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Give each player a dedicated scouting unit (with no attack) at the start of the game.
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Have the enemies starting location be known.
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Have structures only be placeable within the confines of a base, until expanding.
That could make versus Zerg matches unplayable. Usually, Protoss and Terran players need to wall off (usually at the natural) to survive against early Zerg rushes.
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It’s a very interesting point. I was banking on the early scout being enough to prepare for the lings.
Personally what I would really love to change is starting with Map already explored.
I do not mean remove FoW but just not having the map at start black so you do not have to memmorize the map from the start.
I think this would help making the entry curve easier as so for newbies they have at least one less thing to learn on this steap start.
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Your choice of when/where to scout even on a 4 player map is your choice, the result of that isn’t chance, you just don’t like the result your choice gained you. You could take one of your initial workers and scout in every game. You would then always spot something fishy from the opponent maybe no exactly where or what it is, but you’d always spot it. You would then 100% always be able to stop whatever fishy thing was happening. But you’d lose to equal play where that person decided not to rush you because you gave up 25% of your mining in the early game.
Your decisions decide the game not chance. Your analysis what is going is a skill that you can improve upon, but just because you didn’t read the sign, doesn’t mean you didn’t see it you just didn’t comprehend what you were seeing.
I like, and agree with the first section of your post, though saying the game isn’t decided by chance is a bit misleading. No-one can deny that there is a fairly large portion of chance in Starcraft, due to potentially outcome-altering possibilities so early in the game, without information being given to the opponent.
For a few examples, Zealots, Zerglings, and extra bases are too powerful to be hidden away.
Adding luck to a friendly game is fine, but it hurts the competitive aspect. Let’s also not forget that cannon rushing exists. Basically, any lowly skilled player can win.
Let’s say that two decent players both know how to pull off a zealot/zergling attack, they also know a safe, balanced start, and finally, a mineral gathering opener. A safe start beats an early attack, the mineral gathering opening beats that, and the early attack beats the mineral opening. It’s a game of rock, paper, scissors with extra steps.
The choice to either get more minerals or scout is rough, and punishes players who want to win by superior skill alone. We should either reduce the early, game-defining options, or add vision of them to the opposing player, so they can be countered.
Winning due to skill is neat, winning due to hidden info is cheap.
In low skill games any BO win does not matter. Because you’re at low skill there were 100’s of things you could have done much better that would have won you the game regardless of any decisions made. This is why cannon rushes don’t really work even though you mentioned them. Pros don’t die to them because they know when to look for them.
In your rock paper scissors theory you don’t win just because you chose X instead of Y or Z. You gain an advantage of one type while your opponent has their own advantage. How you use it is what matters. You’re looking to blame your loss on hidden info rather than your own choices. You decided to be more economical and cheese that economy, so you didn’t have the info you could have had, that would have slapped down that rush leaving you victorious. Meanwhile that economy cheese if not rushed would have gained you a lead if not pressured. Both of you were hiding information, but it is your job in every game to extract that information OR deduce it based off learning what is missing or not seen.
You’re looking for an out for your losses, it has nothing to do with rock/paper/scissors and everything to do with your actions in game.
I’ll narrow it down to the biggest pain point in the game. Your first building. Should it be a military building, or a new command centre/hatch/nexus? Also, should I send a worker out this early to scout?
There are no good answers to these questions, at the pro level.
Edit: I would personally be more interested in this game if they disallowed building a new town hall first. Lock it behind tier 1 tech or something. That way, players are more or less forced to scout with an army unit instead, which doesn’t feel as bad.
Another point, I’ll again make is with the proxy buildings. It’s a really lame way to play, because people are taking advantage of a limitation of the game. I bet you 100 bucks that the developers did not forsee people placing buildings anywhere on the map to get an advantage, and just didn’t end up coding a distance limit on them. It’s really spoilt the game, as the buildings can magically be built anywhere, which is not consistent with a real war.
Edit: Without a starting scout, you would probably have to limit the amount of military buildings early as well, to 1. Then zerg rush can still win, lol. Limit the amount of zerglings at the beginning. Maybe there should just be a 5 minute peacetime at the start. 5 minutes no rush. What are the rules on scouting the opponents base before then? Legal? Can they be killed? OT, I bet the best way to play this game is have one person need to survive x minutes to win. It allows each player to focus on one task. The defendant can’t enter the attackers base. The objective is to kill the town hall. Naturally, the fan favourite would be that Terran always has to defend against Zerg and Protoss. You could call it ‘base defence’. Put a limit in the amount of mineral patches, maybe 1 base with 16 patches each is enough, I don’t know. Just to have the action be centered on one screen only.
You’re looking for a ton of options to be patched in to fix your lacking gameplay. The professionals are not out there 4 pooling proxy gatewaying or going nexus first/cc first/4hatch b4 pool, or bunker rushing unless they’ve decided that the map and matchup do not favor them and are looking to secure an edge that will overcome that. But when that CC first gets countered or the proxy gateway gets hard stopped it has nothing to do with someone being in the dark and everything to do with their choice. They used information before the game even started to make that decision. Perhaps they cheesed because they’re bad in the late game, perhaps you went for an expansion first because you need a much better economy than your opponent because your micro isn’t up to par so you have to win with overwhelming numbers. Either way yall chose your strategies when you could always go middle of the road, never lose to a rush, dig yourself out of a deficit if someone did eco cheese you.
If you want a good example of the effects a bad start can have, you can watch the final game of the latest major tournament, the ASL 15 finals, held a couple of months ago.
You mean where JyJ decided to eco cheese, got it up and mind who was already cracking at the seams down 1-3 pushed cross map, while expanding, into double his macro because he decided to expand rather than 4 fact? He made a combination of choice that loses anyone that match. He could have sat, fueled up his 3rd, went drop ships and broke free of the contain. He also could have not expanded, went 5 or 6 fact and pushed the map. He was late economy cheesing, while attacking, while not abusing his one advantage, while facing double his production. You can never do all of that at the same time, but none of that had anything to do with the CC first vs fact expand.
Edit: I will note that if you listen to Artosis too much, you’ll think that these advantages are game ending and that everything is unstoppable. Crazily when the very best in their matchup’s are faced with the disadvantage with win/loss ratio is still very good. People make the same argument in ZvZ when the one zerg just a little bit more greedy they always have the advantage. That is true they do, but that doesn’t reflect in the win loss ratio nearly as much as their overall skill level in the matchup does. The better player wins from the slight disadvantage almost always, they lose from a massive disadvantage almost always, but they chose to put themselves in that position.
I think you have very interesting analysis, the one thing that annoys me is how you say that they chose to put themselves in that position. Start of the game, no info, possibly anonymous opponent, it’s just plain luck.
Like the guy that 5 pools is either a genius or an idiot depending on his opponents blind opening.
If your response to that is, ‘don’t 5 pool, just play safe’ that means that everyone can just go cc/hatch/nexus first.