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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Preface: I have been very negative about Starcraft 2 lately. Teamliquid takes on a group think mentality very readily and I believe some of the respect we have (from blizzard and other communities) may be questioned by the constant negative attitude about changes to the core of SC2. So with that in mind I’d like to start focusing more on solutions (and I’d encourage you to do the same (cough Ki_do 0_o).
The biggest complaint TL staffers/members/and top foreign players have from play testing builds at Blizzard events is that macro is too easy in SC2. There is really no simpler way to put it. It’s a really tough situation to deal with because Blizzard HAS to stay current with RTS trends which right now is automated mining. At the same time they want to try and make a the competitive scene happy and capable. From my play tests I noted that the skill “gradient” had become more shallow. So rather than dwelling on it anymore – I have accepted the fact that automine will exist in SC2 and have tried to come up with a solution. This is my purposal.
Macro Issues from a “competitive” perspective.
Macro is too easy in SC2 relative to BW. The major issue is how can Blizzard create a mechanic that is easy out the door but scaleable to high levels of play. If Automine was “functional” at an AI level but had perks for user interaction then there is more of a reason to look at your minerals/gas and would appease this desire for increased management of resources.
The requirements of a solution are: - Needs to be simple at the base level to appease to wide audience. The way I thought of this was the difference between playing BGH and non-money maps with regards to focus on resource management. An ok player will stay 1 base and just get a bunch of peons – a good player will mass expand knowing that it’s the number of patches available that make a key difference. Both are functional, but the later gives an advantage to the better player. - Needs to be highly scaleable to top levels of play. Good players need to be REWARDED for looking back at their mineral lines and adjusting – 1ssss just doesn’t cut it.
Potential Solution TLDR: Keep the existing SC2 mechanics but adjust so that “good” players are benefitted. Add perks to automine.
This seems the best route to take as despite the “investigation” Blizzard is doing into MBS, automine etc it is quite evident that this functions are here to stay. The issue most “good” or “high level thinking” players have is that there is little scalability when everything is automated. With that in mind, if a player is rewarded for macroing traditionally, this can make a big difference in the result of the game and richens the skill gradient. When ordered to move to a mineral patch peon units should move faster (increase in speed based on balance of course, ill just say 30% faster for this example). From a lore standpoint, if the peon is created, he knows his role is to collect resources as a collective group. If he is ordered directly by the commander, then he would have a sense of responsibility. Having served a few years in the military there is a noticeable increase in moral and efficiency, when commanders have 1 on 1 interaction with their troops – a sense of pride and purpose.
Theoretical Example of this in motion: Mirror matchup, opposite sides of map.
Player A – Average Gamer. Relatively low thinking strategically. Plays with friends/pubs.
Player B – Progamer/Amateur/Clan League/Guild/Team/TL/iCCUP. Wants to maximize economy, wants to find every chance to get a “leg up” on his opponent. Interacts and orders his workers giving them short term bonus to speed.
Player A lets his workers do their thing, they spawn, they mine, have a smoke etc etc. Lets call them “Lazy SCVs”.
Player B on the other hand, has direct involvement with his workers. He understands that while the battle is taking place outside of the base, an army is nothing without its logistical base. By interacting with them, he gets better mining rates, they are more motivated to fight work etc for the dominon/swarm/aiur.
This could have interesting effects on the gas mechanic or may make it unnecessary.
Potential issues with this and tweaks to this idea.
- An SCV “ordered” at the beginning of the match shouldn’t be as effective 20 minutes later. Infact its probably good to have his speed/efficiency drop of as time passes back to the base level (balance depending). - I suppose it could be confusing trying to find which workers were lazy and which were motivated in a saturated mineral line. Perhaps their could be a color or effect change…maybe probes glow brighter or drones pulsate or something when motivated.
Why I think this works
- It keeps in line with the direction blizzard wants to take with SC2. Have a game that is a little more focused on armies rather than econ and is totally open to a general gamer who doesn’t want to spend weeks and months grinding out muscle memory to macro. - It gives players who DO want to do that a much richer gradient to play with. Infact I would argue that this could create more of an effect on resource management than BW depending on the effect of “motivation” and how it would be implemented. - It solves the issue of automing – Yes it is automated and “functional” but there is a bonus for those who want to take a step further
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I'd like to hear feedback on this issue. If you don't agree with it, i would like a detailed explanation why - "gimicky" is NOT acceptable. I would like a deep discussion and because i can abuse mod powers ill just delete a crap 1 line post LOL.
