 7+, or whatever other random interactions it might have. It also updates each player on the other's build order at a time when that otherwise wouldn't happen. One result may unlock a whole new path that otherwise wouldn't have worked, while another result might mean making a small tweak becomes optimal, etc.
The more players play standard, the more they mutually consent to avoiding having their whole gameplans complicated. Players like to work off the existing body of knowledge and tweak small things. Most players who choose to be aggressive early game will have pretty limited game plans, either planning to go all-in for the kill or be very greedy and try to survive. Only if they feel the game has "reset" will they revert to standard play. But they never know enough about how to play the game out as they do for standard ways to play.
Responding to some more of Hider's comments: We'll have to agree to disagree that microing early game armies is mechanically easy. To me, if pros can't consistently do it perfectly, then it's mechanically challenging. As for unraveling or reverse-engineering all of SC's game design to judge if it's accurate for me to say that increasing tension in one area will likely result in decreased tension in another, I'm not up for the challenge.
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Its because the map designers are boring and players want to play Destination every damn game where you can only do 2 builds. There are plenty of design decisions to correct the hard parts for each race.
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On March 10 2016 22:56 Eternal Dalek wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2016 15:56 Uvantak wrote:
Anyways, OP, I hope to not come out arrogant by what I wrote , which happens to me when I write stuff sometimes, or at least I have been told so, but if that is the case, I have to blame the internet that stripes away any nuance and feel from the words and such, but anyhow, as a shameless plug OP, if you enjoy playing on older more nonstandard anc curious maps, know that I and other mapmakers have done ports of many BroodWar classics, I'm sure you will be happy to know that I just finished porting Full Circle!
Oh, not at all, man. This was the type of detailed answer i was looking for. I really was right when I said that the maps have changed dramatically since I stopped playing in around 2001 to when I learned about the SC1 scene in South Korea in 2005. Because I was used to the old maps, and because I had seen the old maps in the first place, map aspects that people took for granted in 2005 and even today seem out of place to me. What I'm getting from your reply is that the game slowly evolved into being more spectator-friendly: larger maps, more bases, larger armies, etc. I favor RTS games with limited resources, and the seemingly unlimited stream of minerals and gas in SC2 feels jarring to me. Another thing I'm getting from your post is that the community wanted a larger variety of strategies to be viable on each map. I didn't think to consider that I was fine with having a limited number of strategies per map, as long as there was a larger variety of strategies in the overall map pool. Island maps pretty much limit what you can do in the early game, which means that it was bad from a spectator/early SC1 esports community perspective, but okay from my perspective since it forced you to do something different than on other maps. To sum it from, from my POV, the maps are stale because they allow for the same general strategies to be used on all of them. I prefer a map pool where a different strategy is required for each map. From the esports community's perspective, the maps are good for the same reasons that I dislike them, and the varied map pool that appeals to me is bad for the same reasons that I like them. It's a matter of diversity of strategies on each map, vs. diersity of strategies on the overall map pool.Thank you for posting this. I now have a much better understanding of the current mapmaking philosophy of Starcraft.
Yeah, pretty much, in modern SC2 mapmaking we are in a phase where we are seeking a balance between both sides, so we don't really directly reduce the strategic diversity of the maps themselves, but we do tweaks as to make sure certain strategies and choices are slightly more dominant than others in certain moments of the game, some of the changes required for that are very tricky, specially regarding Metagame development and Map life expectancy. As I said in the previous post maps with many strong features that limit their own strategic diversity tend to have a shorter lifespan than maps with more bland or nuanced features, and that is not something inherently wrong, but in the current WCS system where maps can stay for very long stretches of time (up to 9 months! [when it works as intended]), it could easily mean that more "non-standard" maps which require a more fast cycling of the map pool could end up being stale or imbalanced once the Meta has settled on them.
This is a very difficult subject because not only we have to deal with both extremes trying to pull us into their own side, but we have the very serious and arbitrary constrains generated by the DevTeam, which seriously hinder what they themselves are trying to do which is to achieve a very visible map variety across the map pool. Not to even talk about the current environment where both Blizzard and the community are not really interested in having a real and in depth discussion about the topic and instead they both choose wherever they feel like it without really hearing the input from the community mapmakers themselves, so yeah, those are some very strong challenges that we need to face
Anyhow, if you want to see more or less where the river flows regarding mapmaking I suggest you to check around in the Blizzard's Contest thread (Beware lots of pics) so you can understand where the community level designers thoughts are going, and if you want you can give some of the maps a go, as far as I know all of them are uploaded to Battle.net. I know that for you even some of these maps will seem to be too macro oriented, but if you strongly feel that way there are lots of some very interesting layouts and BW ports, atm I just finished working on Full Circle, but the next map in the line is Ice Floes. I'm sure you will enjoy the wackiness of it once it is done.
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Wow, nice thread. There is a glimmer of hope after all. It's a small step towards rebuilding our community.
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Standard play is not a design, its an optimization solution. If there are right or wrong decisions, standard play becomes "found" with standard play normally equating to the builds that makes the bang for your buck. It is only a game where decisions don't matter that you don't find standard play.
Optimal design/balance makes sure that there are multiple viable choices each with their own disadvantages and advantages. If there is only one viable choice, why even have the players make the choice in the first place? Just let the AI handle stuff where there is no decisionmaking or interesting mechanics involved.
To sum it from, from my POV, the maps are stale because they allow for the same general strategies to be used on all of them. I prefer a map pool where a different strategy is required for each map.
Problem is that the game-design/balance doesn't allow for that. The gameplay becomes absolutely terrible when you try out weird/different maps.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RNgp1Se.jpg)
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