I've posted a few times in various threads (not all that often though) about how I don't believe it's fair to compare SC2 to broodwar the way people have been doing since the game first came out.
There are a few different points I'd like to make on why this is a ridiculous comparison to be making right now.
Age
BW has been around for over a decade. In that time the game has DRASTICALLY changed. When people began playing competitively, before the professional scene existed, techniques like muta stacking and magic boxing didn't exist. Every micro trick had to be discovered individually. It wasn't until people saw Maynard transferring workers that they began to realize that it was more efficient to do so.
When Boxer first broke into his fame, Terran was considered the weakest race, and he revolutionized how the game was played. Bisu and Jaedong, among others, have had similar effects in dictating how their races were played.
The map pools changed drastically over the years. Remember those crazy island maps? Remember maps like 815, Neo Vertigo and Dire Straits? Pretty different from modern maps, and I doubt any of those would have had a chance in hell of making it into competitive play in recent years.
Look at the builds over the years. At one point in time, The Stove was actually a build someone came up with because they thought it would be good. That was years ago, but it still stands that someone came up with it thinking that it would be good enough to use for something other than taking your opponent off guard. There are too many revolutionary builds for me to list them here (and frankly, I haven't watched enough old BW to know them)...
All of these things have changed the landscape of competitive broodwar and served as stepping stones to what broodwar looked like in it's final days of professional play.
When it's all said and done, broodwar evolved over more than a decade of competitive gameplay, and there is NO substitute for the learning process. We've even see the process of this learning beginning in SC2. We've seen the evolution of builds and gameplay from 1-base cheese being basically standard back in the beta, to the 3-base play we see commonly today. Just go back and watch a few games from the older GSLs, and you can clearly see that the landscape of viable builds, build order execution, and micro evolved over time; and nothing says this evolution ends here.
The Expansions
When Starcraft came out, it was not the game that Broodwar is. Ask anyone, and they will say that Broodwar completed Starcraft. SC2 has 2 more expansions to be released over the next few years. This means that for each expansion we will have to relearn timings, create new builds entirely, and adapt older builds to work within the modified framework each expansion will provide. We absolutely cannot consider the gameplay in WoL or even HotS to be what SC2 will eventually become.
There's not much to say about this point other than what I've already said: you absolutely cannot compare BW and SC2 until SC2's expansions have been released.
Balance Patches
After broodwar came out, there were patches. But not very many. according to this thread 1.08 was the last balance patch, and was released in April 2001. This is about 2.5 years after broodwar was released. Now, assuming that it takes as long to release LotV after HotS as it took for HotS to come out after WoL we're looking at maybe 5+ years from now before the final expansion has come out and the final balance patches are applied. Hopefully by the time LotV comes out the game wil be at a point where blizzard is happy with the balance enough to leave it to the community and mappers to do the rest. The metagame shifts every time a balance patch comes out, and each time it happens, there tends to be a swing where everyone struggles to figure out how to work in the modified environment post-patch.
I consider this a big point because from 2001 until 2012 the game was left with essentially no changes from blizzard which affected balance. Remember 2001 is roughly when Boxer came onto the scene and showed us that Terran is far from the under powered race everyone felt it was. That is to say, even when the community consensus was that one race was under powered, one player was able to completely change how the race was played and in effect prove that that the game was far better balanced than people initially thought it was.
I believe that for SC2 to form a set of stable builds the way Broodwar did in the years following the final balance patch, SC2 also needs to have a point where blizzard says "that's it boys, no more balance patches, you're on your own".
Other Thoughts
If you look at the micro tricks and the overall skill level needed to play BW at a high professional level in the last year or so, I don't think anyone who knows the game well would say that it takes less skill than SC2. Macro is harder in BW, and there are so many micro tricks you need to be able to pull off during a battle along with the macro that the multitasking and overall skill required is still higher than SC2. However, I believe that because the interface for SC2 makes macro easier, players will be able to devote more APM, more multitasking and more overall skill into things such as army positioning, simultaneous drops/harass/battles, and micro in general. MBS and near unlimited unit selection means that it's easier to macro and to micro larger groups, but with this reduction in APM/multitasking requirement for macro it means that you ave more free APM/multitasking to do other things with your units. How often do you see players in the middle of a battle select small groups of units and target fire with them while simultaneously dropping someone? Not bloody often, but I have a feeling things like this will become more and more common as players begin to be forced to micro better either to counter their opponent's micro, or to gain even more of a lead by losing less in battle.
Now, there are certain topics people always seem to gravitate towards discussing in these BW/SC2 debates. Namely: unit movement, abilities which lock units down, and "the deathball".
I'll discuss each topic in turn here for a paragraph or so.
Unit Movement In BW, units did not clump together nearly as much as they do in SC2. This leads to armies being spread apart more than their SC2 counterparts. This reduces the efficiency of splash damage and causes the battles to be more drawn out affairs than what you currently see in SC2. However, I don't see the necessity to bring this mechanic back into SC2 at all. The way I see things, the benefits of spacing your units apart is still something you can achieve in SC2, it just takes (wait for it) more skill than BW. Yes, I said it. I think something in SC2 can take more skill than it's bW counterpart. What I mean is that it is still perfectly possible to spread your army out more and fight in much larger more spaced out battles in SC2. It just requires micro, positioning, and multiple army hotkeys. Since SC2 removed the need for multiple army hotkeys you see almost nobody using multiple hotkeys for their main army. They might use another kotkey for drops, maybe one for their spellcasters, but I don't recall ever being aware of anyone splitting their army into a few different hotkeys for the purpose of maneuvering it as separate groups like in BW, and I believe it's something players need to explore more.
"Anti-micro spells" Fungal growth and forcefields are often talked about as removing the ability to micro, and hence making it impossible for a player to use their possibly superior micro in order to win an engagement. The way I see this issue is that these abilities make the game more positional, and require the player who may be on the receiving end to be more careful about how they engage an army that has the potential to pin them down. I see these abilities as potentially forcing a player to employ more positional plays, such as flanking, counterattacks and drops/harass in order to force their opponent into a less favorable engagement, which can only be a good thing. It also takes skill to land clutch forcefields and fungals in the right places, and it's certainly possible to mess up. Just think about how many sentry/immortal plays have failed due to bad forcefielding, how many sentry drops failed due to not FFing the ramp properly, or how many times someone has lost battles due to bad fungals, or fungals wasted on less important things when they don't have enough infestors.
The Deathball As far as I'm concerned, the deathball is simply a side effect of the different unit movement coupled with nobody using multiple army hotkeys yet. I believe as the game matures, people will learn that there are plenty of engagements that would work out much better if they split their army up more and battled over a larger area. I honestly feel like for now, this is actually a non-issue that should be brought up again much later if for some reason it's still an issue 5 years or so from now.
Conclusions
Alright. I've laid out the three main reasons I believe that comparing SC2 to BW as far as play is concerned. Now let's try to some things up: The singlemost important reason you should not be comparing SC2 to broodwar is time. SC2 is incredibly new compared to BW. I'm not saying that SC2 should take as long as BW did after the final balance patch was released to get to a state similar in skill to BW, what I am saying is that we still aren't there yet, and until we are far closer, this debate is absolutely worthless.
