I agree with your post at 100% and I've been calling out people to boycott sc2 for ages...
I'm hoping it will burn and die slowly but surely.
The only games worth playing imo are Dota 2 (only strategy game interesting atm) and indie games like Amnesia, Trine 2, Limbo... Portal 2 was nice too. There are only a few good games that value intelect and reflexion over simplification, absence of difficulty and a total assistance of the player leading to a false sense of reward in the form of the so called "achievements" that appeared in every game since some time already.
I've noticed that so far for every franchise, the bigger the publisher is the worse the games they develop are going to be. The only exception being Valve since they have no shareholders and own their capital at 100%, so there is no ingerence in their management and decisions.
Great illustrations in the OP, with that whole intelligence thing. The only mistake made was putting SCBW as the pinnacle of RTS. The love for that game has blinded many players and they can't look beyond it. As has been said many times, SCBW skill is primarily derived from the player's ability to use the UI to micro their units.(some people have even posted blogs on this site saying things along the line of micro=strategy) It is not surprising for an outside observer to see how SCBW players complain that SC2 has lost its depth as the UI was improved and micro simplified.
Let me put it to you this way: If you take away a samurai's sword and give him an ak 47 instead, you will make a better warrior, but he won't have as much fun killing his enemies.
Given this, I think it would be appropriate to give SCBW the undisputed title of the greatest micro based RTS game available and call SC2 starcraft light.
This also means however that if you want to make progress in the RTS genre you either have to continue the micro approach by making the micro system even more complex than SCBW, or to look elsewhere to new ideas outside the general SCBW/AOE style game.
The best place to look for these is in the TA-Supcom FA lineage of RTS games. The ideas here are very different from SCBW and allow for a much more complex and deep game(don't believe me, then believe TLO), without relying heavily on complication of the UI to do so. In fact the philosophy behind the UI in Supcom FA is the be as unobtrusive as possible and to allow the player as much freedom as possible.
Well you are dedicated to Supcom FA, I'll give you that. I do make the case that micro leads more tools for strategy. I'd go so far as to say SCBW's success as a competitive game hinged on the odd marriage of an RTS game combined with the unit control of a Fighting Game. Intelligence and planning combined with twitch control.
10 minutes in, but I really don't see how that game you're showing could ever develop as a satisfying viewing experience. Half the time, your watching little dots move around the screen. It'd be like watching the SC mini-map and zooming into the battle periodically. There may be interesting things going on in an intellectual sense, but it's not a very visceral experience. You need both for a game to be a successful RTS spectator sport in my opinion.
On November 06 2012 17:25 Falling wrote: @BurnedRice
Well you are dedicated to Supcom FA, I'll give you that. I do make the case that micro leads more tools for strategy. I'd go so far as to say SCBW's success as a competitive game hinged on the odd marriage of an RTS game combined with the unit control of a Fighting Game. Intelligence and planning combined with twitch control.
10 minutes in, but I really don't see how that game you're showing could ever develop as a satisfying viewing experience. Half the time, your watching little dots move around the screen. It'd be like watching the SC mini-map and zooming into the battle periodically. There may be interesting things going on in an intellectual sense, but it's not a very visceral experience. You need both for a game to be a successful RTS spectator sport in my opinion.
Yes. I think you are exactly right. SCBW took a simple AOE style game and multiplied its complexity, creating a huge space for players to explore, by introducing fighting game elements.
I think the statement "..micro leads to more tools for strategy.," is correct in some cases, as above, but is not always true. For example the average micro cost of executing together with a given player's apm determines how many tactics are possible to execute simultaneously. A player's max APM is obviously limited, therefore simplifying micro can lead to more simultaneous tactics executed, which leads to many more possible situations in a game, increasing overall depth.
Yes a lot of people get turned away from supcom FA because they see the dots, but that is inevitable with the zooming ability and once you zoom in a few times and see the actual units in action those dots have a lot more meaning. When you play the game you are forced to play zoomed in a lot of the time in order to effectively micro, watching the game in zoomed out mode allows to thing of the overall strategy, but of course it is impossible if you don't know the significance of the dots. You are right it is not fun to watch until you understand what is going on, but that can be said of any game. The game is extremely intense when you play it, you are always microing while simultaneously thinking of 5 different places, reading the game, executing tactics and developing the overall strategy. When you watch a game played by high skilled players you can pretend you are playing and have that experience with them(without the stress), just like you can in SCBW and SC2 casted games.
Back to the main topic: SC2 needs fresh ideas that add depth without destroying the game, this maybe an impossible task and the better option for a fan of RTS may be to play something else for a while, while blizzard tries to do magic.
