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Starcraft 1 and 2 Metagame Differences and Causes?

Blogs > MestR
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1 2 Next All
MestR
Profile Joined February 2011
Sweden6 Posts
April 12 2011 18:40 GMT
#1
As I haven't played the original Starcraft too much I was wondering what the differences are in the metagame and what caused it. By metagame, I mean how they the game were played (e.g. a lot of harrasing, turtle game...). Having watched some matches, they seem to be more about fast drops (and then picking up again) in SC1 than in SC2 and quite frankly they are more entertaining to watch. Also, the SC1 games feels like they are less about having a marine/marauder death ball army with the support of tanks but instead a tank army with the support of marines/goliath/missile turrets.

So what I'm wondering is if the game will become more interesting to watch as the players gets better or is the game flawed in it's design (and then what is the flaws)? But I really think it's a shame how the game is played right now.

If this thread was posted already (I did a search but found nothing) please post that thread instead and mods can close this one.
The new hit: Proxy command center SCV rush!
da_head
Profile Blog Joined November 2008
Canada3350 Posts
April 12 2011 18:43 GMT
#2
sc1 metagamed reached a point where shifts were pretty much dictated by changes in the map pool and people experimenting with things they could get away with (pvt 14 nexus was pretty popular on a lot of maps). with sc2, people are still learning the ins and outs of the game and not to mention that blizzard is still releasing patches to alter the units themselves, which will obviously have a huge impact on the meta game.
When they see MC Probe, all the ladies disrobe.
Dental Floss
Profile Joined September 2009
United States1015 Posts
April 12 2011 18:46 GMT
#3
The differences between broodwar and sc2 are huge and I'd be interested to hear a pro player's honest opinion about this kind of stuff. I feel like right now the top level players and commentators won't touch this issue because of how much money and potential growth there is in SC2. Obviously it would be horrible if day9 was caught saying something like "well I think as it stands right now during this patch BW is a far more complete and entertaining game" but I wonder what someone like that things privately about the long-term viability of SC2.

Obviously as an amateur player I'm not qualified to comment.
Kim Tae Gyun.... never forget Perfectman RIP
SovSov
Profile Joined September 2010
United States755 Posts
April 12 2011 18:49 GMT
#4
Brood War was everything, depending on how the player wanted to play.

There are some flaws with SC2 that might prevent it from reaching the stage of SC1 such as:
-You can't safely saturate more than 3 bases
-Maps are too small (something that may or may not be fixed.. since big maps so far have lead towards turtle up then push with deathabll)
-Units are too powerful, resulting in deathballs being too strong, or that sending reinforcements into losing battles is a waste because the enemy units will clean them up too efficiently
emythrel
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United Kingdom2599 Posts
April 12 2011 18:57 GMT
#5
On April 13 2011 03:49 SovSov wrote:
Brood War was everything, depending on how the player wanted to play.

There are some flaws with SC2 that might prevent it from reaching the stage of SC1 such as:
-You can't safely saturate more than 3 bases
-Maps are too small (something that may or may not be fixed.. since big maps so far have lead towards turtle up then push with deathabll)
-Units are too powerful, resulting in deathballs being too strong, or that sending reinforcements into losing battles is a waste because the enemy units will clean them up too efficiently


I dont know about not being able to saturate more than 3 bases, i think as we go forward we will see more workers and less army more often.

This is a really recent thing, and thus probably not that impactful or indicitive of play, but whitera has been expanding like a beast and having upwards of 90 workers most games during the DH invitational and has been smashing Terrans. Infact i've seen more and more protoss players going for massive economy and smashing thru the larger T/Z army with good forcefields, positioning and control.

I think we can make no honest judgements about how much potential SC2 really has, since BW was an expansion and took years to balance right (with more spread out patching). SC2 has 2 expansions to come, which will dramatically alter the game no doubt.

I personally think the fix to most of sc2's problems at the pro level would be an 250 supply cap, aloowing for more workers and thus more expansions, or bigger armies and therefore the ability to do multi-drops and still have a sizeable main army, perhaps even a combination of the two.
When there is nothing left to lose but your dignity, it is already gone.
fire_brand
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
Canada1123 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-12 19:12:18
April 12 2011 19:02 GMT
#6
Well I think there's several parts to this. One is the fact that SCBW was a game that was thoroughly played and things figured out. Starcraft 2 hasn't even been out for a whole year. If we look at BW there are still a lot of new builds that are still finding popularity and their metagame is still evolving as well. If we look at SC, the game was broken and wasn't really fully balanced until sometime deep into BW's release.

