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On March 20 2012 09:56 HardlyNever wrote:
I know I'm going to get flamed to shit for this, but what the hell, why not.
Pro players have not fully utilized/mastered micro in SC2. Yeah, I said it.
No, sc2 doesn't have air unit stacking. No, it doesn't have patrol/attack micro. Even the stop command micro is largely limited to terran bio. It is probably worth mentioning that ALL of these things were, by every indication, complete accidents/flukes in the sc1 engine, and the game was not designed with these things to be purposely used.
If there was one thing I took away from the "Starcraft Master" minigame, it that Blizzard was trying to say "most of you still aren't doing this." Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that is what I saw. How often do you see a pro player drop micro like is required on the 30th challenge? Basically never (I know someone is going to link a youtube video of some immortal drop, but guess what, that rarely occurs at that level on a regular basis). Even simpler stuff like the banshee "moving shot" is rarely executed flawlessly. ForGG probably has the best SC2 banshee micro I've seen, and he still gets hit by marines.
I know what people are going to say. Micro in BW was more rewarding. Micro in BW had a lot more depth than sc2 micro. Maybe (and only maybe) those things are true. But don't tell me that micro is meaningless in SC2. Not a single pro player has come even close to executing the consistent, top tier micro that the game engine allows for.
unit ai makes it so that overmicroing is bad in sc2 at worst, inffective at best. for instance, if marines didn't clump together like they do in sc2 forgg's shees wouldn't get hit at all, but because the banshee and marine range are so close the clumping causes forgg to always get hit.
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I will disagree to your statements that mechanics are strategy, but I will agree that (superior) mechanics allow for better or more complex strategies. So.. I'd agree with the overall statement that mechanics are kind of bound to strategy.
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If you look at the difference between BW and SC2 there really isn't much that's different. Old School fanboys want to say the simpler things and improved AI hinder the games skill cap, but I disagree. It's just different.
SC2 simplified:
- auto-mining (something only the top .02% could maintian in BW)
- constant production (same thing. you constantly have to look away from your army just to make one unit)
Of course BW has been dumbed down mechanicallly to accomodate mroe players. That's what happens when you are trying to sell a new game, but considering how top BW players like Nada, Julyzerg, and forGG have switched to SC2 and current BW teams have been practicing the game, I'm tired of BW fanboys saying the game is too casual. The mechanics required are there but instead of only 200 players playing at the top level (and mostly only koreans) now 3,000 people can do so simply because you don't have to assign mining to every harvester and click back to every building you want to produce from.
SC2 was designed for more action from less mechanical players. I think the difference is too subtle to really complain about. Nice read by the way. 
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How did this become debate between BW vs SC2 again? My impression was that the OP wanted to counter people who wanted to dismiss Brood War on the grounds of it being 'mechanic-focused game' and that SC2 are therefore 'strategically superior'.
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On March 20 2012 09:56 HardlyNever wrote:
I know I'm going to get flamed to shit for this, but what the hell, why not.
Pro players have not fully utilized/mastered micro in SC2. Yeah, I said it.
No, sc2 doesn't have air unit stacking. No, it doesn't have patrol/attack micro. Even the stop command micro is largely limited to terran bio. It is probably worth mentioning that ALL of these things were, by every indication, complete accidents/flukes in the sc1 engine, and the game was not designed with these things to be purposely used.
If there was one thing I took away from the "Starcraft Master" minigame, it that Blizzard was trying to say "most of you still aren't doing this." Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that is what I saw. How often do you see a pro player drop micro like is required on the 30th challenge? Basically never (I know someone is going to link a youtube video of some immortal drop, but guess what, that rarely occurs at that level on a regular basis). Even simpler stuff like the banshee "moving shot" is rarely executed flawlessly. ForGG probably has the best SC2 banshee micro I've seen, and he still gets hit by marines.
I know what people are going to say. Micro in BW was more rewarding. Micro in BW had a lot more depth than sc2 micro. Maybe (and only maybe) those things are true. But don't tell me that micro is meaningless in SC2. Not a single pro player has come even close to executing the consistent, top tier micro that the game engine allows for.
Very well said... BW is a very fleshed out and established game, and I feel like people have too glossy-eyed of a view of it to sometimes even give SC2 a chance
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Canada11258 Posts
On March 20 2012 09:58 darkscream wrote:
The thing that you miss, I think, is that the general distaste towards micro-oriented play stems from the early life of SC2 where everything was 1base all-ins all day. People wanted "strategic" games and not "twitch" games. Now that SC2 has matured and a wider breadth of strategy can be employed, This attitude is not warranted, but micro still carries baggage from before.
I could be out to lunch, but I actually think the micro-oriented distate came from BW players view of WC3. Units had too much health and died too slowly and it was too micro-oriented. So what we got was a big swing away from both. Units die even more quickly than BW and there's less ability to micro. Not that there isn't any. But if you compare Phoenix micro to Wraith micro, it's not at all the same.