Thoughts, comments, concerns, nintendo tips?
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Problems Chill brought up
1) When you are late game and have 100 scvs you are going to be mining soooo much more with a speed bonus .
Potential Solution - Speed bonus should be relative to the number of scvs you have. At 10 scvs speed bonus is say 20% but at 50 probes its only 4% etc
2) "i come back to my base select all my workers and give them the speed bonus"
Potential Solution - The bonus per scv should be calculated Bonus/Selection. So if the bonus is 5% and you select 40 probes and tell them to mine. Each one gets a bonus of 1.25% because you are a lazy donkey.
3) In the spoiler from IRC. + Show Spoiler +Chill[7-0]> kennigit <Chill[7-0]> my point is <Chill[7-0]> if i fucking sit there <Chill[7-0]> and tell my scv to move again <Chill[7-0]> after he returns every piece of minerals <Chill[7-0]> my economy will be fucking incredible <Chill[7-0]> because he wont suffer any speed degredation <Chill[7-0]> meaning the game turns into <Kennigit> well then it should be boolean status <Chill[7-0]> "tell your workers to mine craft" <Kennigit> either he is <Kennigit> under the speed bonus <Kennigit> or he is not <Chill[7-0]> this solution is boolean status <Kennigit> sorry <Kennigit> if you think about real life <Kennigit> if your boss came up <Kennigit> and was like <Kennigit> gogogogogogogogogogogogogogoogogogogogo gogogogogogogogogogogogogogoogogogogog <Kennigit> you'd be like fuck off boss <Kennigit> so the boolean status is it cant be set to true until its set to false like it doesn't reset to optimum value <Kennigit> you have to wait <Kennigit> until hes out of that status
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How long will that speed decrease last? If it lasts any more than until it starts collecting minerals, it'd be tough to tell which workers have this speed boost and which don't. Instead, perhaps have automine rallied workers wait X seconds before moving from its spawn point, and it doesn't gain the mining no-collision until it collects minerals so it'll bump into mining workers and other units on the way to the minerals for its first time. Both are bypassed if you select the worker and manually order it to mine.
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I like the idea as a not completely forced way of adding macro to the game.
The main problem that I did see with this was that when you have 40-50 workers it would be a huge pain to select them all and tell them all to mine individually. Then I realized I already do this with cloning to split to different patches while maynarding...
Considering how fast progamers can clone these days this mechanic actually makes a lot of sense. The best players will be able to re-split their workers within mere seconds per patch(esp with infinite unit selection), where as better players will do every worker but lose more time and more casual players will either take forever or just mass select.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 18 2008 01:37 Zelc wrote: How long will that speed decrease last? If it lasts any more than until it starts collecting minerals, it'd be tough to tell which workers have this speed boost and which don't. This is why i suggested a clear visual identifier to peons that are under this speed bonus. I dont know how long the bonus would last - balance dependant. Basically it allows you to get minerals slightly faster because you are focusing on it/putting in effort.
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Automining:
I think it could actually work out pretty well, I agree with you on most aspects. The progamers won't care at all I suppose, they play the game in order to become the best and if manually sending your workers to a mineral patch means becoming the best, then they will do it.
One thing that came up in my mind is, why not make it optional? It should be ON as default but in bigger leagues like WGT, iCCup and BWCL they could add it to their rules that you have to play with automining off? Koreans leagues would most certainly put it as OFF, or would they?
It would for sure make the game more noob friendly, but those who want to play it at a serious and competitive level could do so. It would draw more players if it was more "easy" to play.
My thoughts ~~
+ Show Spoiler +On November 18 2008 01:37 Zelc wrote: How long will that speed decrease last? If it lasts any more than until it starts collecting minerals, it'd be tough to tell which workers have this speed boost and which don't. Instead, perhaps have automine rallied workers wait X seconds before moving from its spawn point, and it doesn't gain the mining no-collision until it collects minerals so it'll bump into mining workers and other units on the way to the minerals for its first time. Both are bypassed if you select the worker and manually order it to mine.