If you've actually read all this, then you get +1 respect in my books. If you simply chime in that you read all this but actually haven't, -2. If you can legitimately make a counterpoint that makes me think about something I've said in another light, +5. I'm completely open to seeing what some of you guys think about these thoughts and I am willing to change my mind given a good well thought out argument against something I've said. These are just the opinions of someone who plays at maybe silver level on a good day. I've spent a good amount of time thinking about these things, reading threads where people do in depth discussion on various topics, and in general watching a LOT of SC2. I watched BW a little bit back in the day when tasteless first casted for GOM, but stopped when there was no more official english casting. Since then the only BW I've watched was both OSL grand finals, and nearly all of the hybrid proleague.
Nice post this is great just think there was not a very big pro scene for SC but for SCBW it broke out huge hot Legacy of The Void does that too! Now compare to a deathball movement....
Seriously sick of people analyzing Starcraft 2 vacuously. Starcraft 2 has had 13 years of BROODWAR + 2 years of itself to develop into a game, seeing as how it takes a lot of units, tactics, and builds straight from broodwar.
Clumping can only be mitigated a little by manual splitting...it still affects a lot of the balance and design of the game, and makes every battle very unforgiving for the player, which is arguably a bad thing.
Also your argument for anti-micro spells is silly. All those things you listed are already done to distinguish skill levels. The difference in BW is that you could still come back from a disadvantageous position, whereas in SC2 the game is usually over because of one mistake.
bw and sc2 are both rts. bw is largely considered the greatest competitive rts ever made and sc2 is a competitive rts. bw sets the standards for good competitive rts. there's nothing wrong with comparing them even when you consider the points you mentioned.
I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Actually if you count 1998 until 2012, BW had 14 years to develop because let's face it, BW sucked until last year.
But more seriously, while I was a big proponent of give SC2 time, I dislike the broader "BW had a decade to develop" argument as it presupposes that BW was a terrible game up until the last couple years. It also seems to assume that the pro's forgot absolutely everything they ever knew about RTS's and we're starting from scratch (Protoss suddenly forgot how to ht drop worker lines). We'll see what happens, but I'm inclined to think if Kespa players can't find the cool micro tricks analogs to vulture patrol and muta micro, then it just doesn't exist in SC2. Another half year and we can start comparing 2001 Boxer vods being that HotS should be out (1 expansion to 1 expansion), Kespa players should be up to form and both games will be out for three years. Three years is a very generous amount of time to evaluate a game.
And evaluating the quality of Beta units is kinda why they have Beta- or at least why they took out the Warhound, so I'm not sure why we ought to wait a decade before saying anything.
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
To be honest, there were quite a few bunker rushes in BW, too. Flash was known for it and still JD 12 hatched every game -.- What really pisses me off are the base trades. Some people think they're sooo exciting but I find it dumb. That's not the point of the game to kill each other's base in some weird scenario but it's very often the only chance you have. Also there are almost no OMG-moments like Jangbi storms or a great plague because of the unit clumping. AOE had to be nerfed to joke level.
About your thoughts on anti-micro: BW did have anti-micro abilities as well as microable abilities. But a lot of them were late game (stasis for arbiters, irradiate for vessels), except for perhaps TvT midgame, where sieged tanks would evaporate unsieged tanks.
The thing about abilities like Dark Swarm in BW was that it creates a lot of tension, a lot of back and forth action. As exciting as vortexing 12 battlecruisers may be, the novelty wears off, and it does seem like there's any skill involved at all. The same thing with neuraling a mothership, the game is over in about 10 seconds. Abilties which force micro when the ability is being cast is way more interesting to watch and play against imo. It also adds a second layer of complexity, where the person casting Dark Swarm actually acts upon the fact that Terran is moving back.
There's no reason that SC2 can't have something like this. There should be a good mix imo.
I'll write some coherent responses when I get up tomorrow. But yes, I do agree that SC2 has it's flaws. The "neural mothership, win game"/"drop vortex, win game" situation as it stands now is horrible, among other things.
And we're obviously not starting from scratch... Although with that worker auto-mine feature in HotS it almost feels like blizzard thinks we are
My main point about "give it time" is that you can see quite obviously even a relatively small change to a stat on a unit, such as Queen range, can make a massive impact in the gameplay, and until we can get a good year or 2 without huge changes, the growth of the game will be far slower than it should be. By all rights I feel like the overall skill level of players should be higher than it is right now, but the constant patching tends to create large swings in playstyle as the players constantly adjust to the changes, rather than focus on figuring out how to deal with the problem as a player.
Anyway, I'll be back tomorrow to address some of your points directly. I'd considered making this a thread, but as a blog it's easier to actually respond to people, and i'm likely to get fewer inane responses and trolls.
LOL dude i love the ratings at the end, give me all ur +1s though
I agree with a lot of what you've said and I want to emphasize the fact that I think we are at a meta-game turning point in sc2. Players are starting to realize (with the exception of the elite, MKP, Teaja, Blink micro) that you actually _do_ need to work to be good. Stephano has kind of revolutionized the idea of "good play" outside of korea, and I think if we saw a series of good, interesting maps come out, it could really drive the development of the international sc2 pro scene.
hi ediT: teamliquid is so truthy!!! wtf and you're text is exactly the same length as when you post it.
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Every game has flaws, even BW. It only up to each person to think whether each feature/flaw is really good or bad.
There are many people (and I really mean many) outside of TL community and pro-scene who feel that BW has a lot of flaws and is inferior to the other RTS in that generation (Total Annihilation and Age of Empire, for example). No game is good for every person. And there could be a lot of reasons why people might like SC2 more than BW.
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Every game has flaws, even BW. It only up to each person to think whether each feature/flaw is really good or bad.
There are many people (and I really mean many) outside of TL community and pro-scene who feel that BW has a lot of flaws and is inferior to the other RTS in that generation (Total Annihilation and Age of Empire, for example). No game is good for every person. And there could be a lot of reasons why people might like SC2 more than BW.
That's because they have not truly played it- I was an Age of Empires guy until 2007 But I do agree that not every RTS is good for everyone so your mileage will vary. From what I've read, SupCom2 fans think SC2 is a spamfest and have little interest in it. Nonetheless, I still think it's possible to analyze what creates depth in a game and where a game is lacking.
Since the game is updated regularly it makes all the sense in the world to compare it to BW. It's a lost cause for me at this point though, given the way the development has been going so far. If you see a game going in the wrong direction I don't see why you should take time into account at all.. if anything, it's going to get worse.
On September 27 2012 15:06 heyoka wrote: The Stove predates Chef by many years, Rekrul played it in WCG once.
