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On November 14 2010 01:22 zemiron wrote:
We already have Brood War, there's no reason to make Starcraft 2 into Brood War. You don't need to make the AI worse to make a game have personality. I feel that the game has plenty of personality. Watching Kiwikaki hold off a superior army with only a few units is a thing of beauty. And when units act smarter, it allows focus to go into doing other things in the game.
But doesn't "holding off a superior army" happen in every game? I don't see how this argument is exclusive to Starcraft 2.
And while I agree that "smarter" units allows focus to go into doing other things into the game.......
You see, whenever I see that posted on TL, I always have to ask myself where I've seen players doing "other things into the game". And at the moment, I can't really think of any moment in SC2 that comes into my mind at the moment. 
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Efficiency is the way of the world. "Wouldn't it be more beautiful if we were all stuck in the middle ages with the Plague every few decades??" No.
You either adapt to it or you fall behind. There's no arguing against it.
Also note that Starcraft is a real-time strategy game. Watching Bisu beat people by pure multi-tasking, i.e. the real-time part, makes it less strategic but more of a mechanics duel--in which case you're better off just watching sports like basketball.
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Rather than purposely make the game dumber, I think the maps could be made -much- bigger and the supply cap increased. Even most Brood War maps are larger than the current SC2 maps and SC2's units are smarter.
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lol very interesting that you find personality in BW's pathfinding inefficiency. I too think SC2 doesn't have nearly as much personality but I attributed it more to the dreary art and colors. You're right though that the unit movements are not nearly as distinctive, especially when the army clumps up into a ball.
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On November 14 2010 03:32 vnlegend wrote:
Also note that Starcraft is a real-time strategy game. Watching Bisu beat people by pure multi-tasking, i.e. the real-time part, makes it less strategic but more of a mechanics duel--in which case you're better off just watching sports like basketball.
Also, note that starcraft is a real-time strategy game. Forcing your opponent to react to multiple threats at a faster and faster pace until he can't keep up and starts making mistakes is a valid tactic, a good one. But since it's real-time, only an amazing player like Bisu can pull it off.. best of both worlds.
Mechanics are an important part of the genre, possibly the most important because after a time, strategies become completely mapped out and good execution becomes the dividing line between a good player and a better one because the decisions are already made for you. Just look at War3, or even BW (although BW's ever-changing map pool results in strategies changing with the maps so it's less pronounced.)
This is why a game that emphasizes "decision making" over mechanics will always be inferior for esports.
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On November 14 2010 03:43 Sinensis wrote:
Rather than purposely make the game dumber, I think the maps could be made -much- bigger and the supply cap increased. Even most Brood War maps are larger than the current SC2 maps and SC2's units are smarter.
If SC2's maps were bigger, units like nydus wurm, warp prism, and medivacs would not just be super strong, but mandatory and force a very dull style of play. Well that's theory craft, but I imagine that is Blizzard's reasoning behind making awful small maps.
Blizzard has created a game where they sort of force battles to happen within the first 3 minutes, because I guess they think that's what people come to see.
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i don't think skill should have to come out by seeing who can fight the terrible AI better. with a good ai, the players can actually focus on doing what they wanna do with their units, rather than focusing on preventing the units from doing stupid shit. really, it's only gonna get better from here. i still see pretty terrible bio micro against banelings. people are impatient, it's gonna take time for everyone to get better so the pros stand out a bit more.
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i agree with op. I also think that these bugs lead to very subtle changes among the pros, flash marines are diffrent then light marines although both are excellent.
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I don't see how slower game speed would help but the other points are reasonable. However, I think it also has to do with the fact that there aren't really any great players at SC2 yet, at least none on the level of Bisu, Jaedong, Flash.
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I agree completely with the OP. Actually, to be honest, the smooth unit pathing and clumping annoys the hell out of me. I also think it severely detracts from the game visually. In BW, seeing just two dozen marines and medics being moved around looked awesome. It looked like there were actually a large number of units moving across the map - it looked like an actual army about to pound shit in.
However, in SC2, the same numbers of units just don't look nearly as impressive. It's really disheartening. The game just doesn't ever feel as epic anymore. It also makes controlling units like terran bio really weird and difficult in a counter-intuitive way, lol.
On November 14 2010 01:22 zemiron wrote:
We already have Brood War, there's no reason to make Starcraft 2 into Brood War. You don't need to make the AI worse to make a game have personality. I feel that the game has plenty of personality. Watching Kiwikaki hold off a superior army with only a few units is a thing of beauty. And when units act smarter, it allows focus to go into doing other things in the game.
Imagine how awesome of a game SC2 would be if it were BW, though. Just imagine.