Pretty neat idea, but it wouldn't serve its purpose in mid game when both players are batteling it out but in early game it's a great idea actualy. This is a really hard question; remove automining and MBS! :D
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 18 2008 01:44 _Grazze_ wrote: Automining:
I think it could actually work out pretty well, I agree with you on most aspects. The progamers won't care at all I suppose, they play the game in order to become the best and if manually sending your workers to a mineral patch means becoming the best, then they will do it.
One thing that came up in my mind is, why not make it optional? It should be ON as default but in bigger leagues like WGT, iCCup and BWCL they could add it to their rules that you have to play with automining off? Koreans leagues would most certainly put it as OFF, or would they?
It would for sure make the game more noob friendly, but those who want to play it at a serious and competitive level could do so. It would draw more players if it was more "easy" to play.
My thoughts ~~ Yeah i think Blizzard is opposed to "splitting" the community into "the pro/hardcore people" and "the noobs". This idea allows for both to co-exist but there is a clear distinction between who is who.
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Good post and I like the approach but doesn't this only affect early game since it won't be worth it to have your workers not autorallied and then be right there when they come out to send them to the mins?
Definitely not worth your time in most cases imo
As far as early game, I don't think this is that hard and so basically this only give an advantage to everyone but the most laziest of players and thus doesn't really accomplish much.
I definitely think this genre of a solution could work though, good thinking!
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 18 2008 02:15 inReacH wrote: Good post and I like the approach but doesn't this only affect early game since it won't be worth it to have your workers not autorallied and then be right there when they come out to send them to the mins?
Definitely not worth your time in most cases imo
As far as early game, I don't think this is that hard and so basically this only give an advantage to everyone but the most laziest of players and thus doesn't really accomplish much.
I definitely think this genre of a solution could work though, good thinking! This solution becomes even more viable late game because you have more peons that can receive the bonus. 50 peons with an x% speed bonus....well i guess would depend on how its implemented. If it becomes less effective with more peons then it would have similar effects late game to early game.
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What may (or may not) be an problem, but is at least worth considering is it could change the balence in favour of macro, as opposed to the micro-favouring direction is currently is in. Having it so there is ALWAYS a bonus could encourage spending TOO MUCH time at the base, especially as you will not be able to order ALL your workers at once, this will mean there is ALWAYS A BONUS to be accrued from staying in the base, so rather than it being a plate that needs to be kept spinning while the excitement continues, it ends up being something that requires constant attention. Now, this could be a good thing, but i would personally rather see games won through exciting contol or pant-wettingly large armies, rather than through a slight economic advantage that added up.
Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be to say that it could end up being a punishment rather than a reward, if "speedy workers" become expected, the player "loses out" from neglecting his SCVs, rather than being rewarded for having that lil' bit extra APM that he can use to boost workers.
I'd put in a vote for "workers wait for a bit when rallied but move instantly when ordered".
As an argument for, id also say that its easier for fans to get into, as waiting around for a bit is easier to understand than "a tempory boolean speedboost accrued for a limited time, and requiring individual attention for maximum efficiency". There is something to be said for simplicity in the engine.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 18 2008 01:21 Kennigit wrote: 2) "i come back to my base select all my workers and give them the speed bonus"
This wouldn't be as much of a problem if unit selection were still limited to 12 units (or even if Blizzard just chose to increase the number, just not unlimited). Its going to take several tries to get all of you're workers this way if you're blindly drag-selecting, to the point that it may be more effective anyway to do it as the workers pop instead of all at once.
One question: is it a move speed bonus or a mining time reduction? Because if its a move speed bonus, I think this mechanic could also be quite cool for microing your scouting worker.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On November 18 2008 02:45 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2008 01:21 Kennigit wrote: 2) "i come back to my base select all my workers and give them the speed bonus"
One question: is it a move speed bonus or a mining time reduction? Because if its a move speed bonus, I think this mechanic could also be quite cool for microing your scouting worker. I hadn't thought about that part - i suppose it could be implemented either way. A bunker rush with speedy scvs or something...yeah this could get really imbalanced really fast hahaha. Should probably have it that they mine faster.
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I think the affect should only be capable on newly produced workers. After they pop out but before they have been given any orders they have a buff that allows them to be "motivated" which then increases either how fast they mine or how many minerals/gas they carry with each trip. If you choose to rally to a mineral patch you would have to click the worker onto the patch before he started mining himself. Also i would consider making the mining bonus only work on minerals not gas as it may affect the timing of certain tech too dramatically.
