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On March 21 2012 23:14 Omegalisk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2012 18:11 FreeTossCZComentary wrote:
2 gases are better, and there is reason behind it - because of scouting. Timing of 2nd gas is key thing in scouting, if you are going to gas heavy, you need 2 gases which gives hint about what he will do. in PvP, second you see 2nd gas coming, you are going to feel relief as even if he goes 4 gate, it may slightly delay it. Therefore, I am for 2 gases, 1 having 2.5 k, other one 1250 only. BW only had 1 gas, and it was about the amount of gas left in the geyser. If a lot of gas had been mined, then it was a tech strategy, but if little gas has been, you would need to know where those extra minerals were going to.
BW gasses costed 25 more minerals. As Barrin said in start, this is not BW.
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I think a revised resource concept should try to maintain 2 gas per base, at least for the main bases. This is something which separates SC2 from SC1. It allows more finely tuned build orders to take gases in smaller steps. The geysers could be placed a bit more far away from the main to require 4 workers for full saturation, or they could be placed so that the 4th worker fully saturates but 3 workers already give >75% of saturation.
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Maybe it was just me, but in that PvZ you posted, it seems like Cecil was never in a position to actually contend. The Zerg was dictating tempo the entire game, and was even trading effectively until BLs with a silly amount of Drones dedicated to mining. Hatch cost coupled with the immense burst production of Zerg economy (coupled with Protoss lack of cheap and noncommital harass) seems to heavily favor Z in a PvZ.
I know someone touched earlier that he had a window to attack and "persuade" the Zerg to turn around. But even then, an unmaxed Toss with 2 HTs is never going to win a base race with any of the other races. Interested to see what Cecil has to say about that game though.
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On March 21 2012 23:37 Supah wrote:
Maybe it was just me, but in that PvZ you posted, it seems like Cecil was never in a position to actually contend. The Zerg was dictating tempo the entire game, and was even trading effectively until BLs with a silly amount of Drones dedicated to mining. Hatch cost coupled with the immense burst production of Zerg economy (coupled with Protoss lack of cheap and noncommital harass) seems to heavily favor Z in a PvZ.
I know someone touched earlier that he had a window to attack and "persuade" the Zerg to turn around. But even then, an unmaxed Toss with 2 HTs is never going to win a base race with any of the other races. Interested to see what Cecil has to say about that game though.
I have no idea how often Cecil checks his twitter, so who knows if he will reply to my post, but you have to remember that this is simply a proof of concept, no-one really expects this to be balanced at all, because the game is balanced around a very specific state of affairs. The greatest hope for Barrin i think (although i wouldn't want to put words in his mouth) is that this becomes very popular in the near future, enough so that blizzard decides to implement it to some extent within heart of the swarm, which is when balance will be more or less reset anyway.
Yeah cecil was always behind in that game, but i there are a lot of factors that one must take into account, like building placement that forced him to cancel everything he was doing in preparation for the third, which imho is the first place he really fell behind. That and his DTs did no damage. In a normal game where dts do similar, we would expect the same conclusion.
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On March 21 2012 22:46 Elldar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2012 20:43 Umpteen wrote:On March 21 2012 19:55 tuukster wrote:Barrin wrote:
For whatever reason, I kept hearing "what about 8m mains with less resources at expansions?". This encourages 1-base play and is therefore retarded. Sorry. I like your post very much, but this was the one point that I think needs more than simply stating "It's retarded!". If we think of BW and its maps as a golden standard, then we should definitely try out maps with "8m main, 6-7m nats" or "7m main, 6m nat". Maps in BW play around a lot with number of mineral patches in each base, with "9m main, 7m nat" being the most popular I guess (interestingly the thirds might have 8 patches). And I don't see 1-base play in every single Proleague match, actually rather fast expansions is the norm. Of course this has to do with the fact that you get less resources out of one base in BW than in SC2, so I guess "7m main, 6m nat" in SC2 would be the equivalent of "9m main, 7m nat" in BW. Maybe even "6m main, 5m nat"? Who knows, we just have try it out. Bottom line, playing around with the number of mineral patches is a way to bring diversity in the map pool, and therefore different strategies. Some maps might encourage fast expansions, others aggressive play. This gives players the opportunity to show their decision making skills in map specific situations. Who said that every base should have the same number of mineral patches? The differing saturation curves between BW and SC2 might well mean putting fewer minerals at the natural has a different or stronger effect on encouraging 1-base play. In SC2 a worker in the main is worth the same as a worker at the natural right up to the point where you hit saturation, right? Whereas in BW a worker at the natural pulls ahead sooner, making the reward for expanding more analogue. Leaving mains untouched and nerfing expansions in SC2 would leave every single 1-base play as strong as it is now, while reducing the (relative) payoff for taking an expansion and consequently the penalty for delaying your expo 'X' seconds. One thing I really liked about the games I've seen so far is how much bigger the consequences are for laying on big one-base aggression that fails. The 'fewer resources at expansions' idea would take the game completely the other way, making 1-base plays less all-in than they are now. As I mentioned before I think this typ logic that less resources at nat will make 1 base stronger is faulty. In fact 1-base is so strong since you can easily secure the same amount of resources at your nat. It make so that the opponents can still run a strong if he just take his nats. Since you can't secure resources to support your production facilities if your 1-base fail or don't do enough damage would make you as all-in.
