Dark vs herO 8 Worker Showmatch: th-cam.com/video/uPO_Mw_ya4k/w-d-xo.htmlsi=aZpswIia-ZDzMtrz Just to clarify since so many people are asking - the aim of these experiments and videos is to have fun and explore options + learn more about what influences SC2 gameplay and RTS in general. If we learn some good lessons that can be implemented into SC2 balance then that's a bonus! Regarding the random mod, I don't think this would ever be likely to be implemented on ladder. However I think it's a really fun alternate format to host tournaments/events on. It could significantly shake up results for a specific event and reward a somewhat different skillset from the players.
The variable mineral nodes is genius. I stopped playing the ladder because it all became so... clinical. This is easy and effective way to counter it, different bases give you different amount of resources so you have to think about where do you wanna expand to or scout and pathing is no longer the main and only consideration.
@@Matej_Sojka i recall a patch maybe toward end of HotS early LotV where they changed the mineral patches. Was it that they became more uniform? Because it too was around when I stopped playing.
@@kindenigma4119 I think they lowered the amount of minerals per base to force players to have to expand more frequently, and prevent 1-2 base turtle builds if I remember correctly.
Look at other games that effectively do this, like age of empires. It doesn't produce more strategic games, just more "varied" games. But only varied as we already get from different maps. It will just be more builds and senarios that will have to be memorised with less optimised builds becoming more common.
Pig can you do a video on EARLS MOD the developer has made 30 new playable races and has people balancing every race. Some of the races have incredible abilities and i think once pros start catching on it will 100% save sc2. th-cam.com/video/LDs3ILrSAO8/w-d-xo.html .
Uthermal ideas would go crazy. He's done so many different challenges and ideas. I can only imagine what he would cook with PiG's mods. This would be a super hype collab
agree. He would be a great player to have around for stuff like this. But I think he will be unavailable for collabs for at least a few months ahead. Hes pushing 2v2 content, and he will be running monthly 2v2 tournaments with cash-prizes for at least a good period. Mebbi there would be room for some odd stuff, but as hes the organiser then I have a feeling he will be tied down a bit
uThermal would actually be a great collab considering he is probably one of the people who has explored trying to find different limitations in the game to create challenges from
This is kind of similar to how the Fischer Random game mode has become popular among some top chess players. In that game mode, the starting squares for the back rank are randomly switched up throwing out book moves for classic openings, and causing more on the fly strategy.
Random initial conditions (usually called "random setup") is also a common design element in modern board games, including games such as Terra Mystica and 1849: The Game of Sicilian Railways which, like Chess, are perfect information games. Note: the random setup is not a variant; that's the only way the game is played. It works well.
Age of Empires games also feature a random map generation where each map your base and resources are placed in a different, unique position (using seed like in Minecraft). Matches feel less repetitive thanks to this.
Was gonna comment the exact same thing! I love chess, but HATE memorizing openers, so I always try to persuade my friends into playing the Fischer variant instead. Pretty sure the same randomness in SC2 would shake things up in a really interesting way!
I wasn’t aware day9 was still paying attention to SC2 at all tbh. Not sure if these games were fun more because of the mod or because of how these two play, but either way it was awesome to watch
Just because you stop playing something doesn't mean you stop watching. I haven't played Dota2 is 3/4 years but I still watch the tournaments. It's moderately comparable because I have 5500 hours in Dota 2 and 4000 hours in Dota 1 so I know what it feels like to stop playing something competitively but continuing to follow.
@PluvioZA I know, I'm the same with Smash and SC2. I just haven't heard his name mentioned in relation to the game for years. I kinda thought he just moved into other things. Kind of expected if he still watched he'd still say something about it every now and then and his name would therefore show up with some degree of regularity.
This makes perfect sense. This is exactly what has been popular in Chess. So much of modern chess has come down to memorization and prep instead if intuition/instincts. This is similar to how starcraft is right now. A chess format that's getting more popular is Chess960 or Fischer Random.
This is why in computer chess competitions, they start the games off with all sorts of different openings (where they make both engines play two games with the same opening, one as white and one as black) If the engines chose the opening, it would just be a draw almost all the time. They try to pick openings that are even but asymmetric.
This is why I quit chess back in my late teens. I got fairly good but the fact that you had to memorize, memorize, memorize to get to the top level felt so terrible to me. It's supposed to be a game of strategy/intellect/skill, not memorization
The difference that is in chess960, both players are playing with the same pieces. Different mineral/worker-count starts could easily skew the balance of any non-mirror matchup. It's a cool idea, but I think that could be a big hole in it.
it's why RTS games get boring really quick. Just learn the bog standard first 5 mins with minor deviations (like early aggression or fast up time). MOBA has a similar issue, but even then, you can do some pretty wild things if you want.
@@Twiixq the map would still indicate where you opponent spawn. It would just randomize the distance between players. I think the Zerg balance concern were blind starts.
The distance and attack paths is the main problem. If you're spawning horizontally, the attack paths for air/ground is much shorter, and the expansion pattern is limited to one cardinal direction for Zerg - away from the opponent. This means the Opponent gets to expand into the attack onto the Zerg, so you're both defending your bases and taking ground towards attacking the Zerg. This shorter path meant the opponent could be attacking before eggs pop, so Zerg couldn't reply to a scouted move-out. This was a huge problem for certain strategies, when they came online early. In the current metagame, it wouldn't matter that much. Though if you go to random minerals/workers/gas, the slower gamepace would crush Zerg in close spawns.
Seeing Taldarim altar again makes me think you ahould use a large map pool with classic maps from across the eras. Hits that nostalgia while ensuring players have lots of possibilities to adapt to. Also, come to think of it, different starting parameters should be something incorporated into map design in the regular game.
I think this is great! one thing missing in SC2 is this small randomness, it sometimes feels like a solved game. It brings that improvisation skill that is otherwise missing.
Kind of. You can get to the solution in two ways. 1. Lower worker starts that branch into more possibilities 2. Randomness But lower worker starts only works if there are actual options - Because of the way Warp Gates work, back in wings of liberty before an insane number of nerfs the only viable option for Protoss was Warp gates: That dictated so much of the games balance - from how strong protoss T1 units could be, to the way zerg and terran units interacted, which dictated the entire balance between those two races and it was... sketchy. If you take warp gates and toss it to be along, slow, templar archives tech and take zealot legs and drop that to Cybercore: You have a tempo and play that avoids a lot of the problems but, you open up to Strategy that can be scouted and gleamed from through scouting. Now you have the branch and the balance that stems from: Greed > Turtle, Turtle > Aggression, Aggression > Greed. The problem right now is that Greed beets everything when played cleanly. Map designs generally make cannon rushing difficult at best provided you have a clear understanding of how to stop it; ling rush gets shut down by battery+2 adepts or a bunker + marines, or a wall or... And on we go. So in every case, a minimal defence fast expand approach wins out every single time. By slowing down the start, fixing the underlying cause of the balance problems - you can net out a much cleaner, more interesting game that REQUIRES aggressive constant scouting. And now: Strategy is everything, and interesting play that catches players off guard becomes powerful. And yes: I am a FIRM believer that warp gates is the underlying core problem.
@@formes2388 I have a problem with the expression "Greed beats everything when played cleanly". In my head, Greed refers to strategies which will give you an advantage later in the game, so it makes sense that if you can survive everything that is thrown at you, then you will be at an advantage and therefore you should win. So if by "played cleanly" means that you correctly react to things your opponent does, then it should follow that Greedy should beat everything when played cleanly. I guess what people want to change about the meta is that some people can play completely predictable, yet that predictability cannot be taken advantage of enough to win, but I do not see how any of the changes proposed does anything to change this. It seems like what you would need is to make scouting so hard that you sometimes have to take more risks when playing greedy, but I worry that making scouting too hard would make some games too much of a coin flip.
I think occasionally starting with gas allows some weird stuff like tech rushing without investing in gas production or just peppering out a couple of gas units on an otherwise mineral build.
The randomized aspect reminds me of Fischer Random. Cool idea to keep things more about creativity and strategy instead of memorized builds. Also plus one for collabing with Uthermal.