... and created by Proct.
sKy.Proct [P] vs eNr.HellGhost [T]
When The Stove was widely released to the public on StarCraft Legacy in the 16th of October, it opened to mixed opinions on its effectiveness. Some people hated it, while many others loved it. The Stove consists of three stages. The strategy opens up with a Protoss Scout rush. This accomplishes two things: it serves as a...um...scout and it also forces the Terran to rush to ebay/turrets decreasing his unit count. The second phase is Dark Templar harrassment which can frustrate the opponent and increase the time it will take for him to expand. The last stage is the Arbiter with stasis ability. The entire point of The Stove is to confuse and frustrate the opponent...because come on...who the hell goes Scouts five minutes into the game?
The origins of The Stove is sketchy. Proct is the generally accepted inventor of the strategy. Proct played a person by the Battle.net name TheStove, who used the first two stages of the strat. He then added on the Arbiter part and named the strat The Stove. A NoHunter player by the name of Nate claims to be TheStove.
Regardless of whether you think this strategy is particulary effective or not, it is interesting and different to say the least. The Stove is number thirteen in our Pimpest Plays 2002.
I recently thought about something... SC2 balance isn't all that much about what the developers do and don't concerning balance changes, or at least it doesn't have to be. The maps are what truly determine how well each race will perform. Each race having it's own key strengths and weaknesses is one part of the job, and the rest can mostly be left to maps. I mean, I played brood war at a very high level, and it was largely about the maps. That's what made the game balanced throughout the years. Several maps would be terrible for a specific race, and it would show in progames.
However, to achieve that, there must not be hard counters. If roaches are too good against ground so that they're always used, then no map can fix this problem. However to change this would require a massive overhaul, which is simply out of the question. The SC2 team is doing a decent job of weakening overused units, buffing the weak ones and with HOTS, it seems that they are trying to provide units that require skill, thought, and give access to different gameplay styles. They're not doing a bad job at it. And it's not like they can go back and make a copy of BW with SC2 graphics.
However, even if the debate of SC2 vs BW may feel meaningless, it provides excellent discussion, thoughts, and ways to improve the game. A lot of things have been changed for the better just because of this discussion, and a lot more may. (such as the carrier micro)
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Every game has flaws, even BW. It only up to each person to think whether each feature/flaw is really good or bad.
There are many people (and I really mean many) outside of TL community and pro-scene who feel that BW has a lot of flaws and is inferior to the other RTS in that generation (Total Annihilation and Age of Empire, for example). No game is good for every person. And there could be a lot of reasons why people might like SC2 more than BW.
That's because they have not truly played it- I was an Age of Empires guy until 2007 But I do agree that not every RTS is good for everyone so your mileage will vary. From what I've read, SupCom2 fans think SC2 is a spamfest and have little interest in it. Nonetheless, I still think it's possible to analyze what creates depth in a game and where a game is lacking.
Yeah, it boils down to person's taste/preference. I really loved (and still love) Starcraft and Brood War when they came out more than any other RTS. But I still kinda see why people might not like it. But I'm pretty sure that most people who plays RTS at that age would have tried SC once or twice.
And I do agree that there is still a lot of room for improvement of SC2 that is needed to be done. But for me, I still find the game enjoyable to watch.
On September 27 2012 18:14 Stratos wrote: Since the game is updated regularly it makes all the sense in the world to compare it to BW. It's a lost cause for me at this point though, given the way the development has been going so far. If you see a game going in the wrong direction I don't see why you should take time into account at all.. if anything, it's going to get worse.
I would say that it is hard to tell that the game (HOTS) is going into a wrong direction or not. But there's one thing I am pretty sure is that SC2 is one of the most difficult game to design or balance at this point.
Why? Because it has to both adapt to the current design trend of RTS to a certain extent, and also conform to what BW did. And they are very far apart in a lot of areas.
One problem I recognize or feel is that many BW fans tend to play only BW and ignore other RTS almost completely. So they kinda don't see how the trend of game design change over time, such as no resource gathering by workers (capture/holding points for resource). And this change how RTS is designed in the modern time (Dawn of War, for example). Furthermore, RTS players kinda fall into two groups right now. For example, if you frequent gaming websites a lot, you might recognize that there is a very vocal opinion among some (or many) RTS players say that RTS should shift away from demanding a lot of mechanical control (as they believe it turn the game into "who can click faster" game) and emphasize more on "strategy" part. This group of players tend to dislike SC2 (and BW) but from an opposite reason of why BW fans hate SC2.
So Blizz kinda has to design a game that somehow balance the new trend of game design and old-school style RTS to a certain extent, because they still need to sell the game and at the same point don't piss-off the old fanbase too much. If they make the game too mechanical demanding like putting restriction into unit per control group selection (which goes against modern game design), then they are going to detract a lot of modern RTS players.
So to say the game goes toward a wrong direction might only be true from our perspective (TL community), which, let's face it, is a minority in gaming community right now.
It's easy to say if the game is going in the wrong or the right direction (and support it with good arguments), because it's a matter of one's opinion - as you point out yourself. This is true for any discussion about the state of the game. Our opinions are all we've got. Personally I think a problem only arises when someone thinks their opinion is the only single truth in the world.
I agree, you can't really make a comparison between them outside of the fact that they are both rts games and have a large gaming scene.
SC2 has at the very least, concepts of strategy, tactics and mechanics that can be taken from its predecessor. Just in that, BW and SC2 are already very different. BW players back during 1998-2001 also did not have the mechanics to pull of the kind games we see today. Even BoxeR's micro looks sloppy compared to his micro in his later years. Ask BoxeR and YellOw, they both said they improved a lot mechanically over the years. And to top that of, before 2001, there is a portion of players that don't even use hotkeys.
Personally I think a problem only arises when someone thinks their opinion is the only single truth in the world.
People didn't start playing Starcraft 1 with a library of micro tricks from previous RTSes. It was also a much more fragmented community. People in general didn't share their secrets with everyone. There were no replays, so you had little opportunity to even know what things were possible. People didn't know that vultures could do more than drive right up to the zergling and sit there shooting at it.
The pro circuit for SC2 was there even before the game was released. You can't really compare the time lines of the two games. And although I wouldn't call SC2 as solved as BW, there has been enough games and competition to be able to make a few judgements on its state.
The BW vs SC2 discussion is very relevant, I think. SC2 is a sequel to BW. Many of the competitive players in SC2 are Ex-BW players. And I am certain most of them miss game aspects that was richly engrained in BW, but have been to a large degree removed from SC2. Unit interactions lack the same depth. The demands of the game is much lower so the wheels stay on no matter what the opponent does. It also lacks the balance of effort and reward of BW.
In BW, larger armies needed far more commands. A larger economy needed more commands. Units performed better the more you microed them. For every action there was a reward of about the same magnitude. This dimension is somewhat missing from SC2. Strategy and timing greatly overshadows everything. Your little focus fire tricks do nothing to outweigh the fact that his build order is slightly better than yours. You can micro your heart out, but in the end you are helpless.
This topic crops back up every few months, and I think its clear that SC2 is heading in a fine direction. There has been an immense amount of evolution during its time and the expansions will only keep that up, provided careful research is done in introducing new units and dynamics. A more important discussion at this point is whether or not HotS will deter SC2's growth.
