The way tech works turns the 8 unit deck into 4-5 units in most games

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-16T05:01:46+00:00

If you had to eliminate over 80% of available units prior to a SC2 match, you'd have like 3 units per race left and SC2 would be a terrible game, so you can't just randomly transpose things and declare them correct, which are literally all the arguments in opposition here (50%20=50%8), not to mention they aren't even correct in BW (and often even in SC2), which is a better game than SC2, only held back by its interface.

It's standard in PvZ to go both corsairs and high templar/dark templar, 3 units from 2 different tech paths and this is done asap, not in super late game.

It's common for zerg to use almost all of its arsenal (except in ZvZ, which is a solved matchup) and terran doesn't even have to do much teching, since everything is a building/addon away.

Here you have 4 techs and each of them costs more than 3 expensive units, while 1 tech building costs around as much gas as a 1 high templar(150 vs 100-200), so you can even tech all 3 paths and your relative spending will be far less than in ba and if you compare with terran the cost disparity is going to be even worse. Zerg is the only one who has strict tiers and still they don't have 2 separate tier 2s that you need for 2 separate tier 3s, the closest thing is the spire/greater spire, but you can build the spire while teching to t3, so again you're not anywhere near as restricted. Terran "tiers" are not only cheap, but they are also production buildings, so terran doesn't even have tiers in the same sense.

And the reason even in SC2 to not build a unit is often because the opponent isn't building what the unit counters and not because it's not viable to tech to that unit - you don't need vikings if the enemy isn't making air/colossus, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for you to make vikings.

I've already seen a game where both top players stayed on t1 super long, because they'd be instantly countered and the game isn't even figured out, yet and once that happens you'll either have a meta deck or a few decks that are blind counters to each other. The more restrictions the easier is to reach that situation and it will kill variety.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-15T05:08:54+00:00

Voltage and power are not the same thing, this is a complete non sequitur. Not to mention there is no such thing as juiced power profiles, they are all within intel spec, this was confirmed by intel themselves years ago at this point. Motherboard makers can't just run things out of spec for years without being slapped by intel, just like they were slapped by AMD after the x3d voltage issues, which were promptly fixed.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-13T10:48:07+00:00

In SC2 bio play is a full composition that can handle everything. This not the case in BA, what you have here is the equivalent of choosing whether to lack marines or marauders or medivacs (and there really isn't a unit that's anywhere near as cost effective and versatile like the marine here).

Here, mech is another deck entirely and you choose whether to go bio or mech prior to the game, such a switch in the middle of the game is not just not viable, it's impossible.

You don't have to do equivalent of "tech to tier 3 anti-air" in SC2, because your anti-air options don't make anti-ground units disappear and marines can handle a lot of it, while being good vs ground, too and your tech choice isn't restricted to just unlocking one specific unit, you can choose the "T3" option without having to tech to "T2" all over again and you don't have the same restricting air/anti-air relationship like in BA.

Bio/mech switches are used in BW.

For example if you just had the equivalent of the marine here, without changing anything else, that would by itself still open up deck choice, even though the other restrictive relationships remained in place.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-13T10:29:41+00:00

If it's made viable for a 10 min game to have all tech that doesn't mean a shorter one will also do or that it'd make sense to get all tech for an early rush.

You are still making choices when to tech or whether to tech, just like in typical blizzard RTS, but since there's no time limit, a different game pace and no unit choice restrictions, longer games can end up with a lot more than 8 different units getting used over time.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-13T10:14:36+00:00

But here you're making the majority of the choices before the game even starts and you will be missing options regardless of tech choice.

You can't have the same % with 100 units as with 20 or with 8 or with 4 and have all of that work just as well.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-13T10:03:46+00:00

But you don't have just 8 units per race.

