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On August 11 2009 09:48 LuckyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2009 04:54 PH wrote:
There'd be no point in preparing build orders anymore if you had no idea what the fuck the map you were going to play on would be. Actually...really, how the fuck would you practice in the first place?
thats the point you wouldnt need to practice and prepare just play and pwn or be pwnt.
And you think that's a good idea?
On August 11 2009 12:27 sanji_ wrote:Show nested quote ++ Show Spoiler +On August 11 2009 04:54 PH wrote:
This is not a good idea. If you don't like what SC has developed into, that's just fine. I think there's plenty of variety in gameplay, and I don't need to see Boxer-esque play every game to be entertained/satisfied. It's hard enough learning to properly execute the "standard" build order, and I don't think you appreciate the meticulous preparation that progamers put into every televised match in order to counter what they expect their opponent to do.
Beyond that...randomized terrain? The positional imbalances would be ridiculous. How would you guarantee that the main only has one entrance? How would you guarantee there's a natural? How would you guarantee the bases are distributed fairly?
Not many seem to understand this, but even mirror matchups can suffer from map imbalances if they're positional and terrain-based ones, just like on old Medusa at the 6 o'clock base with the main gas being tankable from the back ridge.
There'd be no point in preparing build orders anymore if you had no idea what the fuck the map you were going to play on would be. Actually...really, how the fuck would you practice in the first place?
I can't believe how many people actually LIKE this idea. You may not understand how a "random map" is nothing but just a variation of a certain map design. Have you ever played Age of Empires 2/3 or Age of Mythology? If so, you would know there are plenty of maps in the game. For example, in Age of Mythology there is a map called Midgard. The basic design of the map is 2 settlements near each player's starting spawn, and a number of hunting that spawns at equal distances from the starting spawns. It also produces a number of fishing spots in the water. The map layout is generally the same as well (one huge island with water all around). Every time the map is "randomly generated," it will produce the same design. The only differences are the terrain being different. In this case, the map is not symmetrical. Oh, and there were build orders for the map that would ALWAYS apply. The scout in this game would be used early on to find resources (but in SC2, your scout will probably find the natural on most maps if there was a random map generator). A random map generator could be sophisticated enough to make a symmetrical map with an equal number of expansions, mineral patches, the distances to and from, all the time. The only things that would change are the terrain, but it is possible to keep cliffs a certain distance away, ramps, etc and of course make it symmetrical.
That does make it sound better. I haven't dealt with RTS random map generators since the old C&C ones, and I've never played AoE or AoM.
However, I really don't think this would work out for any major league. Sure, I guess it'd be fun to have a small Heritage League-sized tournament where they use these kinds of things.
However, with how much a map's balance can be altered with even the most minute changes to the terrain, expo placement, even mineral and gas placement, I still think this would kill competition more than it would refresh it.
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We could just have humans make the maps but not release them prior to tournaments. (Maybe 2 games in a Bo3 are played on pre-released maps, the decider is a surprise? Something like that...)
Map selection could be randomized on ladder play.
These preserve the basic idea without the potential technical challenge of a map generator.
As a side note, I really sort of miss maps that DO have terrain imbalances, like older versions of LT (creating opportunities for T to push between bases) or Jungle Story or Gorky Island.
Idra would hate this entire concept.
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On August 11 2009 12:35 PH wrote:
However, with how much a map's balance can be altered with even the most minute changes to the terrain, expo placement, even mineral and gas placement, I still think this would kill competition more than it would refresh it.
I think one of the main points of the OP is this:
The ONLY reason a maps balance is so radically changed with even minute changes in the map is exactly BECAUSE the maps get played so much that all those little flaws are discovered. You have so many thousands of Koreans playing those same maps for so many hours every day, that even a small imperfection in the map is going to get spotted by someone, and then it has to be fixed.
However, in a real-time setting, this would be impossible, no one would no of any of the maps weaknesses ahead of time, many that did exist would probably never be discovered. And anyone who could discover minute weaknesses in a map and properly take advantage of them would be a legitimate genius in the mold of Ender Wiggin and would be lauded as the Ultimate Bonjwa. I'm not counting on this happening very often if you had a good map generator.
