EPT[T] Potential Solutions to Automine - Page 2
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 18 2008 03:19 -orb- wrote: Kennigit I have come up with a way to solve the problems chill brings up. See, if you can always go back and tell your workers to move faster, you'll never have time for micro and there will be more macro than in BW. So what you should do is have it so that each worker has one potential speed boost that, once used, can not be used again. This makes it so that when your workers come out of the nexus, you can still add the speed boost, but you only have to do it once per worker, instead of constantly going back and selecting each of your 50 workers. This creates a number of other game possibilities, such as the strategy that if you wanted to have a timing push it might be more efficient to save the speed boost for a certain time in the game in which you speed up all your workers at once (don't know, maybe it would be better to just get it going earlier so you get those workers faster). Another possibility this creates is if they implemented some way in the game to "recharge" your workers. One possible way to do this would be to have this ability cost energy. Another possibility would be to have some kind of other unit's ability or building (like the shield battery) be able to recharge the workers' speed upgrade. What do you think? P.S. Another cool trick pros would use this for is things like boxer's scv rush, and drone drilling. When using workers offensively and planning that you are going to do this, a player could save up the workers' speed ability and then use it in a rush. I think this would create some totally baller all-in situations. P.P.S. One other option you might want to consider is having it as an upgrade, so that you can't use the ability to speed them up until you research that ability. This would open the door for some creative build orders to tech fast to speedy worker ability. I think this is great thinking. Yeah i know my original idea is by no means perfect (or even necessarily right) but hopefully it opens avenues to ideas like this and the stimpack idea. I'd imagine this ability be rechargeable. Also if you see your posts deleted its cause your an idiot. | ||
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-orb-
United States5770 Posts
On November 18 2008 03:24 Kennigit wrote:Also if you see your posts deleted its cause your an idiot. lolwut? | ||
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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diehilde
Germany1596 Posts
On November 18 2008 03:20 Kennigit wrote: No one is against a quality game. The fact is that SC2 is in internal alpha and will have a beta into the new year. Automine and MBS are here to stay - rather than complaining about it im trying to come up with solutions. We've been saying it has to go for 2 years and nothing has really changed so the only solution is to adapt to it. no its not. This is pure opportunism. Its like being against a retarded law the government wants to install and after a cpl years, say "ok w/e we cant do anything against it, lets live with it!". Look at prohibition for example, it was a retarded law and basically nobody followed the law. The customers (the people in my example) have the power, not the institution. There are still other solutions - a mod for the game without automining and mbs, which all the major leagues agree to play. Not buying the game. Forming a coalision of SC websites all making a head article on their front page when beta hits, reading "Don't buy SC2 if you expect a game coming close to SC:BW, it sux from a competetive standpoint!". Basically anything that doesn't involve buckling down to blizz just because they see some retarded premises to make big $$, which dont even exist in reality. | ||
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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brandonc
United States72 Posts
You could also give the bonus a duration time, like 30 secs. So you cant just go back and drag select all scvs and tell them to mine, trying to get the scvs you missed because you were busy microing. | ||
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DrainX
Sweden3187 Posts
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Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
On November 18 2008 03:24 Kennigit wrote: I think this is great thinking. Yeah i know my original idea is by no means perfect (or even necessarily right) but hopefully it opens avenues to ideas like this and the stimpack idea. I'd imagine this ability be rechargeable. Also if you see your posts deleted its cause your an idiot. This idea still feels a little forced to me, and I'm not a big fan of any of the specific proposals yet but this is a good line of thought to go down - there is something here. The thought I am having now is how about, instead of a speed boost, you make those selected SCVs able to carry more minerals per trip. So instead of having 5 minerals, maybe they bring back 12 but still collect at the same rate (or only slightly increased - the idea is improve efficiency). It would be a one use, limited time ability. Perhaps you could have the option to even use the ability expire at some point, say after 3 more workers are made from that CC. This would ensure that there are great benefits to looking back at a base and macroing in a style more like traditional BW. The problem I have, is that this is almost adding complexity for complexity's sake. Ideally you could have a mechanic that not only requires macro to be used well, but also adds depth to the game as a whole (the speedboost idea is good here; it potentially opens up new gameplans of when to use it for things like bunker rush or timing push). | ||
Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