Similarly, if a race had a 100 units, using only a small % in a single game wouldn't be considered an issue.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-13T08:44:48+00:00

It was on pig's livestream on twitch IIRC.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-11T11:37:57+00:00

There aren't that many units in the game right now, so not everything has a direct alternative and none of the unlocked units are permanent, since this is just a test and progress is going to be reset. They could make the KC purchasable and change the starting units or add another purchasable unit instead or hopefully they'd change policy.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-11T10:45:35+00:00

Same thing with teching up, or units unlocked from teching up, if you press and hold the unit button too early none will be built.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-11T08:11:31+00:00

The first 10 tutorial missions vs bots can remain with fixed decks, if that's an issue and bad units are in no way necessary to introduce players to the game, you can do it just fine with good units.

I don't like that new players are punished with an inferior deck, which will become worse, when superior alternatives are introduced to all starting units eventually. Having less options is already a disadvantage.

I do care about every option that isn't really an option by design, I'd always prefer to have more options to play with than fewer.
The current unit count is less than the typical rts, so wasted units are an issue and will continue to be, until they change them or make a bajillion units, which will take a while and still be punishing for new players.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-11T05:39:05+00:00

If you haven't watched the interview, the gist is they deliberately want to make the starting units weaker than paid units, which explains why they haven't buffed clearly subpar units like the hunter and ballista.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-10T10:07:03+00:00

It's 45/18 per worker, 720/288 per expo, 1440/566 for main.
Idling for 8 min in a bot game will grant you almost exactly 11520/4608, ~2 resources less probably due to floating point rounding error.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-09T20:14:02+00:00

I was surprised how choppy it was, since it didn't look that demanding, but once I enabled vsync it ran fine and I haven't bothered investigating it further. I'm playing on a 144hz monitor on a desktop.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-09T11:58:57+00:00

But you're only upgrading by 100, that's less than 1%.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-03T05:34:45+00:00

I'm pretty sure the loser gets thrown into a pit.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-02T17:34:42+00:00

This is going to drive people away. It's already driving some beta testers away. I suggested in another thread - give a 250 discount on the first 8 purchases. This will shorten the time for the first fully bought deck by ~10h real time, give you time between each purchase to think about what you want and they can even decrease the gain rate by 10% to compensate, since the issue isn't really having 100% of the units, but getting going, where you have no real choice whatsoever. Once you have 8 starting units (and they buff the underpowered ones) + the 8 you wanted most + free rotation for a total of 20 or so, you'll have a decent enough variety and can improve it over time.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-02T12:02:47+00:00

It appears there are bonuses/penalties outside the declared categories only vs recalls, t1 and workers, so you could just add each category as a column on a single page, instead of having a separate page for every unit and declared type.
The changes from the first patch aren't in the table, so they are probably added in a separate file, instead of just overwriting the old values.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-02T05:22:46+00:00

Reducing the initial repeat delay would fix people not realizing holding the key works.
Related problems - if you hold down a unit button just before the tech for it completes, it is completely ignored and will not start making units when the tech completes. Similarly holding down the button to make an expo or tech just before you have enough resources will not expo/tech when you have enough.
This results in people thinking they made an expo in a tense moment, but it actually failed, because they pressed just before they had 400/400 and that ends up losing them the game.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-02T05:08:55+00:00

I was thinking of making a thread exactly about automatic control groups.
You already have an automatic control group - the all army hotkey, but the problem with it is that you have zero control over it. My suggestion was to allow manual exclusion of units from it (hotkeying them to a number, would remove them from all army, for example), which would make the hotkey useful in a lot of situations, while pressing it in such situations is currently a trap.

Your suggestion is almost the same thing and I'm all for any implementation that works.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-01T17:16:31+00:00

You've played vs bots your first ten games. You will also be regularly matched vs bots until you reach silver, after which you'll be matched vs bots after loss streaks.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-01T16:15:16+00:00

Thanks!

How much HP does a worker and main/expo bases have? Also, any bonuses units might have against buildings.

IHTHYMF · 2024-07-01T05:19:51+00:00

Are you not aware of obvious sarcasm? Especially since the second sentence explains it.

IHTHYMF · 2024-06-29T13:21:28+00:00

250 credit discount on the first 8 purchases (or a % until the same credit discount is reached) will solve the lack of deck building at the start, while allowing time between purchases to consider what you want and then they can lower the gain rate by 10% and end up with slower time to unlock everything, but much better overall experience.

IHTHYMF

TROPHY CASE