My idea for the generator would be set bases/nats that could maybe be moved around the map, and then all the terrain in between the bases could be randomized different ways. Seems like it would be easy to set a certain distance around each main as "uncliffable" by tanks and just include it in the "movable base" section. Everyone would have the same access to starting resources, but after that, you have to discover on your own. I do think this would lead to some very safe builds becoming more prevalent, but you'd also see some real risk taking and innovation as well. I don't think there'd be a lot of "map wins" though.
IMO, this would not supplant the current map structure, but would be an awesome addition to the community and one that would make for both a lot of fun gameplay and fun viewing. I doubt it will ever happen, but I personally think it would be really cool.
edit: I like Freyr's idea too.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 11 2009 11:26 lMPERVlOUS wrote:
I completely agree with that. As a chess player as well - I love this kind of stuff. We would play games where we had to choose our pieces based on points (9 for queen, 5 for rook, etc), up to a maximum, so we could use what we wanted. We would play ``blind`` chess, where we could not see our opponents pieces. We would play 4 way chess. There are so many things you can do, if you take your head out of your ass and look at all the possibilities.
The thing is, none of those things introduce randomness into the game. They introduce variation. Which adds the point that there are a ton of ways to introduce variation into the game without introducing randomness.
Plus, there's another consideration. Fischer Random Chess is fun, but would you really want it to be played where it affects the ranking of the top players in the world? Implementing random maps for casual play is fine. Forcing them into progaming isn't.
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On August 11 2009 12:35 PH wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2009 09:48 LuckyOne wrote:On August 11 2009 04:54 PH wrote:
There'd be no point in preparing build orders anymore if you had no idea what the fuck the map you were going to play on would be. Actually...really, how the fuck would you practice in the first place?
thats the point you wouldnt need to practice and prepare just play and pwn or be pwnt. And you think that's a good idea?
yea, then it would be more skill based than time.
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On August 12 2009 02:06 LuckyOne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2009 12:35 PH wrote:On August 11 2009 09:48 LuckyOne wrote:On August 11 2009 04:54 PH wrote:
There'd be no point in preparing build orders anymore if you had no idea what the fuck the map you were going to play on would be. Actually...really, how the fuck would you practice in the first place?
thats the point you wouldnt need to practice and prepare just play and pwn or be pwnt. And you think that's a good idea? yea, then it would be more skill based than time.
Utter bollocks. By all accounts of what the word skill constitutes, investing time into exercising a faculty is invariably related to one's skill in leveraging the faculty. The vast majority of human skills display variance in ability related to the time and effort invested. If the results of competitors in an activity are wholly unrelated to their efforts, luck and talent (in a specific sense of the word) remain as the determining factors.
Furthermore, in order for a game to be a viable e-Sport, wherein a full-time career as an athlete is an option, organized, full-time effort must generate materially superior results to freelance, part-time effort. If skill fails to vary based on time (a hyperbole that will almost certainly never happen), all pro-gaming institutions as we know them lose their raison d'être. The world's best competitor can be literally anyone with sufficient talent. He is no longer a wonder of the world since he is no longer a testament to both human genius and dedication, but to the former alone. All the top players lose half of their mystique since we the audience could easily invest equal effort.
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On August 12 2009 02:54 EchOne wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2009 02:06 LuckyOne wrote:On August 11 2009 12:35 PH wrote:On August 11 2009 09:48 LuckyOne wrote:On August 11 2009 04:54 PH wrote:
There'd be no point in preparing build orders anymore if you had no idea what the fuck the map you were going to play on would be. Actually...really, how the fuck would you practice in the first place?
