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I don't know if this idea has been suggested before but...
How about a system where:
- You can select up to 10 buildings at a time
- You cannot simultaneously build the same units from those buildings BUT
- You can use shift-1 through shift-0 to select individual buildings from those group of 10 buildings, and build units from that
so for instance, if you hotkey 10 gateways to "5", you'd press
5
shift-1, z
shift-2, z
shift-3, z
etc...
That way you'd still have to remember to macro but you wouldn't have to switch your screen back to your base as often. Somewhat of a compromise.
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How about if you select five buildings and you want to make five zealots you have to press Z five times. Then if you pressed Z 10 times, each gateway would produce 2 zealots. Just a thought.
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 25 2008 01:46 vusak wrote:
RE: MBS
how about "build penalty time" multiplied by the number of buildings you have SELECTED minus one.
ie.
you have 1 building selected = zero build penalty time
2 selected you have (an example remember) 1x build penalty time = 0.5sec
3 selected you have 2x build penalty time = 1.0sec
4 selected you have 3x build penalty time = 1.5sec
etc. etc.
(so if you click each of your buildings individually and build from them one at a time, you get no penalty)
so if you build your units from multiple sources at once, then each unit takes "build penalty time" longer to finish.
in casual (noob?) games, where players frequently build then attack, then build then attack (not much multitasking) there isnt much difference for the players, if their army takes an extra 3-4 seconds to replenish per unit because likely most players will be using MBS and equalizing the penalty against each other.
meanwhile in pro games, the difference even in 1-2 secs can make a significant difference with min-maxed build orders and timing attacks.
the better the players, the more significant this penalty time would be, while lesser players will hardly notice it.
the goal is that the penalty time emulates how long it might take for many lesser-to-medium players to click each building and select a unit to build.
this also means that pro players will have a natural and strategic macro advantage over lesser players, and the advantage scales with game time, as you build up more resources and production buildings you need to be a better player to make the most of it.
and most importantly, this provides a rewarding bonus to good players that they will notice, while barely making a difference to casual players because they simply arent fast enough to appreciate the difference (atleast until they get better and seek to improve their macro skill).
(oh and if you want an ingame justification - you could claim that MBS represents sending your orders through 'middle management' in the chain of command, so if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.)
RE: AutoMine
1. Make miners lazy - they dont auto mine straight away, instead they wait after being created for 0.25seconds "per miner in sight range". so early in the game when you reach around 8 miners and start building production buildings, choosing tech, rushing/defending..etc. being distracted from your miners is starting to cost you 2+s mining time per miner. (this 'lazy time' could be varied per race, zerg dont build nearly as many miners as the other races for example).
2. Make miners dumb - they auto mine towards the closest patch even if its being mined (they never mine gas automatically) they dont switch to another patch until they actually try to mine that patch, so you atleast have to change your rally point every now and then or else they will approach the nearest (probably occupied) patch and fail to mine it, and then look for another patch. this should cost another 1-2s of mining time per miner.
so in the first 2 minutes of gameplay assuming it takes about 3s to complete a mining trip and roughly 20s to make a miner and you start with 4 miners (that mine at 8 minerals per trip each) you lose around 50 minerals worth through downtime on mining. thats 2 less zerglings to defend or rush with, or maybe you take another 5 seconds before you can build your barracks etc.
obviously as the game continues, this accumulated downtime spread across a couple of expansions can mean the difference between being able to tech faster or having that extra reaver ready etc.
and again, importantly, the difference is really only noticeable for good players, new players will barely notice it, they probably have trouble spending all their resources anyway and will likely have a surplus build up between battles that eclipses the lost mining time penalty. however good players will definitely want the advantage of an extra few units in the early-mid game, and faster tech into the late game.
small differences like these that dont overtly hurt a new player but rather give them explicit game mechanic rewards for improving multitasking skills, while not making them mandatory in games against others around the same skill level.
so a casual player who doesnt really follow build orders strictly, plays money maps, likes to spam a single unit en masse, never even heard of a 'timing attack' will never feel forced into learning the more difficult advanced skills that the pros MUST use because of the knife edge discrimination between winning and losing at high levels.
NOTE: the numbers ive used are just to illustrate by example, i have no idea what the optimum penalty times would be, but people with the stats could work that stuff out.
PS: sorry for the epic meandering post.
That is a really well-thought out idea. I think the idea of penalizing people for using MBS is very interesting, but I feel macro should be kept up by something like warp-in and keeping MBS in, instead of keeping MBS in and then punishing players for using it. I'm hoping that in the end Blizzard will come up with many ways to keep macro important without just adding weird hanicaps to MBS (such as not being able to hotkey buildings or something) or punishing the player with longer build times for using it. Props on the idea though.
