Resources should be a little C&C3?

I hope they have a method of introducing a constant flow of resources so you don't have a ticking time bomb on money on the map. Like C&C3 Tiberium wars, crystals that constantly regenerate, solving a credit financial problem from arriving.

 

That would kill the need to get expansions for providing income. It kinda slows the pace of the game down, and encourages turtling. Terran would become almost invulnerable like that, since they got many units that keep you at a distance. It would really unbalance the races. I absolutely like the idea, but only for custom maps.

Maybe you can elaborate a bit more? Not really that much to discuss here now. This could be a great new game type if you come up with some mechanics behind it, and ways to balance it better.

 

In tiberum wars however the spawning rate of the resources are Ridiculously slow, so turtling against an opponent with more access to tiberium fields would still overpower a well fortified defensive terran player. Because it does need resources to repair buildings and if you can't repair in the time needed to stop wave after wave you start to fail.

P.S. if you played C&C3 you would see that there would be at least a 10 minute waiting period for only a mediocre field to occur.

 

If the resource regeneration rate is slow, then the idea is good, as it could prevent games from stopping on a deathlock if both sides run too low on cash and have strip mined the whole map, or naturally make the minerals and gaysers to have more starting resources.

 

You were talking about a constant flow of recources, that prevents you from getting into financial problems. And if you meant a slow rate precicely as in Tiberium Wars, then you could at least have said that in the first post. Could you tell me which of the two you meant in the first place then? :s

Further: how would a slow recource replenish rate be any good then? The pace of Starcraft 2 is way to high for this. Waiting for recources should never happen. Games are short, about 20 minutes most of the time. If you need to wait half that time for that little recources, then there is just no point in doing so. Or do you have an idea to improve this somehow?

 

Not really just throwin out there.

 

it does prevent however from a stalemate from happening. you have to admit you've run into a situation online when the entire map was at a standstill because of the fact nobody was a finisher and resources became drained. i just hope SC2 production team could solve this problem.

 

Games that end like that is mostly happen when you only have non-build buildings, ground units and an island map. But yeah, such a thing can be extremely annoying. That is one of the reasons that all races have a much higher mobility level now.

Still, I think that regenerating recources would be great for custom maps. Think of game types like line wars, dota, td, etc.

You could have the standard minerals -gold- for killing enemies, and some gas mines you can capture for other recources. These could be used to buy special upgrades, for example. Oh man, I am so derailing the topic. Maybe I will write some stuff down and make a seperate thread on this later. I cannot wait to start using the editor and make this happen.

 

I think stalemates will be even less common than in SC. As long as it's not a PvP, the Terran side can as a last resort sell a couple structures to buy units with, and Zerg can use their remaining Overlords and Spine Crawlers to slowly attack.

 

However it's a good idea , huh...HUH? *

*wink,wink,nudge,nudge*

 

I actually don't think so. You're fixing a problem, yes, but you gotta think about the impact of your solution. It's supposed to fix something that happens like every thousand game (It has never even happened to me, and I've only seen one pro replay in which it happened), yet it slightly changes every game of SC. Therefore, I don't think it's worth it.

Rather 999 games that play exactly like Blizzard want them to and one that does not, than 1000 games that almost exactly play like Blizzard want them to.

 

I like regenerating resources in C&C and AoE, because it's fun to just build your bases up. In StarCraft, however, the main focus is competition, so a lot of the fun comes from managing your economy and denying the opponant theirs.

 

i understand what you're talking about and the concept you're throwing at me now. So if you played Supreme commander ( Chris Taylor, you're a frekin genius) what if the resources were just an rate and not an actual exchange from the environment to building and units. Like CoH but you generate youre own.

 

I agree with the proposition. I've watched many WC3 games end in sudden death because resources abruptly run out. It's not really a proper ending to an RTS imo.

Rather than regeneration rates, that would somehow reward players with slow steady income, allow harvesters to collect a fractional ammount of the original mineral yield after the field has been depleted, and maybe allow the crystals to regenerate a small ammount if not constantly mined.

That way a really long game where all resource spots were taken would keep its incentive to fight over territory even long after tier 3, but not enough to upset early game resource balance in any noticeable way.