thats the point you wouldnt need to practice and prepare just play and pwn or be pwnt. And you think that's a good idea? yea, then it would be more skill based than time. Utter bollocks. By all accounts of what the word skill constitutes, investing time into exercising a faculty is invariably related to one's skill in leveraging the faculty. The vast majority of human skills display variance in ability related to the time and effort invested. If the results of competitors in an activity are wholly unrelated to their efforts, luck and talent (in a specific sense of the word) remain as the determining factors. Furthermore, in order for a game to be a viable e-Sport, wherein a full-time career as an athlete is an option, organized, full-time effort must generate materially superior results to freelance, part-time effort. If skill fails to vary based on time (a hyperbole that will almost certainly never happen), all pro-gaming institutions as we know them lose their raison d'être. The world's best competitor can be literally anyone with sufficient talent. He is no longer a wonder of the world since he is no longer a testament to both human genius and dedication, but to the former alone. All the top players lose half of their mystique since we the audience could easily invest equal effort.
it wouldnt eliminate effort since playing more ppl would make you better, just remove the boring parts of the effort like practicing build orders (since the optimal build would vary depending on the generated map, ideally)
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Are you promoting the suggestion that randomized maps be the competitive norm on the basis that the relevant time spent practicing will include less boredom? If not try to relate what exactly you're supporting and how.
I don't want to answer you based on my own assumptions, but I'll note that pro-gamers may practice builds for other reasons than rote memorization. Obviously I don't know first-hand, but from interviews and related discussion, I've read that learning and formulating answers to gameflow permutations, maximizing one's own play strengths towards the map, matchup, and opponent, and weighing various contingencies to opponent moves by ease and efficacy... are all crucial considerations for a pro-gamer working on his build. You might agree with me that they're intellectually stimulating enough to stay boredom.
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On August 12 2009 03:29 EchOne wrote:
Are you promoting the suggestion that randomized maps be the competitive norm on the basis that the relevant time spent practicing will include less boredom? If not try to relate what exactly you're supporting and how.
I don't want to answer you based on my own assumptions, but I'll note that pro-gamers may practice builds for other reasons than rote memorization. Obviously I don't know first-hand, but from interviews and related discussion, I've read that learning and formulating answers to gameflow permutations, maximizing one's own play strengths towards the map, matchup, and opponent, and weighing various contingencies to opponent moves by ease and efficacy... are all crucial considerations for a pro-gamer working on his build. You might agree with me that they're intellectually stimulating enough to stay boredom.
well if im not wrong they spend alot of time fine tuning builds and strategies for specific maps and then play alot of ppl to see how they react to it (kind of like writing a book of how they should play with all possible cases),
then on serious matches they try to execute what's on the book flawlessly.
even with good mechanics and game sense you would never be able to compete with them because they spend 16h a day writing their book.
the randomness would ideally eliminate its use because there would be too many different cases,
leaving mechanics and game sense.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2009 03:14 LuckyOne wrote:
it wouldnt eliminate effort since playing more ppl would make you better, just remove the boring parts of the effort like practicing build orders (since the optimal build would vary depending on the generated map, ideally)
Wrong. Reducing a part of the game that requires effort and practice to fine-tune reduces the overall effort that needs to be spent. Just because progamers spend less time perfecting builds does not mean that 100% of that time is suddenly shifted into other practice scenarios, because of the diminishing returns on additional practice after a certain point. Its not like if Jaedong didn't have to spend 8 hours preparing a new build for a map, he'd just spend all that time practicing muta micro instead, because the marginal gain is no longer worth the payoff. Players only keep practicing as far as the practice is worth their time, and if you reduce the gain from planning a good strategy on a know map, you reduce the benefits gained from practice.
On August 12 2009 03:53 LuckyOne wrote:
the randomness would ideally eliminate its use because there would be too many different cases,
leaving mechanics and game sense.
So you want to emphasize mechanics and on-the-fly thinking over planning. That's fine, but I don't see how that actually benefits the game. It's not *worse* than the current way of doing things, but you can't really say its better either.
The thing is, the potential imbalances and luck-based factors introduced by randomized maps outweigh the potential benefits. Emphasizing mechanics and game sense is DIFFERENT from emphasizing planned strategy, but not objectively BETTER.
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even with good mechanics and game sense you would never be able to compete with them because they spend 16h a day writing their book.
Is this sort of status quo lamentable or in need of improvement? No reputable competitive activity allows competitors that have exhausted the limits of human effort to be bested by those who have only dedicated a small fraction of their potential.
