[Discussion] The APM Sink Debate

As you are here, I'm guessing you've figured out by now that Blizzforums' Starcraft section has moved its operation here. So, to kick off the new forum, I thought it's only appropriate to start with one of the oldest discussions out there: the APM sink debate.

Throughout the latter portion of SC2's development, even to this day (at least if the German magazine being discussed recently is correct), Blizzard has been struggling to find a gas system that is both, easy enough for beginners to use intuitively, yet provides sufficient busywork for pros without putting new players too much at a disadvantage in terms of what they can produce. I think it's agreed that these goals are partly contradictory and difficult to achieve. Plus, Blizzard has also introduced the somewhat controversial 'macro abilities' such as MULEs and Proton Charge.

However, is there really a need for an APM sink? Busywork initially existed due to limitations of the interface, which is now a thing of the past. Why should there be a need to purposely create such roadblocks? Certainly, players will likely find other things to spend their time focusing on even if APM sinks completely disappeared, such as micromanaging their unit positions more tightly, etc.

So, what do you all think?

There's no need for APM sinks. I can respect wanting to keep the balance between macro and micro, but most of the SC macro was based on basic UI. I firmly believe macro does not have to be busywork. It just needs to involve significant choices.

I firmly believe this forum does not need this topic. I can't believe this was the first topic created :-(

Seriously... APM sink discussion when beta is starting soon? Next someone will do the MBS debate too, just because we are starting fresh again. Lets do something better, lets start fresh, without the old topics that no one wants to really talk about anymore.

I want to talk about this.

MULES and Proton Charge are completely unacceptable. There must be a better way.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

I firmly believe this forum does not need this topic. I can't believe this was the first topic created :-(

Seriously... APM sink discussion when beta is starting soon? Next someone will do the MBS debate too, just because we are starting fresh again. Lets do something better, lets start fresh, without the old topics that no one wants to really talk about anymore.

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I partly agree, but excersing old ideas is never a bad thing. Blizzard could still be in the process of tweaking the macro mechanics.

As far as the APM sink goes, I dont mind it as long as its not just busy work.

To put it more simply:
New Mechanics>>>>>Dumbing down AI.

Im looking quite foward to being able to call down some mules on a fresh expansion, while being able to use MBS on my barracks; instead of spending 30 seconds hotkeying crap.

As far as the recent german article goes, they really dont tell how they judged the micro:macro. Did they base it on the number of abilities? Or did they actually compare the amount of times an ability was used?

StarCraft I's micro:macro ratio doesnt have to be duplicated, just imitated.

APM should be close, because we will find ways to make 'actions', but I forsee SC2 being a much faster game (tech tree wise).

Hi ppl

First of, like the new forums

Now to the topic, This is quite an old debate and have to agree with santrega with but no matter what ppl say i still think blizzard should chose a single macro technic out of the two of them (mineral bost & gas renew)

Why?
because this will return to the average of APM starcraft used to have that auto mine removed a while back. But still there is no mayor change to the overal base macro.

edit: have to agree with Crazy Johny about the micro:macro relationship

Ideally timing should be more important than any amount of APM. Perhaps it could be allowed for any amount of workers to enter the Refinery/Extractor/Assimilator at any given time, with the difference from minerals being maintained by the amount of gas each worker brings back. It could allow the player a greater flexibility in managing his resources, of course it would entail the adjustment in the prices of all units (perhaps even a major shift in the game's economical paradigm) and could have potentially disastrous effects upon the gameplay without particularly enriching it.

Off topic but I love how you’ve manage to keep the spirit of your sig Crazy Jonny. :p
And I’m opened minded to the new mechanics but they do seem... somewhat out of place. Maybe we just need to get used to them. Though micro is generally more exciting/ impressive to watch. :)

I just think this is a non-issue. DS will love killing his opponents mules, and he'll love using them eventually. After a year no one will even remember the macro mechanics had opponents, and we'll all think its crazy.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

I just think this is a non-issue. DS will love killing his opponents mules, and he'll love using them eventually. After a year no one will even remember the macro mechanics had opponents, and we'll all think its crazy.

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I'll love killing them because I HATE them. I will NOT enjoy having to go back to look at my base every 20 seconds to call MULES or PC knowing that if I don't, my economy will be in shambles compared to my opponent.

And neither will you.

Oh DS, you'll be fine.. I already love the idea of making mules, and they last more than 20 seconds.. At any rate, you'll only use it when you need a boost in resources... not all game long...

Thats for newcomers or ppl that got a low APM

A pro would probalby pop mules out every time he can... theres the problem.

Energy might help limit this.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

Oh DS, you'll be fine.. I already love the idea of making mules, and they last more than 20 seconds.. At any rate, you'll only use it when you need a boost in resources... not all game long...