Day[9] floated the idea of running tournaments where each round starts with different conditions (like a different worker count or mineral/gas values) that the players only learn about right before the match. The rest of the game stays normal, but those small changes force players to rely on improvisation rather than memorized builds. Essentially, you’d have a tournament format where no two rounds open the same way, and the pros have to adapt on the fly to whatever initial setup they’re given.
This is what I love about the SC2 community. Someone has a great idea and within a couple weeks there's already matches being played and videos uploaded. This is brilliant content thanks PiG
The mineral patch change has a huge impact on balance, especially in the late game because of how mules work. Also Terran is built around efficiency, which means it struggles to mass expand. Terran doesn't have creep, nydus worms, warp ins or recall mechanics, infact a couple of their power units need to "seige" to be effective, which means that everything over 5 bases puts them at a huge disadvantage. Another thing to consider is that the other two races don't have a larva mechanic, so they can't take advantage of starting with 100-200 minerals as easily as zerg. Furthermore it messes with timings, which will result in more games like the first one. I appreciate your desire to shake things up in a 14 yr old game that represents a large chunk of your income, but I wish you would put more consideration into balance.
This is the fun Starcraft that I remember, players coming up with new ideas. This starting workers/minerals thing provides that. I also love the maps that have that "Australia" high ground, allows for creativity. I think that for a "fair match" players not only decide the maps, but how many workers/minerals it has. Player one choses map, player two decides worker/mineral, next map player two, etc.
Another possibility to change things up are the maps themselves. The ladder maps are always really basic where the only thing they change is when do you break rocks. Do weird stuff like that second game that had worker only access points. Or what about a map that has no naturals of any kind and all the expansions are clustered in the center. Maybe have the main base patches be doubled to compensate. You don't mine any faster, but you don't mine out as fast. Or a map where main bases are in the center of the map but separated by a giant canyon so you have to go around the outskirts of the map. Maybe have the center full of those slow speed zones to keep air from being overly dominant. Or add map mechanics, like the lava that rises every X minutes (Ok, maybe not that one, but it's an example of something that players need to actively work around). I don't know, just a thought.
i used to play SC2 but now almost exclusively play Teamfight Tactics. The amount of variance in a game of TFT is what makes every game so interesting since you can't just follow the same build path every game. Your items, augments, the encounter, how much gold/items you start with, what your opponents are doing are all factors. i dont know how feasible it would be in SC2 but i would love to see a mode with the mentioned varying start worker count / mineral and gas count then have periodic random augments that can buff certain units, give a lump sum of gas/minerals, allow building of certain units etc. The TFT dev team make so many interesting augments every set that always make the game fresh. it would be hard to balance as it is in TFT but i would love a SC2 1v1 competitive mode with a huge amount of variance that changes how you play each game
Only thing that would be needed is showing player MMR when they join a lobby in a custom map or mod. So that players of equal skill can find each other. Then PiG or someone with a channel can showcase a cool mod and players will start playing it. If something emerges that's super fun it will become super popular.
Awesome ideas! Leave it to a dinosaur to resurface out of nowhere and put the mammals on the right path - and this here Australian mammal to immediately put his brilliance three steps further into practice.
I think this experimentation is a good start, especially that gradually mining out is awesome. But even more things could be tried out. - removal of macro mechanics. During LotV beta Blizzard tested removing them for a week and players immediately reported that the game felt much more strategic. Would love to see that being tried again. Apparently Terran would be hit the hardest by that, so maybe they could be slightly buffed along with it, just don't know how. - bigger unit sizes (not model sizes). Units are so clumped up in SC2 that a whole deathball can fit through nearly every pathway on the map and close the distance to the enemy all at once. In BW units always only trickle in. I would be very interested to see how this would play out in SC2. (When unit sizes get bigger, all AoE spell sizes should probably as well.) Seeing this would make me more interested in this game than I've ever been since LotV released. Gonna follow in case someone realizes my ideas.
This idea reminds me of Chess variation proposed by Bobby Fisher, where you randomize the back line of your pieces. It is known as Fischer Random Chess or Chess960, because it allows 960 possible starting positions. Exciting idea.
I think rotating/randomizing units would be a more viewer focused solution. Instead of randomly starting with different worker counts imagine randomly staruing with vulture and medic/dropship instead of hellion and medivac; reaver arbiter instead of collosus carrier, etc. We have so many cool units that are in the engine and never used. Seeing more variety and more different unit matchups would be compelling for viewers imo.
This is a great idea. To run it in a tournament, you'd probably have to do like they do for "duplicate bridge" tournaments, where everyone plays the same hands. You'd have to have everyone play with the same fixed (but randomly generated) start conditions.
It’s playable in custom games using the “Pig Balance Mod” extension mod! You can set the worker start count, mineral start count, and resource model in the top right corner of the lobby (including a couple presets for picking at random)
I would love to play this omg. 100% Agree with the gas call, the varied minerals makes so much sense i cant believe it wasnt done a decade ago. The varied workers between 6 and 12 is just awesome and should totally be a thing and makes lore sense. Love this.
Ive always wondered why maps don't often experiment with weird, whacky shit like having rich minerals or a rich vespene start in main, or having vespene geysers be just a little bit farther away than the norm to slow the flow rate of gas, etc. I feel like the "strategy" part of strategy is dealing with and overcoming inconveniences or taking advantage of excess resources to create new opportunities that weren't possible before. So much of StarCraft is about money, and altering how much and how often you receive it can drastically alter openers.
Game 6 reminded me of the old way of starcraft where it was always about keeping zerg as small as you can with constant pressure so they didnt hit their ultra late game. The entire point of the faction was to be a unstoppable swarm if it hit its late game brood lord(mega range) and infestor(infested terran and instant fungal days)
Sc2 is known for its incredible precision in strategizing plans over the dynamics of a game and by executing that plan with accuracy while maintaining flexibility to adapt. This is a really neat idea and I understand that the details are yet to be drafted and set in stone. Here's my thoughts in providing a needed modern touch to shake up starting conditions while maintaining a good integrity of the base game where carefully theorizing your strategy on a map can provide a good advantage. Using a randomizer for starting conditions is good, but I'd suggest we look at the permutations these conditions involve. This mod randomise a starting mineral value between 0-200 minerals in 25 minerals increments, a worker count between 5-12 and there are currently 9 maps in the map pool. That's 648 different starting conditions on 9 maps, or 1944 different matchups with different starting conditions over 9 maps. Given these numbers of different matchups, players will have to give up the precise theory of building highly efficient builds and strategize by rule of thumbs and intuition. I believe this could erode a significant portion of what many players were fascinated about when they chose Starcraft 2 over other RTS games. Admittedly, this fascination has grown to become a curse as the game has become more and more figured out and thus theorizing new efficient builds simply doesn't provide the player with the advantage it once did. This idea is exciting because it introduce opportunities for new strategies based on new starting conditions. But lets face it, 11 workers and 50 minerals or 12 workers 0 minerals starting conditions isn't what we're excited about. Players are currently facing 27 different games given there are 3 races and 9 maps, if we'd randomize between 6 and 12 workers (low vs high worker count) over 50 or 150 minerals (low vs high minerals), those different games adds up to being 108. In making this idea a success, you must take into consideration of balancing the amount of permutations of games and what number permutations are feasible for a pro player to still be able to perform with the precision that the audience expect to see. It's not fun watching pro-players lose or win games because of minor inaccuracies, and so I believe a certain integrity must be respected. I'd personally recommend trying out 6, 10 and 14 workers 50 minerals starting conditions. This would increase the permutations to 81, 3 times more permutations of games than the previous 12 workers 50 minerals start. This might not sound like big enough of a shake up but keep in mind that mid Master players typically struggles in having good builds in 27 permutations, it's only really in Grand Master league where players are skilled enough to push that 27 permutation limit. In the pro scene however we're seeing players being skilled enough to exhaust these permutations and only in the pro scene are we truly seeing a stagnation of builds and strategies as the game reaches a sort of limit. This is why I say let's just increase permutations of games to 81 and filter out the unnecessary chaotic in between permutations. While keeping permutations low enough to at least be feasible in theory but high enough to reach in practice, then we'll see how pro-players would refine very specific permutations yet can still be caught off guard in others without it feeling like an impossible task to predict.
