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On March 09 2011 09:18 gods_basement wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 09:11 supernovamaniac wrote:On March 09 2011 09:07 Pandain wrote:
Very good read. However I disagree(and think some things are misunderstood) with your post. For example, I feel like there are sufficient examples of micro which you outlined which exist in Broodwar. Take the "shuttle juke." To me that doesn't even look that hard. Just click, move, bring corsairs. Sure its cool, but that happens all the time with starcraft, with marines running back to their tank line in order to kill those banelings. No. It's not easy. With scourges chasing from behind, you can only turn at a certain angle to avoid the scourges hitting the shuttle from the back. Though most players don't have to do this, Kal had to avoid the scourges coming in from the right top. Now, if this was the middle of the map, Kal can run away right bottom and keep his shuttle safe. However, there was no chance for Kal to do this as they were on the bottom of the map. One wrong click in that video and the shuttle have exploded. Kal found the perfect angle to escape those scourges. not only that, he had to find the exact right moment to trick the AI. a second earlier would let the scourge correct their path in time, and a second later would have been too late. great post! well put.
Yea I was assuming that the original writer knew about this. Sorry for missing the AI/timing =P
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I was a macro player in bw and now in sc2 i am as well--the ball has affected macro players a lot, imo, because in bw i would macro up a sick army and throw it at someone AND micro it. In sc2, i just macro good and a-move, maybe some ff's and storms thats it. It really makes macro style less fun and almost makes me feel like i should be 4gating in pvp or blink stalker rushing every game if i want that "micro rush" i felt so much in BW. I've switched to sc2 purely because i think BW will die out soon. And there's no way i can get past my C on iccup in that short time (4-5 years?) and make money of bw xD
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On March 09 2011 09:18 gods_basement wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 09:11 supernovamaniac wrote:On March 09 2011 09:07 Pandain wrote:
Very good read. However I disagree(and think some things are misunderstood) with your post. For example, I feel like there are sufficient examples of micro which you outlined which exist in Broodwar. Take the "shuttle juke." To me that doesn't even look that hard. Just click, move, bring corsairs. Sure its cool, but that happens all the time with starcraft, with marines running back to their tank line in order to kill those banelings. No. It's not easy. With scourges chasing from behind, you can only turn at a certain angle to avoid the scourges hitting the shuttle from the back. Though most players don't have to do this, Kal had to avoid the scourges coming in from the right top. Now, if this was the middle of the map, Kal can run away right bottom and keep his shuttle safe. However, there was no chance for Kal to do this as they were on the bottom of the map. One wrong click in that video and the shuttle have exploded. Kal found the perfect angle to escape those scourges. not only that, he had to find the exact right moment to trick the AI. a second earlier would let the scourge correct their path in time, and a second later would have been too late. great post! well put.
not only THAT but he also had to macro like a pro.
User was warned for this post
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I would have to agree with hot bid on this
sc2 is just going to be a lot different then bw beacuse I think its going to not attract at all the same people. I think regular smoes can see sc2 and enjoy it beacuse of all the flashy flashy while bw was a lot better for those people in the know about bw.
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I'll be honest, I only skimmed it. I'm pretty sure I can extrapolate though.
Here's the thing, there is not always understanding to be gained. It's not like people who enjoy SC2 more know something you don't, and once you figure that thing out, you'll magically start liking it.
By way of analogy, I don't like brocoli. Please, broccoli eaters, help me understand. Why do you like it? Is it the taste? The texture?
Like Hot Bid said, it's a matter of opinion. Yes, there is such thing as acquired taste. But if you don't like it now, there's no reason you ever should. Making an effort to be open-minded is great of course, but in the end, there's no guarantee that you'll ever "get it", because "getting it" is completely subjective. Some people in this thread have given some pretty good reasons why they like it, but who's to say that will even remotely apply to you?
So really, I recommend that you just keep playing/watching BW if that's what you like better. Maybe take a stab at SC2 every once and a while just to see if anything's changed. If not, fine. There's no reason to go so far out of your way to try to like a game if you're just not feeling it.