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I don't see why you have to formulate the AI argument in a negative way. Why don't say that the units should be hard to use in an optimal way instead of saying that they should be stupid. The reasoning translates to any game: we don't want CS with aim bot, do we?
But the point is valid. I'm yet to see some micro that impress me in SCII. I'm sure would be more impressed if I knew the game better. Then again I was stunned first time I saw a BW pro game.
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On November 14 2010 03:32 vnlegend wrote:
Efficiency is the way of the world. "Wouldn't it be more beautiful if we were all stuck in the middle ages with the Plague every few decades??" No.
You either adapt to it or you fall behind. There's no arguing against it.
Also note that Starcraft is a real-time strategy game. Watching Bisu beat people by pure multi-tasking, i.e. the real-time part, makes it less strategic but more of a mechanics duel--in which case you're better off just watching sports like basketball.
It's a real-time strategy game.
BW is inarguably one of the most influential and lasting games in all of computer games. It has had the kind of lasting influence you just don't ever see, and one of the most grueling competitive scenes ever. This was even after nearly every strategic permutation had been mapped out and you were never really left wondering how a game was going to pan out in the end.
Despite that, it's still going strong and it's still incredibly entertaining.
Why? That's because the game is incredibly difficult to play. While having an immense amount of strategic depth, it still rewarded the player better at, well, doing things. Mechanics are incredibly important to SC as a whole. It's what separates it from games that play themselves like SupCom and other novel games that will never have lasting competitive impact.
When you watch pro BW, you can see the skill of the players. You can see the amount of practice they've put in and their incredible mental dexterity. That they're able to perfectly macro, yet harass and push with their main army all while making knife edge strategic decisions was incredibly entertaining, and is largely something that is lost in SC2. Macro has been dumbed down to nothing. You barely have to manipulate your units for them to perform relatively effectively. The hard counters in the game really dumb down strategic decisions with borderline rock/paper/scissors gameplay. I could go on, but you should get the point.
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On November 14 2010 05:20 puppykiller wrote:
i agree with op. I also think that these bugs lead to very subtle changes among the pros, flash marines are diffrent then light marines although both are excellent.
That's a very good point, actually. I hadn't thought of that, but it's definitely true and apparent.
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I agree that SC2 seems to have less room for amazing play because of the very well implemented pathfinding and the updated UI. I also agree that this leads to SC2 being less incredible to watch at the highest level. I do not, however, believe that the solutions you suggested would be in the best interests of SC2.
I don't want to sound like another voice of "SC2 shouldn't be just like BW" in the mass of them that are already starting to overwhelm this thread, but it seems like your suggestions are purely to make SC2 more similar to BW. I would prefer to let the game develop for now and wait for a few months after the final expansion is out to see exactly how the game will stand in the long run before considering any changes on this scale.
Beyond that, raising the skill cap of a game by reducing the quality of the game's mechanics is an inherently illogical concept. I'd say that if the skill cap does indeed turn out to be noticeably too low to make for consistently impressive high-level play the best solution might be to adjust the game speed, like you suggested in the OP. The question of if it should be lowered to make for more of an emphasis on micromanagement and/or multitasking or to raise the speed to further stress the need for solid macro mechanics is another debate entirely.
I haven't really given this topic enough though in my own time to have any good suggestions to put forth to make the game more entertaining for spectators. All I can say at this point is that making the game harder just by making the game respond slower/more inaccurately to your commands is a completely ass-backwards design approach.
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Are you a troll?
Units in SC2 are pretty dumb as it is. Yes, smooth unit pathing is ugly - and quite frankly I think it's inefficient as well. It optimizes walking distance for all units and unity of army as well, but quite frankly optimizing these things aren't always the best decisions to make when you walk your army into another one.
There's plenty of space for "personality." The real struggle for control by SC2 players will be avoiding the auto-ball when engaging because units can be left behind or stuck running around attacking unreachable targets due to the whacked out priority system.
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On November 14 2010 06:44 Jumperer wrote:
I would say something, but nobody in this thread knows what they are talking about.
Please, do enlighten us with your infinite wisdom.
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On November 14 2010 06:44 Jumperer wrote:
I would say something, but nobody in this thread knows what they are talking about.
Then I'm going to assume you're another SC2 bandwagoner with absolutely no appreciation for what BW has done for competitive gaming as a whole.
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There's a difference between making shitty AI and having longer attack animations. If the units couldn't clump up so much and the average BAT was 0.5-1s rather than whatever it is now, the control shown by better players would be much more noticeable and impressive.
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I thought improved AI was meant to make winning rely more on thinking/mindgaming and less on being a 400APM nerd powerhouse...
However I am a noobie so I might be missing some point like the entertainment of watching or something...
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EPT
