EPTAdaptability, Creativity, and Map Generator - Page 4
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bLah.
Croatia497 Posts
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LuckyOne
266 Posts
On August 08 2009 16:24 HuskyTheHusky wrote: Random maps is a good idea. If nothing else have them mirror so both players have to deal with the same stuff. Let there be parameters... same minerals in each main, same amount of expos near the base, same base layout, etc etc. Though in the pro scene? That's pretty dicey. Thats adding more RNG which is the exact reason WoW is an awful e-sport. It would make for great special matches though  RNG in mmo makes you adapt to the situation so you cant fight a preplanned battle i dont see why this would be bad in rts. | ||
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neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
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DeCoup
Australia1933 Posts
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Fen
Australia1848 Posts
Also, for spectators who will have absolutely no map knowledge either, it will be very hard to follow the game on TV as you wont recognise any parts of the map. The way to keep starcraft fresh with adaptability and creativity is to change the map pool often, not random maps. | ||
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NastyMarine
United States1252 Posts
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Adeny
Norway1233 Posts
On August 08 2009 20:21 LuckyOne wrote: RNG in mmo makes you adapt to the situation so you cant fight a preplanned battle i dont see why this would be bad in rts. HAAHAHAHAH, what's your experience with WoW PvP? My guess is none. RNG is fucking terrible. It makes you do the exact same thing with either a chance of double damage or no damage. It gives your stuns a chance to hit or miss. You're still going to do exactly the same actions, except it's either going to kill the opponent, or it's going to do nothing. | ||
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noI3oDy
United States11 Posts
. Another thing, in pro games they should change the maps every... week? That way gamers have to adapt quickly, a true test of skill. | ||
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Idle
Korea (South)124 Posts
On August 08 2009 20:21 LuckyOne wrote: RNG in mmo makes you adapt to the situation so you cant fight a preplanned battle i dont see why this would be bad in rts. Rofl, just... wow. RNG in any game makes it so that games are won and lost based on a dice roll. That is completely terrible for any competitive environment. Having a game lost because the RNG decided to roll "Resist" or a heartbeat resist that breaks a cc is completely awful. Edit: Just for emphasis, Mace stun. | ||
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LuckyOne
266 Posts
yea rng can make you win or lose a battle if you are very lucky or unlucky but in most fights its average for both player in those fights it takes alot more adaptability to win than if there was no rng at all. besides in some games you can try to escape those unlucky fights. | ||
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ZeroCartin
Costa Rica2390 Posts
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Idle
Korea (South)124 Posts
On August 09 2009 03:51 LuckyOne wrote: not talking about wow, yea rng can make you win or lose a battle if you are very lucky or unlucky but in most fights its average for both player in those fights it takes alot more adaptability to win than if there was no rng at all. besides in some games you can try to escape those unlucky fights. You might say you're not talking about wow, but name one other MMO played on a professional competitive level. Massive requirements of adaptability are not the pinnacle of a competitive game. BW still requires adaptability and creative thinking from the players, though not nearly to the extent that it used to. Look at July, he's still kicking it because he not only has kept up on the mechanical side, his creativity is amazing. Introducing RNG into a competitive environment in any form is a bad idea because the result is that the number generator is deciding games, not the skill level of the players. The RNG doesn't care if this is day1 or the grand finals. Over the entire season you might get an average of lucky and unlucky rolls, but that doesn't help a poor roll of the dice costing you the one game that matters at this moment. When a match is decided by individual games, the overall average of the season means nothing. Supreme adaptability does nothing in the face of a horrible streak of luck, and a competitive game should not be based on luck. The negative consequences of RNG are far greater than the benefits gained by it. | ||
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crate
United States2474 Posts
Idle wrote: Rofl, just... wow. RNG in any game makes it so that games are won and lost based on a dice roll. That is completely terrible for any competitive environment. http://wesnoth.org/ Best multiplayer TBS I have ever played. Also maybe the best game I've ever played imo is Magic: the Gathering. Both have large elements of luck in them and are still fanastic competitive games. I agree that Starcraft is not the place for randomness in a competitive setting, but I think your comment here is ridiculous. | ||
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Shade692003
Canada702 Posts
On August 09 2009 04:10 ZeroCartin wrote: You know what would be cool? Randomized tennis courts, holy crap! Now THERE you have some competitivity! ...what does that have to do with anything? | ||
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Badjas
Netherlands2038 Posts
It is possible to determine the defensive strength of a position by calculating ground and air distances from a base, and check building room, cliff direction, path importance.. Of course, a human might spot opportunities for abuse that a computer can't see. Maybe the random map generator can be enhanced to parametrize these settings in a way so that balance is assured. But when players spot opportunities for abuse, these players should be rewarded for it. In terms of competitive starcraft, random maps might be an issue. It would be possible that maps are randomly generated beforehand and approved by a commission, keeping the map secret from the players. Just in case the map generator causes too often an imbalance, which might especially happen easily on higher level play as imbalances could be magnified by good micro. Someone mentioned the risk of cheesing on random maps, making it never viable. Good point I'd say, how about players get a set amount of time to prepare a strategy before the match, say 10 minutes? Maybe 5 for a nice fat commercial brake. The casters could look at the map at the same time and predict strategies.. that'd be fun. Hey, combined with the knowledge that the map generator put into map making, it could present the main features that it tried to get into the map, that'd be rich The OP is phrased as a single argument, but it should be split in two. One point made is that starcraft's best times are when new strategies unfold. The other is that random maps allow for 'better dynamics in available strategies' (my own words, they might not match 100%). I'll leave discussion on the truth on either count out of my post. It is a very difficult discussion. The only thing I want to add here is some ideas of the possibilities. | ||
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bLah.
