Macro Mechanics Discussion Thread

[ArcherofAiur]

fine replace back to base management with macromanagment.

Also do you think its a coincidence that all three races have a unit production mechanics?

[Nicol Bolas]

fine replace back to base management with macromanagment.

I never said that all races have equal macro either. Karune says it'll all work out in the end.

Also do you think its a coincidence that all three races have a unit production mechanics?

What do you mean? Are you talking about Reactors vs. Warp-In vs. Spawn Larva? If so, then it may have been a coincidence.

Warp-In, as the developers have stated, is a direct result of them actively trying to turn disadvantages into advantages and differences. Psi for the Protoss in SC1 was just a limitation; you have to build Pylons to make buildings. In SC2, it's an active advantage, as you can now produce units anywhere in Pylon power.

The analog to this for the Zerg is not Spawn Larva, but creep movement speed and Overlord Creep Drop. Also, in earlier versions, Toxic Creep. Creep now becomes a weapon; it makes your units faster, and it prevents the enemy from building in a location.

The Terrans got salvage for their immobile buildings, and faster movement speed for the mobile ones.

Reactors could be seen as an outgrowth of the production of Warp-In. Or it could be seen as a correction for one of the issues around Terran production (having 3 fairly segregated buildings makes it difficult to use a few units from one building to help with another). It could be some of both.

Spawn Larva has a long and complex history. However, one thing is certain: the ability did not exist in any form at the initial Zerg reveal.

The first version was the ability of the Queen to transform a single larva into a Mutant Larva that had (slightly) increased production time, but mainly allowed you to stockpile larva. Each Mutant Larva took supply, so you couldn't do it forever. It was a tradeoff: less larva production now for more larva later. This was probably replaced because less larva now sucks, regardless of the advantage of delocalized production.

The second version kept the Mutant Larva, but these are instead produced by the Queen casting the ability on the Hatchery. It produced 3 Mutant Larva, with similar properties as before. This removed the contention between regular larva and Mutant Larva.

This was the first form of Spawn Larva that actually increased unit production. The current form just makes regular larva, and thus the only thing it does is increase unit production.

Personal note: I prefer having Mutant Larva that can have special properties from regular larva, as well as them taking up precious supply. That keeps it from being an "always use this" kind of ability.

On the whole, it isn't a coincidence that all of the races have production mechanics. It's clear that if you're going to add new mechanics to races, messing with unit production is a good place to go. There are many possibilities for unit production mechanics, so it's a pretty ripe place for playing. So no, I don't think it's a coincidence that they all got a production mechanic.

However, I don't think Blizzard said to themselves when starting to make the game, "Every race needs a production mechanic."

[ArcherofAiur]

I think you see the patterns but just dont want to attribute them to conscious design. I see the different versions of these ideas as macro experimentation. Actually on that subject you said in the other thread

And I wouldn't make it a single mechanic per race. Because decision-making mechanics generally work against repetition, the correct solution is to have lots of these mechanics, which will be used as needed. That need may come up in the middle of battle, and if it is not used then, it will provide a diminished return later.

It wouldn't be limited to increasing resource harvesting either, as that is the least interesting part of macro.

Are you saying that you would replace resource mechanics with unit production mechanics?

[Nicol Bolas]

I think you see the patterns but just dont want to attribute them to conscious design. I see the different versions of these ideas as macro experimentation.

It's not that I "dont want to;" it's that I see no reason to. I don't see the logical link between the way these abilities came into the game and any designed purpose.

Blizzard and Valve are the two premier PC game developers. They both take forever and a day to make anything, but they both make great stuff. Even so, they have very, very different development processes.

Blizzard is a very organic developer. You can see that in everything we've seen over the last 2+ years of StarCraft 2 development. They basically throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks, then reshape it to fit better. They're versatile in that way, but also undisciplined.

Warp-In is probably the most successful mechanic in SC2. But there was no particular intent behind it. No grand strategy of game design created it. It was not built for the purpose of doing anything. It was just something that seemed to fall naturally out of the Protoss's lore. It turned out to be a great mechanic. That's how Blizzard develops all of their stuff. The final product is very different from the work-in-progress.

Valve is very, very different. Valve is a much more disciplined developer. I'll give you an example: Half-Life 2.

1.5 years before HL2 came out, Valve had a lengthy E3 demo of the game. I have the video of it lying around somewhere. Now, if you compare that demo to what is in HL2, you will see some extraordinary similarities.