I think this is a great idea and really strikes a balance of some of the fundamental ideas behind SC2. SC2 has always functioned on the basis of builds (at least in the early game) with second by second precision in certain cases. A one worker increase or decrease is enough to completely throw off these types of builds, which would move players away from the more prepared style of builds and into looser, less precise builds. However, keeping a low, medium, and high count of workers as starts would bring back a lot of variability, as the lower count of workers in some starts would incentive aggressive rush play more than a higher count of workers.
This idea is so, so, so interesting! Besides potential balance concerns (do some races have a clear advantage with lower vs higher worker count starts?), I actually just wonder about the mental load on players. Doesn't this multiply the number of potential openers you should learn before starting the game? Even if only at the extremes - low worker vs high worker counts - that would still be 6 openers you should have prepped rather than 3. I still think that the pro's may outweigh the cons, especially as a spectator. As a player, this would be interesting enough to get me to jump into the ladder and give it a try.
The goal being “increased improvisation” yes there would be more potential openings that’s the point. This game thrives on spectator satisfaction. You know what helps achieve that? Something besides reaper hellion 8 queen every game
Honestly, as someone who thinks SC2 balance is in an awful place right now, I would look to AOE2 for an understanding of how balance can change with different workers. They have tournaments with a whole host of different starts, i think Wolololo had a 30 worker start and the norm is 8, but they also have 3 worker starts, or starts without a "command center", and its incredibly difficult at any point to find a settled "meta" with that much diversity. Obviously theres a more nuanced discussion to have, which youtube is terrible for, but my general point is whatever balance concerns could exist will take an incredibly long time to sift out.
"do some races have a clear advantage with lower vs higher worker count starts?" It doesn't seem like it significantly changes race balance overall, but some cheeses do become more/less powerful at higher/lower worker starts. Ex: ling rushes are stronger when players start with less workers, because there are less resources available to wall by the time lings hit, so there's a little less room for error in reacting. It's why wall locations in HoTS/WoL generally had to be narrower than they do now in LoTV; there was a pretty long time in HoTS where 7 pool was the meta opener in ZvP, because the required response meant Zerg still came out a bit ahead. One of the things LoTV has done with the 12 worker start and half patches that mine out very quickly is make cheeses/all ins generally easier to defend so macro play and fast expanding is more dominant. If the cheese fails, you are punished more severely by mining out faster, and more resources to work with in the early game gives a bit more room for error defending, since the gap between the defender and attacker in terms of value is larger. Though attacks involving more units also means that games with an all in/cheese are more quickly decided if things start to turn in favor of the attacker.
@@Matt-ln7lb at hots worker count, i never found a toss without wall even by pooling the earliest possible, only chance was the scarlet move that was actually defended by... sos? pool first vs nexus first... lol! The people get better at the game every day, 2 years ago many toss still died to 12 pool because they dont pull enough probes, or tried to be hyper fancy with zealot micro, now only like 1/10 dies to it. Worker count is not that relevant; both scenarios had 12 I dont rly want those things on the ladder. Dunno why ppl want to fix what is not broken, like watching a rally and saying; would not it be fun if they start by going backwards? I mean... yeah, kinda, but as a player i dont see the point. The players dont do risky things that make the crowds clap and laugh because they play to win, for money. Even if you make the start a rng shitfest, they all will always find back the way into the most solid and safe play, in that regard i think it is way worse losing because viewers want fun and the rng was trash. And when they do funky shit is because they feel safe doing it against a given player, or because it fits the overall event strategy, or because they need a high risk/reward play to keep playing for the big prize.
Much easier suggestion: reduce to 8 workers AND add back in 3 player maps, 4 player maps and 5 player maps (with unknown spawns). Unknown opponent starting position adds a tremendous amount of uncertainty to brood war and requires more more strategic thinking (including occasionally mixing in objectively worse strategies and builds just because the opponent then has to play knowing those strategies are possible and must be scouted).
Chess 960 was created by a previous world champion for this exact reason. Starting postiions on the board are randomized allowing for 960 possible starts. He famously said that Chess favors those that prepare well for their match and does not favor creative or interesting play.
Also game 5 was one of the most exciting things because all ins just arnt always successful. And that can lead to variable games that arnt always im down because i failed an all in vs maybe enough damage was done to even it out with a minor lead to one or the other but it causes the scales to tip more slowly I think and thats what people really enjoyed in these series, the slow build of possibilities.
Having some amount of starting gas would actually be interesting cause it can give you a set amount of tech without needing to get gas. Like, zerg starting with 100 gas get to go zergling speed while staying full mineral would be the obvious one, but protoss getting to delay taking gas or terran having the option to get a factory while staying full minerals is also something I'd like to see.
I find alot of success with a build from WoL i used to do, its a 2-3 rax combat shield ghost rush most protoss are not ready for combat shield rines and an emp early game, it negates shieldbattery or you can drop emp on their stalkers or sentries
One thing I am interested in knowing would be could you change how many minerals are there on each patch? It was reduced at some point to force players to expand more quickly but I can imagine more aggressive playstyles are punished by it because it means you end up with less of a follow up. Now obviously it's good that we don't get 1 hour games anymore because the resources on a map are more finite but I would be interested in seeing if players would feel like they have more options for aggression if even just the mineral patches in the main base lasted longer so you could stay on 1 or 2 base for longer.
i dont think it would work longterm for a rts as asymmetric as starcraft. at some point it will be figured out that X race is screwed when worker count is lower or starting resources is lower etc etc.. Can be fun for a showmatch but not fun longterm imo.
So entertaining. Massive improvement to the start of the game. I’d love to see another mod/experiment that gives high ground an advantage like Broodwar (maybe a different advantage though?). In my mind having a high ground advantage to defend your base or a point on a map forces your opponent to look for other weaknesses and improvise away around the defences you’ve set up. I think this would really change up map designs though.
The best I've seen (short of having proper projectile simulation) is increasing range on high ground to low ground and/or decreasing range/vision from low ground to high ground. Granted I've only seen that in a BW mod, but it's a granular mechanic that makes sense and doesn't add unwanted randomness.
@@dominiccastsi think vision enables terrans too much as other races woukd need to compensate with more apm (toss oracle micro, overlord army sync). Or could make terran harder to defend as its unit design is trading mobility for high burst and attack range.
@@freebornfloor1600 Possibly, I'm not sure it would be any stronger than the current binary vision system on high ground, though I expect range being affected without affecting vision would be less challenging to design around. For the record, I'm thinking more in terms of what future StarCraft-style games could do, rather than what StarCraft 2 could do, since I expect pigs will grow wings before any major design changes get adopted, so I'm not as concerned about the specific balance issues it might pose for SC2.
I would love to see this format even if players started with multiple bases. 2 bases, 7 workers (for each base), 25 minerals. I just think that would be so fricken cool!
Shake up idea: worker mines 2~6 resource each trip, rolled each game instead of each trip. A lower income means early army is more efficient, higher income means rushing tech and fast expansion is more efficient. Can even make gas/mineral separate, though lower gas will probably favor terran a bit to much if the game lasts long enough.
And now players lose because one side gets faster echo and just ends up ahead and by the time normalization happens later in the game, the game has already been decided.
Amazing games! Day9 is, of course, a total genius, thank you for bringing his vision to life. These games were so interesting and epic (of course, with Has and Bly it was going to be interesting)!
i could also see a starting condition chosen like in mechabellum. before the round starts players can chose between lets say 2 extra workers, 100 minerals 50 gas, a stationary defense structure or a tier 2 unit for free at 3:00.
Feels a bit like the Age of Empire tournaments, obviously rules of each match doesn't change, but the tournament's themselves apply rules that make some of them feel very different.
Hello PiG, what about letting players choose the start just like the maps, like the opponent chooses the map and you choose the start, like 0/0 12workers all the way into 200/200 6 workers, all of this before the match? That will let the players have some degree of control and let players develop strategies like a 200/200 rush and what not, or a 100/100 9 worker 2 barracks all win? Just an ideia
That's a MUCH more interesting idea than presented in this video. I was quite disappointed with this video because both players start with the exact same worker and mineral count instead of it being random for both players.