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On June 25 2008 01:36 Plexa wrote:
personally i think that the warpgate system (which is often forgotten) is a good step in the right direction
warpgates cannot warp in by MBS last i heard, and had to manually select where to warp in each unit from the warpgate
benefit of warpgates is that there is a reduced build time therefore the player who uses this system will have more units than the player who cannot use the warpgates
i agree and blizzard even said they think it helps with macro. but it's really just one breath of fresh air in a desert sand storm. what other features could there be for the other races? and warp gate alone, while is a step in the right direction, does not put us at the finish line for fulfilling the macro aspect.
if there were lots more features like warp gate, it would defeinitely do a lot for the macro. but my fear is that there really aren't that many features that would satisfy, or that even if there were, that that would be enough of a compensation for MBS. so atm, it seems to me, as beautiful as warp gate is, it seems to be a lone ranger.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 25 2008 04:24 crabapple wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2008 01:36 Plexa wrote:
personally i think that the warpgate system (which is often forgotten) is a good step in the right direction
warpgates cannot warp in by MBS last i heard, and had to manually select where to warp in each unit from the warpgate
benefit of warpgates is that there is a reduced build time therefore the player who uses this system will have more units than the player who cannot use the warpgates i agree and blizzard even said they think it helps with macro. but it's really just one breath of fresh air in a desert sand storm. what other features could there be for the other races? and warp gate alone, while is a step in the right direction, does not put us at the finish line for fulfilling the macro aspect. if there were lots more features like warp gate, it would defeinitely do a lot for the macro. but my fear is that there really aren't that many features that would satisfy, or that even if there were, that that would be enough of a compensation for MBS. so atm, it seems to me, as beautiful as warp gate is, it seems to be a lone ranger. To essentially repeat myself...
Zerg = Same as Sc1
Protoss = Warpgates (main productive facility) option of using lesser gateways if you suck
(MBS on stargates who cares? you build like 6 carriers at a time anyway)
Terran = ??? <-- needs something here
imo its not that big of an issue for any race but terran
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On June 25 2008 00:09 Luddite wrote:
They are programmers, not progamers. Plus, I'm sure they'd be flamed to death if they did actually remove MBS- remember that those of us opposed to MBS are in the minority here against a sea of noobs. Why do people keep saying this implying that progamers and against MBS and only noobs like it? Anyone got a link of any interview actually stating that? Because the few korean progamers interviews that I did read, every single one of them had a "I don't care - makes little difference - let's wait for beta and see" stance on MBS. It has always seemed to me that it's only the C- TL.net players who got addicted to the subject and wanna show off how good they are opposed to the D- noobs who wants an easier game. But the progamers themselves who you often cite could care less about MBS. Why are you guys so addicted to it? Why not just wait to beta?
On June 25 2008 00:09 Luddite wrote:
1)Build more buildings! Increase unit build times, decrease building sizes and costs. Add more tech buildings also. This would force you to spend a lot of time at your base, making buildings.
2)Reduce the number of minerals in most patches, and make a lot of expansion sites on the map. Force players to be constantly expanding, much more so than in BW.
3)Interactive terrain! One of the things that I really like about SC2 is the way the terrain looks. Make it so that workers can build ramps, dig trenches, dam rivers, and push over rocks. This would both open a lot of strategic options, AND it would force you to be constantly controlling your workers to shape the terrain the way you want it.
All off these 1 to 3 can be made by mapping. You can make it yourself if you feel you need it.
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On June 25 2008 04:10 UmmTheHobo wrote:
How about if you select five buildings and you want to make five zealots you have to press Z five times. Then if you pressed Z 10 times, each gateway would produce 2 zealots. Just a thought.
I've thought about this as well. Just cycle to the next non-training building in the group after you've pressed whatever you want to build. If all have queues, just make it select the one with least buildtime for the next unit to start building.
You'd be able to have better control of what you build instead of regular MBS, and it'd reward players that are more careful with their army composition instead of players just randomly mashing the buttons, creating queues of units they don't need.
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all 3 ideas are very stupid.
3.workers building ramps and bridges? Come on...
2.it will only make games last longer and we'll constantly see mined out bases fight which although its interesting to see here and there it will get very boring if every 3rd game is like that!
1.That's totally changing the whole gameplay and balance, better to have no macro than changing the game so much!