The physics system is there, as is the gravity gun. The mechanic where you use a bug's gland to control other bugs is there, as is the level where this gets used in the final game. The player can throw the bug juice on badguys and watch them attack that guy. Striders are there, with the ability to navigate around the world and their big "blow crap up" laser. Striders even have that little animation where they stab someone with their foot and shake off the body. And Striders are used in like 3 places in the final game.

Basically, what you have is a lot of the final assets for the game in their near-final form. And we're talking about a game that's still almost two years from release. That's most of a full development cycle from most game developers, but here's Valve with near-finished assets with near-finished AI that can be put in whatever level the designers want. And they have 1.5 years left to design those levels. Not only that, they've clearly spent time designing levels before this, so the 1.5 years is on top of what they already have done.

That's the hallmark of a disciplined developer. They figured out early what they wanted, then built those things, then built levels around those things.

Blizzard isn't that. They let the design take them wherever it wants to go. Which is how you get things like WC3 being an odd RTS/RPG combination.

Neither one is fundamentally better than the other. But they are different, and they produce different results. And Blizzard's design strategy does not lend itself to critical planning.

Are you saying that you would replace resource mechanics with unit production mechanics?

Resourcing mechanics are inherently one-dimensional. They make a number bigger. Unit-production mechanics have many more dimensions: producing which kinds of units, how much those units cost, how many you get, how long they take to make, where you get them, etc.

I'm not formally against resource-based mechanics. But there just isn't much room for interesting mechanics there. You can play far more games with unit production mechanics than with resourcing.

[ArcherofAiur]

Resourcing mechanics are inherently one-dimensional. They make a number bigger. Unit-production mechanics have many more dimensions: producing which kinds of units, how much those units cost, how many you get, how long they take to make, where you get them, etc.

So you would give Zerg and Terran a new unit production mechanic and remove their resource mechanic. Now what would you do with Spawn Larva and Reactor. Would you get rid of reactor or just have it overlap with a second unit production mechanic?

[flabortast]

Spawn Larva should just revert back to Mutant Larva version 2. IMO it is the best incarnation.

[Nicol Bolas]

Now what would you do with Spawn Larva and Reactor. Would you get rid of reactor or just have it overlap with a second unit production mechanic?

I see no reason why there would need to be an overlap. The Reactor does a specific thing. And even if there is, wouldn't that just give you more unit production?

And Spawn Larva should have to compete with other mechanics. For example:

Give the Queen the ability to nest on certain structures. Doing so causes that structure to produce larva. If it's a Hatchery, it produces larva faster. However, if it's not a Hatchery, then the larva can only produce the unit that that building builds.

While nesting, the Queen does not gain energy (and cannot attack). The Queen also has an energy-costing Spawn Mutant Larva ability, that converts one Hatchery larva into two Mutant larva.

Mutant larva are units that can move on the map, and they take 1-2 supply each. Mutant larva cannot build drones, but they can build any other unit. This includes units that would normally require an intermediate form (Banelings, Brood Lords, etc). The price for making such units from Mutant larva is lower than the aggregate cost of doing it normally, but higher than the cost to morph them from their intermediate.

The building-specific larva can also directly produce the morphed units (for that building, of course), with the same cost as Mutant larva.

[ArcherofAiur]

I see no reason why there would need to be an overlap. The Reactor does a specific thing. And even if there is, wouldn't that just give you more unit production?

So you would give Terran the Reactor faster unit production mechanic and a second faster unit production mechanic. And you dont think thats overlap?

More importantly it doesnt lead to the macroing player getting a bigger army if they have all the unit production in the world and no way to boost mineral intake.

[Nicol Bolas]

So you would give Terran the Reactor faster unit production mechanic and a second faster unit production mechanic. And you dont think thats overlap?

Again, what would it matter if it did overlap?

And if overlap is deemed something to avoid, it should be noted that Reactors only increase the production for some units, not all. So increasing the production rate for select other units would not overlap at all.

More importantly it doesnt lead to the macroing player getting a bigger army if they have all the unit production in the world and no way to boost mineral intake.

No, but it does lead to them not having to build so many of those pesky unit-making structures.

[Perfecttear]

Okay this is not a macro related question, but a mining rate one

I'm wondering if the protoss probes are still the fastest miners in SC2 like they were in SC1? And is the terran scv still the slowest miner?
Or have all three races the same mining rate in sc2?

In sc1 a probe can make 8 trips in the same time it takes the drone to make 7 trips.
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Mining