Honestly map layouts is what causes the games to be the way they are, If expansions weren't so safe and close to home all the time players would have to change their strategy's. Also the bases distances. The other problem is theres to many wonky cheese rush strats too, So either lower worker count change as well and distance between opposing bases changed. It's cool to see what you guys come up with for some flair/variety.
been using the Has immortal zealot all in (7gates slowlot) for a few years now and never watched him play. his blink control was amazing for a player that doesnt play anymore.
This would be kinda cool to see as an alternative choice for ladder (separate from current obv). tbh Wouldn't mind 3 or 4 different types of community built ladders added with their own MMR system. Why not, we already have the balance council, would be kinda cool to see Blizzard add some alternate matchmaking with different rules.
The best thing they could do to make the game more exciting is to just randomize the starting worker count and that is it. That way you can not make any plans going into a match unless you want a build for each individual possible worker counts. altering the starting mineral count feels like it would give Zerg a huge rushing buff
Stopped when I seen who's in show match to say,I am so STOKED! I love this idea and day9 and haven't been this excited for starcraft 2 since serral beat stats to be the first foreigner to win world championship.
I think this would be far better if players had a week or two to practice with the constraints. It would give players and the commnuity time to get excited about possible builds, give content creators video oppertunitys and encourage more community engagement in general. Even with minor changes in patches we see significant changes in strategy for weeks or months, and I think it would prevent players feeling frustrated with "bad" random starts.
lol i think people are overcomplicating what it takes to make sc2 fresh again. The issue here is that protoss got a cool new spell and T/Z new spells seem boring compared to it. Then in 6 months they should drop a new building and 6 months after that a new unit. With a goal in changing up the way the races interact. Like something that makes mech good against toss but wont effect tvz, like some kind of emp unit that doesn't have snipe and builds in the factory's tech lab.
9-harvesters start Bigger maps 300pop max And you have strategy. The random conditions is just preparation matter + it only impacts the pro scene. Also, considering the looow number of ppl playing nowadays, it could be nice to let us search simultaneously 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4. Then automatically remove from the queues when a game is found
This kinda thing can be fun. When It comes to the strat of always expanding like it has been for a long time now, I don't think starting worker count is that big of a reason. The main problem I think is that all maps are insanely big
Thoughts on having the amount of resources brought back by workers each trip being randomized from like 3-8? Maybe even make gas and minerals separate rolls.
I feel that the reason they chose to go from 6 worker start to 12 worker start is not just because of the boring downtime in matches without cheeses, but also because fewer and fewer pro gamers started doing things like 6 pools as people learned to adapt to those possibilities and the gambles were too risky to be worth doing... sure it's fun to use in the ladder but when money is on the line it's not ideal
Randomized starts between 8-14 workers, plus starting gas or minerals between 0-200 would be a great way to make the early game much more creative. Like, what do you do if you start with 8 workers and 200 minerals/200 gas knowing your opponent has the same situation?
I'll tell you what. Muscle memory told me to skip the first minute of the games, but I had to rewind back to the start of them because I was actually excited to see the opening.
great to see these players again! good games! pulling my hair out about the lack of +1 weapons for zealots XD PiG so excited about these games he can't say the right names of units or players is great thx pig for making this happen
This random start ist the exact same discussiong we are having in the chess-world right know. Chess is completely figured out by using AI and every match is more about players remembering engine lines, than actually play chess. So here comes Magnus Carlsen (greatest chess player of all time) and tries to push Chess 960 (or as he calls it "freestyle chess") in the scene, making his own tournament cycle and whatnow with the idea of "okay - random starting configurations on the board make all those AIs invalid and players have to get more creative again." Great idea! BUT! Here me out: Most of the crowd actually like watching standard chess more than freestyle chess, because they have a lot more context watching it. They can compare themselves and their experiences to what is currently happening in any given game. So... I don't know if random start may be the final answer, both in chess world and in starcraft
Ghost needs a rework with all its hate atm... (Buff) 1.5x the range a ghost can nuke from when aiming the nuke to be on lower ground. Rework emp: - Slower projectile. -Massively Reduced damage to shields. And while shields are present energy reduction from a hit is reduced (by half?). Similarly, if burrowed energy reduction is reduced when hit by emp. - Mechanical units with abilities have their abilities disabled for 5 seconds. - No change on cloak interaction Snipe: Normal usage: Range increased +2, damage slightly increased to kill a roach, time to snipe increased. Burrowed units take reduced damage. Rushed: If the unit moves during the steady targeting the shot is taken as if shot by the ghost with an auto attack (reduced damage), but still takes the energy of the snipe. - Snipe can be used on mechanical units but will never do more than an auto attack worth of damage. Supply cost: 3
I still think we should consider a simple 8 worker start. Just because two particular players didn't take advantage of it properly in your show match doesn't mean that a healthy, fun, and strategy-forward meta would not emerge after an adjustment period.
This would need some slight changes to balance it out a bit more. Getting 5-6 workers and less than 50 minerals and gas to start would be BRUTAL. I would have something to balance it out. Like if you actually start with less than 8 workers and under 100 minerals and gas, you start with some other temporary benefit, like 2 free marines, a free zealot, or 4 zerglings. It's still a little unbalanced, but you have a different kind of advantage. Another idea is to give one random tech upgrade. Could be +1 ground armor, could be free BC reactors, could be a free nuke.
the randomness in age of empires games is both my favorite thing about them and the thing i like least. in general its great, but when you get a spawn with 2 forward golds and no sheep and lose a 30 min game because of it, that is less fun. having it be the same for both players, but still some randomness does seem a good idea tbh.
I would like to see more maps that aren't mirror maps. Maby they should be more like land scapes and such. Sometimes you get a good starting spot some times you don't. Would help to change up the meta as well.
Dark vs herO 8 Worker Showmatch: th-cam.com/video/uPO_Mw_ya4k/w-d-xo.htmlsi=aZpswIia-ZDzMtrz
Just to clarify since so many people are asking - the aim of these experiments and videos is to have fun and explore options + learn more about what influences SC2 gameplay and RTS in general. If we learn some good lessons that can be implemented into SC2 balance then that's a bonus! Regarding the random mod, I don't think this would ever be likely to be implemented on ladder. However I think it's a really fun alternate format to host tournaments/events on. It could significantly shake up results for a specific event and reward a somewhat different skillset from the players.
The variable mineral nodes is genius. I stopped playing the ladder because it all became so... clinical. This is easy and effective way to counter it, different bases give you different amount of resources so you have to think about where do you wanna expand to or scout and pathing is no longer the main and only consideration.
@@Matej_Sojka i recall a patch maybe toward end of HotS early LotV where they changed the mineral patches. Was it that they became more uniform? Because it too was around when I stopped playing.
@@kindenigma4119 I think they lowered the amount of minerals per base to force players to have to expand more frequently, and prevent 1-2 base turtle builds if I remember correctly.
Look at other games that effectively do this, like age of empires. It doesn't produce more strategic games, just more "varied" games. But only varied as we already get from different maps. It will just be more builds and senarios that will have to be memorised with less optimised builds becoming more common.
Pig can you do a video on EARLS MOD the developer has made 30 new playable races and has people balancing every race. Some of the races have incredible abilities and i think once pros start catching on it will 100% save sc2. th-cam.com/video/LDs3ILrSAO8/w-d-xo.html .
I don't know what your relationship with uthermal is but he is the kinda guy that would embrace stuff like this
Uthermal ideas would go crazy. He's done so many different challenges and ideas. I can only imagine what he would cook with PiG's mods. This would be a super hype collab
agree. He would be a great player to have around for stuff like this.
But I think he will be unavailable for collabs for at least a few months ahead. Hes pushing 2v2 content, and he will be running monthly 2v2 tournaments with cash-prizes for at least a good period.