It's like having your cake and then pouring a kg of salt on top of it before you try to eat it. A good mechanic would need to be something that allows for more customization/fine tuning of your economy. Maybenexttime has posted a suggestion for a gas mechanic where the gas operates in various stages of effeciency, which you can toggle between. I don't have a link right now but that type of solution is much more attractive to me. If one mode of use turned out to be wholly superior to all the others it could end up sort of useless, but that's fairly easy to patch.. A problem with the speed boost mechanics, apart from them being "use these unless you want to lose", is that yeah, they make sense for the SCV. What about the probe? The drone? It becomes a very contrived solution. | ||
TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On November 18 2008 04:09 FrozenArbiter wrote: A good mechanic would need to be something that allows for more customization/fine tuning of your economy. Maybenexttime has posted a suggestion for a gas mechanic where the gas operates in various stages of effeciency, which you can toggle between. I don't have a link right now but that type of solution is much more attractive to me. The problem with this type of solution is that it tends to be a "fire and forget" one-time action, rather than something you're constantly needing to attend to. If you don't have to look back to your base regularly, its not creating macro ACTIONS. | ||
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
Instead of the workers losing their mining speed bonus over time, they would keep it through entire game, and it would be a small bonus; therefore it would require you have to a lot of uber-peons to make a substantial difference. The uber-peon status would be decided by the very first command to mine: was it given by the player or by the rally point? This mechanic would encourage players to try to play perfect, like BW does, but also doesn't totally derail your economy if you can't continue to make them through the mid and late game. Most importantly, it gives the superior player a worthwhile advantage. Also, this mechanic poses interesting strategical questions: •How many uber-peons do I continue to try to make throughout the game? •Do I send my uber-peons to mine the gold minerals even though it's a hotly contested portion of the map? •Do I use my uber-peons to mine a hidden, naked expansion that is very vulnerable if discovered? •Do I take the time to find and load my uber-peons into a dropship for the island expand? •I just lost a bunch of uber-peons, do I take the time to make more (primarily a mid to late game question)? | ||
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ZeroCartin
Costa Rica2390 Posts
Could be cool to see the workers you´ve rallied manually with a kind of boost effect on em, so if u see them without the effect, you just rally them again. Though, it would be cool to see it last like just a while, not the whole game, so you would be forced if u want, to go and autoselect em again to get them back up to boost mode. | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On November 18 2008 04:20 TheYango wrote: The problem with this type of solution is that it tends to be a "fire and forget" one-time action, rather than something you're constantly needing to attend to. If you don't have to look back to your base regularly, its not creating macro ACTIONS. The main point is that that [the gas mechanic variation] type of solution has a purpose beyond "make the player click more". This type of "speed boost if manually ordered" has been brought up before, I'm almost certain, and it's just not gonna fly with most people. There really is no point in including automine if to be competitive you HAVE TO ignore it. People are gonna hate it. I hate it. Can you see Tasteless explaining this type of mechanic while casting? It's not a result of skilled players clicking faster and getting an advantage because they are able to do something more effeciently - it's a mechanic designed purely to make you click. It's just way, waaay too artifical for my liking. There has to be strategy involved, there has to be a trade-off somewhere. This is more of a "click this button or you lose" type deal, which really belongs more in an arcade game. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
I think this "bonus" should be one time deal. I don't think going back over and over again to mass move your drones off the minerals just to command them to mine again would add to the game. To lessen the concerns brought up by Chill, I think it should not so much be a speed "bonus" to ordered units, but rather a speed decrease to those who were only sent to the minerals by rally point. This would mean that really great players would not set their rally on the minerals, but would do what is done in BW. The speed decrease should last a max of about 3 minutes and only happen once. No multiple boosting of workers. Also, I think this speed decrease should apply to all units on rally point command. Right now, as part of automine, soldiers leave their training facility on attack move orders. So you can just rally into their base and forget about them. But if soldiers movement and attack speed had a slight deficit when moving on "rally orders" then you would want to order them yourselves. | ||
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Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