On September 27 2012 20:48 stenole wrote: Agreed with Falling.
People didn't start playing Starcraft 1 with a library of micro tricks from previous RTSes. It was also a much more fragmented community. People in general didn't share their secrets with everyone. There were no replays, so you had little opportunity to even know what things were possible. People didn't know that vultures could do more than drive right up to the zergling and sit there shooting at it.
The pro circuit for SC2 was there even before the game was released. You can't really compare the time lines of the two games. And although I wouldn't call SC2 as solved as BW, there has been enough games and competition to be able to make a few judgements on its state.
The BW vs SC2 discussion is very relevant, I think. SC2 is a sequel to BW. Many of the competitive players in SC2 are Ex-BW players. And I am certain most of them miss game aspects that was richly engrained in BW, but have been to a large degree removed from SC2. Unit interactions lack the same depth. The demands of the game is much lower so the wheels stay on no matter what the opponent does. It also lacks the balance of effort and reward of BW.
In BW, larger armies needed far more commands. A larger economy needed more commands. Units performed better the more you microed them. For every action there was a reward of about the same magnitude. This dimension is somewhat missing from SC2. Strategy and timing greatly overshadows everything. Your little focus fire tricks do nothing to outweigh the fact that his build order is slightly better than yours. You can micro your heart out, but in the end you are helpless.
Well said.
There is a difference between being optimistic and being realistic.
Oh, and another thing before I reply to everyone: If you look at BW's bonjwas in this thread you can quite clearly see the progression in overall top player skill through the years in BW. When boxer arrived on the scene he was nowhere near as successful as most of his successors. Even players who haven't achieved true bonjwa status, like bisu had far higher ELOs than boxer ever achieved. While the ELO is far from a perfect analog for true skill, it shows you to some extent just how far BW came over the years. If you asked anyone in 2001 if a player could be as dominating as flash is now, they would likely laugh at the absurdity of the question. We're swimming in uncharted waters here, and I have a feeling the bottom is far deeper than anyone suspects.
Warning: Massive wall of text incoming
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Oh yes, SC2 has flaws. The colossus is poorly designed, among other things (and I pay protoss, so I'm not just bitching that some other race's units suck), I prefer BW tanks, and zerg plays considerably differently, due to lurkers disappearing, mutas being worse, and hydras being effectively replaced with roaches, severely limiting their AA.
The point about the patches is this: If simply buffing queen range can cause such a drastic shift in how the game is played, then all of the changes from BW to SC2 even just to the BW units remaining makes SC2 a drastically different game in many ways. It takes time to develop stable builds that are safe to nearly all early game plays. Also, bunker rushes still happen in BW, and have been happening for years. Just go watch any Boxer vs Yellow match...
On September 27 2012 15:52 Falling wrote: Actually if you count 1998 until 2012, BW had 14 years to develop because let's face it, BW sucked until last year.
But more seriously, while I was a big proponent of give SC2 time, I dislike the broader "BW had a decade to develop" argument as it presupposes that BW was a terrible game up until the last couple years. It also seems to assume that the pro's forgot absolutely everything they ever knew about RTS's and we're starting from scratch (Protoss suddenly forgot how to ht drop worker lines). We'll see what happens, but I'm inclined to think if Kespa players can't find the cool micro tricks analogs to vulture patrol and muta micro, then it just doesn't exist in SC2. Another half year and we can start comparing 2001 Boxer vods being that HotS should be out (1 expansion to 1 expansion), Kespa players should be up to form and both games will be out for three years. Three years is a very generous amount of time to evaluate a game.
And evaluating the quality of Beta units is kinda why they have Beta- or at least why they took out the Warhound, so I'm not sure why we ought to wait a decade before saying anything.
I'm not trying to say BW was bad for years and magically became amazing in 2012. Nor am I saying a decade is a realistic timeframe to wait before having a discussion, but comparing BW at it's most skilled point in time vs SC2 2 years after release, before the first expansion comes out is too extreme. Comparing BW matches from a similar time frame is much more reasonable.
On September 27 2012 16:24 Nazza wrote: About your thoughts on anti-micro: BW did have anti-micro abilities as well as microable abilities. But a lot of them were late game (stasis for arbiters, irradiate for vessels), except for perhaps TvT midgame, where sieged tanks would evaporate unsieged tanks.
The thing about abilities like Dark Swarm in BW was that it creates a lot of tension, a lot of back and forth action. As exciting as vortexing 12 battlecruisers may be, the novelty wears off, and it does seem like there's any skill involved at all. The same thing with neuraling a mothership, the game is over in about 10 seconds. Abilties which force micro when the ability is being cast is way more interesting to watch and play against imo. It also adds a second layer of complexity, where the person casting Dark Swarm actually acts upon the fact that Terran is moving back.
There's no reason that SC2 can't have something like this. There should be a good mix imo.
I completely agree with what you're saying here, actually. The fact that protoss seems to need to rely on the vortex the way they do is horrible. And yes, Dark Swarm is pretty amazing. I really hope that Blinding Cloud can somehow live up to at least some of what DS was.
On September 27 2012 18:14 Stratos wrote: Since the game is updated regularly it makes all the sense in the world to compare it to BW. It's a lost cause for me at this point though, given the way the development has been going so far. If you see a game going in the wrong direction I don't see why you should take time into account at all.. if anything, it's going to get worse.
Normally Id say this doesn't even warrant a response, but you make literally no sense here. How does it make sense to compare a game which is constantly changing and forcing players to re-learn their strategies and how their race matches up against their opponent's? Also, care to elaborate on how it's getting worse? I wrote this blog for actual discussion on why I feel this, not simply saying "don't compare them".
When The Stove was widely released to the public on StarCraft Legacy in the 16th of October, it opened to mixed opinions on its effectiveness. Some people hated it, while many others loved it. The Stove consists of three stages. The strategy opens up with a Protoss Scout rush. This accomplishes two things: it serves as a...um...scout and it also forces the Terran to rush to ebay/turrets decreasing his unit count. The second phase is Dark Templar harrassment which can frustrate the opponent and increase the time it will take for him to expand. The last stage is the Arbiter with stasis ability. The entire point of The Stove is to confuse and frustrate the opponent...because come on...who the hell goes Scouts five minutes into the game?
The origins of The Stove is sketchy. Proct is the generally accepted inventor of the strategy. Proct played a person by the Battle.net name TheStove, who used the first two stages of the strat. He then added on the Arbiter part and named the strat The Stove. A NoHunter player by the name of Nate claims to be TheStove.
Regardless of whether you think this strategy is particulary effective or not, it is interesting and different to say the least. The Stove is number thirteen in our Pimpest Plays 2002.
Thanks for that! I didn't know the actual full history behind it.
On September 27 2012 18:36 Ahzz wrote: I recently thought about something... SC2 balance isn't all that much about what the developers do and don't concerning balance changes, or at least it doesn't have to be. The maps are what truly determine how well each race will perform. Each race having it's own key strengths and weaknesses is one part of the job, and the rest can mostly be left to maps. I mean, I played brood war at a very high level, and it was largely about the maps. That's what made the game balanced throughout the years. Several maps would be terrible for a specific race, and it would show in progames.