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I can appreciate Broodwar's many qualities. It is an incredible game with great depth, skill and balance. However, I think a lot of what makes it so good is a huge fluke. Many cool micro tricks are actually bugs (muta stacking, vulture moving shot etc.), Blizzard got incredibly lucky with balance right from the start (only small tweaks were necessary over BW's 13 years lifetime) and what may be called a high mechanical skill ceiling is just an incredibly antiquated, cumbersome UI.
SC2, on the other hand, is a good game by design. The biggest improvement by far, to me, is the interface. I enjoy playing SC2 over BW because I can actually concentrate on battling my opponent, not the UI. To balance out the new, easier controls, new content and mechanics were added. SC2 offers many more options than its predecessor, it is more complex. You have more stuff to do, but things are easier to achieve mechanically. It may be true that this reduces the difference between a good and a great player. Then again, SC2 is a young game and skill will develop much more. Just compare a BW game from 2001 to a modern one to see the difference. Koreans are already pulling ahead. With age, skill and history will grow automatically.
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On March 09 2011 09:26 Scorch wrote:
I can appreciate Broodwar's many qualities. It is an incredible game with great depth, skill and balance. However, I think a lot of what makes it so good is a huge fluke. Many cool micro tricks are actually bugs (muta stacking, vulture moving shot etc.), Blizzard got incredibly lucky with balance right from the start (only small tweaks were necessary over BW's 13 years lifetime) and what may be called a high mechanical skill ceiling is just an incredibly antiquated, cumbersome UI.
SC2, on the other hand, is a good game by design. The biggest improvement by far, to me, is the interface. I enjoy playing SC2 over BW because I can actually concentrate on battling my opponent, not the UI. To balance out the new, easier controls, new content and mechanics were added. SC2 offers many more options than its predecessor, it is more complex. You have more stuff to do, but things are easier to achieve mechanically. It may be true that this reduces the difference between a good and a great player. Then again, SC2 is a young game and skill will develop much more. Just compare a BW game from 2001 to a modern one to see the difference. Koreans are already pulling ahead. With age, skill and history will grow automatically.
I hope Koreans won't be as dominate as they where in bw I don't think that would go very well for sc2 in america to have a bunch of guys who doesn't speak the language.
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Oh man, I'm definitely a BW fan, but I gotta admit, SCII has its moments too. That one Jinro vs Idra game where Jinro did that amazing split vs banelings? Reminded me of the OoV split man!
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I agree with your post, it makes a lot of sense. You have to understand that this happens with every game that comes out.
On shoryuken.com people are having a very similar discussion right now about Marvel vs Capcom 3 vs mvc2. Mvc2 is 10 years old and came out on the dreamcast. Because of its shitty UI, it was a much harder game to play, combos took time to perfect and understand, and the game was much different. Hardcore MvC2 fans hate MvC3 because its so easy.
When Super Smash Bros Brawl came out, people had the same discussion. SSBM is so much deeper, it took me months to get my tech skill to a level where i could barely hold my own in tournaments, and in brawl, if i pick a good character i could place fairly high because the game was much easier. I would also get beaten by shitty metaknights because metaknight is so good.
The melee tournament scene is made of the most hardcore people, but it is still growing and tournaments are becoming bigger. However, tournaments like MLG took out melee in favor for brawl the first year it came out, because it is newer and more accessible, more people play it and understand it. When i play melee once or twice a month with a friend, it takes me 2-3 matches to get my tech skill back, because it requires that kind of constant play to stay good at it.
I started out playing melee competitively, and i will remain a diehard melee fan for the rest of my gaming life, much in the same way you will love BW. However, i never played BW, so i dont understand why it is so amazing in the same way you do. Similarily, most of the SC2 players never played broodwar at ICCUP level, so they like SC2 better because its a game they know.
The hardcore scene will remain hardcore for eternity. Even games like pacman and donkey kong have a hardcore scene, you just dont see those tournaments because the scene is so small. SC2 is more popular, so it naturally overtakes BW in terms of availability.