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Does it hurt being stupid?

YOU WILL ALWAYS NEED A BOOST IN RESOURCES

ITS THE CENTRAL MECHANIC TO THE GAME

IF YOU DIDN'T NEED MORE RESOURCES YOU'D NEVER BUILD WORKERS OR EXPAND

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Does it hurt being stupid?

YOU WILL ALWAYS NEED A BOOST IN RESOURCES

ITS THE CENTRAL MECHANIC TO THE GAME

IF YOU DIDN'T NEED MORE RESOURCES YOU'D NEVER BUILD WORKERS OR EXPAND

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lol, DS, I think you need to calm down and take a minute to think. You won't always need a boost in resources. There are games all over the place and I guarantee there are games in your replay folder which suggest there will be a point where you have more resources than you know what to do with.

Pro's will be the only ones using the mule consistently all game long.

Don't forget also there will be plenty of times you will have to choose betweem more MULEs and scanner sweeps...

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Originally Posted by Santrega

lol, DS, I think you need to calm down and take a minute to think. You won't always need a boost in resources. There are games all over the place and I guarantee there are games in your replay folder which suggest there will be a point where you have more resources than you know what to do with.

Pro's will be the only ones using the mule consistently all game long.

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I'm gonna make this very simple.

They're pros for a REASON.

That reason being they have high APM, and use every resource they mine.

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Originally Posted by SpiderBrigade

Don't forget also there will be plenty of times you will have to choose betweem more MULEs and scanner sweeps...

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No, you won't.

Well, maybe you will.

But no good player will. I've said it many times - save up all the energy you need for an emergency sweep, all other energy goes to MULES. Turrets and Sensor Towers will fill the Sweep role.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

I'm gonna make this very simple.

They're Pros for a REASON.

That reason being they have high APM, and use every resource they mine.

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Thats exactly my point, but you aren't a pro, and therefore you wont need to use the mule constantly.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

Thats exactly my point, but you aren't a pro, and therefore you wont need to use the mule constantly.

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Everyone will need to use the MULE constantly. THAT'S THE POINT OF THE MECHANIC. Those who master it, win.

Its biased and stupid.

But now if pros use mules and the probe charge what would zerg players use...

just having a hell of a lot of drones (queen spwn larvae ability) will start working badly for zerg as every patch of minerals has a limit of workers that can mine effectivly...

so will minerals support 2 drones per chunk or ???

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

Everyone will need to use the MULE constantly. THAT'S THE POINT OF THE MECHANIC. Those who master it, win.

Its biased and stupid.

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No, the point of the mechanic is to boost your resources for a set period of time. How much you use it is completely up to you. You could just as easily just expand again, build more scv's or focus more on attacking and micro than you do on macro.

Those are the decisions you personally make as a player.

However, feel free to show me a replay of yourself never going above 1000 minerals in starcraft, and I'll agree with you that you will use the mule constantly.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

But no good player will. I've said it many times - save up all the energy you need for an emergency sweep, all other energy goes to MULES. Turrets and Sensor Towers will fill the Sweep role.

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Err...saving energy for an emergency scanner sweep is what I was talking about, what's your point? Unless you mean that good players will never need a scanner sweep at all, which I find...hard to believe.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

No, the point of the mechanic is to boost your resources for a set period of time. How much you use it is completely up to you. You could just as easily just expand again, build more scv's or focus more on attacking and micro than you do on macro.

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Of course how much you use it is up to you. In the sense that if you don't use it as much as the other guy, its equated to not building as many SCV's as he does, ie. his economy will be bigger and stronger than yours. Meaning that unless you have much superior micro, you'll be losing.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

Those the the decisions you personally make as a player.

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No one decides to lose.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

However, feel free to show me a replay of yourself never going above 1000 minerals in starcraft, and I'll agree with you that you will use the mule constantly.

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That has nothing to do with it. Having 10,000 minerals saved up and unused is better than have none. Period.

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Originally Posted by SpiderBrigade

Err...saving energy for an emergency scanner sweep is what I was talking about, what's your point? Unless you mean that good players will never need a scanner sweep at all, which I find...hard to believe.

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Sry, I misread. Pros will keep one, MAYBE two emergency sweep(s) and all other energy will go to MULES.

Double Post, plz delete.

So having 10,000 extra minerals saved up means you are winning the game? lol.. Sorry DS, but you will not need to use the mule in order to win, you will just have to take an advantage in micro battles, scouting, or map control. You can certainly over come a macro advantage, as pro players do it every day on starcraft.

Demolition Squid got a point...

its best to have more than needed than being limited.
but this doesnt disclaims the other tactics such as micro and scouting

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Originally Posted by Santrega

So having 10,000 extra minerals saved up means you are winning the game? lol.. Sorry DS, but you will not need to use the mule in order to win, you will just have to take an advantage in micro battles, scouting, or map control. You can certainly over come a macro advantage, as pro players do it every day on starcraft.

