Macro Mechanics Discussion Thread

[n00bonicPlague]

Because your not sufficently interupting micro at 14, 12, and 8.

Yet I'm raping 1, 2, and 3 in the ass to make up for it.

Now just look, at this sentence, I'm writing here, as you can, see I am, placing nothing but, commas at regular, intervals in order, to interrupt your, reading you will, note that this, is annoying as, hell and does, nothing to improve, your reading experience. However, now that I am writing normally, it is not only easier to read but also more comprehensible — even entertaining and meaningful (especially since I am using more than just commas to enhance the sentence).

[Nicol Bolas]

Why do you think StarCraft I was too macro-focused?

We keep going in circles; this has been discussed before. Macro actions are always preferred to micro actions. There is virtually no time at which you should postpone macro in favor of micro. Thus, it is not balanced; every skilled player is ultimately just some shade of macro-player.

[Nicol Bolas]

Immediacy. The primary contention between Micro and Macro in SC1 happens because both of them happen, essentially, right now. If you don't Micro right now during this time, you lose the opportunity and pay a price. If you don't Macro right now during this time, you lose the opportunity and pay a price. But they don't have the same immediacy.

Micro opportunities, in many cases, last several seconds. Indeed, if you don't micro for half of a battle, you can still pop in to do some micro for the last half, and you will get some benefit for that. Not as much as if you'd microed for the totality of the battle, but you get something for your effort.

Macro is, in SC1, far less forgiving. You can never make up for lost time with Macro; every second a worker spends not mining is a second of mineral flux you're losing and can never get back. Every second a building spends not making stuff is a second of building time you're not getting. The best you can hope for is to stem the losses.

Micro can be compensated for. If you micro poorly for half of a battle, you can still go back and micro hard for the rest of the battle.

In short, micro is not as immediate as macro. Because every second spent not-macroing is lost and can never be regained, it is more important to macro than to micro.

It has been mentioned before that Mule drops stack, while PC and Spawn Larva do not. Which means that if you hold off on macroing that Mule drop for 5 seconds, you lose 5 seconds of Mule mining now, but later, you get 5 seconds of double-Mule mining to compensate. Over the long-term, it is no different from having perfect macro (so long as you don't wait until your OCC is full of energy).

So what am I getting at? If you make macro abilities that can't stack with themselves, or don't otherwise have some "stockpiling" mechanism built into them, then you're getting back to having macro abilities that are immediate.

So what is the effect of an immediate macro ability? High immediacy means that it almost always trumps micro, unless it isn't a particularly powerful ability to begin with. It is very difficult to make an immediate macro ability conflict with a less-immediate concern.

What happens when you combine high immediacy with an ability that requires you to return to your base at regular, mechanic-defined intervals? You make it impossible to micro while this task needs to be done.

So I would submit that combining high immediacy macro tasks with abilities that require going back to your base at mechanic-defined intervals is the root cause of StarCraft 1's macro focus. These are not the only way to create macro in a game; indeed, these kinds of mechanics should be used sparingly at best if you want to truly have balanced macro and micro.

[Norfindel]

Premise: Each race gets a building that is essentially a silo to contain resources. The silo is place-able a certain distance from the minerals like the main structure, and costs less but has much less hit points as well. Workers can be set to auto-mine and rally back to the silo instead of their main structure (Hatchery/Command Center/Nexus). This silo has the ability to slowly replicate the resources inside it, with accompanying plausible lore about mineral cultures and feeding the growth through terrazine gas. As more resources are added to the silo, the more replication takes place, essentially increasing the overall resources the player has access to by a small (balance-able) percentage. The resources stored in the silo are separate from the resources the player has at their direct disposal. At any point, the player can access the silo and recover only the entire lump sum of the silo's contents (including all the extra resources created by the silo's percentage gain), resetting the silo to containing 0 resources. This process takes a few seconds, and if the silo is destroyed, all resources held within the silo are lost.

Expanded Description: This idea promotes macro by creating choice of how to spend ones resources throughout the game. Should the player mine as normal with 100% income right away to promote a strong start? Or build the silo and allocate several workers to stockpile resources inside it, having less resources at the start of the game, but get get access to a larger lump sum later for emergencies? Is it worth building the silo, or multiple silo's for that extra boost, even though they're a high priority target for raids? Should I let the silo accumulate resources for an extended period of time to quickly produce an end-game strike force, or should I periodically recover my resources to ensure they are safe, but with less resource gain than I could have if I let it sit?

It's interesting. I wonder if you can afford to make the extra workers, and let the resources "cook" inside there. Generally, you need the return of the investment ASAP, and the investment seems to be fairly heavy there.
Don't seems to impact micro a lot, either, unless the silos are constantly harassed. In theory, you could hotkey all your silos, and manage them with little distraction.

[Kimera757]

Why do you think StarCraft I was too macro-focused?

I interpret macro as the production of units, as well as the directing of workers (harvesting, building, etc). I think there was too much micro in the macro (eg telling stupid new workers to harvest every 20 to 30 seconds) rather than "pure" macro (knowing when to expand, etc). I would rather that balance be more toward the "pure" macro.

Where do you think the balance is?

Too much toward macro, and eleven years down the road, unfixable (at least not without ticking off a bunch of old fans).

[DemolitionSquid]

It's interesting. I wonder if you can afford to make the extra workers, and let the resources "cook" inside there. Generally, you need the return of the investment ASAP, and the investment seems to be fairly heavy there.
Don't seems to impact micro a lot, either, unless the silos are constantly harassed. In theory, you could hotkey all your silos, and manage them with little distraction.

It is true that in general, income rate is more important than total income.

A few points about the Silos:

1. You can expand faster - Silos are cheaper than main structures and build faster, but have less HP.

2. Proper management of your Silos might actually increase your income rate more than regular mining (given balancing), because of the extra minerals being grown inside the Silos.

3. They are balanced because each race has access to them, unlike the current mechanics. They are not mandatory APM sinks, unlike the current mechanics. APM sinks are devoid of strategy. How you choose to use your Silos is complete strategy.

4. Macro is the culmination of resource micro. Every time you manually tell an SCV to mine minerals, that's micro. Doing it multiple times to increase your income is macro. Telling a silo to dump its minerals into your usable pool is micro. Doing it multiple times to increase your income is macro. And contrary to popular belief, macro does not mean having to go back to look at your base. It means focusing your time on resource gain rather than resource management. And building units is gaining resources, or more accurately trading resources. That's why you've always been able to hotkey buildings, because using a hotkey for a building means its not being used for a group of units, and because choosing to hotkey a building is still macro, whether you can see that building or not.

[Pandonetho]

I love playing second life, don't you guys? Who doesn't love putting their money into banks and getting interest?

Anyway, I think it's a pretty cool idea actually. I would like to see it at least tried.

[ArcherofAiur]

Demos silo idea is basically the same decision making as cutting workers. Do I want this money now or do I invest it for more money later?

[Draco]

I know this is sounding very optimistic here, but since we've heard no sound of Blizzard for awhile, I think they really did listen to our concerns about the macro abilities and are planning something big. Here's hoping.

[DemolitionSquid]

Demos silo idea is basically the same decision making as cutting workers. Do I want this money now or do I invest it for more money later?

What do you mean cutting workers?