EDIT: Accidently posted early.

Another thing is the way base saturation works and the economics of sc2. The fact that workers in scbw brought back a such higher return and that expanding counted for so much more in it is vastly different from sc2. The mechanics of mules, chrono and larvae injects is also another major contributer to this. The game favours aggressive play where as brood war favoured expanding defending and denying expos. Major army confrontations were not ideal especially with the clunkier unit pathing and army control.

I think there's probably a lot of other factors that you could look at, but these things are very important to look at when you compare the two games. In the end I don't think it's fair to compare a game in infancy and a game thats been out forever
Random player, pixel enthusiast, crappy illustrator, offlane/support
Golgotha
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Korea (South)8418 Posts
April 12 2011 19:07 GMT
#7
the biggest difference would be the bonus damage aspect of sc2 and how that applies to units and thus battles. Like some of us have already commented, the "deathball" style and critical massing style is prevalent and very effective in SC2, and this kinda dumbs down the game/makes it boring. But we still have to wait for ALL the expansions to come out before we make a lasting judgement.
The.Doctor
Profile Joined February 2010
Canada333 Posts
April 12 2011 19:51 GMT
#8
Time.
The Boss.
Durn
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Canada360 Posts
April 12 2011 19:55 GMT
#9
A good context to view SC2 through the eyes of an old school BW player is to read Mondragon's interview. It's pretty funny how quickly we accepted a lot of the user friendly things in SC2 that really take away from the spectator side of things. My favorite was his hate for the Nydus Worm screaming when it exits the ground. He claims that if a gamer is not good enough to have the appropriate ground covered, and a watchful eye on the mini map, then he should suffer the consequences. In my mind, that's a perfect example of a BW mind looking at SC2.
"Even if I lose 100 games, that's 100 different arrows pointing me in the wrong direction." - Sean Day[9] Plott
Phyrigian
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
New Zealand1332 Posts
April 12 2011 20:00 GMT
#10
--- Nuked ---
FreezerJumps
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada653 Posts
April 12 2011 20:09 GMT
#11
First of all, that's not what metagame means. What you're describing is standard strategy.

Second, it took years for every tiny little timing to be figured out in BW, to the point that pros know the response to almost everything, and they know how to exploit whatever advantages they have. They know when they can get out an extra command center, they know when they can afford to split their army. Until all the very fine details are worked out, SC2 can't compare.

For example, when can a protoss afford to stop colossus production long enough to make a warp prism? If he does so too early, how does a terran respond? If he does it too late, how can a terran benefit from that? Small decisions like these have been trained through for hours and days and weeks by BW pros, and the result is that they do as much as they can get away with.

It's very possible that qxc's mass drop style isn't viable at all, but until someone figures out how to punish exact drop timings, the drops will continue. When mass muta was popular in PvZ, it wasn't because it was overpowered, or the best build. It was because no one had figured out how to punish it. Enter the 6gate timing attack, and now mass muta is all but obsolete. Let's say every terran starts dropping 8 marines at 9:15, doing some damage and getting out. That will continue until someone finds a way, similar to the 6gate, to completely shut it down.

Repeat this process for every conceivable attack timing, strategy, expand timing and army composition, and you're looking at the top level of pro Brood War. Every terran knows when mutas will attack his base. If he doesn't have enough turrets in time, he loses. Every zerg knows when to place sunkens at his natural, because if he doesn't, a medic/marine attack will roll him before mutas are out. Every zerg knows when to get a spire in PvZ, because if he doesn't, corsairs will kill all of his overlords and contain him.

Every little BW timing leaves a very narrow window in which things must be done. When you miss a window, and your opponent scouts it, he will exploit it, and you will lose. In SC2, we don't know all the timing windows, so people get away with a lot. It will take years to figure all of these timings out, and until that happens, we'll continue to see what we're seeing now.
latan
Profile Joined July 2010
740 Posts
April 12 2011 21:16 GMT
#12
after sc2 was realeased i checked some BW final out of curiosity and i couldn't understand a thing, that's not how i used to play starcraft. on the other hand, sc2 even in the pro levels is being played pretty much like sc1 was played in its beggining.
Ribbon
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States5278 Posts
April 12 2011 22:03 GMT
#13
Oh joy, a BW vs SC2 thread.