I think we probably got what we wanted based on what was complained about, but it was too much and some of the subtleties of BW got lost. Someone can tell me if I'm full of crap if that's not the case.
But the main thing is that people are looking for more cerebral play... and mechanics is actually apart of that. Perhaps interconnected would be better rather than Strategy is Mechanics as Type|NarutO says. I would argue that's integral and certainly not that one gets in the way of the other.
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On March 20 2012 10:02 Hesmyrr wrote:
How did this become debate between BW vs SC2 again? My impression was that the OP wanted to counter people who wanted to dismiss Brood War on the grounds of it being 'mechanic-focused game' and that SC2 are therefore 'strategically superior'.
I thought it was him clearing up misconceptions that people had about mechanics and how it hindered strategy in general. Never once did he say that SC2 didn't have such mechanics that could advance strategy.
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In a REAL TIME strategy game, speed will always be a factor, more or less. If you don't like a game that combines strategy with mechanical skill, that's fine, it's not your cup of tea. But it irritates me how people say that removing mechanics will somehow make the game more strategic. That's such a dumb logical fallacy. Not only can mechanics add to strategy and give you more to think about, as is described in the OP (You can distract your opponent and throw lots of things at him to tax his multitasking, for example - that's a strategic decision), but even if that wasn't the case, removing mechanics will only make it so that bad players who otherwise wouldn't be able to can "focus more on strategy". Good players will focus on strategy just fine while still executing the mechanical parts of the game. Why would you want to remove parts of the game?
Even if mechanics didn't add to the strategical aspect, removing them altogether would still be bad for the game, in my opinon. Why have just strategy when you can have strategy and mechanical skill? It makes the game more fun,
In a FPS like Quake or Unreal Tournament, you have mechanical skill and you have strategy. You need reaction time and aim, and you also need to be thinking about where your opponent is, where he will move, what items he will go for, when items will respawn and how you will react to it, and so on. Why would you want to remove the aiming part?
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On March 20 2012 09:56 HardlyNever wrote:
No, sc2 doesn't have air unit stacking. No, it doesn't have patrol/attack micro. Even the stop command micro is largely limited to terran bio. It is probably worth mentioning that ALL of these things were, by every indication, complete accidents/flukes in the sc1 engine, and the game was not designed with these things to be purposely used.
this is true to an extent; that is, when you look at the vulture for example, vultures are designed to stop first, then fire, like basically every unit in the game. but the engine allowed enough input, and the speed of the input, that you could make it appear the the vulture has a moving shot.
so when you look at SC2 with phoenix moving shot, you question why blizzard felt the need to allow the game do this for the player when high level terrans have no issue with 'moving shot' marines
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Dividing things into strategical vs. mechanical is wrong.
You still want people not to fight the interface, you still want to maximize decision-making. Your extreme examples of mechanical things... Why stop there. Why not have autocast? Age of Mythology has auto cast for its Medusas. This would lessen the mechanical skill and allow the more cerebral player to win. Just make the right amount of high templar at the right time. Pre-position them before battle and let them do their work.
Or marines splits vs banelings and shoot and scoots. That’s all about who is the fastest. If we just auto-mated that, we would have even more time for strategy.
And even harassment. Just give some medivacs and some marines the orders “Harass” and they’ll auto fly/ split up to the 3 spots you indicated, auto-harass and then retreat when it becomes too dangerous. Assign units to their respective roles and let them act independently. You have more important, strategic things to think about.
...the reasons these are interesting is not because they have a high mechanical requirement; they're interesting because each requires a ton of small decisions about how to split, whether to engage, when to retreat, etc. This is the same reason why bw muta or goon micro is fun.
I suspect SupCom sucks not because there's no mechanics, but because there aren't 300+APM worth of decisions to make.
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On March 20 2012 10:04 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 09:58 darkscream wrote:
The thing that you miss, I think, is that the general distaste towards micro-oriented play stems from the early life of SC2 where everything was 1base all-ins all day. People wanted "strategic" games and not "twitch" games. Now that SC2 has matured and a wider breadth of strategy can be employed, This attitude is not warranted, but micro still carries baggage from before.
I could be out to lunch, but I actually think the micro-oriented distate came from BW players view of WC3. Units died too quickly and it was too micro-oriented. So what we got was a big swing away from both. Units die even more quickly than BW and there's less ability to micro. Not that there isn't any. But if you compare Phoenix micro to Wraith micro, it's not at all the same. I think we probably got what we wanted based on what was complained about, but it was too much and some of the subtleties of BW got lost. Someone can tell me if I'm full of crap if that's not the case. But the main thing is that people are looking for more cerebral play... and mechanics is actually apart of that. Perhaps interconnected would be better rather than Strategy is Mechanics as Type|NarutO says. I would argue that's integral and certainly not that one gets in the way of the other.
