FFS Event Info and Replays

[IskatuMesk]

You guys need better advertising. I think it's more the fault of the players than the system at that point. I point that out in my videos (which I haven't uploaded). I compare it to when you said Ricky that Anopob says you play too much "Ninja Terran". My comment here is that you play too much gimmick merchant. And most people are like that.

HKS consistently wins also because Fast & Cheap is the strongest merchant play right now. I imagine he can explain that better than I can. It's simply the best. Everyone buys from him, not only because it's the best price but because he has the best stuff available consistently. Only at the end of game 4 did you really start making stuff people actually wanted (Odins). But by then you were, as usual, screwed.

The thing about being a Merchant is supply and demand. I one instance I will point out that every player could use siege tanks, but you're still making murloc marines and bikes which are, to be frank, totally useless in this map and everyone knows it. Also the unfortunate thing is that I would probably buy off of Bill more often as he does tend to make good stuff but I totally tune out chat for the most part in games and rarely ever read other people's messages.

The UI for the most part is fine. I think Lav just needs to get better macro and multitasking. I would suggest adding hotkeys but I don't know which to use. Keypad? I don't know if you even can. Condensing the combo/elite units is a good start. I think the delays for unit arrival should be increased as well.

Yet I have two major suggestions.

- Doesn't display upgrades to players who already have it. This is a big thing.
- Stops displaying units who are all bought out. Another big thing, it displays too much stuff that isn't even available to you.

Lav > I don't recall anyone complaining too loudly. Out of 4 W&M games only one have I left immediately after and in none have I heard anyone besides you complain. That's going to come with the business of being late bro. The only reason the game ended quickly is probably because I wasn't there. But chances are if you ended it so fast I'd have ended it faster...

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Condensing the combo/elite units is a good start. I think the delays for unit arrival should be increased as well.

While I would normally agree for an increased delay. I still have the impression that many warlords rather make 50-75% of their own stuff for some reason even if the merchant clearly have decent prices and/or have the cash to mass buy. I do remember waiting full 20-30 minutes before anyone bought my combo scourges ("obvious" unit to get) for example.

Yet I have two major suggestions.

- Doesn't display upgrades to players who already have it. This is a big thing.
- Stops displaying units who are all bought out. Another big thing, it displays too much stuff that isn't even available to you.

With how the map's triggers are made, that could be very annoying to do it like that. However, I can probably make it so the completed upgrades have an "greyed out" text so that the white ones are more obvious over the grey one. Same for units.

[IskatuMesk]

Can't you have the displays assigned to a variable and when they are bought/unavailable the viarable goes LOL and doesn't display anymore?

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Can't you have the displays assigned to a variable and when they are bought/unavailable the viarable goes LOL and doesn't display anymore?

With the way I did set up things, a button references to the merchant's item based on the button # (1st, 2nd, etc.) and number of page (if we exclude merchant type of wares) based on the current lists that a merchant have.
Ex : in the data, it has Workers as #1, Overlords as #2 and the rest is whatever that adds in the merchant's list. Thus when a player view the list, it views articles #1 to #15 (as page #1) then #16 to #30 (as page #2), etc.

While in theory, I could set it up like you say but the thing is I would make different lists for each viewing player and such all while keeping track of everything right (viewing, adding, buying, etc.). Meaning that I would probably have to scrap half of my current triggers to change it like that. For units, it wouldn't be such of a problem but for research it would be.

Closest I can do in terms of quick-fixing towards that path for removing units is to directly remove a 0 quantity unit (excluding normal workers and overlords) from the merchant list then pull everything back. For example, let's say article #3 was fully bought out thus if article #4 to #6 exists, the triggers would "pull" them to #3 to #5 then kick in the current mass page update trigger for all players.

However the above wouldn't apply for researches since it would permanently remove a research that someone else could buy in the future.

Sidething btw : In W&M's triggers, units/researches are currently the "same" (which technically I could easily fit researches/units in the very same list although I rather keep them seperate). The only reason for that is for Adv.Research since I intended to have both some special units + their special researches in the same page.

[Lavarinth]

I believe I did minimize options by a considerable deal to what it could have been in my initial plans for the conception of the map.

Perhaps you may, but that doesn't argue against the fact that there's still a lot of options- Too many.

So far, the closest I could do without screwing half of the map's triggers is to packup every unit type into "units" and every research type into "research".

Have you tried this option?

I can also say that warlords SHOULD say what they want and not magically hope that merchants will make something they might like. I even put ally chat only from warlords to merchants (without other warlords hearing) and merchants to warlords (without other merchants hearing) on purpose for that.