Mebbi there would be room for some odd stuff, but as hes the organiser then I have a feeling he will be tied down a bit
@martinwinther6013 hopefully the 2v2 tournaments pop off. Maybe even a 2v2 collab with PiG and Uthermal on 2v2 mod ;)
@@kedarui4334 That could work.
uThermal would actually be a great collab considering he is probably one of the people who has explored trying to find different limitations in the game to create challenges from
This is kind of similar to how the Fischer Random game mode has become popular among some top chess players. In that game mode, the starting squares for the back rank are randomly switched up throwing out book moves for classic openings, and causing more on the fly strategy.
ye, except this honestly feels better.
Little known fact: the pawns are also randomized
Random initial conditions (usually called "random setup") is also a common design element in modern board games, including games such as Terra Mystica and 1849: The Game of Sicilian Railways which, like Chess, are perfect information games.
Note: the random setup is not a variant; that's the only way the game is played. It works well.
Age of Empires games also feature a random map generation where each map your base and resources are placed in a different, unique position (using seed like in Minecraft). Matches feel less repetitive thanks to this.
Was gonna comment the exact same thing!
I love chess, but HATE memorizing openers, so I always try to persuade my friends into playing the Fischer variant instead.
Pretty sure the same randomness in SC2 would shake things up in a really interesting way!
I wasn’t aware day9 was still paying attention to SC2 at all tbh. Not sure if these games were fun more because of the mod or because of how these two play, but either way it was awesome to watch
Just because you stop playing something doesn't mean you stop watching. I haven't played Dota2 is 3/4 years but I still watch the tournaments.
It's moderately comparable because I have 5500 hours in Dota 2 and 4000 hours in Dota 1 so I know what it feels like to stop playing something competitively but continuing to follow.
@PluvioZA I know, I'm the same with Smash and SC2. I just haven't heard his name mentioned in relation to the game for years. I kinda thought he just moved into other things. Kind of expected if he still watched he'd still say something about it every now and then and his name would therefore show up with some degree of regularity.
Im a simple guy. When see Day9 and Starcraft 2 on a video title in 2025, I click
What’s that? TRUMPETS?!
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
So true I had to like your comment
So simple.
click
Exactly my thought of myself :D
This makes perfect sense. This is exactly what has been popular in Chess.
So much of modern chess has come down to memorization and prep instead if intuition/instincts. This is similar to how starcraft is right now.
A chess format that's getting more popular is Chess960 or Fischer Random.
This is why in computer chess competitions, they start the games off with all sorts of different openings (where they make both engines play two games with the same opening, one as white and one as black)
If the engines chose the opening, it would just be a draw almost all the time.
They try to pick openings that are even but asymmetric.
This is why I quit chess back in my late teens. I got fairly good but the fact that you had to memorize, memorize, memorize to get to the top level felt so terrible to me. It's supposed to be a game of strategy/intellect/skill, not memorization
The difference that is in chess960, both players are playing with the same pieces. Different mineral/worker-count starts could easily skew the balance of any non-mirror matchup. It's a cool idea, but I think that could be a big hole in it.
This would be awesome if it could become meta. Every time I watch a pro game it’s always the same exact thing for the first four minutes.
some of it is still cool to watch, though I don't think players helplessly dying to clem's first reaper find it as fun as I do
it's why RTS games get boring really quick.
Just learn the bog standard first 5 mins with minor deviations (like early aggression or fast up time).
MOBA has a similar issue, but even then, you can do some pretty wild things if you want.
@@GameFuMaster what league are you in ? "just learn it" is really not that simple and does not get you past gold league unless you train other skills
Done by design by blizzard which in turn killed the game and made sure it would never be close to sc1.
Love the idea of a random worker count start. Add also 4 player in 4 corner maps like broodwar has for 1v1 - so that you have random start points.
For the start point, this was the case at the beginning of starcraft 2, and it was a huge balance problem, specially for zerg.
@@Twiixq the map would still indicate where you opponent spawn. It would just randomize the distance between players. I think the Zerg balance concern were blind starts.
The distance and attack paths is the main problem.
If you're spawning horizontally, the attack paths for air/ground is much shorter, and the expansion pattern is limited to one cardinal direction for Zerg - away from the opponent. This means the Opponent gets to expand into the attack onto the Zerg, so you're both defending your bases and taking ground towards attacking the Zerg. This shorter path meant the opponent could be attacking before eggs pop, so Zerg couldn't reply to a scouted move-out.
This was a huge problem for certain strategies, when they came online early. In the current metagame, it wouldn't matter that much. Though if you go to random minerals/workers/gas, the slower gamepace would crush Zerg in close spawns.
Seeing Taldarim altar again makes me think you ahould use a large map pool with classic maps from across the eras. Hits that nostalgia while ensuring players have lots of possibilities to adapt to.
Also, come to think of it, different starting parameters should be something incorporated into map design in the regular game.
Ngl, these were some of the most fun games to watch that I've seen in a long time
I think this is great! one thing missing in SC2 is this small randomness, it sometimes feels like a solved game. It brings that improvisation skill that is otherwise missing.
Kind of. You can get to the solution in two ways.
1. Lower worker starts that branch into more possibilities
2. Randomness
But lower worker starts only works if there are actual options - Because of the way Warp Gates work, back in wings of liberty before an insane number of nerfs the only viable option for Protoss was Warp gates: That dictated so much of the games balance - from how strong protoss T1 units could be, to the way zerg and terran units interacted, which dictated the entire balance between those two races and it was... sketchy.
If you take warp gates and toss it to be along, slow, templar archives tech and take zealot legs and drop that to Cybercore: You have a tempo and play that avoids a lot of the problems but, you open up to Strategy that can be scouted and gleamed from through scouting. Now you have the branch and the balance that stems from: Greed > Turtle, Turtle > Aggression, Aggression > Greed.
The problem right now is that Greed beets everything when played cleanly. Map designs generally make cannon rushing difficult at best provided you have a clear understanding of how to stop it; ling rush gets shut down by battery+2 adepts or a bunker + marines, or a wall or... And on we go. So in every case, a minimal defence fast expand approach wins out every single time.
By slowing down the start, fixing the underlying cause of the balance problems - you can net out a much cleaner, more interesting game that REQUIRES aggressive constant scouting. And now: Strategy is everything, and interesting play that catches players off guard becomes powerful.
And yes: I am a FIRM believer that warp gates is the underlying core problem.
@@formes2388 ahhh man, your comment was refreshing. WG's made SC2 a more insanely difficult game to balance than it should have been
@@formes2388 I have a problem with the expression "Greed beats everything when played cleanly". In my head, Greed refers to strategies which will give you an advantage later in the game, so it makes sense that if you can survive everything that is thrown at you, then you will be at an advantage and therefore you should win. So if by "played cleanly" means that you correctly react to things your opponent does, then it should follow that Greedy should beat everything when played cleanly.
I guess what people want to change about the meta is that some people can play completely predictable, yet that predictability cannot be taken advantage of enough to win, but I do not see how any of the changes proposed does anything to change this. It seems like what you would need is to make scouting so hard that you sometimes have to take more risks when playing greedy, but I worry that making scouting too hard would make some games too much of a coin flip.
I want to see Astrea on this challenge. This one was great!
He's next on the list! Thanks so much for the support!
This is such a genius matchup for testing the idea. Extremely entertaining series.
I think occasionally starting with gas allows some weird stuff like tech rushing without investing in gas production or just peppering out a couple of gas units on an otherwise mineral build.
this actually really fun to watch. looking forward to a tournament.
54:10 "Every weird build starts with a ling drop."
~Harstem
I need a series of teamgames with Florencio and HAS with this game format.
I love the idea of random start. I would also throw in a random supply cap 50-300.
The randomized aspect reminds me of Fischer Random. Cool idea to keep things more about creativity and strategy instead of memorized builds.
Also plus one for collabing with Uthermal.
I wonder if random starting gas would be fun too since it would open up unusual lines.
Day[9] floated the idea of running tournaments where each round starts with different conditions (like a different worker count or mineral/gas values) that the players only learn about right before the match. The rest of the game stays normal, but those small changes force players to rely on improvisation rather than memorized builds. Essentially, you’d have a tournament format where no two rounds open the same way, and the pros have to adapt on the fly to whatever initial setup they’re given.