However, to achieve that, there must not be hard counters. If roaches are too good against ground so that they're always used, then no map can fix this problem. However to change this would require a massive overhaul, which is simply out of the question. The SC2 team is doing a decent job of weakening overused units, buffing the weak ones and with HOTS, it seems that they are trying to provide units that require skill, thought, and give access to different gameplay styles. They're not doing a bad job at it. And it's not like they can go back and make a copy of BW with SC2 graphics.
However, even if the debate of SC2 vs BW may feel meaningless, it provides excellent discussion, thoughts, and ways to improve the game. A lot of things have been changed for the better just because of this discussion, and a lot more may. (such as the carrier micro)
I agree that maps are a HUGE decider of how things play out. You can quite easily make maps which give certain races advantages over others in order to counteract perceived imbalances in the actual races. The problem here is that when the rules change (balance patches), everyone has to go back to the drawing board, and relearn what works and what doesn't, instead of working on improving what does work, and exploring the matchups in more depth.
I agree that units which simply render another unit essentially worthless (also known as hard counters) are bad.
You make a good point about potentially using BW as a way to find ideas of how to improve SC2, but most people make the argument that SC2 should be BW 2.0, which I don't think it needs to be.
On September 27 2012 15:14 XXXSmOke wrote: I like your thoughts on SC2 interface upgrade, I think alot of these things can actually lead to way more complex micro and cool battles(minus the unlimited section, its time that goes. people wonder why death balls are used so much compared to BW and there is one part of your anwser) I really love SC2 waypoints/custom hotkeys/multiple building select
However....
This isnt a brand new RTS, it is a sequel and it came with a lot of elements of BW like it or not. People bring up BW so much because SC2 is lacking real excitement even after 2 years of play(IMO). What's sad is that the money is there, and the player hype is there which is why people love watching. However, SC2 could honestly be a way better game. Theres just to many units that have major flaws that cause the game to be a one battle fail. Brood Lords/infestors/Collsi to mention a few. That plus the good old 15 minute bo5(thanks 2 base all in) is WAY to common in this game. I cant tell you how many times I watch tournaments and there is so much hype.... IDRA VS BOMBER OGMMGOGMG THIS IS SICK GET THE POPCORN!!. Only to have 3 5 minute matches of bunk rush.
SC2 has flaws. Ppl are going to point to the game that doesnt have flaws.
Every game has flaws, even BW. It only up to each person to think whether each feature/flaw is really good or bad.
There are many people (and I really mean many) outside of TL community and pro-scene who feel that BW has a lot of flaws and is inferior to the other RTS in that generation (Total Annihilation and Age of Empire, for example). No game is good for every person. And there could be a lot of reasons why people might like SC2 more than BW.
That's because they have not truly played it- I was an Age of Empires guy until 2007 But I do agree that not every RTS is good for everyone so your mileage will vary. From what I've read, SupCom2 fans think SC2 is a spamfest and have little interest in it. Nonetheless, I still think it's possible to analyze what creates depth in a game and where a game is lacking.
Yeah, it boils down to person's taste/preference. I really loved (and still love) Starcraft and Brood War when they came out more than any other RTS. But I still kinda see why people might not like it. But I'm pretty sure that most people who plays RTS at that age would have tried SC once or twice.
And I do agree that there is still a lot of room for improvement of SC2 that is needed to be done. But for me, I still find the game enjoyable to watch.
On September 27 2012 18:14 Stratos wrote: Since the game is updated regularly it makes all the sense in the world to compare it to BW. It's a lost cause for me at this point though, given the way the development has been going so far. If you see a game going in the wrong direction I don't see why you should take time into account at all.. if anything, it's going to get worse.
I would say that it is hard to tell that the game (HOTS) is going into a wrong direction or not. But there's one thing I am pretty sure is that SC2 is one of the most difficult game to design or balance at this point.
Why? Because it has to both adapt to the current design trend of RTS to a certain extent, and also conform to what BW did. And they are very far apart in a lot of areas.
One problem I recognize or feel is that many BW fans tend to play only BW and ignore other RTS almost completely. So they kinda don't see how the trend of game design change over time, such as no resource gathering by workers (capture/holding points for resource). And this change how RTS is designed in the modern time (Dawn of War, for example). Furthermore, RTS players kinda fall into two groups right now. For example, if you frequent gaming websites a lot, you might recognize that there is a very vocal opinion among some (or many) RTS players say that RTS should shift away from demanding a lot of mechanical control (as they believe it turn the game into "who can click faster" game) and emphasize more on "strategy" part. This group of players tend to dislike SC2 (and BW) but from an opposite reason of why BW fans hate SC2.
So Blizz kinda has to design a game that somehow balance the new trend of game design and old-school style RTS to a certain extent, because they still need to sell the game and at the same point don't piss-off the old fanbase too much. If they make the game too mechanical demanding like putting restriction into unit per control group selection (which goes against modern game design), then they are going to detract a lot of modern RTS players.
So to say the game goes toward a wrong direction might only be true from our perspective (TL community), which, let's face it, is a minority in gaming community right now.
That's an interesting point. I feel like resource management still needs to be a bigger deal than it generally is in most modern RTS games. I feel like most of them have simplified things a bit too much. I think most people want RTS games to be slower so they feel less intimidating to a new player. I would disagree with that idea. There are two ways to simplify something. Make it easier to accomplish the basics, and make it all around easier. If you make it all around easier, you leave no room for a player to go above and beyond the basics, whereas if you make it easier to do the basics, but leave more complex ways for a player to make their actions more effective, at the cost of being more difficult to achieve maximum efficiency, you create a gradient of skill, rather than a system with effectively 2 outcomes (the player did X, the player failed to do X). Creating a game with a skill gradient is what makes a game more competitively viable.
I do feel like in older RTS games, the skill gradient is there only really as a byproduct of the designers and programmers not being able to accomplish things as well as they can now. As an example, the pathfinding in SC/BW was extremely difficult for them to code, and it shows. Dragoons are dumb not because of a design decision, but due to the fact that the programmers and designers were unable to completely realize their end goal. Scarabs glitch out and fail miserably sometimes not because the designers wanted that, but because of the limitations on their pathfinding and the coding involved with scarabs. The fact that these two things contribute a skill gradient to the game is incidental (although I do feel like the end result of having this skill gradient is a very good thing.)
As much as the SC community is insular in the overall gaming community, and can often come off as ignorant of the possible good aspects of other RTS games, I feel that this community ignorance goes both ways, and that many gamers who decry the SC games as "clickfests" are refusing to accept the depth and skill involved in SC.
On September 27 2012 18:58 Stratos wrote: It's easy to say if the game is going in the wrong or the right direction (and support it with good arguments), because it's a matter of one's opinion - as you point out yourself. This is true for any discussion about the state of the game. Our opinions are all we've got. Personally I think a problem only arises when someone thinks their opinion is the only single truth in the world.