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That is NOT what I said.

A good player will use every mineral he has. A good player will have A LOT of minerals. A player who can afford to horde 10,000 minerals is probably going win. Having 10,000 extra minerals laying around for emergencies is a good thing. Its also 10,000 minerals your opponent didn't get to mine. Everyone will use MULES. They will HAVE to to compete. As you yourself have said, income rate > all. MULES increase income rate.

And I'm done.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid

That is NOT what I said.

A good player will use every mineral he has. A good player will have A LOT of minerals. A player who can afford to horde 10,000 minerals is probably going win. Having 10,000 extra minerals laying around for emergencies is a good thing. Its also 10,000 minerals your opponent didn't get to mine. Everyone will use MULES. They will HAVE to to compete. As you yourself have said, income rate > all. MULES increase income rate.

And I'm done.

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The point you are missing is, you are assuming that you wont be able to gather more minerals then you can spend using normal gathering. I believe this is still the case, and therefore you will not need to use the mules all the time.

The mule is specifically for when you don't have enough income coming in to support your output of Buildings, units, and upgrades. At some point, if you are still expanding as normal, and especially if you are at high yield locations, you are going to have more resources than you need coming in, and it will be a waste of time for you to continue to build mules. You can deny it all you want, but that doesn't make what you say true.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

The point you are missing is, you are assuming that you wont be able to gather more minerals then you can spend using normal gathering. I believe this is still the case, and therefore you will not need to use the mules all the time.

The mule is specifically for when you don't have enough income coming in to support your output of Buildings, units, and upgrades. At some point, if you are still expanding as normal, and especially if you are at high yield locations, you are going to have more resources than you need coming in, and it will be a waste of time for you to continue to build mules. You can deny it all you want, but that doesn't make what you say true.

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And by that statement, it's clear you've never played a game of SC.

So I really am done with you.

Which makes me think, do we still have to split the workers at the start? Probably not.

btw I'm _X_, my old account here was sandwich_bird so I decided to keep it.

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Which makes me think, do we still have to split the workers at the start? Probably not.

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Nope, it autosplits now. Some people suggested making the first mineral from the first worker not count or count less to encourage some form of activity at the start to warm up because a lot of people will miss splitting workers. It was something that was truly hard to perfect and do consistently.

Blizzard is better off working with "smart" macro. Forcing splitting doesn't sound like smart macro to me, nor do I think it's fun for most players.

yeah, DSquid is right as far as the "always wanting more resources" goes. Skilled players will always be able to spend as many resources as they gather, or more.

It's also true that the better you are, the more you will have to use MULEs. They are not optional because getting more resources is not optional. This is an intentional part of the design of the ability. Blizzard wants to send you back to your base regularly. They want you to have to manually target the MULE drop/Proton Charge/Spawn Larvae.

There are two key differences between this and SC/BW gatherer-management busywork. First of all, you don't have to use the mechanic to gather minerals. You won't be able to compete with skilled players if you don't use them, but you can still gather minerals. In SC/BW you got no minerals unless you paid attention to your workers.

Second, they are at least trying to incorporate some meaningful choices into the abilities. You will have to watch your energy to save enough for that emergency scan. The other Dark Pylon abilities suck right now and aren't valid competition, but there is the potential. You don't just mindlessly spam these abilities, you have to decide to use them, which is the whole point - dividing your attention in addition to simple APM sink.

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Originally Posted by SpiderBrigade

yeah, DSquid is right as far as the "always wanting more resources" goes. Skilled players will always be able to spend as many resources as they gather, or more.

It's also true that the better you are, the more you will have to use MULEs. They are not optional because getting more resources is not optional. This is an intentional part of the design of the ability. Blizzard wants to send you back to your base regularly. They want you to have to manually target the MULE drop/Proton Charge/Spawn Larvae.

There are two key differences between this and SC/BW gatherer-management busywork. First of all, you don't have to use the mechanic to gather minerals. You won't be able to compete with skilled players if you don't use them, but you can still gather minerals. In SC/BW you got no minerals unless you paid attention to your workers.

Second, they are at least trying to incorporate some meaningful choices into the abilities. You will have to watch your energy to save enough for that emergency scan. The other Dark Pylon abilities suck right now and aren't valid competition, but there is the potential. You don't just mindlessly spam these abilities, you have to decide to use them, which is the whole point - dividing your attention in addition to simple APM sink.

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I believe the key word is in bold. What is a skilled player, and what does this have to do with DS being right?

Do you really have to have extra minerals in order to win the game? The answer is no. Will it help to have extra minerals? Probably, but its not necessary to winning.