They're different games, and one is newer while one is really old.

Defense timings take longer to figure out than attack timings, so one base play was really strong, then two-base play was really strong, and only recently have 3+ bases been normal (thanks in large part to the GSL maps, and the Blizzard maps being better than they used to be as well).

We're starting to see players get really creative in builds and break rules by choosing to supply drop (iEchoic) or delaying gas for an absurdly long time as Zerg (Spanishiwa). The game's developing. It's not a shiner Brood War, and players are starting to take advantage of it more and more.
Denzil
Profile Joined August 2010
United Kingdom4193 Posts
April 12 2011 22:34 GMT
#14
On April 13 2011 03:57 emythrel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2011 03:49 SovSov wrote:
Brood War was everything, depending on how the player wanted to play.

There are some flaws with SC2 that might prevent it from reaching the stage of SC1 such as:
-You can't safely saturate more than 3 bases
-Maps are too small (something that may or may not be fixed.. since big maps so far have lead towards turtle up then push with deathabll)
-Units are too powerful, resulting in deathballs being too strong, or that sending reinforcements into losing battles is a waste because the enemy units will clean them up too efficiently


I dont know about not being able to saturate more than 3 bases, i think as we go forward we will see more workers and less army more often.
.


What? That doesn't make sense if I see someone with 120 workers and 80 supply in army I'm going to stop worker count at 50 or 60 and just a move him with my 1 1/2 x stronger army.
Anna: So Sen how will you prepare for your revenge v MC? Sen: With a smile.
Essentia
Profile Joined July 2010
1150 Posts
April 12 2011 22:39 GMT
#15
On April 13 2011 07:34 Denzil wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2011 03:57 emythrel wrote:
On April 13 2011 03:49 SovSov wrote:
Brood War was everything, depending on how the player wanted to play.

There are some flaws with SC2 that might prevent it from reaching the stage of SC1 such as:
-You can't safely saturate more than 3 bases
-Maps are too small (something that may or may not be fixed.. since big maps so far have lead towards turtle up then push with deathabll)
-Units are too powerful, resulting in deathballs being too strong, or that sending reinforcements into losing battles is a waste because the enemy units will clean them up too efficiently


I dont know about not being able to saturate more than 3 bases, i think as we go forward we will see more workers and less army more often.
.


What? That doesn't make sense if I see someone with 120 workers and 80 supply in army I'm going to stop worker count at 50 or 60 and just a move him with my 1 1/2 x stronger army.


We will never see more than 3 base saturation being "standard"
Samhax
Profile Joined August 2010
1054 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-12 23:33:58
April 12 2011 23:33 GMT
#16
I tthink there are many big differences between sc2 and bw.

Important differences are :

-split your workers between more than 3 basis doesn't increase a lot your income that's why 3basis in sc2 is quite late game (lalush post). I wish blizzard change this part of the game (16 workers saturation instead of 24 per base for example) and reward people who expand the most.

-Macro mechanics (larva inject, chrono, mules) boost alot your economy in sc2, it makes you reach 200pop faster then bw. You can for exemple reach 200 pop on 2 basis, in bw you need at least 3 basis.

-counter units are a lot more important in sc2, you can lose like nothing if you don't have the good unit mix even if you are ahead in eco. In bw eco>unit mix


Jeremyy
Profile Joined July 2010
Canada182 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-13 01:07:45
April 12 2011 23:35 GMT
#17
People don't understand what 'meta'game means :S
Where's the pleasure in that?
Nazza
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
Australia1654 Posts
April 13 2011 00:00 GMT
#18
To clarify: BW's last balance patch was 1.08, which was released in 20/5/2001. The rest of the "balance" has come through maps and strategies that players employ.
No one ever remembers second place, eh? eh? GIVE ME COMMAND
Rodiel3
Profile Joined March 2011
France1158 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-13 00:04:52
April 13 2011 00:04 GMT
#19
In sc1 u are worker satured way way faster than sc2, so u need to expand a lot and quiclky and the more u expand the more u open ur defence (to be short ^^)
http://www.youtube.com/user/rodiel3 SCBW FPVOD
GHOSTCLAW
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States17042 Posts
April 13 2011 00:07 GMT
#20
uh moved to blogs.
PhotographerLiquipedia. Drop me a pm if you've got questions/need help.
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