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Netherlands13554 Posts
On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII).
Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
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On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
Man imagine what you can do w/ all those spare APM.
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Nice blog and a different angle. I really do wish people posted more like this when the SCII Beta was around, that's a lot more "objective" and neutral than what I was used to read. Tons of it make more sense to me, maybe because I can relate and played all these other games.
What I can't completely agree with (have a different opinion on) is the black mini map. I thought and still think that's a good feature for RTS Single Player. I was used to explore a giant map in AoE II. In that game it was a lot harder to know what's where, because the unit's initial vision range is so freakishly small compared to BW. If I was still a newb, who only plays BW casually against AI, I'd love to have this feature, simply because it adds a risk factor, some sort of uncertainty and like somebody mentioned it has this "exploration" style to it. Once you want to play competitively it changes:
On February 20 2014 06:44 thezanursic wrote:
Not seeing the entire minimap at the beginning of the game is annoying at first, but if you've played a map once or twice you should probably have the layout memorized already.
This is correct. There are only few maps you'd have to memorize, e.g. Fighting Spirit. You know the spawning positions and the rest is fairly easy to scout. It's also somewhat helpful for your overall game plan later. If the map is still dark on expansion spots (mineral bases) against a human in the mid game, you should probably scout them to rule out hidden expansions. With fog of war, personally, I tend to forget the possibility of my opponent expanding there when I didn't notize. This has cost me a lot of games.
As for the minimap itself goes, I do have other problems there. I have some sort of red/green weakness, so the tile sets in small scale can be horrible. Small red dots, like small red Zerglings, on a green (jungle) tile set just become one with the surface and I forget to spot them. Only option to circumvent that is to press TAB and get the mini map all black. I never got around to play with an all-black mini map. This is probably because I had to play tons of different map each sunday in BWCL and never really knew the design of all 30+ maps in the pool, for both 2on2 and 1on1. Also, Tile Sets with Ice (nowadays only rarely used) are a pain in the ass, especially with lighter colors on them.
SCII didn't solved many of these issues, some with a higher resolution, others with better contrasts. However, they added another giant and stupid problem: The grids you have when you build stuff. They're all in red/green on mostly brown/green-ish surfaces. It takes ages for me to place down an expansion sometimes and I don't realize where to move my building to, so that one tile of the preview structure is green instead of red. I simply do not see the difference, it's either all red or all green for me at times. Nevermind.
On February 20 2014 09:57 DarkNetHunter wrote:
(...)
For now, I would suggest playing singleplayer until you can beat 2-3 AI comps simultaneously easily, before attempting multiplayer. There are however a huge number of very fun arcade style maps in Broodwar called UMS=Use Map Settings maps that can be fun even at beginner level in multiplayer before you get into the 1v1 melee stage.
On February 20 2014 07:17 FromShouri wrote:
Pro Tip to beating the computers:
Unless you play some specific kespa maps the computer will literally do the same build and attack ~the 7 minute mark. Protoss is 3-gate zealot, zerg is 2 hatch hydra/ling on 1 base and terran is 3-rax marine medic firebat. While each require their own counters you can usually open really greedy and then just cannon/sunken/bunker up with some supporting units and be fine. Comps plan on beating you right then and there and if you don't die, they may attack once or twice more but after that will literally leave you alone.
These things I do not agree with. Scenarios/Melee games do not really help out a beginner. The second post is also wrong factually, as far as I remember from reading some AI related articles. You simply can't play standardized against AIs (plural), even if they'd be the same race. The AI will always cheat and mix up strange army compositions. There's nothing to learn. You could be killed with an ordinary multiplayer opening, if you stick with it and never get to learn why you got killed. Playing the AI is rather easy if you're either quite passive in the opening, or if you confuse them with your scout (attacking workers). You can "only" train macro mechanics against them, but even then you're not really in stress compared to a human on the other side, who'll harass you the entire time. A few games against the AI is great to get to learn the race, how units move and attack in a sandbox, but other than that, the AIs give a wrong impression.
As for the ICCup part goes:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Portal:Beginners/Gateways#Hosting_and_Latency
If that works - fine for you. If that doesn't, try to get some help from people of this page. Either way, play some games, chat with the people you play and who you think are most likely to be beginners themselves. If you use
/f a NICK
You can add players to your friends list on any PVPGN realm (B-net, ICC, Fish).
/f l
Shows you if they're online
and with either
/w nick or /m nick or /f m
you send messages to these people. Find beginners who can host. Train with them. A lot less frustration. Also, check the D Ranks Leagues and ask some players if you can train with them. Nowdays there's an entire scene for beginners, so starting BW isn't that hard as people make it sound.
Even if your mechanics are horrible, you will improve faster than you think. It's true, you won't become a professional or get near them for years without true dedication, but it's fun nonetheless.
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On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary.
believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group.
when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever.
Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc.
It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game.
In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc.
I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities.
I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc.
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On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc.