DS is suggesting its too much work to use the mules, and if this is the case, I doubt he will come even close to the type of skill needed to make use of his resources that he gets from regular mining, let alone needing to use mules throughout the entire game. Believe it or not, using this much resources is a lot of work, something he seems to be against.

Additionally, Macro in SC didn't equal an automatic win. There are lots of other factors in a game that determines the winner, macro is just a portion of it. On top of that, resource gathering is just a portion of macro, and as long as you have enough minerals to do what you are trying to do with it, there is no need to build mules. Also, the amount of resources you gather in a game with the mule is likely not much different than that of with the mule with the mechanic used to perfection by a pro. The idea is, a pro can use every advantage possible, while even a highly skilled competitive player is not capable of using every advantage possible.

Building Placement, Unit selection, and Upgrades chosen are all equally important to "extra resources".

Micro, scouting, harassment, and ability usage is equally as important as "extra resources".

One last point I would like to make is, the mule allows you to improve your resource gathering, that is all. It's not meant to be a requirement to winning a competitive match, its meant as a means to exceed your ability to gather normally.

Mules will be used rarely in late game, because not only is scanning more important while you are attacking, but at the end of the game you will reach a point where you believe you have enough buildings, and upgrades needed are very limited, and you'll be more focused on killing your opponent, than on finding ways to boost your resource gathering.

As long as you keep expanding, I don't at all see a reason why you'll need a mule unless you are a B player on iccup or better, or a pro. Neither of which DS will be, so its not an issue for him.

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Originally Posted by Santrega

I believe the key word is in bold. What is a skilled player, and what does this have to do with DS being right?

Do you really have to have extra minerals in order to win the game? The answer is no. Will it help to have extra minerals? Probably, but its not necessary to winning.

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Not extra minerals, more minerals. The point is you will be using them all, not having some "left over." So, you will be able to build more units than an opponent who doesn't have as many minerals.. If you don't think that has anything to do with winning, I just don't know what to say. And no, this doesn't only happen at B+ or above.

But you are right that DSquid is making too big of a deal about having to go back and use MULE. You're also right that there will be better and worse times to use MULE.

But the point still stands that better players will use MULE more and it will help them win.

I think that beta will reveal that the """"macro"""" mechanics are not necessary, very out of balance, and nearly completely mandatory, with no real choice involved.
While Spawn Larva allows the Zerg player to build more units, it doesn't allow it to harvest resources faster, while the other 2 mechanics allows this. On top of that, the Terrans already have an increased production mechanic (double-pump units).
The Dark Pylon mechanic can be spammed by building multiple Dark Pylons, which is a quickly recovered investment, while the other races won't tipically mass Queens nor Command Centers.
They have lots of problems.

Ahh macro the eternal topic.

So I think the thing people need to focus on is solutions. Recognize the concerns of the macro community (and Dustin Browder) and offer your suggestion for the direction macro can move in. Saying MULEs fail adds little to anything. And remember that any solution must offer Multi-tasking (Back to Base) and Decision Making (Strategic Options).

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There are two key differences between this and SC/BW gatherer-management busywork. First of all, you don't have to use the mechanic to gather minerals. You won't be able to compete with skilled players if you don't use them, but you can still gather minerals. In SC/BW you got no minerals unless you paid attention to your workers.

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See, that's the thing, though. A player who DOESN'T use supply drop is wasting minerals by having to build more supply depots, a player who opts not to build dark pylons is saving 50 minerals per regular pylon they build.

They just need to balance the game so the cost difference of that dark pylon matters, and so the cost you save from not having to build more supply depots also matters.

Enough that if you opt not to use MULES/Proton Charge you will be able to almost match what players who are using MULES/Proton Charge are getting back in minerals. Or at least to a balanced amount that gives you the mental management to do other things that will give you advantages.

To those who say that only pros will be forced to use the macro mechanics or lose, I ask you this:

What are the most memorable moments of Starcraft that make pimpest plays and make the game exciting? MICRO. MICRO. MICRO.

If I'm playing schmucks, sure, macro mechanics may not matter. But if I'm playing someone really good or WATCHING PROS PLAY, the macro really just detracts from what could be more awesome micro.

I don't understand why they just can’t keep it the way it was in SC1. Get rid of mules, get rid of the gas mechanic, get rid of dark pylons and get rid of auto mine. Problem solved.

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Originally Posted by FlashWar

I don't understand why they just can’t keep it the way it was in SC1. Get rid of mules, get rid of the gas mechanic, get rid of dark pylons and get rid of auto mine. Problem solved.

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There's nothing wrong with auto mine. It will offer more micro intensive battles and better games overall rather than players going back to their mineral line constantly and stop commentators being all "HE MADE A WORKER AND ISNT USING IT OMG OMG OMG" just get back to the stuff the viewers care about...


Other mechanics suck