Would love to see more of these kinds of games. Great to see dynamic thinking each game.
And testing this with Has and Bly! Yeah Baby!
Good Mod Pig. I am already all in emotionally on it!
This is what I love about the SC2 community. Someone has a great idea and within a couple weeks there's already matches being played and videos uploaded. This is brilliant content thanks PiG
Thanks for all your effort on StarCraft. Great to see
The mineral patch change has a huge impact on balance, especially in the late game because of how mules work. Also Terran is built around efficiency, which means it struggles to mass expand. Terran doesn't have creep, nydus worms, warp ins or recall mechanics, infact a couple of their power units need to "seige" to be effective, which means that everything over 5 bases puts them at a huge disadvantage.
Another thing to consider is that the other two races don't have a larva mechanic, so they can't take advantage of starting with 100-200 minerals as easily as zerg. Furthermore it messes with timings, which will result in more games like the first one.
I appreciate your desire to shake things up in a 14 yr old game that represents a large chunk of your income, but I wish you would put more consideration into balance.
This is the fun Starcraft that I remember, players coming up with new ideas. This starting workers/minerals thing provides that.
I also love the maps that have that "Australia" high ground, allows for creativity.
I think that for a "fair match" players not only decide the maps, but how many workers/minerals it has. Player one choses map, player two decides worker/mineral, next map player two, etc.
Another possibility to change things up are the maps themselves. The ladder maps are always really basic where the only thing they change is when do you break rocks. Do weird stuff like that second game that had worker only access points.
Or what about a map that has no naturals of any kind and all the expansions are clustered in the center. Maybe have the main base patches be doubled to compensate. You don't mine any faster, but you don't mine out as fast.
Or a map where main bases are in the center of the map but separated by a giant canyon so you have to go around the outskirts of the map. Maybe have the center full of those slow speed zones to keep air from being overly dominant.
Or add map mechanics, like the lava that rises every X minutes (Ok, maybe not that one, but it's an example of something that players need to actively work around).
I don't know, just a thought.
i used to play SC2 but now almost exclusively play Teamfight Tactics. The amount of variance in a game of TFT is what makes every game so interesting since you can't just follow the same build path every game. Your items, augments, the encounter, how much gold/items you start with, what your opponents are doing are all factors. i dont know how feasible it would be in SC2 but i would love to see a mode with the mentioned varying start worker count / mineral and gas count then have periodic random augments that can buff certain units, give a lump sum of gas/minerals, allow building of certain units etc. The TFT dev team make so many interesting augments every set that always make the game fresh. it would be hard to balance as it is in TFT but i would love a SC2 1v1 competitive mode with a huge amount of variance that changes how you play each game
Only thing that would be needed is showing player MMR when they join a lobby in a custom map or mod. So that players of equal skill can find each other. Then PiG or someone with a channel can showcase a cool mod and players will start playing it. If something emerges that's super fun it will become super popular.
day9 will always have a special place in my heart for his "being relentlessly positive" video
Awesome ideas! Leave it to a dinosaur to resurface out of nowhere and put the mammals on the right path - and this here Australian mammal to immediately put his brilliance three steps further into practice.
Always intelligent and passionate commentary. Thanks for great work. :)
I think this experimentation is a good start, especially that gradually mining out is awesome. But even more things could be tried out.
- removal of macro mechanics. During LotV beta Blizzard tested removing them for a week and players immediately reported that the game felt much more strategic. Would love to see that being tried again. Apparently Terran would be hit the hardest by that, so maybe they could be slightly buffed along with it, just don't know how.
- bigger unit sizes (not model sizes). Units are so clumped up in SC2 that a whole deathball can fit through nearly every pathway on the map and close the distance to the enemy all at once. In BW units always only trickle in. I would be very interested to see how this would play out in SC2. (When unit sizes get bigger, all AoE spell sizes should probably as well.)
Seeing this would make me more interested in this game than I've ever been since LotV released. Gonna follow in case someone realizes my ideas.
This idea reminds me of Chess variation proposed by Bobby Fisher, where you randomize the back line of your pieces.
It is known as Fischer Random Chess or Chess960, because it allows 960 possible starting positions.
Exciting idea.
I think rotating/randomizing units would be a more viewer focused solution. Instead of randomly starting with different worker counts imagine randomly staruing with vulture and medic/dropship instead of hellion and medivac; reaver arbiter instead of collosus carrier, etc.
We have so many cool units that are in the engine and never used. Seeing more variety and more different unit matchups would be compelling for viewers imo.
That would be really cool, but pro players are allergic to RNG and claim imba on everything lol
Did not expect a match between my two favorite players today. Awesome, thank you.
This is a great idea. To run it in a tournament, you'd probably have to do like they do for "duplicate bridge" tournaments, where everyone plays the same hands. You'd have to have everyone play with the same fixed (but randomly generated) start conditions.
Is there a mod extension for this that we can use for custom games?
It’s playable in custom games using the “Pig Balance Mod” extension mod!
You can set the worker start count, mineral start count, and resource model in the top right corner of the lobby (including a couple presets for picking at random)
@ oh. I see that YOU made the mod. Thx and well done!
This is fantastic, please keep it up. Would love a weekly tournament with this layout
I would love to play this omg. 100% Agree with the gas call, the varied minerals makes so much sense i cant believe it wasnt done a decade ago.
The varied workers between 6 and 12 is just awesome and should totally be a thing and makes lore sense. Love this.
EDIT: Hatcheries do give way too little supply i agree with dark, especially compared to the other 2.
Ive always wondered why maps don't often experiment with weird, whacky shit like having rich minerals or a rich vespene start in main, or having vespene geysers be just a little bit farther away than the norm to slow the flow rate of gas, etc. I feel like the "strategy" part of strategy is dealing with and overcoming inconveniences or taking advantage of excess resources to create new opportunities that weren't possible before. So much of StarCraft is about money, and altering how much and how often you receive it can drastically alter openers.
That was pretty awesome! Great initiative!
50:10 here I was thinking how cool it would have been if there was a single sentry in the prism that pops out and force fields now and again.
Game 6 reminded me of the old way of starcraft where it was always about keeping zerg as small as you can with constant pressure so they didnt hit their ultra late game. The entire point of the faction was to be a unstoppable swarm if it hit its late game brood lord(mega range) and infestor(infested terran and instant fungal days)
Sc2 is known for its incredible precision in strategizing plans over the dynamics of a game and by executing that plan with accuracy while maintaining flexibility to adapt.
This is a really neat idea and I understand that the details are yet to be drafted and set in stone. Here's my thoughts in providing a needed modern touch to shake up starting conditions while maintaining a good integrity of the base game where carefully theorizing your strategy on a map can provide a good advantage.
Using a randomizer for starting conditions is good, but I'd suggest we look at the permutations these conditions involve. This mod randomise a starting mineral value between 0-200 minerals in 25 minerals increments, a worker count between 5-12 and there are currently 9 maps in the map pool. That's 648 different starting conditions on 9 maps, or 1944 different matchups with different starting conditions over 9 maps. Given these numbers of different matchups, players will have to give up the precise theory of building highly efficient builds and strategize by rule of thumbs and intuition. I believe this could erode a significant portion of what many players were fascinated about when they chose Starcraft 2 over other RTS games. Admittedly, this fascination has grown to become a curse as the game has become more and more figured out and thus theorizing new efficient builds simply doesn't provide the player with the advantage it once did.
This idea is exciting because it introduce opportunities for new strategies based on new starting conditions. But lets face it, 11 workers and 50 minerals or 12 workers 0 minerals starting conditions isn't what we're excited about. Players are currently facing 27 different games given there are 3 races and 9 maps, if we'd randomize between 6 and 12 workers (low vs high worker count) over 50 or 150 minerals (low vs high minerals), those different games adds up to being 108.
In making this idea a success, you must take into consideration of balancing the amount of permutations of games and what number permutations are feasible for a pro player to still be able to perform with the precision that the audience expect to see. It's not fun watching pro-players lose or win games because of minor inaccuracies, and so I believe a certain integrity must be respected.