Either your map doesn't clearly state this somewhere, we aren't reminded, or you expect us to know this- I, for one, wasn't aware that chatting in ally chat would send the chat to all merchants only.

Unfortunately, it has some considerable drawbacks. First of all, merchants would be forced to always undercut each other by 1% down to 101-105% (non-C&F) just so that it is their wares that get sold over his competitor. It might sound fine for warlords but for merchants, that's a recipe to screw over their business badly with such low profit and kill any potential "loyality" from a customer towards a merchant.

That's the market, Ricky, this is how it all works. You see, in the end of the match we played you were seemed so happy to have sold the most out of all merchants, but in reality you lost as your profit was one of the worst of all merchants. You were broke. You sold everything so cheap you had no way of winning. Clearly, you thought there was some victory you made off that, but in the end you were still a loser. You need to make it clear to merchants that the amount of investments you make do not lead to victory, it's the profit margin that you make. I suggest, again, making it clear that you must have the greatest total minerals in the end. This'll prevent massing units for cheap sales since selling one Zergling at 115% beats selling 15 at 100%... Or something like that. I'd also remove the option to mass price change units since it only courages failure when you ultimately go broke for selling things too cheap.

Finally, each merchant also have different sending delays. How can you truly pick between the fastest merchant yet is pricey, some more balanced (sending time & price) or slowest but is also the cheapest?

Convenience, that's the way of the game. If I'm screwed out of gas in the middle of the desert, the closest gas station is going to be 5 dollars per gallon because it's convenient and fast, while the ones back at home are going to be 2.50 but impossible to get to or simply take forever. If I'm being rushed by Zerglings and god knows what else, do you think I'm going to pick the slow merchant with cheaper pricing? You need to make it clear on the merchant list (the drop down list, not the units) just HOW fast these drops are in comparison to other players. Again, I don't mean in the unit list, I don't mean in some new drop down list, I mean the same drop down as the one you have listing all the merchants- The last thing we need is another list to go through. If anything, have a chart somewhere else on the screen dictating the transport delay. Remember that Risk map we played? Remember how you could "slide" the control status box to the edge of the screen by hitting the rectangular area on the edge of the screen? Something like that can be used for a quick show/hide function for delays.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Perhaps you may, but that doesn't argue against the fact that there's still a lot of options- Too many.

Care to precise said options that you find "too many"? At the rate you seem to imply, I would have to scrap combo units, scrap variable transfer delay rates and so on. Ultimately meaning making a "bares-bones" map that only sells normal units and that's it. Period.

If that's the case, never. I repeat : Never. It will just end up boring as most merchants mass sell void rays, carriers, battlecruisers and so on thus the FFA air issue in SC2 being just amplified down the road.

Have you tried this option?

I didn't. Heck, nobody really complained about it.

While it will be in my plans but in theory I could just leave it like that and it would mostly still fine.

Either your map doesn't clearly state this somewhere, we aren't reminded, or you expect us to know this- I, for one, wasn't aware that chatting in ally chat would send the chat to all merchants only.

In a sense, even if I didn't actively told this, ally chat would logically be sent to allies. Merchants are allied toward all Warlords as Warlords are allied towards all Merchants.

Although, I do intend to make a tip icon about it just to remind.

That's the market, Ricky, this is how it all works. You see, in the end of the match we played you were seemed so happy to have sold the most out of all merchants, but in reality you lost as your profit was one of the worst of all merchants. You were broke. You sold everything so cheap you had no way of winning. Clearly, you thought there was some victory you made off that, but in the end you were still a loser. You need to make it clear to merchants that the amount of investments you make do not lead to victory, it's the profit margin that you make. I suggest, again, making it clear that you must have the greatest total minerals in the end. This'll prevent massing units for cheap sales since selling one Zergling at 115% beats selling 15 at 100%... Or something like that. I'd also remove the option to mass price change units since it only courages failure when you ultimately go broke for selling things too cheap.

I believe you don't understand in a certain way. If it costs me 100% and I am already forced to sell at 101% due to the system forcing heavy undercuts off the bat, it means the second I make a tiny tiny TINY mistake, I am screwed for winning. In other words, a situation so hardcore that you don't even want to be a merchant. There is no way ill change it towards that.

As for me losing, I did drop those prices because I took 4 levels of C&F thus dropping my base costs down to 60% while I sold at 80-90% to compete with DoW on a few critical products. My real mistake is I took just one too many levels of C&F that did drop my profit score by like 1300 or so.

