EPTNote: I do not believe my conclusion/solution is the end-all solution. I do believe that it’s the direction Starcraft has to go in if it wants to grow and succeed.
Strengths:
What does a game like Starcraft excel at, especially when compared to rival ESPORTS games like LoL, Dota2, Halo, etc? The first thing that strikes me is the required specific skill set at the professional level. This isn’t to say other games don’t require skill. Progamers execute build orders & allocate resources in specific patterns (unique to Starcraft, the only RTS that actually matters in ESPORTS) with extreme precision and dexterity. The skill ceiling in Starcraft is so high that no progamer can honestly say they played a perfect game.
But let’s approach build-order play from another approach. Looking back to Broodwar, a known Zerg vs. Terran opening is 3-hatch mutas. Something magical happens when progamers use this build: the game is balanced. A progamer controlling a stack of mutalisks can delay a Terran’s push just long enough to get defenses up and continue the game to the mid-game.
A D- or worse player attempting this muta micro would lose immediately.
What happened? What we have is a build that, at the pro level, is balanced, but at low levels can turn out as trash. A build order is not just build x unit at y time and attack at z. Without a skill set to back the build, the entire strategy is worthless. This is in fact strength, not a weakness. The intense APM and multitasking required is what sets it apart from other games. Non-progamers can look up to pros and aspire to emulate them, but ultimately lower level players have to play in a methodology that best suits their skill sets. This is so important to SC2. It is a game based on skill. Not on units, not on abilities, but on skill. And even though every game has a learning curve, it comes out most clearly in Starcraft.
Starcraft’s second great strength and the proposed solution to the problems with the game will be explained much more in-depth at the end of the 4 SWOT factors.
Weaknesses
Starcraft’s current weakness is the casual vs. competitive environment. For an ESPORT where these 2 environments exist, balance is an absolute nightmare. I will agree with the idea that the game’s units & overall structure should be the same for everyone, i.e. a spawning pool is 200 minerals all the way from bronze to grandmaster. However, focusing on health & damage as determinant factors of balance is a terrible approach to a skill-based game. Trying to cultivate an ESPORT while this weakness exists is utterly foolish. That’s why, in order to keep Starcraft thriving, Blizzard should change this weakness into a strength.
Another short weakness I’ll mention is, as an ESPORT, Starcraft 2 only focuses on 1v1. In the western world (I’m American, so America in particular) we’re drawn more to team games like American football, baseball and hockey. Celebrity athletes like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods do exist, but when you really want to draw in the crowds you get 2 big teams to face off. Team leagues are the closest Starcraft 2 will likely ever get to team on team fights, and perhaps that will have to do. This is something that has to constantly be taken into account when starting tournaments, but I have no solutions ready to remedy this besides going into an SC2-style 5v5 hunter game. (Would
be sick though, wouldn’t it?)
Opportunities
Starcraft’s unique map capabilities allow it to appeal to absolutely everyone. You have people that enjoy 1v1, people just playing with friends, people surfing custom games, etc. By having the means of satisfying every one of these players, Starcraft sets itself apart from other games. Rising MOBA games are, unfortunately, basically locked on 1-3 main maps with the same basic game type. Anyone can make a map in Starcraft 2 and expect people will actually play it if it’s a quality game. Community creations are Starcraft’s greatest opportunity, and I define a community is any organization that isn’t Blizzard. I’m not dissing Blizzard here, I’m merely remarking on the fact that map-making groups of people will simply out produce Blizzard - who is focused on developing new expansions & games – in the number of quality maps available. Facilitating an environment where community creation is encouraged is critical to Starcraft’s success, and I believe Blizzard can take this a step farther than the current arcade system.
Threats
In terms of RTS games, Starcraft faces basically no threat. Starcraft has been known as the dominant RTS in the world for over a decade. The international prestige of Blizzard and Starcraft is so massive that even games like Command & Conquer would have an uphill battle the size of a cliff trying to steal SC2’s professional dominance. Blizzard can put out a damn good product, plain and simple.
However, as an ESPORT Blizzard faces immense competition. We’ve seen LoL and Dota2 running million or multi-million dollar prize pool tournaments. We’ve seen their player bases expanding over time. Even though they don’t compete in the same game type, they’re competing for the same sponsorships, tournament access, stream time and, most importantly, gamer’s time. As soon as someone gets a full time job, daily entertainment time becomes a scarce commodity. Only the truly best sources of entertainment that provide something beyond a mere videogame experience will be worth going back to time after time. Without such an advantage in capturing long-term attention, a game like Starcraft 2 cannot hope to retain its customers.
Now what?
From this SWOT analysis of Starcraft, a few things stick out to me above anything else:
1: Casual and competitive gamers have incredibly different desires on how they want to play the game.