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I think this is a horrible suggestion, but I can't think of any rational arguments why it is bad. It just feels like artificially trying to make automine go away. It seems like a stim ability for workers. It would make for an interesting thing to add if they lost some hitpoints when doing this. Good players wouldnt mind because workers would be more harassable. Bad players would hate it because it makes the workers weak and they die too fast.
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South Africa4316 Posts
From the announcement of SC2, and the initial worries about the game, I've said that I think MBS could be ok, and that automine could be ok, but that the two together are way too much. However, I've always thought that MBS would stay, and that automine would be removed. Automine itself seems a touch gimmicky to me, with Zerg having two rally points just to make it work, and all and all the difference for the average players between automine and non-automining is much smaller than the difference between MBS and non-MBS. However, if we were to assume that it is here to stay, we have to look at alternatives to just pure automining.
I first dismissed this idea as gimmicky (sorry Kennigit ), and it still feels a bit gimmicky to me. Less gimmicky than the gas mechanic, but gimmicky nonetheless. One of the things that made SC amazing was that there were no "added" bonuses to make strategic things advantageous. Flanking worked for strategic reasons, not because the game gave your dragoons +25% damage when flanking or something. I would like to see SC2 work in the same way, where advantages develop naturally, and are not forced.
However, the idea does have some potential, mostly because it introduces the idea that miners can be affected negatively until they are controlled. Perhaps have the idea of having collisions on until the unit is selected is a good idea, or perhaps units can keep on mining from the rallied patch until they are manually changed. I'll have to think about it, but I think there is potential in this line of thought.
I also think that thinking of solutions instead of thinking about problems is the way to go. We all know what the problems are, we've all discussed it a thousand times. If we can all brainstorm together, we might give a few good ideas to Blizzard.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
I'd like to hear feedback on this issue. If you don't agree with it, i would like a detailed explanation why - "gimicky" does is NOT acceptable. I would like a deep discussion and because i can abuse mod powers ill just delete a crap 1 line post LOL.
On November 18 2008 02:58 onepost wrote: It's a non-solution to a non-problem. Please everyone quit forecasting that the sky will fall and hordes of n00bz will swarm us over should workers no longer need to be told the obvious. Thank you. deleted...will leave this for example
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You're adding artificial actions into the game, just like the gas mechanic. I don't think we don't need a move that's good in all situations which will lead to mindless spam.
My solution: Let's say SCVs can have stimpack upgrade. When stimpacked SCVs move and gather faster.
Pros Additional micro. Give a temporary boost in economic for timing build.
Cons You can't spam this because SCV only have 60hp For full benefits you must investment in medivac proportion to the number of scv. The enemies can take avantages of low hp scv in a drop.
That's just an example. The idea is you must spend some other "resources" to trade off for you boosted economy. This game is a strategy game afterall, so imo it should emphasize strategic decisions.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
Madcatcf, that's an excellent idea.
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i have to agree this solution is horrible... either u have automine or you don't... why accept the fact that SC2 will have automine and yet don't accept it by coming up with absurd mechanics to negate automining for professional play? Its essentially the same as making a "nub" mode when you create a game and have automine and mbs and all that stuff and making a "competetive" mode where you don't which would be used in leagues and stuff. Either you are against automining or you are for it, this "solution" is some weird way of saying "Im against automining, but I know blizz will implement it anyway, so lets try and find a way to make it obsolete!". I recently played C&C red alert 3 and if Blizz wants to put up with the "standard" noobifications of "modern" rts games, they would have to add a "select all attacking units" hotkey and tabs where you can build your army from, regardless of buildings.. A games quality is not determined by some casual gamers who think of whats "standard" interface or not, but by its longevity and player base. As harsh as it may sound, but after a couple of years Blizz will learn the hard way what people really think of SC2 in terms of quality. Why be against a quality game? If seasoned gamers agree that things like automining make the quality worse, why find some absurd arguments for it? Its bad, it has to go, period.
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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.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 18 2008 02:49 Kennigit wrote: I hadn't thought about that part - i suppose it could be implemented either way. A bunker rush with speedy scvs or something...yeah this could get really imbalanced really fast hahaha. Should probably have it that they mine faster.
It reminds me vaguely of the militia ability of Peasants in Warcraft III, where you would always militial your scouting worker since it increased their move speed.
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