Good point. I wrote this bog because I wanted some input on my ideas. I didn't just want to declare that arguing about BW vs SC2 was bad and leave it at that. I wanted to lay out my reasoning and see what other people though of my ideas, and possibly see someone address my ideas with counterarguments. I approach this issue with an almost philosophical standpoint, and if someone could lay out good enough arguments that there is indeed a case for comparing SC2's current state to BW's state at the end of it's professional life, then I would be perfectly willing to rethink my position on things.
And yes, when someone thinks that their opinion is the only opinion worth having, then there is a problem. I rarely ever chime in on threads here talking about SC2 simply because the threads are almost entirely filled with people convinced of their own infallibility. There is VERY little true discussion on this site, and it sometimes makes me sad. We have so many people who frequent this community, and yet nobody can seem to agree that actual discussion is better than simply making strawman attacks or simply stating some opinion as fact.
On September 27 2012 20:48 stenole wrote: Agreed with Falling.
People didn't start playing Starcraft 1 with a library of micro tricks from previous RTSes. It was also a much more fragmented community. People in general didn't share their secrets with everyone. There were no replays, so you had little opportunity to even know what things were possible. People didn't know that vultures could do more than drive right up to the zergling and sit there shooting at it.
The pro circuit for SC2 was there even before the game was released. You can't really compare the time lines of the two games. And although I wouldn't call SC2 as solved as BW, there has been enough games and competition to be able to make a few judgements on its state.
The BW vs SC2 discussion is very relevant, I think. SC2 is a sequel to BW. Many of the competitive players in SC2 are Ex-BW players. And I am certain most of them miss game aspects that was richly engrained in BW, but have been to a large degree removed from SC2. Unit interactions lack the same depth. The demands of the game is much lower so the wheels stay on no matter what the opponent does. It also lacks the balance of effort and reward of BW.
In BW, larger armies needed far more commands. A larger economy needed more commands. Units performed better the more you microed them. For every action there was a reward of about the same magnitude. This dimension is somewhat missing from SC2. Strategy and timing greatly overshadows everything. Your little focus fire tricks do nothing to outweigh the fact that his build order is slightly better than yours. You can micro your heart out, but in the end you are helpless.
While SC2 is certainly a sequel to BW, with many units returning, the game is vastly different, and will always be different. This difference isn't necessarily a bad thing. And yes, you can certainly compare SC2 and BW from the standpoint of "is SC2 more fun and engaging to watch?". I'm not trying to say that all discussion on SC2 vs BW is bad, although my title might be misleading. It would have been an even larger post if I had thought to touch even more in depth on some of my thoughts about this.
I'm not disagreeing that it takes more actions to perform the basic necessities of BW. What I am saying is that with those made more transparent, it leaves more room for actions such as intense mid-battle micro with smaller groups and other things. SC2 does lack some of the skill gradient provided by macro being more difficult, and battles requiring more actions to to control the basics. However, I believe that the level of micro we currently see in SC2 is not as good as it could potentially be. How often do you see a zerg select a small group of roaches and focus immortals down while letting the rest of their army a-move into the attack? How often do you actually see someone use a warp prism to save an immortal or colossus in mid-battle? Sure, these things happen, but I feel like they can certainly happen more often, and it would surely make the game more interesting to watch if they did.
On September 27 2012 20:53 Xyik wrote: This topic crops back up every few months, and I think its clear that SC2 is heading in a fine direction. There has been an immense amount of evolution during its time and the expansions will only keep that up, provided careful research is done in introducing new units and dynamics. A more important discussion at this point is whether or not HotS will deter SC2's growth.
This topic? I've seen very little discussion arguing against the comparison, aside from some people calling BW fans dumb elitists and such.
I like where SC2 is going, and with more spellcaster units and blizzard willing to make very large changes to the game with the expansions. I think when everything is said and done, and LotV has come out, and all that's left are a few minor patches, the game will likely feel far more complete than it does now. I feel like overall player skill will have evolved far beyond what people think is possible. I'm really not sure how HotS will impact SC2's growth. It might create an infusion of new players who are excited for the expansion, or it may alienate some fans because of the drastic changes and the setbacks in build order evolution. It's really impossible to say.
The 'give it time' argument only works if things are there to be discovered and there is sufficient room in the very foundations of the game for evolution. SC2 is dogged by bad design choices and a questionable approach to balancing the game. The game's been out for over 2 years with an active scene that predates launch. How much longer do we need to wait until we are allowed to assess it? Until all of the expansions are out? Listen, I really hope that things will change with time and the expansions, but with the same people in the driver's seat with the same approach, I seriously doubt it. Just look at HOTS. It isn't very inspiring.
I have to agree with the general consensus in these comments. The 'give it time' argument doesn't work anymore imo. Yes, the game is still getting patched(not as much though) and there are still two more expansions that can change things but I honestly feel like a lot of things have been figured out in SCII. There is only so many different strats that you can do in the game. I'll give an example: TvP, protoss goes colossi. If you decide not to go for vikings, unless you outmacro the protoss and can micro amazingly well, you are almost guaranteed to lose. In other words, I find that I'm limited by what I can do and I don't like that at all. Anyways, maybe with the expansions, things will improve, maybe they won't. Only time will tell!
When The Stove was widely released to the public on StarCraft Legacy in the 16th of October, it opened to mixed opinions on its effectiveness. Some people hated it, while many others loved it. The Stove consists of three stages. The strategy opens up with a Protoss Scout rush. This accomplishes two things: it serves as a...um...scout and it also forces the Terran to rush to ebay/turrets decreasing his unit count. The second phase is Dark Templar harrassment which can frustrate the opponent and increase the time it will take for him to expand. The last stage is the Arbiter with stasis ability. The entire point of The Stove is to confuse and frustrate the opponent...because come on...who the hell goes Scouts five minutes into the game?
The origins of The Stove is sketchy. Proct is the generally accepted inventor of the strategy. Proct played a person by the Battle.net name TheStove, who used the first two stages of the strat. He then added on the Arbiter part and named the strat The Stove. A NoHunter player by the name of Nate claims to be TheStove.
Regardless of whether you think this strategy is particulary effective or not, it is interesting and different to say the least. The Stove is number thirteen in our Pimpest Plays 2002.
The Stove: A strategy perfectly designed to maximally ineffective. You open with Scouts -- the worst unit in the game -- forcing your opponent to build turrets -- which makes your transition to DTs pointless -- and you finish with an Arbiter attack on a turtling Terran with plenty of detection.
People have definitely said all of this for the past...two years now? "It's too soon to compare, see what the pros do" or "Give it time, wait for expansions" or "Look where SC[BW] was at this point in its lifetime!" But I think it's a perfectly apt comparison. (And here's a long post telling you why I think SC2 is bad.)
It's been said before, over and over again, but I'll say it again to reiterate: SC2 and BW didn't start at the same time. SC2 is a successor. SC2 happened later. SC2 built on top of over a decade of experience, and is still terribly flawed.