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I don't really have much to say as I haven't read the whole post and am off to bed soon but I am going to refute the the usual point about how hard D ICCup is. A huge chunk of the playerbase that is in the lower SC2 divisions are there because they are inactive or casual players, and a lot of these players may have just got SC2 because they jumped on the hype train or w/e, they have no interest in a game that is 10 years old so you aren't going to find this huge buffer on ICCup, the majority of people who play on ICCup have been doing so for a while and have significant experience. Someone has to be on the bottom of the rankings so there will be players in D who supposedly have a super easy time reaching diamond+ in sc2
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The only thing I can't get over is this argument of "the game is too easy." Sure the mechanics are easier with MBS and automining but that's not something that is instantly going to make you pro. Yes, a lot of players are in diamond and some suck and a lot of people make the argument of "I would be so low ranked in Iccup but I'm diamond in SC2." The distribution in Iccup wasn't a forced 2%/18%/20%/20%/20% of players so it really can't be compared to the current system. Besides, diamond players should be shooting to get into masters. Masters players should shoot for top 200. Top 200 should be trying to win tournaments and turning pro.
If the game is so easy, why don't we see people like MC getting constantly beat by scrubs? Why are the good players constantly getting far in tournaments? I think a lot of players that hate SC2 are the ones who don't feel special anymore because they were the very few that achieved B rank in Iccup. Now they're just lumped into a diamond league with tons of players. If the percentages were changed into a pyramid system, I think there would be a lot less complaining.
PS: I actually watch more BW than SC2, I just want to argue the fact that many people think the game is too easy but they're not at the highest level of the game yet.
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While everyone's answer is going to be different and there is no right answer, I can tell you why I prefer watching SC2 over BW.
In short: I can relate more to what's happening in a game of SC2, because I play it myself. While no doubt BW players pull off amazing things, I just don't have the level of understanding of the game to see how great it really is. I haven't played SC1 seriously for a long time, I've tried and I don't find it a relaxing, enjoyable experience anymore. I loved it when it came out, and I played the hell out of it for years, but it's not an enjoyable experience anymore. This is not me bashing the original, it's just that over the years I think I am expecting more of games, both in ease of use and when it comes to graphics.
I'm sure I could get into the SCBW scene if I still played myself, but not playing myself I lack the basic understanding neccesary to see the skill involved. I watched an old boxer vid a few weeks back and I didn't see the difference between a player microing marines and SCV's and the AI stuttering around.
Playing SC2 myself gives me a 'baseline' to compare what someone else is doing and how hard it is to pull off. Plus, I like the fact that SC2 seems to be moving at a rather fast pace strategy wise, where as more of the game gets 'explored' other options seem to open up.
(This is also the reason I don't enjoy sports with horses. Having never actually ridden a horse myself, I have no idea if what those people are doing is actually hard. To me it's just another horse jumping.)
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United Kingdom3685 Posts
Wow, the average length of posts in this thread is ridiculously long O_O
So, I will just make a short point. I think one of the biggest problems on both sides is that the SC2 players never played BW to a decent standard and vice versa. In the end, I don't think it's really fair to judge one game or another without first having immersed yourself in it in terms of playing to a fairly high level, watching a lot of professional matches, and above all TRYING to enjoy yourself the whole time. This is the reason that I regularly ladder and watch SC2 despite being a BW fan. I want to understand both sides.
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I like SC2 because I play SC2 and understand the game better than BW. I come from a war3 backround and only played the campaign for SC1.
I have watched some BW streams here and there, and I will say the games are a lot closer which makes it more exciting than SC2, which can often have 1-sided games.
But I think that has everything to do with the best players playing BW and BW being "figured out" while SC2 is not. SC2 is still evolving.
Are games from the first 1-2 years of BW as exciting as they are today? From what I can tell, at least, nobody has any nostalgia for the pre-Boxer era of BW.
So basically I think it's pointless to compare BW and SC2 because SC2 is still changing and will look very different over the next few years.
Ultimately, it just depends on what game you play. I don't think I could get my friends who have never played SC2 to get into watching the GSL.
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Only if SC2 was a complete remake of BW, with updated graphics, the exact same units, the exact same pathing, the exact same UI limits (selecting 12 units max, etc) would there not be any sort of SC2 vs BW debate.