Croatia497 Posts
Everyone would just be using same safest build all over again because they wouldn't want to risk anyhing. This is so terrible idea for competitive play because it comes from wrong logic. This wouldn't increase creativity because game does not alow it. You can't just make one build, and then scout, find enemy units and figure out that you want to be creative and then change your entire build. That is not possible during the game, that's why best tactics are always made after long time of thinking and experimenting while practicing. Only thing which can make things more exciting is more units and more balanced units because nowadays some units are really rarely used which is limits the number of possible tactics etc. | ||
TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On August 09 2009 06:09 crate wrote: Also maybe the best game I've ever played imo is Magic: the Gathering. Actually, MtG is, IMO, an example of how randomness can create a very unfortunate situation for a competitive game. While the randomness can create a wide variety of game-states, it also makes it hard to see players consistently do well. A single bad draw can make a player who's top 8-ing Pro Tours and Grand Prix fail to make day 2 at an event. From the view of a spectator and fan, it's hard to really be a fan of a player or team when one wins so inconsistently. Also: Civilization series > Wesnoth. Even in multiplayer. On August 09 2009 06:55 Badjas wrote: A random map generator can be made very intelligent. A computer can calculate rushing distances (in time, obviously), mineral line to perimeter distance (for tank and muta harass defence), choke point size and positions, number of routes, resource amounts... The problem with this is that the generator has to preemptively evaluate factors. How can a computer assess the balance of a map without knowing how relevant a given feature will be? How could it know that the positional imbalance on an LT-style map is huge without a large sample set of games on similar maps? | ||
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evanthebouncy!
United States12796 Posts
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Kwidowmaker
Canada978 Posts
Imbalance comes from contemplation of the map before hand. The comments about imbalance are effectively white noise, and I think a random map generator could be integrated into multiplayer. That is not to say the whole map would be randomly generated. What you get then is a uniformly indistinct maps that are just boring. But what if you only randomised some of the map? Imagine Python in your head. Now, instead of a barren centre, imagine the centre had randomly placed strategic features. Perhaps a hill somewhere. Mini forests. Blockages. Patches of buildable or unbuildable terrain. But what if you get hills right in front of naturals? Wouldn't Terran rip that shit up? The answer is algorithms of course. Every 'randomly' generated feature could have it's position determined in a fashion that's the reverse of how the 'clouds' of probability for electrons are calculated. Pros: Novel map features without the imbalance cons of a random map Cons: Imbalance could pop up, but honestly in a well coded system it'd be squashed in any series Much more work would go into making a map, and much more testing would be requried Plays that require a static map may be made more difficult, or (very unlikely) impossible. | ||
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Idle
Korea (South)124 Posts
On August 09 2009 13:52 TheYango wrote: Actually, MtG is, IMO, an example of how randomness can create a very unfortunate situation for a competitive game. While the randomness can create a wide variety of game-states, it also makes it hard to see players consistently do well. A single bad draw can make a player who's top 8-ing Pro Tours and Grand Prix fail to make day 2 at an event. From the view of a spectator and fan, it's hard to really be a fan of a player or team when one wins so inconsistently. Also: Civilization series > Wesnoth. Even in multiplayer. The problem with this is that the generator has to preemptively evaluate factors. How can a computer assess the balance of a map without knowing how relevant a given feature will be? How could it know that the positional imbalance on an LT-style map is huge without a large sample set of games on similar maps? Could not have said that better myself. Magic is a great game, but the randomness does not add to the competitive aspect, it detracts from it. One lucky draw can be the difference between complete domination of a game and losing miserably. | ||
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