I don't see how the logic is faulty.
Imagine your main had eight patches and your natural just one. Would one base aggression versus an expanding player put you as far behind as it would if the natural had eight patches? No: the advantage of taking the expansion is small and accumulates slowly.
Now imagine your main had six patches and your natural had ten. Pretty clearly, failed one base aggression versus an expanding player would put you more behind than it does now, because the advantage is large and ramps up rapidly
There's a pretty clear curve here: fewer resources at the natural than in the main makes one-base play less all-in, more resources at the natural than in the main makes it more all-in.
Also, the fewer patches there are in the main, the more all-in one-base play becomes because the resources to build and defend a late expansion accumulate more slowly.
Thus, in terms of favouring 1-base play:
8main/1nat >>>> 8main/6nat >> 8main/8nat >> 6main/6nat.
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To continue on the matter about "fewer patches in expansions", it's true that 1-basing play would still stay the same, but people already know how to defend against 4gates etc, so that wouldn't change anything in the early game. Expansions with less minerals would affect the problem regarding the "3 base ceiling", because now you might not be able to produce everything you want, or atleast sustain a large army for long, without going for that 4th base. Of course this is also a question about gas, since it tends to be the limiting factor when going for those higher tech, late game armies. I do agree that 8m mains might be a bit too much, since I don't find 4gating and all other cheeses/all-ins that mainly require minerals to be that exciting.
However, this is all just theoretical babble, we need to play more games on 6m/7m maps. Also, changing the number/type of gas geysers in mains and expansions should be another testing focus. It's the large amount of gas in SC2 that let's people get those high-tech 2base armies that beat 3base players.
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Barrin, have you considered the possibility of increasing the amount of minerals per node in a fewer than 8 mineral nodes scenario?
Your graph in the OP illustrate that a 7m base at full saturation mines minerals at a faster rate that a fully saturated 10m base does in brood war. Using the values fro your graph:
7m base at 1500 per node contains a total of 10 500 and, assuming full saturation from start to finish, will be mined out in 637.007 seconds or 10.617 minutes
10m base in BW at 1500 per node contains a total of 15 000 minerals, assuming full saturation from start to finish, will be mined out in 964.01 seconds or 16.067 minutes.
That is to say, although both will mine closer to the same rate, with SC2 still pulling ahead by ~30 minerals/half minute a base in BW will last ~33% longer which is significant.
SO if we were to increase the amount of minerals per node in SC2 to let's say 2000 per node it would last about as long as 10m main in BW does. I suggest this because while it will be very important to spread your forces thinner to fight for control to secure more bases how do you transition into the late game with bases that mine out much faster? With 2000 minerals per node the game will more easily transition past all the early to mid game harrasement and skirmishes into a real war of attrition as each individual base lasts longer and is more valuable. players with map control will greatly benefit from maintaining and be able to grow their economy at the cost of spreading out more and more becasue your main and nat won't mine out as quickly and continue to hold value while a defensive player will still be able to fall back on his main and nat/3rd? in order to continue the fight for more resources/map control.
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Let's do this! LEEEEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOYYYYYY!!!
Sorry, wrong game.
Man i wish i was at home and could play these maps so bad :'(
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I voted no, because I worry that Protoss might need the mineral-cheap gas (i.e. fewer extractors and gas-mining probes) offered by 6m1hyg to be able to take and hold expansions cost-effectively (eg lots of sentries, DTs etc).
If that doesn't prove to be an issue, or if it's already known not to be an issue, fine.
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On March 22 2012 00:49 Barrin wrote:
Well each worker collects gas 33% slower, but if you use all 6 workers then your collection rate potential is 33% higher.
Furthermore, it gives you a reason to keep chronoboosting your nexus.
I see what you're saying though. Sounds like a balance thing, and I do keep hearing protoss are having problems (from the same few people maybe hmm). This extra potential gas rate could help protoss get more sentries and DT's.