To be honest, if I were able to regularly beat players who've invested superior effort at a game, it would tell me that the game is quite shallow and a waste of my time, since evidence suggests that, in the game, hard work does not pay off.
The reality is that although practice can benefit certain faculties (as you cite, mechanics and game sense), planning is the one department where both time and creativity can reap limitless yet measurable (one's progress in game sense is largely amorphous while one can actually record data on different situations, contingencies, tendencies exhibited during planning) benefits due to the number of permutations that could spawn in a game of Starcraft.
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throwing out a weird idea that popped into my head
what if maps were generated at random, and a certain amount of time was allotted for each player to examine the map before the game even started, like say 2 minutes (arbitrarily picked). this would allow for some room for creativity, as players aren't playing completely blind, while at the same time squashing down a bit on the current methodology of playing a map to death.
not sure if it would work for starcraft 2, but who knows
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too much arguing. extra game mode= extra fun. do it.
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United States47024 Posts
On August 12 2009 16:00 alphafuzard wrote:
throwing out a weird idea that popped into my head
what if maps were generated at random, and a certain amount of time was allotted for each player to examine the map before the game even started, like say 2 minutes (arbitrarily picked). this would allow for some room for creativity, as players aren't playing completely blind, while at the same time squashing down a bit on the current methodology of playing a map to death.
not sure if it would work for starcraft 2, but who knows
The thing is, this doesn't help the issue of map imbalances. It actually increases the problem, because with that time, players are more likely to discover those imbalances.
On the other hand, the imbalance could be reduced if the system generated 3 maps, and each player were given 15 minutes to vote one out, which would leave the least imbalanced of the 3 to be played on.
Honestly though, I don't see why people dislike the current method of playing a map to death. As EchOne mentioned, why should it be possible for a noticeably less prepared player to beat a more prepared player? Map-specific practice drastically improves the chances of winning for a prepared player, because spending a day perfecting a strategy on a map yields much more visible results than a day practicing general macro/micro, especially at the high level of play which progamers are at. You may not *like* the system, because it means that an obscene amount of time has to be devoted to seemingly dry practice, but it creates entertaining games (arguably more than the alternative because practice allows a greater array of viable ingenious strategies).
Ironically, one player who actually has shown this kind of on-the-fly ingenuity in current competitive Starcraft, but has not used varied prepared builds is written off by the general fanbase of competitive Starcraft as simply being able to 1a2a3a. Best sealing his own front door on Troy against Nada in response to Nada's bio build in the EVER2008 OSL, and using a shuttle to ferry zealots out after having his door sealed by Luxury on the same map show instances of on the fly responses to dire situations, yet most people dismiss Best as only being able to macro, and not showing any creativity.
On August 12 2009 18:14 dcttr66 wrote:
too much arguing. extra game mode= extra fun. do it.
Once again, the discussion isn't directed toward the idea of implementing it in the game, but at the heavy implication in the OP that it should be used in competitive play.
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Your thread just became famous on TL Chat. :p
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Canada11214 Posts
Well even if it wasn't used in competitions, it would be a good feature for casual play- I find my friends don't like playing the maps I practice too much on.
Rather than doing a complete switch to all random generated maps. Would it not work to have throw them in as a variant- maybe the rubber match on best of 3 or else on comps with best of 5. It would require more flexibility for the players who could still memorize build orders, but then were also forced to figure out the best use of an unknown map. It could showcase the versatility of certain players without throwing out the training program for known maps.
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I love this idea...being able to think on your feet should be the basis of starcraft. I, too, have gotten real sick of the repetitiveness...heck, I'll admit I rarely stray from playing on maps that I know. Flip up the terrain, and make it randomized...
Of course I think the odds of this actually being implemented are like 1 in 1000. People are too stuck on their perfectly balanced maps, guaranteed natural, exact number of gases, single ramp, etc...
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Dont worry, there will be a gazillion maps and plenty of opportunityto play them now that noobs wont be scared away by the dark fog.
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are they gonna remove the dark fog?
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EPT