I'd personally recommend trying out 6, 10 and 14 workers 50 minerals starting conditions. This would increase the permutations to 81, 3 times more permutations of games than the previous 12 workers 50 minerals start. This might not sound like big enough of a shake up but keep in mind that mid Master players typically struggles in having good builds in 27 permutations, it's only really in Grand Master league where players are skilled enough to push that 27 permutation limit. In the pro scene however we're seeing players being skilled enough to exhaust these permutations and only in the pro scene are we truly seeing a stagnation of builds and strategies as the game reaches a sort of limit.
This is why I say let's just increase permutations of games to 81 and filter out the unnecessary chaotic in between permutations. While keeping permutations low enough to at least be feasible in theory but high enough to reach in practice, then we'll see how pro-players would refine very specific permutations yet can still be caught off guard in others without it feeling like an impossible task to predict.
I think this is a great idea and really strikes a balance of some of the fundamental ideas behind SC2.
SC2 has always functioned on the basis of builds (at least in the early game) with second by second precision in certain cases.
A one worker increase or decrease is enough to completely throw off these types of builds, which would move players away from the more prepared style of builds and into looser, less precise builds.
However, keeping a low, medium, and high count of workers as starts would bring back a lot of variability, as the lower count of workers in some starts would incentive aggressive rush play more than a higher count of workers.
This idea is so, so, so interesting! Besides potential balance concerns (do some races have a clear advantage with lower vs higher worker count starts?), I actually just wonder about the mental load on players. Doesn't this multiply the number of potential openers you should learn before starting the game? Even if only at the extremes - low worker vs high worker counts - that would still be 6 openers you should have prepped rather than 3. I still think that the pro's may outweigh the cons, especially as a spectator. As a player, this would be interesting enough to get me to jump into the ladder and give it a try.
The goal being “increased improvisation” yes there would be more potential openings that’s the point. This game thrives on spectator satisfaction. You know what helps achieve that? Something besides reaper hellion 8 queen every game
Honestly, as someone who thinks SC2 balance is in an awful place right now, I would look to AOE2 for an understanding of how balance can change with different workers.
They have tournaments with a whole host of different starts, i think Wolololo had a 30 worker start and the norm is 8, but they also have 3 worker starts, or starts without a "command center", and its incredibly difficult at any point to find a settled "meta" with that much diversity.
Obviously theres a more nuanced discussion to have, which youtube is terrible for, but my general point is whatever balance concerns could exist will take an incredibly long time to sift out.
"do some races have a clear advantage with lower vs higher worker count starts?"
It doesn't seem like it significantly changes race balance overall, but some cheeses do become more/less powerful at higher/lower worker starts. Ex: ling rushes are stronger when players start with less workers, because there are less resources available to wall by the time lings hit, so there's a little less room for error in reacting. It's why wall locations in HoTS/WoL generally had to be narrower than they do now in LoTV; there was a pretty long time in HoTS where 7 pool was the meta opener in ZvP, because the required response meant Zerg still came out a bit ahead.
One of the things LoTV has done with the 12 worker start and half patches that mine out very quickly is make cheeses/all ins generally easier to defend so macro play and fast expanding is more dominant. If the cheese fails, you are punished more severely by mining out faster, and more resources to work with in the early game gives a bit more room for error defending, since the gap between the defender and attacker in terms of value is larger. Though attacks involving more units also means that games with an all in/cheese are more quickly decided if things start to turn in favor of the attacker.
@@Matt-ln7lb at hots worker count, i never found a toss without wall even by pooling the earliest possible, only chance was the scarlet move that was actually defended by... sos? pool first vs nexus first... lol! The people get better at the game every day, 2 years ago many toss still died to 12 pool because they dont pull enough probes, or tried to be hyper fancy with zealot micro, now only like 1/10 dies to it. Worker count is not that relevant; both scenarios had 12
I dont rly want those things on the ladder.
Dunno why ppl want to fix what is not broken, like watching a rally and saying; would not it be fun if they start by going backwards? I mean... yeah, kinda, but as a player i dont see the point.
The players dont do risky things that make the crowds clap and laugh because they play to win, for money. Even if you make the start a rng shitfest, they all will always find back the way into the most solid and safe play, in that regard i think it is way worse losing because viewers want fun and the rng was trash. And when they do funky shit is because they feel safe doing it against a given player, or because it fits the overall event strategy, or because they need a high risk/reward play to keep playing for the big prize.
Much easier suggestion: reduce to 8 workers AND add back in 3 player maps, 4 player maps and 5 player maps (with unknown spawns). Unknown opponent starting position adds a tremendous amount of uncertainty to brood war and requires more more strategic thinking (including occasionally mixing in objectively worse strategies and builds just because the opponent then has to play knowing those strategies are possible and must be scouted).
Chess 960 was created by a previous world champion for this exact reason. Starting postiions on the board are randomized allowing for 960 possible starts.
He famously said that Chess favors those that prepare well for their match and does not favor creative or interesting play.
Also game 5 was one of the most exciting things because all ins just arnt always successful. And that can lead to variable games that arnt always im down because i failed an all in vs maybe enough damage was done to even it out with a minor lead to one or the other but it causes the scales to tip more slowly I think and thats what people really enjoyed in these series, the slow build of possibilities.
Getting to watch a Bly game in 2025 is the best Christmas gift you could have given. I miss his particular brand of chaos
Having some amount of starting gas would actually be interesting cause it can give you a set amount of tech without needing to get gas. Like, zerg starting with 100 gas get to go zergling speed while staying full mineral would be the obvious one, but protoss getting to delay taking gas or terran having the option to get a factory while staying full minerals is also something I'd like to see.
I find alot of success with a build from WoL i used to do, its a 2-3 rax combat shield ghost rush most protoss are not ready for combat shield rines and an emp early game, it negates shieldbattery or you can drop emp on their stalkers or sentries
One thing I am interested in knowing would be could you change how many minerals are there on each patch? It was reduced at some point to force players to expand more quickly but I can imagine more aggressive playstyles are punished by it because it means you end up with less of a follow up. Now obviously it's good that we don't get 1 hour games anymore because the resources on a map are more finite but I would be interested in seeing if players would feel like they have more options for aggression if even just the mineral patches in the main base lasted longer so you could stay on 1 or 2 base for longer.
I've really liked this idea, and love to see the return of my favorite protoss.
i dont think it would work longterm for a rts as asymmetric as starcraft. at some point it will be figured out that X race is screwed when worker count is lower or starting resources is lower etc etc.. Can be fun for a showmatch but not fun longterm imo.
Great video! You picked the right maniacs for the job! Lots of fun.
This was such a treat watching these two duke it out
How about one player picks the map, the other player picks worker start?
So entertaining. Massive improvement to the start of the game.
I’d love to see another mod/experiment that gives high ground an advantage like Broodwar (maybe a different advantage though?). In my mind having a high ground advantage to defend your base or a point on a map forces your opponent to look for other weaknesses and improvise away around the defences you’ve set up. I think this would really change up map designs though.
The best I've seen (short of having proper projectile simulation) is increasing range on high ground to low ground and/or decreasing range/vision from low ground to high ground. Granted I've only seen that in a BW mod, but it's a granular mechanic that makes sense and doesn't add unwanted randomness.
@@dominiccastsi think vision enables terrans too much as other races woukd need to compensate with more apm (toss oracle micro, overlord army sync). Or could make terran harder to defend as its unit design is trading mobility for high burst and attack range.
@@freebornfloor1600 Possibly, I'm not sure it would be any stronger than the current binary vision system on high ground, though I expect range being affected without affecting vision would be less challenging to design around.
For the record, I'm thinking more in terms of what future StarCraft-style games could do, rather than what StarCraft 2 could do, since I expect pigs will grow wings before any major design changes get adopted, so I'm not as concerned about the specific balance issues it might pose for SC2.
Great content! We need to move more in this direction and much weirder maps could be awesome aswell for alot of on the spot decision making :D Cheers!
I would love to see this format even if players started with multiple bases. 2 bases, 7 workers (for each base), 25 minerals. I just think that would be so fricken cool!