So what you should do is have it so that each worker has one potential speed boost that, once used, can not be used again. this would make it alot more attractive. But like FA said, this makes sense for the SCV, but not the Probe or the Drone. One is a robot and the other is a Drone, a slave compelled to work by a hive mind, motivation doesn't enter into it. Good job though on trying to move from complaining to constructive critisism, I approve of this message. So maybe I should contribute something to keep the discussion going... (none of these ideas will be great) First thing that comes to mind is a simple delay. Automining sends the worker to mine, but it takes a few seconds. Might be a good idea to have some kind of deploy animation for this, it would be frustrating to just have it appear and then sit idly for a few seconds before getting it's ass in gear. Something about ordering your worker to mine a free mineral in early game (automine sending it to the rallied one), but then again they autosplit too well with the new AI. Perhaps a gas mechanic that harm the workers. Gas is acidious or something, takes like 5% hp every run, so in order to not have them die you would need to circulate them, basically letting them "cool off" mining minerals (5% +hp every five seconds or something) before they can go back into the refinery. Or if not a damage, perhaps a slow effect (like stacking devourer acid only with movement speed) that is negated by mining minerals. Way back when the Nomad was announced, I thought it was something like a super SCV, required in order to build Thors or something, and I also thought they should have some kind of mining attribute. Being able to mine with something other than just your workers might be an idea, like ghouls chopping trees in WC3. Of course, while its easy to imagine zerglings mining, the same can't really be said about, for example, Terran units, but then again it doesn't have to be the same mechanic for each race. Zerg can use their melee units to help mine, Terran could get some kind of super SCV, Protoss could have some kind of warp-mine mechanic, I dunno. I always thought it was kind of contrived that in Starcraft, as opposed to C&C which I played before SC, the minerals were all nicely lined up so that one could squeeze a command center up close and get great mining mileage. Perhaps spreading these out or making them "grow" randomly like the ore in C&C could create some micro opportunities, like keeping off a certain patch for a while to allow it to regrow. Would require getting rid of the minimum distance to minerals for the hatchery/nexus/cc. Perhaps an optional "scaffolding" or something, helping the workers get to the "good part" of the minerals and getting an increased mining rate? Drones merging and scvs and probes going all Voltron in order to become better workers, 2scvs = 2.2x mining rate, better mining, hurts more to lose. Spacegnomes, with jetpacks and +5 mining gloves. Yeah I'm out. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
At the very least it can get their creative juices flowing in mechanics of this nature. | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On November 18 2008 04:44 Savio wrote: I think this idea has huge potential--much more than the gas mechanic Blizzard has now. I think this "bonus" should be one time deal. I don't think going back over and over again to mass move your drones off the minerals just to command them to mine again would add to the game. To lessen the concerns brought up by Chill, I think it should not so much be a speed "bonus" to ordered units, but rather a speed decrease to those who were only sent to the minerals by rally point. This would mean that really great players would not set their rally on the minerals, but would do what is done in BW. The speed decrease should last a max of about 3 minutes and only happen once. No multiple boosting of workers. Also, I think this speed decrease should apply to all units on rally point command. Right now, as part of automine, soldiers leave their training facility on attack move orders. So you can just rally into their base and forget about them. But if soldiers movement and slight power deficit when moving on "rally orders" then you would want to order them yourselves. Yes, great, punish the beginners without them even knowing it. How do you even begin to explain this in the tutorials or the campaign? "Yeah, so hey - if you rally your workers to the minerals they uh.. get a bad case of the mondays. Yeah. Your best bet is to rally them sort of to the side of the mineral, then blindside them and force them right to work before they can protest". -.- Also, rally point being attack move instead of move needs to change. Badly. Having a unit run off course because it's chasing a zergling it saw on the fringe of its vision instead of going where I told it to go = bad. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
On November 18 2008 04:49 FrozenArbiter wrote: Yes, great, punish the beginners without them even knowing it. How do you even begin to explain this in the tutorials or the campaign? "Yeah, so hey - if you rally your workers to the minerals they uh.. get a bad case of the mondays. Yeah. Your best bet is to rally them sort of to the side of the mineral, then blindside them and force them right to work before they get a chance to protest". -.- Also, rally point being attack move instead of move needs to change. Badly. Having a unit run off course because it's chasing a zergling it saw on the fringe of its vision instead of going where I told it to go = bad. This would be very easy to explain in the tutorial. "Rally points are orders given to newly trained units to proceed to a given location. They are useful tools included for your convenience. However, be aware that a unit acting under one of these pre-set rally orders will have a small and temporary speed deficit compared to those under the direct orders of the commander" Then you let them use it for themselves. New kids will not even notice it. It becomes more noticeable at the pro levels. Also remember that how much the deficit is, and its duration is just a balancing matter. It can be made VERY slight or significant according to what makes the game better in beta. Pros, at their level will always choose no not rely on rally points no matter how slight the advantage is. | ||
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Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
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