As for profit, you seem to not understand it. It's a different score that calculate the gain between the costs and gain. For example, if I make a marine at 50 minerals and I sold it at 65, I get +15 profit score. Gas has a 2x multiplier. However, making buildings, getting researches (until resold once at 100%) and a few other things drop profit score.

Plus if I change it to most amount of minerals as the winning condition, it would become too risky for merchants to make anything in fear that they will lose toward another merchant that just keep all his money in mid to end-game.

I believe mass making cheap units is a potential strategy. It can win or fail depending on the circumstances.

A mass price change is just an option. If the merchant do the wrong decision in this specific aspect. It's their fault. It can be quite useful for merchants to mass drop their prices by 10% rather than doing it manually for say 20 units.

Convenience, that's the way of the game. If I'm screwed out of gas in the middle of the desert, the closest gas station is going to be 5 dollars per gallon because it's convenient and fast, while the ones back at home are going to be 2.50 but impossible to get to or simply take forever. If I'm being rushed by Zerglings and god knows what else, do you think I'm going to pick the slow merchant with cheaper pricing? You need to make it clear on the merchant list (the drop down list, not the units) just HOW fast these drops are in comparison to other players. Again, I don't mean in the unit list, I don't mean in some new drop down list, I mean the same drop down as the one you have listing all the merchants- The last thing we need is another list to go through. If anything, have a chart somewhere else on the screen dictating the transport delay. Remember that Risk map we played? Remember how you could "slide" the control status box to the edge of the screen by hitting the rectangular area on the edge of the screen? Something like that can be used for a quick show/hide function for delays.

Each merchant's list already DO have info to show how quick they send it. Remember that 45 - 0 C&F ?

It means 45 delay seconds - (minus) 0 seconds C&F bonus (for standard units only). I even put a tooltip with an explanation if you hover the mouse on the icon (and many things on the dialogs in general too).

As for comparing, other than a new list, there is no magical way. Comparing aspects are delay, energy % if we exclude each specific price of each unit for each merchant.

Finally, doing those dialogs already took 50 hours to do (as in doing it, tested and very functional). I am not going to put a 20-30 hours job to "magically" change everything like you would wish. No sir.

In all honesty, you are asking lots of stuff but it honestly give me the impression that you are more nitpicking than anything. Considering that this map will never be your cup of tea whatever I do anyway, I will mostly just stick to my current plans.

[UntamedLoli]

C&F will win all the time unless you are making hordes of useless units because not only is it cheaper, I can make them alot faster to keep up with demand for something.

I also never had to cut my prices down because I was the only one making units anyone actually wanted along with all of their upgrades.

Every time I'm in the game I utterly destroy everyone as a merchant and the fact that 90% of the people that show up don't even use vent its boring as hell because I'm mostly making things for mesk except for the last game when the other warlords noticed i had a ton of useful units.

It's also really easy to miss merchants even having units or certain upgrades because of all the drop-down menu's you have to dig around.

[Alevice]

I remember HKS being actually on the neg profit previous to last week. Could have remembered wrong tho. That time DoW and another player gave me the false impression that charglins were valuable for peeps so this time i rushed to get them. Big mistake

Anyway, I know you probably won't bother with it, but it would be nice to have the merchants focus less on faux base building and moreinto producing wares and maybe providing some stats that reflect the market so they can evaluate more easily what the market needs. I was thinking something akin to the Homeworld UI, getting rid of the standard interface for the merchants, so they have a wider FoV.

[Xenon]

I'll just throw out some ideas for an interface revamp. Clearly these are for discussion and long-term consideration since it would be a total rework of the triggers.

Instead of a list of names, it would be an array of buttons with icons. Probably 3 submenus in total, with units/combo/elite together, research, and custom units. Icons for each available item for the total of all merchants would be shown, with a small number at the bottom right of each button showing the total number available. The tooltip would show the item's name and description. This would allow far more items per page.

Clicking on this would bring up a small dialog showing the sellers with the item available, either as a list, or as several buttons with the info in their tooltips (cost, delay, energy etc.)

[Lavarinth]

You need to be direct, Ricky. Ask people "is the UI overwhelming," "how is the merchant gameplay," "is the warlord's UI interfering with gameplay too much?" Ask the questions, don't ask for pure suggestions, people will forget. Until I mentioned the UI being overwhelming, no one said a thing so you say "people don't complain," but now look- It would be beneficial to downgrade the complexity of the UI. It's impressive, yes, but not intuitive.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

C&F will win all the time unless you are making hordes of useless units because not only is it cheaper, I can make them alot faster to keep up with demand for something.

I also never had to cut my prices down because I was the only one making units anyone actually wanted along with all of their upgrades.