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On June 25 2008 04:27 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2008 04:24 crabapple wrote:On June 25 2008 01:36 Plexa wrote:
personally i think that the warpgate system (which is often forgotten) is a good step in the right direction
warpgates cannot warp in by MBS last i heard, and had to manually select where to warp in each unit from the warpgate
benefit of warpgates is that there is a reduced build time therefore the player who uses this system will have more units than the player who cannot use the warpgates i agree and blizzard even said they think it helps with macro. but it's really just one breath of fresh air in a desert sand storm. what other features could there be for the other races? and warp gate alone, while is a step in the right direction, does not put us at the finish line for fulfilling the macro aspect. if there were lots more features like warp gate, it would defeinitely do a lot for the macro. but my fear is that there really aren't that many features that would satisfy, or that even if there were, that that would be enough of a compensation for MBS. so atm, it seems to me, as beautiful as warp gate is, it seems to be a lone ranger. To essentially repeat myself... Zerg = Same as Sc1 Protoss = Warpgates (main productive facility) option of using lesser gateways if you suck (MBS on stargates who cares? you build like 6 carriers at a time anyway) Terran = ??? <-- needs something here imo its not that big of an issue for any race but terran
Don't terrans have those nuclear add ons or w/e so they can produce two units at once from a building or something?
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On June 25 2008 04:35 VIB wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2008 00:09 Luddite wrote:
They are programmers, not progamers. Plus, I'm sure they'd be flamed to death if they did actually remove MBS- remember that those of us opposed to MBS are in the minority here against a sea of noobs. Why do people keep saying this implying that progamers and against MBS and only noobs like it? Anyone got a link of any interview actually stating that? Because the few korean progamers interviews that I did read, every single one of them had a "I don't care - makes little difference - let's wait for beta and see" stance on MBS. It has always seemed to me that it's only the C- TL.net players who got addicted to the subject and wanna show off how good they are opposed to the D- noobs who wants an easier game. But the progamers themselves who you often cite could care less about MBS. Why are you guys so addicted to it? Why not just wait to beta?
Korean progamers haven't really said anything about it, but I'm thinking that may just be good manners and respect. If the progamers were already denouncing SC2 as of now, Blizzard would lose a lot of face. Most Asian cultures value respect. According to Tasteless, most Korean progamers he's talked to have said to him that they think MBS is a bad idea (I could be wrong on this one though).
As for only C- TL.net players angry at D- noobs, that is just a very ignorant and arrogant statement. Many of the top foreign gamers here think MBS is a terrible idea (e.g. IdrA). I would argue that most of us are not addicted, but rather just worried. I think this thread is a step in the right direction (assuming we are going to be in an MBS world).
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On June 25 2008 04:35 VIB wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2008 00:09 Luddite wrote:
They are programmers, not progamers. Plus, I'm sure they'd be flamed to death if they did actually remove MBS- remember that those of us opposed to MBS are in the minority here against a sea of noobs. Why do people keep saying this implying that progamers and against MBS and only noobs like it? Anyone got a link of any interview actually stating that? Because the few korean progamers interviews that I did read, every single one of them had a "I don't care - makes little difference - let's wait for beta and see" stance on MBS. It has always seemed to me that it's only the C- TL.net players who got addicted to the subject and wanna show off how good they are opposed to the D- noobs who wants an easier game. But the progamers themselves who you often cite could care less about MBS. Why are you guys so addicted to it? Why not just wait to beta? Show nested quote +On June 25 2008 00:09 Luddite wrote:
1)Build more buildings! Increase unit build times, decrease building sizes and costs. Add more tech buildings also. This would force you to spend a lot of time at your base, making buildings.
2)Reduce the number of minerals in most patches, and make a lot of expansion sites on the map. Force players to be constantly expanding, much more so than in BW.
3)Interactive terrain! One of the things that I really like about SC2 is the way the terrain looks. Make it so that workers can build ramps, dig trenches, dam rivers, and push over rocks. This would both open a lot of strategic options, AND it would force you to be constantly controlling your workers to shape the terrain the way you want it.
All off these 1 to 3 can be made by mapping. You can make it yourself if you feel you need it.
It's funny that you'd take this stance, considering Dustin himself stated his concerns on MBS, saying that, and I quote, they keep trying "bad ideas" that don't work, and they can't find a solution to the problem. What "problem"? The "problem" that he is referring to, is the over-simplification of MBS and Automine. If the Lead Developer himself refers to it as an issue which they are taking extremely seriously, then maybe we should too?
Also, Tasteless has stated that after speaking with plenty of people in the Pro-scene, that the general consensus is that it is not taken well. You can find that quote yourself, it's not hard to find.
Also, I believe all the top foreigners who have spoken about it, have spoken against it.
I think you should do some more research before making such a baseless assumption. The reason higher ranked players are more "obsessed" with it, is because higher ranked players are more dedicated players, who value competitive SC more than average or D- players.
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Are people saying Starcraft is a shallow game if it has MBS and an improved U.I? That's what it seems like. That's pretty sad if true and a bit disrespectful to SC. We can only hope SC2 isn't released anytime soon because it seems like the developers still haven't found a solution to the "lost some macro and to a lesser extent, micro in StarCraft II".
Anyways I'd like to see more new game mechanics introduced in SC2 that will define SC2 from SC1 in a positive way. Right now it seems like SC1.5 rehash with shuffled units, 3d graphics, with an easier U.I and very few new game mechanics such as cliff walking.