Maybe I'm misreading your post, but I played a LOT of WC3, and I never heard anyone who thought the units died too FAST. If anything, most people felt like the units had a little too much health.
WC3 was definitely a micro-oriented game, and was built that way from the start. However, I don't think many people thought the units died too fast for a micro-oriented game.
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Canada11258 Posts
Uh, sorry. Should have been the other way around. Units had too much health. I'll fix that.
Did anybody find this difficult to read? I might just be getting old and less willing to mold my brain to new things, but this whole thing is worded and paced like you're trying to be too profound in your message. It read like some philosophical piece that was translated five times over before finally being published in English.
Haha. I don't know, the ideas have been swirling around in my head for a couple months now. I was going to do my 2K post on it, but I spent it on congratulating in/uncontrol and then I got modded. But maybe the ideas got over-baked
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Combine this with some of the other major discussions about SC2 (Day9's frisbee/baseball discussion, the maps having too many resources, etc.) and you have a very compelling argument that Blizzard really really really really needs to take into consideration.
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On March 20 2012 10:02 Hesmyrr wrote:
How did this become debate between BW vs SC2 again? My impression was that the OP wanted to counter people who wanted to dismiss Brood War on the grounds of it being 'mechanic-focused game' and that SC2 are therefore 'strategically superior'.
Idiots like picking fights wherever they possibly can.
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I feel it's a bit of a slippery slope argument just because a game that side-lines mechanics isn't the most strategic game ever that makes any side-lining of mechanics less strategic I don't feel is true. The actual argument, which I agree with is that the combination of mechanics and strategy make real time strategy games fun, not one or the other. For the most part the things you talk about in your post are tactics by definition, not strategy.
Your smart cast example I think follows on from this premise, but to me is the best example. When you want to cast a storm 99% of the time you only want one storm, not all the templars to storm on top of the same point which is what cloning accomplishes. Saying that it might as well be auto-cast completely diminishes the importance of when and where you want to cast the storm, rather than the physical actions required to tell a unit to do something you don't want them to do 99% of the time. Imagine for instance that you HAD auto-cast, and instead of having to tell a unit to storm, you instead had to issue the stop command every 10 seconds to tell it to NOT storm... would that be better? probably not, but that's the slippery slope in the other direction.
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On March 20 2012 10:04 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2012 09:58 darkscream wrote:
The thing that you miss, I think, is that the general distaste towards micro-oriented play stems from the early life of SC2 where everything was 1base all-ins all day. People wanted "strategic" games and not "twitch" games. Now that SC2 has matured and a wider breadth of strategy can be employed, This attitude is not warranted, but micro still carries baggage from before.
I could be out to lunch, but I actually think the micro-oriented distate came from BW players view of WC3. Units had too much health and died too slowly and it was too micro-oriented. So what we got was a big swing away from both. Units die even more quickly than BW and there's less ability to micro. Not that there isn't any. But if you compare Phoenix micro to Wraith micro, it's not at all the same. I think we probably got what we wanted based on what was complained about, but it was too much and some of the subtleties of BW got lost. Someone can tell me if I'm full of crap if that's not the case. But the main thing is that people are looking for more cerebral play... and mechanics is actually apart of that. Perhaps interconnected would be better rather than Strategy is Mechanics as Type|NarutO says. I would argue that's integral and certainly not that one gets in the way of the other.
I totally agree. QXC put this very bluntly as well that everyone's mechanics are bad, even koreans, and that they just need more time with the game.
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Canada11258 Posts
Is it a slippery slope argument? Because that implies a continued devolution. Whereas it's more likely to maintain status quo- until expansion or whatever. Perhaps thinking of it on a spectrum would be more helpful. Where SupCom 2 is on an extreme end- being mechanically and strategically lacking and BW on the other end mechanically and strategically. SC2 is somewhere between the two. I would argue too close to SupCom2, although it is FAR from being SupCom.
As for tactics vs strategy. I think that's more a nomenclature issue with the genre itself and not one that's going to change anytime soon. Whatever it's called the type of game I like to play is where I have quick, precise control on the battlefield (amongst other things.)
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On March 20 2012 09:59 slytown wrote:If you look at the difference between BW and SC2 there really isn't much that's different. Old School fanboys want to say the simpler things and improved AI hinder the games skill cap, but I disagree. It's just different. SC2 simplified: - auto-mining (something only the top .02% could maintian in BW) - constant production (same thing. you constantly have to look away from your army just to make one unit) Of course BW has been dumbed down mechanicallly to accomodate mroe players. That's what happens when you are trying to sell a new game, but considering how top BW players like Nada, Julyzerg, and forGG have switched to SC2 and current BW teams have been practicing the game, I'm tired of BW fanboys saying the game is too casual. The mechanics required are there but instead of only 200 players playing at the top level (and mostly only koreans) now 3,000 people can do so simply because you don't have to assign mining to every harvester and click back to every building you want to produce from. SC2 was designed for more action from less mechanical players. I think the difference is too subtle to really complain about. Nice read by the way.