Sorry; sure, I should have been clearer about appreciating that.
My concern isn't so much that they can't get the gas, but that it would cost too many minerals (225m for a saturated geyser) at a time when they're already trying to use gas to save minerals, if you catch my drift 
This is all finger in the air though. It might well be that more gas, a little later, times better with the finishing of warpgate / shrine etc... Needs playtesting :D
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Quote from Plexa
... If the popularity of fastest map ever and BGH and TDA is anything to go by, the player base prefers maps with more bases and more minerals. Why is that? Because they like seeing bigger armies with higher tech. As stupid as this is, it's just the way people operate. ... When you lose the support of the player and the viewer then the maps become unsuccessful and you, quite accurately, are hurting esports.
lol I can't believe someone could miss the reason of the popularity of fastestmap ever / BGH so badly.
The reason both these maps were popular is because they totally sidestepped half of the skill needed to play SCBW at a pro level - economy management. In fastest and BGH most of the time people have 1 base and maybe 1 expo on BGH! So more bases is just comically wrong.
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On March 21 2012 23:37 Supah wrote:
Maybe it was just me, but in that PvZ you posted, it seems like Cecil was never in a position to actually contend. The Zerg was dictating tempo the entire game, and was even trading effectively until BLs with a silly amount of Drones dedicated to mining. Hatch cost coupled with the immense burst production of Zerg economy (coupled with Protoss lack of cheap and noncommital harass) seems to heavily favor Z in a PvZ.
I know someone touched earlier that he had a window to attack and "persuade" the Zerg to turn around. But even then, an unmaxed Toss with 2 HTs is never going to win a base race with any of the other races. Interested to see what Cecil has to say about that game though.
I think, based on the chat in the game, that that was their first time playing the map, so it can't really be used to say anything about it at all.
On March 21 2012 23:59 Surili wrote:
I have no idea how often Cecil checks his twitter, so who knows if he will reply to my post, but you have to remember that this is simply a proof of concept, no-one really expects this to be balanced at all, because the game is balanced around a very specific state of affairs. The greatest hope for Barrin i think (although i wouldn't want to put words in his mouth) is that this becomes very popular in the near future, enough so that blizzard decides to implement it to some extent within heart of the swarm, which is when balance will be more or less reset anyway.
I disagree. It's still quite balanced in general when coupled with map design. If things to prove favored for one race or another, there are other map features which can be changed. Map balance is actually a huge deal. The fact that Dustin Browder said all the units were balanced around cost doesn't really mean anything, because they aren't even if that was Blizzard's intention. It's way more complicated than that, and over time the balance can actually come to somewhere very balanced through only maps. This game mode should have a higher tolerance for imbalance because it is easier for the better player to get ahead, since everything you do has more weight to it. All in theory, of course, but I think I'm right.
This map is less about composition and more about position and expansions. Balancing each race to deal with position and expansions can be done in the map design, so in theory mappers should have greater control over balance compared to 8m maps.
On March 22 2012 00:44 Umpteen wrote:
I voted no, because I worry that Protoss might need the mineral-cheap gas (i.e. fewer extractors and gas-mining probes) offered by 6m1hyg to be able to take and hold expansions cost-effectively (eg lots of sentries, DTs etc).
If that doesn't prove to be an issue, or if it's already known not to be an issue, fine.
Well of course we can design the bases to be more easy to defend with fewer FFs or things like that if necessary. Each race defends bases in a different way to it's pretty easy to customize it when just laying out the terrain, if there seems to be an issue.
Anyway, how long does it really take to mine out 2000 gas relative to the minerals? Do the bases mine out too fast? Do we need over 9000 minerals?
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"SC2 is more about positional attacks and SC1 is more about unit micro." - Saracen
What's wrong with this? This is literally what realistic combat is like.
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Did anyone else notice that you mine more efficiently for the first few minutes of the game? I think this is because there are no free mineral patches at the start so your workers don't bounce around. Once you get to your 13th worker it starts to taper off.
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Couldn't adjusting unit prices achieve many of the same goals as 6m/2g? If units become more expensive, expanding becomes more valuable, micro becomes more important, etc etc. I think it would change the game just as much, but just an idea that could potentially do these changes with more precision. As in if you want players to be more spread out late game, make tier 2.5 and 3+ units and tech be more expensive. If you want certain units to be micro'd more effectively, make those units more expensive. etc etc. Just a thought, though I can already see many issues with it.
Anyways, great idea Barrin. Certainly worth experimenting with this sort of stuff. Cheers! 
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EPT