The "look at old GSL games" argument is terribly flawed, too, because the game right now is actually different. You don't see people warping in and blanketing storms because they patched amulet out. You don't see people harassing with speed voidrays anymore because they patched flux vanes out, too. You don't see people opening with 5 rax reapers against zerg because they patched that. The list goes on and on -- infestor/roach/queen changes, reaper/hellion/thor/SCV/battlecruiser changes, void ray/HT/archon/phoenix changes...the game doesn't look the same because it's drastically different in terms of design than it was. That isn't a sign of the players adapting and learning the game. It's not a sign that the mapmakers have been learning how to design for the times. It's a sign of a very hands-on approach to developing the game, to the point that it may have just started to stabilize years later. Luckily, there's a new major patch version called Heart of the Swarm coming, so there's no reason to worry about stability or anything.
Also, I think that saying MBS makes macro "easier" is a severe understatement, and it's something I've thought about a lot. (In writing, even, as anyone who goes on TL IRC is very aware.) A significant factor in the design of BW with its single-building select is that the game gets physically harder to play. Someone else touched on this earlier, but I wanted to reiterate, because it's significant. Among so many other things, SCBW was great because a better player could just simply stretch the game out to beat an inferior player, 100% of the time. Barring any major mistakes such as, say, dying from exhaustion, SCBW uniquely gave you the option to win just by keeping up production (which scaled in difficulty with the game's length) and...well, attack-moving, to a point.
Now, I haven't ever been the type to give credence to the "MBS is bad for the game" people, but I have stopped to wonder about it more, recently. It worked in WC3, for instance, because that game was micro-centric, and actually discouraged you from massing huge armies with upkeep; more units meant less income, so you focused on keeping the units you got alive for as long as possible. In that case, you would of course want to build up a larger army just the same; but, having more units meant keeping all of them alive took more difficult micro, and, due to less income, they became much more expensive to replace. This is easily compared to SC/BW (more units = more difficulty reinforcing), and SC2's macro mechanics were, at least, a good idea. My issue with the implementation of macro mechanics in SC2 is really just that they don't become significantly more difficult, and don't do so in interesting ways; inject/mule/chrono every X seconds, all game long, with not very much extra effort, and it doesn't ever become significantly more interesting. Everyone may not feel the same way, but for me there was this visceral enjoyment in coordinating both hands to macro out of ten factories, even if it's essentially just a click factory/flash game taken on its own.
Anyway. I also think that pointing to the need for multiple army hotkeys was the reason they were split up in BW pro games is incredibly misguided. You really believe that players with 400 APM can't keep a BW army together? Please. BW armies split up because there were incentives to splitting your army up: resources are spread across the map (see FRB, StarBow, etc.) so there are more objectives to assault, and more to defend, most of which won't be protected by the bulk of one's army; maps were big, units were slow, and fights tended to be located away from your reinforcements, meaning they were more likely to encounter enemy forces en route; and, of course, AoE was strong. Super strong. Super ridiculously brokenly strong. (Stronk.) Of course you wanted to put your ranged units into an efficient, tightly clumped ball; the difficulty for bad players was in making that happen (which pros would be capable of), and the difficulty for good players was that they played against people who could punish it most severely with imba AoE.
The sense that you should get from this post, and my biggest complaint overall, is that SC2 really isn't fun to play. This is my opinion, but I'm not the only one who believes it. The feeling that you're constantly on the razor's edge, that one mistake will turn into a loss -- that isn't especially fun, to me. The feeling that, if your opponent manages to F-click on the right spot, then you lose -- that isn't especially fun, to me. The sinking feeling when your opponent reveals one more or one less colossi than you built the correct amount of vikings to deal with, but you can't choose to disengage because of anti-micro abilities -- not fun. Not at all. If you've played it, think back to a time when BW wasn't fun to play. Get back to me on that.
That's why I think we should be comparing them now. Because, in my opinion, BW was super fun, and SC2 is not. There is some deficiency there, and that makes me unhappy, and I think it's interesting to look at what made them so different. I think BW had a lot of great design -- intentional or not, -- to draw from, but a lot of it was simply ignored in SC2. Even getting curb stomped in BW is more fun, whether or not you've got the basics of micro/macro/build order down. Then again, I'm the type of gamer to enjoy doing something because it's challenging, especially in a 1v1 game, and I'm not [yet] convinced that makes me a masochist. Rather, I think it makes me the type to prefer games with high-ish skill floors & learning curves, hence Starcraft.
I don't mean to be so negative. In all this I haven't managed to say anything new, but you asked for input, this is what I'd like to say in response. I've tried to be sure to note where my opinions start and finish. But I am not willing to give a game five more years to actually become fun. I avoided touching on any of the reasons I think SC2 isn't very fun to watch -- ball vs ball, build order losses, unlikeliness of comebacks due to nonexistent defensive advantage, lack of tension & positional play, etc. -- because I think that having a more fun game with plenty of room to demonstrate mastery would (should) bring a crowd on its own*, and SC2's predecessor had fun & room for mastery in spades.
On September 27 2012 18:14 Stratos wrote: Since the game is updated regularly it makes all the sense in the world to compare it to BW. It's a lost cause for me at this point though, given the way the development has been going so far. If you see a game going in the wrong direction I don't see why you should take time into account at all.. if anything, it's going to get worse.
Normally Id say this doesn't even warrant a response, but you make literally no sense here. How does it make sense to compare a game which is constantly changing and forcing players to re-learn their strategies and how their race matches up against their opponent's? Also, care to elaborate on how it's getting worse? I wrote this blog for actual discussion on why I feel this, not simply saying "don't compare them".
I think it makes perfect sense to compare the evolving game to BW, so that we can see if it's heading in the same direction or not. That is the first thing any reasonable person would do and it doesn't go just for games but applies in sciences and pretty much any other object I can think of. If someone comes up with a new theory obviously everyone will compare it to what we've had before. They're not going to wait for 10 years and blindly support it. But that doesn't mean they'll read it one day and disregard the next day because of a simple error.
When you say "compare" do you mean to say "BW > SC2, SC2 suks fufufu" or "In SC2 I dislike the lack of advanced mechanics and micro techniques that were present in BW. It feels more like a game of decisions rather than a computer game if compared to BW."?
Because I'm talking about the latter. And yeah I think such comparisons are fruitful and might lead to improvement in the game (from my point of view, obviously).
On September 27 2012 15:06 heyoka wrote: The Stove predates Chef by many years, Rekrul played it in WCG once.
... and created by Proct.
sKy.Proct [P] vs eNr.HellGhost [T]
When The Stove was widely released to the public on StarCraft Legacy in the 16th of October, it opened to mixed opinions on its effectiveness. Some people hated it, while many others loved it. The Stove consists of three stages. The strategy opens up with a Protoss Scout rush. This accomplishes two things: it serves as a...um...scout and it also forces the Terran to rush to ebay/turrets decreasing his unit count. The second phase is Dark Templar harrassment which can frustrate the opponent and increase the time it will take for him to expand. The last stage is the Arbiter with stasis ability. The entire point of The Stove is to confuse and frustrate the opponent...because come on...who the hell goes Scouts five minutes into the game?