On November 06 2012 17:42 BurnedRice wrote: I think the statement "..micro leads to more tools for strategy.," is correct in some cases, as above, but is not always true. For example the average micro cost of executing together with a given player's apm determines how many tactics are possible to execute simultaneously. A player's max APM is obviously limited, therefore simplifying micro can lead to more simultaneous tactics executed, which leads to many more possible situations in a game, increasing overall depth.
I wouldn't say that increases depth at all, though - it only increases strategic breadth. The only thing you gain is a greater variety of situations and a bigger overall decision "tree", but if anything, it takes away from the depth of gameplay by overemphasizing one element in favor of another that requires a fundamentally different skillset.
Depth is gained by adding MORE ways in which one player can be better than the other in a meaningful and rewarding way. So that some players can win because they're faster, some can win because they're smarter and make better split-second decisions, some can win because they multitask better, some can win because they control their units better, some can win because they craft innovative strategies, some can win because they're good at mind games and trickery, and so on.
The way these fundamentally different skillsets interact with one another is what creates genuinely interesting situations. And in order for these to happen, your design must leave enough space (skill cap) on as many of these specific skills as possible, allowing the players to truly exploit what they're good at or what their opponent is bad at.
The less of these avenues you leave room for in your game, the more "samey" every match and every player will feel. Sure, they may use more different strategies, and different units in different ways, so you can see different things happening on the screen, but they'll still all be doing the same thing and playing the same way. The faster player won't be able to utilize his raw apm, an ex-WC3 pro won't have this one unit that he can get really good at microing that can win him a ton of games, Bisu won't be able to get the most out of his multitasking, etc.
On November 06 2012 17:42 BurnedRice wrote: I think the statement "..micro leads to more tools for strategy.," is correct in some cases, as above, but is not always true. For example the average micro cost of executing together with a given player's apm determines how many tactics are possible to execute simultaneously. A player's max APM is obviously limited, therefore simplifying micro can lead to more simultaneous tactics executed, which leads to many more possible situations in a game, increasing overall depth.
I wouldn't say that increases depth at all, though - it only increases strategic breadth. The only thing you gain is a greater variety of situations and a bigger overall decision "tree", but if anything, it takes away from the depth of gameplay by overemphasizing one element in favor of another that requires a fundamentally different skillset.
Depth is gained by adding MORE ways in which one player can be better than the other in a meaningful and rewarding way. So that some players can win because they're faster, some can win because they're smarter and make better split-second decisions, some can win because they multitask better, some can win because they control their units better, some can win because they craft innovative strategies, some can win because they're good at mind games and trickery, and so on.
The way these fundamentally different skillsets interact with one another is what creates genuinely interesting situations. And in order for these to happen, your design must leave enough space (skill cap) on as many of these specific skills as possible, allowing the players to truly exploit what they're good at or what their opponent is bad at.
The less of these avenues you leave room for in your game, the more "samey" every match and every player will feel. Sure, they may use more different strategies, and different units in different ways, so you can see different things happening on the screen, but they'll still all be doing the same thing and playing the same way. The faster player won't be able to utilize his raw apm, an ex-WC3 pro won't have this one unit that he can get really good at microing that can win him a ton of games, Bisu won't be able to get the most out of his multitasking, etc.
Your two middle paragraphs(2,3) are exactly correct. There must be enough skill cap in as many different skills as possible. This includes micro, where the execution of a given tactic by a pro vs average vs noob should have very different results.
In your first paragraph you try to argue that increasing strategic breadth decreases depth. This is in complete contradiction with what you are saying in paragraph 3. Which leads to what you described as "samey" in paragraph 4. The second sentence in paragraph 4 is self contradictory however and sentence 3 in paragraph 4 seems like a response to some who wanted to remove micro from the game. I never said remove micro from the game.
Think about a fighting game, like mortal kombat, where you are doing non-stop combo's. That is completely micro and every game is "samey". The genius of SCBW was to decrease that micro requirement to a point where other skill sets like multitasking on multiple units in multiple places, resource generation, scouting, etc. became necessary and greatly increased depth.
Now imagine that mortal kombat player coming up to you and saying that his game has more strategy than SCBW because you need fundamentally different skills sets to interact to crease more genuinely interesting situations....
Wouldn't that kind of mess with your head a little? That's how I feel right now.
T_T I kind of feel the same way.. I have been playing a ton of sc2 lately and I think I do realize that I have been in denial.. I am disappointed in it and I don't think it is a very fun rts.. however I will just keep playing it and as well as try to enjoy myself since.. I really like rts and I don't see a different option atm...
EPT