 

Thank you hes obviously one of few people i've ever met that has played SC. But you agree the concept could work on SC2 given a couple new mechanics? im not too program saavy. Hardware's my playing field!

 

StarCraft games almost always end before the map is mined out, so it's not really an issue.

 

Instead, how about this?

Starting fields don't come back, natural and second fields don't come back either, however, have the few that don't fit into these slots slowly regenerate. That way, the players will fight over this spot, encouraging competition, and if the rest of the map gets mined out, then the one who gets this spot and holds it at the end wins.

Otherwise, having resources that come back, take out a huge portion of the strategy involved in the game, this is why I do not like money maps.

 

I am one hundred percent confident that Blizzard has long, long ago considered this, and found one or many good reasons not to implement it. My guess is that they were very similar to the ones forum members have already brought up: the fast-paced nature of SC matches, the low overall impact, etc.

Dustin Browder- the lead designer for StarCraft 2, was directly involved in (read: lead designer of) three C&C games (not including expansions) -where regenerating resources is the norm. Again- I am completely certain that this possibility didn't just slip his mind.

--

Anyway- there is actually a way to taper resource depletion that doesn't result in the floor falling out from beneath you- one that doesn't require resource regeneration at all.
Instead of making a field of 10x1500=15000 mineral clusters, a map maker can make a field with varying amounts. For example, 2x2000 + 5x1500 + 4x875 = 15000. This would have the same net amount of resources, but the rate at which a player can extract them changes over time. With 11 clusters, the player could actually mine resources slightly faster, early in the game, but before long, the 875-mineral clusters will deplete, causing a small drop in the overall rate of income. A bit later on, the 1500-mineral clusters will deplete, resulting in another, slightly larger drop, and finally, the player will be left with the two fat 2000-mineral clusters (which would probably have ~500 by then) and a thin trickle of income that would remind them (if the other drops in income hadn't) that they really ought to be expanding- and give them some slack to do so.

A more visual representation, note that the intervals are not even:

Homogeneous clusters:
[1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500]
[0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000] -10 clusters worth of income stops in a very short period of time.


Staggered depletion:
[2000][2000][1500][1500][1500][1500][1500][0875][0875][0875][0875]
[1125][1125][0625][0625][0625][0625][0625][0000][0000][0000][0000] - 4 clusters of income
[0500][0500][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000] - 5 clusters of income
[0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000][0000] - 2 clusters of income

Assuming all clusters are saturated to begin with, I believe the second one would take a bit longer to mine out. A 10-cluster setup, one that I believe would take about the same time to deplete completely, could very easily be done, but I wasn't in the mood to shuffle the numbers around =p

The net result is a completely different income-curve- one that may perhaps be more amicable toward players that don't watch their resources. By hitting them with significant, but not complete, losses of income, they can be reminded to expand without kicking them in the face.

This, and other non-homogeneous cluster plans suffers from the fact that the placement of clusters, by value, must be equivalent for all players, as longer or shorter distances to different clusters can have a greater effect on income (as clusters start to deplete) than it normally would. To be honest, I don't think this effect is huge- as it is probably counteracted by workers moving from depleted clusters to free clusters, but it should be taken into account.

With the expectation of two vespene geysers per base, and the inclusion of yellow minerals, resource-depletion staggering will be even more versatile in SC2. For example, a starting base could be given several yellow clusters with, say 200 minerals each- meaning players could get tons if minerals early-game, before the deplete and leave the player with an "only-sane" income. Whether or not one would want to do this, or it will be balancable across races, are different questions entirely. With gas, a base could be given a 2500-geyser and a 7500 geyser- staggering depletions. With gas (because it does already "regenerate" in the sense that it never stops, and because you can't pull as much variation with two income sources as you can with eight or more), the effect would be much smaller, but, again, it's a possibility.

Of course, I have never seen this done outside of campaign maps (and I wonder if it was ever intentional). But who knows, maybe some SC2 map makers will figure it out this time around.

 

Hmm I have an idea. what if the vespene geysers regenerated? cause they cant be used once depleted. how about something like 2 gas per 3 seconds, but it stops after it gets to 2000 gas? Maybe only for certain ones?

 

There is Ne with his text walling again.

I think I like your idea better then mine Neon, and it only takes a map maker some tweaking to pull it off.

On a side note, I bet that post was hell to format.