Should anything be different between the two games, haters will hate. It doesn't matter what the differences are, good or bad, it's not exactly like the original, and the fanbase will go crazy as a result. This has happened in countless games, some were justified, SC2 isn't one of those justified cases.
Say what you want, but I DON'T want dragoon pathing, I DON'T want retard scarabs, and I DON'T to be limited to 12 units at a time. These aren't things that made BW great, they're detrimental if anything. It limits the player base and makes the "BW greats" more a collection of people with the natural ability to spam through this bullshit. You can see that today with Flash, nothing you haven't seen before, just perfect mechanics.
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Everyone should watch the Bisu vs Flash video. Why isn't the game more designed like THAT anymore. It's nothing like it. Even marine splits and the like are not particularly impressive anymore because any good player can do that while babysitting the units, which you have time to do now.
By the way i saw someone mention a common mistake people make; Muta stacking is not a bug. Every unit in the game acts the same way, it's just how the magic box works so you can keep in formation if all units selected are near each other. Of course Blizzard never intended for it to be used like that for Mutas/wraith micro but it's not a bug, just how the engine works. Every unit will attempt to stack when theres one unit in the group thats out of the box.
Also Scorch, you say SC2 is more complex.. how so? Strategically i think it's infact less complex. I have no idea how you figure theres more options, when you compare when they took out with what they put in. Plus builds relying 100% on mechanics like 2hatch muta, 2port wraith, sair/reaver, they have no comparison in SC2. Let's just compare one matchup for an example, TvZ. In BW, every unit can be possibly used to effectively. There's endless build orders taking into account solely the early game. How does SC2 add more options in this matchup, cause personally i don't see it at all. You say about BW 12 years ago, but why compare it to then? That's 12 years of RTS knowledge added onto SC2 players; A lot of SC2 strategical ideas are simply re-inventions of old BW strategies, you can't compare it to 12 years ago. We're not starting from nothing again.
Ironically i believe the easier mechanics will, especially in the long run, create less viable strategies at the high level; simply because players cannot simply rely on it to overcome an economic disadvantage. In the mirror matchups we've seen it happen to PvP, now how long until people refine the best ZvZ and TvT builds which rely on you having x amount of units in x time. The same thing can happen in the normal matchups too unless they manage to get the balance right. The Zerg matchups are showing signs of being limited to reaction based play thats for sure.
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As an SC2 player, I'm approaching this from a bit of a different perspective from a lot of the people around here because my RTS background isn't in Blizz's games, but rather from Total Annihilation and then Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance.
The first few points you make about the skill required to macro/cast without smartcast/get your dragoons to walk down a ramp/etc all tie back to the #1 thing I dislike about Brood War: namely, that for nearly 100% of the user base (basically everyone who isn't Bisu/Flash/Jaedong/Stork), the game is a contest to see who is better at manipulating a crappy interface. And, for me, that doesn't make for a particularly interesting game- it's about as interesting as a contest to see who is best at doing productive work in CDE/Motif. I doubt many people would think that using CDE is an entertaining experience, but for the vast majority of players, Brood War is just CDE with blood, explosions, and cool sound effects.
As for the "SC2 deathball", you're right that it's a major issue with the game. If, after the expansions come out, the "deathball" is the optimum strategy, I doubt SC2 will have a long life as a competitive game. But, the solution to the problem isn't to give units retarded pathfinding- otherwise, whoever manages to get their units to act most like a deathball wins, and we're still left with the same dull strategy but with a layer of "do productive work in CDE" on top of it. Both of the RTSs I played prior to SC2- Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance- made it extremely easy to create a "deathball"... if you wanted to. Yet, it was never a problem, because the nature of those games meant that it was nearly always better to split your army up to raid and harass all across the map (expansions were all over the map, each being a much smaller investment than in SC/SC2, meaning that players were encouraged to expand all over the place, even to places they couldn't really defend well, thus meaning that there were generally multiple places to attack where you could do good damage with a small army). Fixing the mechanics that make the deathball desirable is the solution to the deathball; not gimping the unit AI.
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On March 09 2011 11:03 Offhand wrote:
You can see that today with Flash, nothing you haven't seen before, just perfect mechanics.