To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
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On February 22 2014 00:51 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc. To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
Like I said previously, I can see why BW players like those mechanics like getting workers to mine.
because at the beginning of my SC2, I disliked the annoyance of needing to inject and spreading creep.
But after several hundreds of games, I loved it.
I love how it feels when you inject on time. I love how the overall macro mechanics flow.
You inject, spread creep, make unit/buildings/upgrades, then you spread overlords/lings and then control the army.
There was a time when I played so much that the sound effect of inject then spreading creep are like lullaby music to me, sometimes I would fell asleep watching a Zerg stream.
But if I have to pick, I very much prefer the lowered mechanics requirement to perform basic stuff like producing units and having workers to mine in SC2.
I don't like how forced it makes me feel like.
In SC2, for example, sometimes it's not a mistake for me to miss those injects or creep spread, sometimes it's because I am choosing to divert my attention elsewhere such as making my army being as cost efficient as possible and so the benefit of micro-ing is outweighting the negative of not "macro" boosting.
And if I didn't micro well, not having that one round of production boost can be the game changing factor.
It's all just my opinion though 
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United States10328 Posts
On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.-
hahaha I thought the exact same thing; when SC2 came out everyone was really mad about MBS and automine
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I never really understood why people are so keen on looking at the graphics aspect. Maybe it's because they read so many magazines or are so used to games having silly graphics. In those days, I thought the game looked pretty damn good and things were pretty visible. With regards to the Fog of War. Just another thing borrowed from the Warcraft days and it taught players to study the actual maps and cater their builds to the map to find advantages. Replays were a burden and allowed people to progress/learn from the players ahead of their time. At first I thought it was great, but just imagine the progression without them and certain players would be relevant for longer periods of time.
On February 22 2014 04:20 ]343[ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- hahaha I thought the exact same thing; when SC2 came out everyone was really mad about MBS and automine
We had over a thousand pages debating those topics. ;/
On February 22 2014 00:51 GeckoXp wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2014 23:15 ETisME wrote:On February 21 2014 09:52 Twisted wrote:On February 20 2014 16:37 ETisME wrote:
BW is definitly a harder game for lower level player, but i find some of the mechanics are really unnecessary.
2 I especially don't like:
No control group to produce from all production facilities
Tell workers to mine.
lol you just named the exact 2 things people from BW hated about SCII in the beginning. Back in BW it was all 5sh6sh7sh8sh9sh instead of 5shshshshshshshshshshsh (or whatever it is in SCII). Oh wait you don't even have to select larva after the initial select right? SCII so easy -.- yea and as a SC2 player who never really got into BW, I find those mechanics completely unnecessary. believe it or not, when I first started SC2, I played zerg and since I didn't know how to inject efficiently, I had to set each hatchery on separate control group. when I get to 4 or 5 base economy, I had to do 44 (to get to the hatch) *click on queen*v (inject), same goes for 567 bases and then 4szzzz (lings) 5szzzz 6svv whatever. Now don't forget creep spread, overlord and ling spreading, other micro like poking the front of opponent base to see if you can do run by or bait out a forcefields etc. It felt annoying and disruptive to the flow of the game. In a ZvZ for example, ling baneling muta style, holy crap how annoying it was to constantly do separate production from each hatch, set control group for all of them and then needing to do all the micro stuff like ling baneling micro, muta harass etc. I certainly didn't feel I played better just because i won games having to do all of that and still won the game against an opponent who use one control group for all the production facilities. I could do so much more after knowing the inject methods and not having my attention split up to inject and focus on micro and doing other things like burrowing lings all around the map and creep spreading onto opponent third location etc. To a Brood War player this felt similar, the perspective is slightly different though. I felt that Blizzard designers had to add stuff like that just to satisfy the Brood War veterans, who were against MBS and Automine. "Look, it's harder to do now and it's very in, it's very now, it's post modern, we're cool". Well it isn't, but anyhow, that's not the point of the blog. BW macro mechanics aren't impossible to do to get on a somewhat decent level. That's part of the magic though, that you know what you want to do, but you have to keep your concentration up, in order to achieve it. It taught me to appreciate better players and work harder on my controls, it also taught me how to make trade offs between control, strategy and meta gaming related things, e.g. picking the strategy I could perform easiest, while putting more "mechanical" pressure on my opponent. It really did help me to rage less in 1on1 about a loss, it was basically my fault, my opponent simply did perform better. I'm not a fan of artificially making mechanics really easy. If I want to play games, which don't require me to do physical input, I pick Round Based games with no time limits, Chess or something. But I'm also not a fan of artificially forced mechanics. In the end it was a long shot that Brood War became what it is today and I'm grateful for this small miracle. I'm skeptical that the concept can be copied or re-designed.
It was more of a design trade. If you add things like warp-ins and speed up the game other races are going to need more options. That's why Zerg players have things like inject, creep tumors, nydus worms etc. Blizzard tries to incorporate the community but at the end of the day they will always do things their own way.
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