FLUB - Kulas Ravine
What is FLUB? FLUB is a prototype stat-randomizing mod for Starcraft II melee maps. FLUB shifts gameplay toward clever strategy and away from raw experience. FLUB is generous yet demands nothing. FLUB is objectively wonderful.
Map Link: starcraft://map/1/218749 (This is always up-to-date and will always work properly; use this instead of the trigger-stripped download. You'll need to bookmark it to create/join a game.)
FLUB randomly tweaks the stats of each player's units and displays the changes before the match begins, allowing you time to strategize and potentially re-roll the changes. FLUB graciously ensures that each game is an entirely unique experience by drawing from a massive pool of stat-unit combinations. Siege tanks with +2 range? Good. Mutas with -1 speed? Great. Banelings with +2 explosion radius? FLUB approves. Players once called FLUB the "Fabricator of Ludicrously Unplayable Balance." Once. Those remaining realized that FLUB was completely fair in every way imaginable. And generous.
Often, beginners approach real-time strategy games with trepidation and frustration; playing with friends of highly varied RTS experience can be even worse. FLUB's benevolence extends most greatly to these players, for with casual FLUB, the emphasis is placed on resourcefulness rather than experience. Strategy games should be more like FLUB.
FLUB is also highly customizable; whether you desire a host of minor stat variations or a few drastic variations per player, FLUB shall provide. Generously. FLUB even features a simple pre-match veto system, which works especially well when playing with friends...
Conclusion: FLUB is the best. You should play FLUB, because it is so generous. FLUB cannot be ingratiated, for it is wholly unbiased. FLUB is objectively wonderful.
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Though I have experience with the editor and Galaxy, FLUB is the first SC2 map I've actually published, so any ideas, suggestions, and feedback are greatly appreciated! I actually created it because I was curious to see how a highly-randomized RTS would fare. While the stats are randomized, I want to minimize the impact of luck, so if you have an ideas towards this end, I'd be even happier to hear them.
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_ForgeUser5864885 Owner
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Posted Sep 3, 2013@Frizzil: Go
For balance up in "PLATYPUS", maybe tweak it so that the game understands when units are too strong?
2x fire-rate siegetanks vs 4x HP battlecruisers doesnt work.
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Posted Sep 1, 2013@rickmary: Go
Yeah, I wasn't entirely sure where to place it. I'll shift it over soon.
Also, FLUB does have a sort of balance engine, the question is what could be done to improve it. Do some concrete values in the system need to be tweaked? Or is there a structural issue?
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Posted Aug 27, 2013It would really help the map if you could move it to the Arcade, right now it's in the custom games section.
1. it doesnt belong there.
2. It kills any chance of popularity.
Also, if you could, try to create a download for the FLUB Engine, so we could port it to other maps at will.
And for future ideas, maybe code FLUB with some sort of balance mechanism? Sometimes the rolls get very lop-sided.
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Posted Aug 25, 2013Oh, I kind of assumed it was HotS only because I saw the stat changes for HotS units XD.
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Posted Aug 24, 2013Hmm, the map should actually work regardless of HotS or WoL (it auto-detects if you have HotS units, however.) Is it not working for WoL?
I definitely want to apply this to a bunch of maps, but for now it'd be a little bit much considering it's highly change-prone atm. I'll probably have a few additional maps up soon enough, just gotta get it relatively stable.
Not sure about disabling units, seems out of the project's scope, really. I could be persuaded otherwise.
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Posted Aug 24, 2013Haven't tried the map yet (lacking HotS), but how about using the mod for different maps? Some of the stat prefixes got me thinking how interesting it would be to fight in an extremely small map (two bases + maybe 2 expansions?) with effects for Bunkers, due to the usefulness of turtling. Maybe even disable units to make it more interesting? Such as having a map option: Disable Tier 2 and 3 units. Or Disable Tier 2 but keep 1 and 3. Or even disable 1 and 2, keeping only 3.
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Posted Aug 23, 2013@TaintedDreams: Yeah, I honestly should have went ahead and done something like this. I just now added a "randomization table" of sorts that's shared between players and shuffled, so that players get approximately the same quality randomizations, just interpreted differently. (So -2 range for one player may be * 0.5 speed for another player.) The results are actually pretty good! Any other suggestions before I push this thing out?
EDIT: Changed it so that randomizations are sorted by quality. (Makes it a lot easier to analyze.)
EDIT AGAIN: I pushed the new version and uploaded better pictures :P Woop woop! I just decided, however, that Bonus Power of non-default values overly exaggerates additive bonuses. It should multiply them directly, rather than looking at them like multiplicative factors and exponentiating them. (Multiplication is to additive factors as exponentiation is to multiplicative factors... think about it!)
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Posted Aug 23, 2013To minimize the impact of luck, maybe make it so that a player can't end up with more than "X" negative stats, or "X" positive stats for units? Or give each stat a given value, example: +15 hp for Marines is worth 2 points. And then make it so that players will end up with a certain number of points?