Flash has been one of the main innovators and trend setters of BW for the past three years. Hardly something you've seen before with perfect mechanics.
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Canada13389 Posts
to be honest, the reason I like SC2 is because its what introduced me to e-sports. I also came in when SC2 started which makes me feel like I am growing with the game and am able to watch it evolve.
For those of you who have been watching brood war and playing it for years now I think you can understand my position as well. You grow with the game, you see the changes, you understand the changes in the games and the shifts in the strategy and metagame and know who the people who the players are.
For someone like me who has been growing as an individual and player with SC2 and with the exploding NA e-sports scene I have a far greater personal investment in this game than BW. I have seen some vods of BW games and I agree that some of the micro is fantastic in it and I enjoy watching it. But i will never have a chance to be even remotely decent at that game so I will continue to devote my pay time to the game I have been playing since July, that being SC2.
Am I a fanboy of SC2? sure, but first and foremost I am a fan of StarCraft as a franchise. The two games are different thanks to technological leaps between 1998 and 2010. Will SC2 grow and change sure it will. And I for one am hoping it grows better and better with time.
I wasn't around in the early early days of SC1:Vanilla and BW but I am sure all the amazing stuff you see with micro and unit control didn't happen from day 1. Sure mechanics aren't as big an issue right now but with time who knows how SC2 will evolve and change.
My only hope is that it becomes as epic as BW was and continues to be. I want to grow with the esport that is SC2 and watch it change as the years go by. I for one want to say i was here when it started, a benefit some of you BW vets have but one I definitely don't.
That's why I like SC2, I enjoy BW definitely but I dont have the knowledge or understanding to really say that I love it as much as I SC2. Watching July and Nada in the GSL gave me a taste of that BW feeling with a strong back and forth game and push and pull in some of the games the two guys played. And, again, its the growth of SC2 to become great that has me excited.
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Everything I write below is from the perspective of a medium/high level BW player (high C+ in recent seasons of iCCup) and an avid follower of the BW pro scene. Now, I an atypical BW fanboy because I hope SC2 succeeds, because realistically, there is not going to be a revival in the BroodWar community, and when BW has run its course, I want a game that is fun to watch and fun to play. I hope this game can be SC2, but I doubt it will happen unless the upcoming expansions offer drastic changes to SC2's core mechanics.
Now, let's look at what made BW successful. BroodWar was able to capture an entire generation shortly after it's release. Just look at the audience size for this 2001 tournament:
+ Show Spoiler +
All this was achieved without any corporations actively pushing BroodWar as an esport. Now, after the initial hype for SC2 has passed, one has to wonder why live audiences for the games are dwindling, even with the efforts of many corporations such as Blizzard and GOMTV doing everything they can to promote SC2.
Now, one has to wonder, why did BroodWar achieve so much success in a relatively short amount of time while SC2 cannot achieve the same success even with an established scene set up, many prominent personalities playing it, and the sponsorship of many large companies.
The answer is simple, objectively, SC2 is just not that fun to watch.
I will not make any comments to the removal of MBS, automine, or even smart casting, as although I would prefer they not be part of the game, I can accept that we live in 2011 and a game without those features would just not be popular. What I believe to be the major in SC2 is the lack of engagement micro. No one can deny that the most entertaining aspect from a spectator's point of view is the engagement micro (hell, just listen to the Korean fangirls scream at the top of their lungs)
+ Show Spoiler +
In BroodWar, the spectator can never know how a battle will turn out unless one side absolutely overpowers the other (sometimes even this isn't the case, just ask the Dragoon who got 30 something kills). This is because how the two forces engage is pivotal as well as where they engage (high ground advantage yesssss). However, in SC2, anyone with basic RTS knowledge (or basic geometry skills - just look at which ball is bigger) can predict the outcome of a battle generally pretty accurately, because the players do not have a large role in how they can do the most damage to their opponent and minimize their losses because there is no engagement micro.
Now, when you have repetitive ball vs ball fights, along with a stale map pool and over-effective all in builds, it is natural to understand why Koreans are not so quick to pick up SC2.
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EPT