The origins of The Stove is sketchy. Proct is the generally accepted inventor of the strategy. Proct played a person by the Battle.net name TheStove, who used the first two stages of the strat. He then added on the Arbiter part and named the strat The Stove. A NoHunter player by the name of Nate claims to be TheStove.
Regardless of whether you think this strategy is particulary effective or not, it is interesting and different to say the least. The Stove is number thirteen in our Pimpest Plays 2002.
The Stove: A strategy perfectly designed to maximally ineffective. You open with Scouts -- the worst unit in the game -- forcing your opponent to build turrets -- which makes your transition to DTs pointless -- and you finish with an Arbiter attack on a turtling Terran with plenty of detection.
Honestly, the blog seems pretty clueless to everything that is going on, I really only agree with the title and the title only. That being said, people shouldn't argue between starcraft 2 and Brood War because 1) it's old news, players opinions wont change and 2) they're different games.... Forget that they are of the same lineage.
Now that that's said, I'll just explain in the most simple terms possible. Starcraft 2 is not underdeveloped, I guarantee you that the day SC2 was released, about a million nerds spent countless hours trying to find every bug, glitch and/or micro exploit in the game. This was not the case for Starcraft: Brood War. Given that, I'd say Starcraft 2 as equally developed as Brood War was when popularity peaked.
1) SC2 isn't developed or played in a vacuum - it exists on the lessons learned from BW.
2) Saying we have to wait for expansions suggests SC2 is incomplete. That is a reason to say it is bad compared to something else that exists in a complete form.
players will be able to devote more APM, more multitasking and more overall skill into things such as army positioning, simultaneous drops/harass/battles, and micro in general.
Well taking away from the game soo that players ''can focus on other things'' only dumbs down the game because if everybody finds the time to position their army perfectly the skill ceiling is just removed considerably.
On September 28 2012 23:01 Eywa- wrote: Honestly, the blog seems pretty clueless to everything that is going on, I really only agree with the title and the title only. That being said, people shouldn't argue between starcraft 2 and Brood War because 1) it's old news, players opinions wont change and 2) they're different games.... Forget that they are of the same lineage.
Now that that's said, I'll just explain in the most simple terms possible. Starcraft 2 is not underdeveloped, I guarantee you that the day SC2 was released, about a million nerds spent countless hours trying to find every bug, glitch and/or micro exploit in the game. This was not the case for Starcraft: Brood War. Given that, I'd say Starcraft 2 as equally developed as Brood War was when popularity peaked.
I agree 100%. People often speak of how SC2 ''evolved'', but do you know f***ing what it was all due to the patch changes at least most of it. In SC2 you don't find much of evolution of the game and you don't find map specific strategies and that won't change without major redesigns.
On September 27 2012 15:06 heyoka wrote: The Stove predates Chef by many years, Rekrul played it in WCG once.
... and created by Proct.
sKy.Proct [P] vs eNr.HellGhost [T]
When The Stove was widely released to the public on StarCraft Legacy in the 16th of October, it opened to mixed opinions on its effectiveness. Some people hated it, while many others loved it. The Stove consists of three stages. The strategy opens up with a Protoss Scout rush. This accomplishes two things: it serves as a...um...scout and it also forces the Terran to rush to ebay/turrets decreasing his unit count. The second phase is Dark Templar harrassment which can frustrate the opponent and increase the time it will take for him to expand. The last stage is the Arbiter with stasis ability. The entire point of The Stove is to confuse and frustrate the opponent...because come on...who the hell goes Scouts five minutes into the game?
The origins of The Stove is sketchy. Proct is the generally accepted inventor of the strategy. Proct played a person by the Battle.net name TheStove, who used the first two stages of the strat. He then added on the Arbiter part and named the strat The Stove. A NoHunter player by the name of Nate claims to be TheStove.
Regardless of whether you think this strategy is particulary effective or not, it is interesting and different to say the least. The Stove is number thirteen in our Pimpest Plays 2002.
The Stove: A strategy perfectly designed to maximally ineffective. You open with Scouts -- the worst unit in the game -- forcing your opponent to build turrets -- which makes your transition to DTs pointless -- and you finish with an Arbiter attack on a turtling Terran with plenty of detection.
That's not the stove... He went for a 12 nex and then he wanted to 2 base carrier, but ForGG pushed with a 2 fact so he used the Stargate to get Scouts. It was the smartest thing he could have done in that position.
Man, after all those threads, we're still on the "give it time" argument. I'm not saying sc2 won't get better with more time, I'm just questioning why it had to devolve in the first place. It's like if every new computer upgrade was slightly worse than it's predecessor. "Dude check out this sweet new computer I got, it's so fast" "It's... not as fast as the one you used to have..." "Yea but just give it time, it might get just as fast one day with add-ons you can buy. There are already 2 add-ons planned in the next few years!" "That's probably the dumbest upgrade I've ever heard of" "LOL your computer model is dying out; they're not even making it any more and recalling all the current ones. Stop being blinded by nostalgia, get with the times! The model you were using 10 years ago was just as bad as my new computer I just bought" "Why don't we never speak to each other again until your computer can remotely compare to mine" "TOO LATE I ALREADY MOVED IN TO YOUR HOUSE, YOUR PARENTS SAID IT WAS OK AND I'M GOING TO WAKE YOU UP EVERYDAY WITH HOW YOUR COMPUTER ISN'T AS GOOD AS YOU THINK IT IS AND HOW MINE WILL BE BETTER IN 10 YEARS"
On September 27 2012 14:19 Bobbias wrote: I've spent a good amount of time thinking about these things, reading threads where people do in depth discussion on various topics, and in general watching a LOT of SC2. I watched BW a little bit back in the day when tasteless first casted for GOM, but stopped when there was no more official english casting. Since then the only BW I've watched was both OSL grand finals, and nearly all of the hybrid proleague.
You might want to have spent less time thinking and more time watching BW. Hybrid proleague was an abomination and believe it or not, there were more than 2 OSLs so I don't know what "both" means.
On September 27 2012 14:19 Bobbias wrote: However, I believe that because the interface for SC2 makes macro easier, players will be able to devote more APM, more multitasking and more overall skill into things such as army positioning, simultaneous drops/harass/battles, and micro in general. MBS and near unlimited unit selection means that it's easier to macro and to micro larger groups, but with this reduction in APM/multitasking requirement for macro it means that you ave more free APM/multitasking to do other things with your units. How often do you see players in the middle of a battle select small groups of units and target fire with them while simultaneously dropping someone?
Hey, you know what game had that? BW. You know those cute focus fire things and all those tiny tiny micro things you think pros might be able to do one day in sc2? Standard in BW. You know why no one bothers in sc2? Because it makes basically no difference. Focusing down mines mid fight with dragoons in BW was the difference of winning and losing the battle. Two dragoon shots could easily be the difference of losing 0 dragoons or 5. A few roach shots on a stalker instead of an immortal really won't help you.
SC2 can take all the time it needs. Just don't try to convince me that somehow the promise it might get better in a few years makes it actually better.
EPT
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