Every time I'm in the game I utterly destroy everyone as a merchant and the fact that 90% of the people that show up don't even use vent its boring as hell because I'm mostly making things for mesk except for the last game when the other warlords noticed i had a ton of useful units.

It's also really easy to miss merchants even having units or certain upgrades because of all the drop-down menu's you have to dig around.

I did intend C&F to be much more "flexible" than other merchant types when it would be much more tempting for warlords to put more hard cash into super combo units over the same base units (even if they are cheaper). After all, you would rather have 150 supplies of units worth 225-250 of fighting power over 150 worth of supplies of standard units.

Ultimately, I could always just cut the train time reduction that C&F receives per level.

Although probably the people not seeing the combo units easily might be the worse problem. Even worse might be that they see a combo merchant's standard units, doesn't realize he could have combo units and skip to the next one. That's one of the things that should be remedied by sticking all units into just plain "All units".

However for your victories, I would say it's because you and Mesk reunite all the good factors : a warlord (Mesk) that asks you for stuff, you make said stuff, Mesk buys, repeat, on top of you having all the right units in general. In addition, Mesk reasonably expand (and actually get 20-30 workers per expansion) to get the necessary cash.

That's comparing to most other players that just magically hope that the "right" stuff pops up, doesn't request anything (not even by private b.net chat), mostly just stick to their own trainable units, only attempt to fetch an expansion at most and so on.

To my logic, I often went 30-50 racial workers as merchant. Usually in early-mid to mid-game, warlords simply have quite a few minerals that they can mass spend on workers on their new expansion instead of putting 5-15 minutes to already start having any total return and much more. Unfortunately, people don't seem to realize that even if I advertised that.

I remember HKS being actually on the neg profit previous to last week. Could have remembered wrong tho. That time DoW and another player gave me the false impression that charglins were valuable for peeps so this time i rushed to get them. Big mistake

Anyway, I know you probably won't bother with it, but it would be nice to have the merchants focus less on faux base building and moreinto producing wares and maybe providing some stats that reflect the market so they can evaluate more easily what the market needs. I was thinking something akin to the Homeworld UI, getting rid of the standard interface for the merchants, so they have a wider FoV.

Chargelings CAN be very valuable IF you get the Zealot Charge research. At 130% price, they only cost 33 minerals which early on is clearly better than C&F level 1's 29 minerals (if adjusted) normal zerglings.

The drawback might be the rival merchant C&F gains level 3, he could sell Zerglings at 22 minerals (again if adjusted). Thus it might potentially question the Charglings' extra speed over being able to get 1.5x more standard Zerglings.

Also, all standard researches DOES affect combo units of the same base type. In other words, combo Zerglings also benefits from Zergling speed and Zergling attack speed upgrades (buffed from 20% to 35% in W&M).

Now Chargelings benefit from Zealot Charge research on TOP of it (both for base more increasing move speed + actually using Charge). Thus when you have all Zergling upgrades and Zealot Charge, Chargelings clearly shine in outmoving pretty much everything in the game.

Hmm, care to precise what you mean by "faux" base building for merchants? While I admit that it can be tempting to build more factories and such but ultimately you don't need it that much. Heck, I even added a dirt cheap merchant research called "Salvage" if they find out that they overbuilt.

As for stats to "reflect" the needs of the markets, I really don't see a viable way to do that holds water. Even if I decide to keep track of everything for stats, what was needed 10 minutes ago could radically be different from right now. Plus, I believe it might just reveal more than anything what one player bought (which should be at least semi-secret).

As for the Homeworld UI, I googled real quick and I honestly don't see what should be the real "features" via such different UI. I guess you would really need to link me a picture and explain to me how it could be.

I'll just throw out some ideas for an interface revamp. Clearly these are for discussion and long-term consideration since it would be a total rework of the triggers.

Instead of a list of names, it would be an array of buttons with icons. Probably 3 submenus in total, with units/combo/elite together, research, and custom units. Icons for each available item for the total of all merchants would be shown, with a small number at the bottom right of each button showing the total number available. The tooltip would show the item's name and description. This would allow far more items per page.

Clicking on this would bring up a small dialog showing the sellers with the item available, either as a list, or as several buttons with the info in their tooltips (cost, delay, energy etc.)

To be honest, for a full interface revamp I would be much more in favor of this idea. The exception would be that still keep the merchants' units separated but instead try to put as many as possible on a same dialog. If a single dialog is too full, you can press some buttons to change pages.