2. Starcraft is an incredible skill-based game with limitless potential on the player’s end.
3: Everyone suffers by having a uniform gaming experience.
4: Starcraft’s customizability exceeds any other game out there.
5: Blizzard’s role in the game feels more like a watchful facilitator than an active participator.
Let us assume that, in the melee/ladder scene, everyone is playing the game that exists now. How a progamer and a low-level player perform a build is generally the same. I’m not going to sit here telling Blizzard how it should be balancing its game around pros or casuals. I could go on about how Blizzard should change game mechanics, but I’m just an observer with nothing but theory of how things might work with balance/design changes. I’m talking about a broader design strategy. If our assumption is to hold true, I see one good option for dealing with the problems that exist:
Maps
In order to fix the casual vs. competitive Starcraft scenes, Starcraft 2 should look to its second big strength: Maps. No other game has as many maps as an RTS. Leveraging this is absolutely crucial to Starcraft’s success. Without modifying game balance or unit control mechanics, Blizzard must change their approach to how users interact with maps online.
When I played Starcraft 1 as a young kid, I never touched Melee games. I only ever played custom games for fun. When I did start playing 1v1, I had to download an iCCup map pack and then played maps that iCCup players were currently focusing on.
Why is something like this not developed in Starcraft 2?
Here’s my point: if I wanted to play Brood War completely casually, I would continue to play World War 2!! And Dragonball Z RPG! If I wanted to play the same maps as the pros do, I had to join the iCCup network. What shocks me is that Starcraft 2, with more sophisticated coding that battle.net 1.0, doesn’t allow for things like gaming in very specific map pools.
Progamers often gripe about laddering not helping their tournament practice because of map pools. Why aren’t there map pools separate from the ladder for players to utilize? A MLG map-pool ladder controlled by MLG? A GSL map pool for GSL training? Even if Blizzard refuses to balance the game based around skill, this is such a glaring strength for Starcraft that I’m actually concerned as to why it hasn’t been brought up before. Each map pool can have its own ladder that can simply utilize Blizzard’s built-in matchmaking formulas.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SvLDv.png)
Replace Naxxramas with GSL, Onyxia’s Lair with MLG and you have a customizable matchmaking system that caters to the specific desires of the gamer.
By sorting off competitive players into competitive ladders, Blizzard can make their own ladder as casual as they want without really alienating anyone. The community understands what it wants much better than an outsider can, and by giving communities/players control of what maps they’re playing on, you can appease everyone simultaneously. This also gives power to map makers seeking a name for themselves or their organizations by starting leagues and attracting players with their unique maps.
Such a mini-ladder system would also solve a small issue with the old iCCup design: matchmaking. If I’m a D player and I want to play a game, I either have to a) find a game titled “D/D+ 1v1 Blue Storm” or b) make that game and wait for someone to show up. Automatic matchmaking ideally should exist for everything. Hell, add an automatic lobby-filling system to custom games while you’re at it. Make things easy for your customer. Ladder leagues with this would have much more potential than an iCCup system.
Maps honestly feel like the most logical method for dealing with a large consumer base that demands different gaming experiences. Blizzard seems to think so too, since their ladder pool allows for map down voting and, as they put it, maps for macro players and maps for rushers. However, personally this feels like a sub-optimal strategy for the long run satisfaction of gamers.
Conclusion
Starcraft’s customizability is too important for Blizzard to ignore. The presence of casual and competitive players with vastly different goals also cannot be ignored. All Blizzard really has to do to greatly help the gamer’s experience is to look at what they did with WoW. When I shortly returned to WoW, the most amazing new feature to me was automatic dungeon finding. It’s such an impressive and simple method for improving the gaming experience.
This kind of feature should definitely be available in Starcraft 2, with Heart of the Swarm as a perfect opportunity to reinvigorate the influx of people coming to play the expansion.
Let me end with this: If Blizzard releases Heart of the Swarm with some new units, new tilesets and that’s it, Starcraft will suffer immensely. All the people that have stopped playing the game will come experience the new content, see that battle.net is the exact same and they’ll leave. Their time is better spent playing more entertaining games. Blizzard must improve the entertainment value for gamers by modifying battle.net to match the consumer’s desires.
A consumer nowadays doesn’t want to sift through information they don’t care about. We’re in a technological age where we demands what we want, when we want it. If I demand playing on the same maps as progamers, it better be a button click away. If I want to play a Pokemon Catchers custom game, I’ll go play goddamn Pokemon Catchers.
Catering to an entire market of gamers with the same exact thing doesn’t work. It’s like Apple trying to get money-conscious consumers to buy their computers. To budget customers, a $2000 laptop is ridiculous when a $600 laptop will do. Let’s not try to shove the same thing on everyone and expect everyone to be happy.
It’s time to change the game.