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Ugh for the last time, the ultimate solution to MBS is just to have it optional in pre-game settings. For example, when you create a game on battle.net, there will be an option to include MBS. So when you see a game on the list you are searching, it will say something like "Python, fastest, no MBS".
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On June 25 2008 07:55 Storm79 wrote:
Ugh for the last time, the ultimate solution to MBS is just to have it optional in pre-game settings. For example, when you create a game on battle.net, there will be an option to include MBS. So when you see a game on the list you are searching, it will say something like "Python, fastest, no MBS".
either nobody will use it.. (do you see anyone playing on slowest speed on bnet? )
or the community will be further segmented which is very bad.
The community is already segmented 5 ways(regular maps, hunters, bgh, fastest, ums).
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I've been thinking like the op, that we should get together and find good alternatives for a long time. So I copy paste my own idea that i posted in the "ideas" sticky just after QnA 35.
Solution to the macro problem.
Inspired from the QnA batch 35 with the new mothership that lets warp gates build units directly to the mothership FASTER. This is supposed to solve the MBS uproar once and for all by introducing new macro tasks. 
Idea
The basic idea is to have abilities for units/buildings that is NOT queable and NOT multishootable which improves macro rather than direct fighting ability.
Protoss:
Copy paste from QnA 35:
The Mothership now allows Protoss Gateways that have converted to Warp Gates to be able to warp units straight to the Mothership. The warp-in mechanic (which cannot be queued) has also been tweaked to allow Protoss players who use it to get a slight time decrease in unit production as opposed to queuing units traditionally at the Gateways. In other words, the cooldown timer on warp-in doesnt take as long as the build time for units at a Gateway.
So use the mothership to build things faster. Then the mothership should be fairly early in tech, or the ability should be moved to another unit. This to allow for more intense macroing at least from midgame.
Terran:
A building called "administration centre" or something similar (preferably less lame) which has an ability that can be used on unit producing building with about a siege tanks range. No mana, no cooldown. spammable, not queable. This ability will refund a percentage of the units cost (10%? 20%? has to be tuned) once on each unit WHILE IT IS BUILDING. So you will have to build this building central in yuor base, and each time you build units, you will have to select this building afterwards and go on a refunding round for optimal macro. (and you may be able to build more units after that, that you can refund!) Alternatively it can be put on one of the existing buildings (ebay? academy?).
So building placement will be even more importnat for terran, and it may not always be a good idea to proxy too agressively.  Also, this building will be target for raids i guess.
Zerg:
Give one of the zerg units (overlord comes to mind, or maybe queen) an ability "create larva". This should have fairly large range and target a hatchery that will create an extra larva, up to a maximum of 3 larva. With cooldown or mana.
This is probably the coolest idea imo. Building will be 1) use all existing larvae 2) select a group of overlords close to your hatcheries 3) c-click-c-click-c-click until you have 3 larvae on all hatcheries. 4) repeat until all overlords have used their cooldown. Also, you will have to chose if you want to scout with your overlords, or macro with them, which could make for more strategic play in some way probably. Similarly, if the queen has the ability, you will have to chose if you need to mana for fighting, or for macro.
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Another thing to think about: if SC2 has the exact same mechanics as SC (what many here would probably prefer), it will automatically be P>Z>T once again (once the game is "perfectly balanced" as BW is) in the non-progamer scene.
This is simply because of the lower mechanical demands Protoss has (fewer units, longer build times, etc.).
This should be addressed so that the races can be "balanced" not only for progamers but for casual gamers up to "foreigner gosus" too.
Generally, they should make T and Z as easy to play (mechanically) as P (mechanically), or P harder.
They should at least add MUS (multiple unit selection, with a limit far higher than 12) because it's just really annoying for Zergs below progamer level to deal with all those lings and whatnot in late game. Again, advantage for P because of fewer units.
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Terran have the 2x unit production with the add on.
A lot of buildings seem to have attention demanding features.
I revel in sc2 filth. Gurgurgagraaaammmmm
The zerg we still know so little about.
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MBS won't be much of a problem. Automine on the other hand....
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Isn't it T>P>Z at high level?
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Speaking about anti-MBS:
[B]
On a sidenote, we're not really in a minority. Casual players WHO CARE about such things as MBS are actually rare. The problem could be ignorant reviewers like e.g. Dan...
I'm not saying what my opinion of MBS is, but you're off on this.
Poll at SC2 armory has 92% in favor of MBS and 8% against with 380 votes in. Not a scientific poll but it is probably more accurate than just thinking......"well I bet there are more people in favor of MBS".
Unless your definition of "WHO CARE" is something like "who agree with me". Then you can come up with any number you want.
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EPT