Interface-wise, I am thinking this :


Trigger-wise, I can probably get away with only scraping about 20% of my triggers (mostly all related to button buying & interface) with such idea. However, since I would have to think further about the specifics, it's clear that I won't change it really soon. Homework and exams are finally crawling up.

Although in the short term, ill probably put all unit types into "All units" and put all research types into "All researches" with my current interface which has the less work to do while having the most benefit until then.

You need to be direct, Ricky. Ask people "is the UI overwhelming," "how is the merchant gameplay," "is the warlord's UI interfering with gameplay too much?" Ask the questions, don't ask for pure suggestions, people will forget. Until I mentioned the UI being overwhelming, no one said a thing so you say "people don't complain," but now look- It would be beneficial to downgrade the complexity of the UI. It's impressive, yes, but not intuitive.

That would imply that I knew in advance that my stuff was "THAT wrong" with the minimal complains I had regarding this. That would also imply that I know the "right" questions to ask as the wrong questions tend to lead nowhere or in the wrong direction.

I tend to ask for suggestions since in general, if someone really see a problem in-mid game, it will in general say the problem and their perceived solution and in general I would note it down for consideration. If I start doubting everything of my works (to know the questions to ask), I might as well not do it.

The only big complain I had lately was that "W&M have too long games" which unfortunately by W&M nature, I don't believe there is much to do short of putting back 1500 minerals and 3000 vespene geysers which would make for too short games instead. I am not even sure if putting 3000-4500 mineral packs and 6000-7500 vespene geysers will honestly do the job. Wonder if I should also pump the extracting rate if I no longer make a "true" money map.

Yes, it *could* be beneficial but I am not going to jump into big interface changes if I am not reasonably sure that I can pull it off without lots of side issues. I want to avoid fixing a problem to create a new major one (the one being the major early undercutting). Out of all suggestions that seem honestly solid is Xenon's suggestion with a bit of tweaking.

However, W&M would be still fine with the current interface for the most part. Otherwise, complains about the interface would flooded much quicker or people would avoided my map like the plague already.

[UntamedLoli]

However, W&M would be still fine with the current interface for the most part. Otherwise, complains about the interface would flooded much quicker or people would avoided my map like the plague already.

I think you underestimate the laziness of everyone seeing how you can't even harass them to get on vent for their own good.

I'm generally not going to give suggestions of criticism unless I have an idea of my own to fix it and right now my suggestion for the buyer/seller interface would be a button grid that could show all of the wares instead of 8 different categories but I don't know how capable the game is at dynamically re-arranging items.

[Krazy]

All I need is one button for doom scourges, the rest I can make myself

[Xenon]

IMHO this is using up too much space; I was thinking more of a button grid like HKS called it. The cost % and food could be in the tooltip. Listing all merchants like this could end up giving preference to the one(s) on the first page.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

I think you underestimate the laziness of everyone seeing how you can't even harass them to get on vent for their own good.

I'm generally not going to give suggestions of criticism unless I have an idea of my own to fix it and right now my suggestion for the buyer/seller interface would be a button grid that could show all of the wares instead of 8 different categories but I don't know how capable the game is at dynamically re-arranging items.

I could technically really harass them but in general, if someone don't care enough, they will probably won't do it anyway.

Perphas I do underestimate laziness but there is a point where it would making a lot of work on my shoulders if all others are just too lazy.

As for your suggestion, that would be the type of idea I am more leaning to. At the bare minimum, I do intend to show all units (of any merchandise type) at once for a merchant.

As for re-arranging items, I think SC2 should be reasonably able to do it in theory. However, in practice I don't know what hidden silly bugs there might be. That's a big unknown.

IMHO this is using up too much space; I was thinking more of a button grid like HKS called it. The cost % and food could be in the tooltip. Listing all merchants like this could end up giving preference to the one(s) on the first page.

Putting the cost % in the tooltip is too dangerous in my opinion. It's one of the things that MUST be obvious at any cost.

Want to abuse it as merchant? Make 50 Put your marines at 999% price and see how the quick buying sucker just gave away all his minerals to you after buying them.

It's only food that I could in theory "hide" into the tooltip as well.

In my personal reviews, I would be tempted to show the icon then in small text right to it : % cost, food cost, mineral cost and gas cost.

I am aware that it won't please quite a few of you but I would just dislike to rely purely on a % as a buyer. Like if we see the tauren marines and you see a 110% price. Does it cost gas? What's the relative base costs? At a quick glance, how much it would cost me if I buy 10 of them? Same for food. Do I quickly have the food for them?

Putting the prices in the tooltips feel it would just encourage dumb and uninformed consumption from the warlords' part as they just see an "shiny" icon and just "jump" on it.