I don't really think the improvements to the UI are really the main thing that sets SC2 apart from BW. I have no real problem with a simplified UI that saves you fairly mindless clicks, so long as there is a meaningful sink to throw that freed up apm/mental multitask into.
But I think the main gripe the BW 'old guard' have with SC2, and may indeed be at the root of why we feel that SC2 in some way never really captured the 'feel' of sc, is that the newer UI often tries to takes control away from the player. While there is plenty of avenue for you to perform more micro tasks, the effects of micromanaging a unit more seems to be greatly diminished because the UI will eventually take control away from you to the extent that paying more attention to a unit may actually reduce it's efficiency.
For me I felt that units like the vulture, the wraith and the mutalisk truly encapsulated what micro was like in BW, and the thing they all have in common is that the are very quick, VERY responsive units. It may well have been simply a fluke of the engine, but it still stands that between moving shot, very short turning times/radii, and for the air units the ability to keep them very closely clumped allowed a certain.... artistry.. to their use that doesn't really exist in sc2. What I mean is that these units increased in efficiency the more attention you paid to them, with an upper limit that was virtually infeasible for any player to actually assign to them, so that when you had spare actions you could pretty much always dump them into these units to make them more effective.
Whereas between unit auto-clumping, and superior default ai, it seems that with SC2, at a certain limit, once you try to dump more control on your units, you actually end up fighting the UI because it is automatically trying to make your units do things that would have helped at a lower level but become annoying as you try to micro them more because it fights you for control of your own units.
Another minor gripe is that July, Nada, and Forgg had all become irrelevant by the time they switched, the former 2 were legends, but by no means were any of them anywhere near 'top players' by the time they switched. The current BW teams are also not 'practicing sc2' they pretty much play it casually, or have their minor B team players practice it.
As for BW players calling SC2 more casual, I don't think that actually comes from the simple UI cleanups like MBS and smartcast, (I could be wrong) but I think it stems from the feel of the UI. Whereas BW is annoying at low mechanical levels because you need to constantly fight the UI and AI to get anything done, it gives you an incredible amount of control and freedom once you have the APM and multitask to control your army at some semblance of competence. Whereas it feels that the SC2 UI is great for low level mechanics because it does some of the essential things eg, pathing, unit surrounds really well, but it feels increasingly like a burden that tries to take control away from you the more you try to micromanage your units.
While I disagree the differences are very subtle, I agree that we shouldn't really be complaining about it. SC2 is a very different game from BW, it was probably not designed to be all that similar to BW, and as such really shouldn't be judged next to BW. And you know what, once you isolate SC2 from comparisons with BW it is a pretty good game in it's own right. I think we BW 'Old guard' just need to accept that despite being in the same genre and the same franchise, SC2 is a very different game from BW and you really shouldn't go into SC2 expecting to get what you get out of BW, it was not designed to do that and we really need to judge it on it's own merits.
More on topic: I agree with the OP that less mechanics does not make a game more strategic. But that said I think they also do have a point.
I think the issue here is most advocates of the "less mechanics = more strategy" school of thinking are confusing in game strategy with metagame strategy.
While less mechanics does nothing to make any given game of SC2 more strategic, I think it in the long run it does allow more people to realistically contribute to the metagame, and therefore mature the metagame faster. That is to say, whereas you or I are probably so mechanically inept that it is unrealistic to make any meaningful strategic contributions to BW since we can't really be sure if we or our opponents are even getting everything done on the right timing. The everyday person is more likely to be at a level of mechanics that are 'close enough', and that if they made some kind of strategic discovery, it is more likely to be significant than because their opponent failed to execute a build order correctly etc.
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I agree overall, even though I think there are quite a few other arguments in favor of your thesis that would be good here.
What I really like is that you made reference to other games. The sc2 vs bw debates on tl have become so cyclic and repetitive that we now get some nonsense like "bw and sc2 are too very different games", which is blalantly false, but it kinda pleases both sides so it never gets challenged.
People need to get back and think a little more on those sort of thing. The numerous complaints in user reviews about how the game did not really feel like a new one should tip people off.
I have a friend who is a CoH players, and he also complains that SC2 ius just a clickfest and about the ball mechanics.
For the micro question, SC2 micro does indeed exists, but I feel its main problem is it lacks variety.
Never commented in Barrin's thread, but I think that maynarding is not rewarded enough in SC2, not sure diminishing the number of patches will really influe on that.
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EPT