Yeah this was awesome!!
Shake up idea: worker mines 2~6 resource each trip, rolled each game instead of each trip.
A lower income means early army is more efficient, higher income means rushing tech and fast expansion is more efficient.
Can even make gas/mineral separate, though lower gas will probably favor terran a bit to much if the game lasts long enough.
And now players lose because one side gets faster echo and just ends up ahead and by the time normalization happens later in the game, the game has already been decided.
Amazing games! Day9 is, of course, a total genius, thank you for bringing his vision to life. These games were so interesting and epic (of course, with Has and Bly it was going to be interesting)!
i could also see a starting condition chosen like in mechabellum. before the round starts players can chose between lets say 2 extra workers, 100 minerals 50 gas, a stationary defense structure or a tier 2 unit for free at 3:00.
that was great ! between this and the 2v2 tournaments with uthermal we're getting some great new changes to the game !
Feels a bit like the Age of Empire tournaments, obviously rules of each match doesn't change, but the tournament's themselves apply rules that make some of them feel very different.
This sounds like Fischer Random SC2 edition. I'm here for it, sounds sick.
Hello PiG, what about letting players choose the start just like the maps, like the opponent chooses the map and you choose the start, like 0/0 12workers all the way into 200/200 6 workers, all of this before the match? That will let the players have some degree of control and let players develop strategies like a 200/200 rush and what not, or a 100/100 9 worker 2 barracks all win? Just an ideia
That's a MUCH more interesting idea than presented in this video. I was quite disappointed with this video because both players start with the exact same worker and mineral count instead of it being random for both players.
Cool idea, I like it 👍
Honestly map layouts is what causes the games to be the way they are, If expansions weren't so safe and close to home all the time players would have to change their strategy's. Also the bases distances. The other problem is theres to many wonky cheese rush strats too, So either lower worker count change as well and distance between opposing bases changed. It's cool to see what you guys come up with for some flair/variety.
been using the Has immortal zealot all in (7gates slowlot) for a few years now and never watched him play. his blink control was amazing for a player that doesnt play anymore.
This would be kinda cool to see as an alternative choice for ladder (separate from current obv). tbh Wouldn't mind 3 or 4 different types of community built ladders added with their own MMR system. Why not, we already have the balance council, would be kinda cool to see Blizzard add some alternate matchmaking with different rules.
The best thing they could do to make the game more exciting is to just randomize the starting worker count and that is it. That way you can not make any plans going into a match unless you want a build for each individual possible worker counts. altering the starting mineral count feels like it would give Zerg a huge rushing buff
Stopped when I seen who's in show match to say,I am so STOKED! I love this idea and day9 and haven't been this excited for starcraft 2 since serral beat stats to be the first foreigner to win world championship.
I think this would be far better if players had a week or two to practice with the constraints. It would give players and the commnuity time to get excited about possible builds, give content creators video oppertunitys and encourage more community engagement in general. Even with minor changes in patches we see significant changes in strategy for weeks or months, and I think it would prevent players feeling frustrated with "bad" random starts.
I agree with this idea. Giving people time to work out some plans to try would up the level of play.
lol i think people are overcomplicating what it takes to make sc2 fresh again. The issue here is that protoss got a cool new spell and T/Z new spells seem boring compared to it. Then in 6 months they should drop a new building and 6 months after that a new unit. With a goal in changing up the way the races interact. Like something that makes mech good against toss but wont effect tvz, like some kind of emp unit that doesn't have snipe and builds in the factory's tech lab.
This is a great idea. I think if zerg started with 200 minerals though it's almost an automatic win for them if there's also 12 workers.
9-harvesters start
Bigger maps
300pop max
And you have strategy.
The random conditions is just preparation matter + it only impacts the pro scene.
Also, considering the looow number of ppl playing nowadays, it could be nice to let us search simultaneously 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4.
Then automatically remove from the queues when a game is found
This kinda thing can be fun. When It comes to the strat of always expanding like it has been for a long time now, I don't think starting worker count is that big of a reason. The main problem I think is that all maps are insanely big
As soon as I saw it was Has vs Bly I LOST it. They are perfect for this.
it is an a-ma-zing idea!!! I would watch professional SC2 again.
Thoughts on having the amount of resources brought back by workers each trip being randomized from like 3-8?
Maybe even make gas and minerals separate rolls.
I feel that the reason they chose to go from 6 worker start to 12 worker start is not just because of the boring downtime in matches without cheeses, but also because fewer and fewer pro gamers started doing things like 6 pools as people learned to adapt to those possibilities and the gambles were too risky to be worth doing... sure it's fun to use in the ladder but when money is on the line it's not ideal
Randomized starts between 8-14 workers, plus starting gas or minerals between 0-200 would be a great way to make the early game much more creative. Like, what do you do if you start with 8 workers and 200 minerals/200 gas knowing your opponent has the same situation?
I think this is the way to go. I would much prefer to play this on ladder. Maybe we can have a separate ladder for this
I'll tell you what. Muscle memory told me to skip the first minute of the games, but I had to rewind back to the start of them because I was actually excited to see the opening.
great to see these players again! good games! pulling my hair out about the lack of +1 weapons for zealots XD
PiG so excited about these games he can't say the right names of units or players is great
thx pig for making this happen
This random start ist the exact same discussiong we are having in the chess-world right know. Chess is completely figured out by using AI and every match is more about players remembering engine lines, than actually play chess. So here comes Magnus Carlsen (greatest chess player of all time) and tries to push Chess 960 (or as he calls it "freestyle chess") in the scene, making his own tournament cycle and whatnow with the idea of "okay - random starting configurations on the board make all those AIs invalid and players have to get more creative again." Great idea! BUT! Here me out: Most of the crowd actually like watching standard chess more than freestyle chess, because they have a lot more context watching it. They can compare themselves and their experiences to what is currently happening in any given game. So... I don't know if random start may be the final answer, both in chess world and in starcraft
Ghost needs a rework with all its hate atm...
(Buff) 1.5x the range a ghost can nuke from when aiming the nuke to be on lower ground.
Rework emp:
- Slower projectile.
-Massively Reduced damage to shields. And while shields are present energy reduction from a hit is reduced (by half?). Similarly, if burrowed energy reduction is reduced when hit by emp.
- Mechanical units with abilities have their abilities disabled for 5 seconds.
- No change on cloak interaction
Snipe:
Normal usage: Range increased +2, damage slightly increased to kill a roach, time to snipe increased. Burrowed units take reduced damage.
Rushed: If the unit moves during the steady targeting the shot is taken as if shot by the ghost with an auto attack (reduced damage), but still takes the energy of the snipe.
- Snipe can be used on mechanical units but will never do more than an auto attack worth of damage.
Supply cost: 3
I still think we should consider a simple 8 worker start. Just because two particular players didn't take advantage of it properly in your show match doesn't mean that a healthy, fun, and strategy-forward meta would not emerge after an adjustment period.
This would need some slight changes to balance it out a bit more. Getting 5-6 workers and less than 50 minerals and gas to start would be BRUTAL.
I would have something to balance it out. Like if you actually start with less than 8 workers and under 100 minerals and gas, you start with some other temporary benefit, like 2 free marines, a free zealot, or 4 zerglings. It's still a little unbalanced, but you have a different kind of advantage.
Another idea is to give one random tech upgrade. Could be +1 ground armor, could be free BC reactors, could be a free nuke.
the randomness in age of empires games is both my favorite thing about them and the thing i like least. in general its great, but when you get a spawn with 2 forward golds and no sheep and lose a 30 min game because of it, that is less fun. having it be the same for both players, but still some randomness does seem a good idea tbh.
What's the name of the mode?
Need to get someone like Innovation who is known to change builds easily - especially after a new patch.
When you said you brought back old cheesers i thought for sure you somehow found combatEX and Deezer.
I would like to see more maps that aren't mirror maps. Maby they should be more like land scapes and such. Sometimes you get a good starting spot some times you don't. Would help to change up the meta as well.
great watch!
Sounds almost like Fisher Random Chess is coming to StarCraft, since SC is pretty much chess this is just about time :D