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On May 21 2005 13:20 Tal wrote:
Try and look at it in a different way. Playing with this poor interface is essentially the same as having a good interface but having to continuously bounce a basketball while playing
It's more like having to bounce a basketball while playing basketball.
Brood war requires you to think quickly and to multitask. For most people who play it competitively, that's what makes it good. For them, it is very satisfying to achieve fluidity of thought under pressure.
For some, it is/was not fun to think like that (or to try), and most of them have moved on to WC3 or just given up the game entirely. It is good to have both types of game.
Thinking that preferring these "interface" (wtf) changes constitutes thinking "outside the box" is silly. There is nothing inherently worse about them, it is true, but there is nothing inherently better, and they are already implemented in WC3. Why not allow there to be two (or more) styles of game?
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i think that it would be better if u could select buildings of the same tipe and put them all in a hot key that will help all the races
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Tal: Okay, now think of playing basketball without having to dribble. That's what you're asking BW to become.
Oh, someone above me posted the exact same thing -_-
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AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!
All of the "boring" things you mention are not boring because you are competing to do them better than the other player. So, even while no units are fighting, you are still competing with the other player to build your economy better, while scouting, while harassing, while deciding what to do next. If you want the game to be purely about battles, play a game made for that, like Tekken. All that is micro management and nothing else.
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I didn't read the thread but i completly disagree with topic starter.
Plz i don't want WarCraft 4.
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It's not like basketball without having to dribble/bounce the ball. That would be starcraft with no micro as opposed to no macro.
Aeileron: yes they are boring. With my system you would still compete to build your economy better, but without bashing buttons the whole damn game. Tekken is a terrible example, as it features no economy/strategic element and is purely micro...a very simple and uninteresting micro when compared to the epic (and cool looking) battles of starcraft.
And for the last time to people saying play warcraft 3: I don't play that game because it is too slow, less balanced then starcraft, too much emphasis on heroes, has less interesting maps, less hard counters, and (somehow) too high graphics requirements. I also like the sci-fi aspect, units and general feel of Starcraft more then the 'lets rip off warhammer badly' style of warcraft. Having said that warcraft is a laugh with a few mates, but not really something I want to get into.
The fact that warcraft 3 (apparently, I've only played about 10 games, and that was before grasping the basic concepts of starcraft) has a better interface is nothing to do with this debate, as in practically every other respect it is an infinitely worse game.
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These "boring" things you mention are what makes individual attributes and thus creates diverse individuality and competition between conflicting styles of play.
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On May 21 2005 13:20 Tal wrote:Try and look at it in a different way. Playing with this poor interface is essentially the same as having a good interface but having to continuously bounce a basketball while playing, or continuously have to count backwards in 3's from 745 while playing. It's a distraction which means you cannot play the game as well as without it. Surely the game will be more fun and develop more if you take away the distraction so people can focus on sophisticated ambushes, complicated strategies and implementing their plans without fighting the game itself? And to the earlier point about making storm easier to use would be the end of zerg, bear in mind that queens would be vastly easier to use, and you'd be able to select all your hydras to dodge with instead of only 12. Also bear in mind that these changes to interface are just my suggestions (no shit?  ). It would be nice to see some very good players like testie or bigballs respond with their thoughts and suggestions.
Tal, how many hydras you select does not matter. Hydras move like any other unit, they will bunch, and when any decent player (face it, micro is easy) can blanket your entire army with storms in seconds it hardly matters.
And queens are allready easy to use, but they are still not worth it.
Since I do not enjoy writing long posts to people who will ignore them.
First and biggst negative factor of the easier interface system = It will decrease the maxium level of skill attainable.
Second = It will drastically change the strategies employed by players by drastically making the more macro intense strategies more preferable.
Third = It would end spellcasters as we know them. With more efficent micro and more time to commit to micro spellcasters can for balance reasons no longer be the few special units you have in your army, instead they will have to be reduced in power not to breake the game. Mass casters will be viable, but there powers will be only sligthly higher than their normal opposites (just like in WCIII) and it will be just like microing normal units. The game in it's current form will therefore blend down a bit, as skillfull use of caster units will no longer have the same effect as usual and can no longer be used to turn the game around.
Fourth = The new styles will bring forth huge new balance changes to all races and units.
Fifth = The more inefficent casters along with the new mass of still expendeble units will make for large battles wich despite the easier interface will be hard to micro for fuller effect. Except for early game which will be much more micro intense at equal skill levels (but unequal skill levels will have no micro at all as one player contains and expoes) the game will quickly develop into either a game with battles resembeling a fast map or will quickly turn in favour to one of the players who gains the economic advantage. Micro of the front lines will still not be as important as expanding, defending expansions from harass and harassing yourself.
With economic advantage 99 % of all games will be won with either overwhelming unmicroed forces or higher tech unit after swiftly gaining map advantage.
At higher levels of play comebacks will be near impossible.
Sixth = Due to weaker casters and special abilities and expandeble units great feats of micro will not occur as frequently as before. Winning the game will become about outexpanding your opponent.
For all you people saying that the game will turn into WC III. It won't. It won't even be close. There is however another, very popular video game it will come to resemble in more ways than once.
Total Annihalation. Not a bad game at all, and probably the game your looking for Tal.
Also, automaking units in it's own would not ruin the game in it's current form. The only real effect would be to lessen the skillgap between players and maxium attainable skills.
Easier casting however, would destroy the game.
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And yes, it's like basketball without dribbeling the ball. Starcraft without micro would be like basketball without scoring. The dribbeling of the ball is only there to get you into a postion to pass or score, it's the points that count. If your a superior dribbler you'll have more chances to score but if you still can't you will still lose the game.
It's a perfect analogy. (or whatever you call it.)
As for why autoproducing units would not break the game.
Producing a unit requires you to get
a) The buildings, meaning the production and the tech in a decent building placement.
b) Amass the supply required
c) Amass the resources required
The click to build the unit is really only the final act of something you've been doing long before in your mind. You didn't think about it but all that work was just because you wanted to get the units your about to buy.
So taking away that part is really not that important, it only reduces two aspects of the game.
1) How good you are at clicking fast and
2) How good you are at multitasking.
The first thing blow goats, I don't find clicking at gateways fun either.
The second one is a true testament of skill however. The ability to think about two or perhaps even three and in extrem cases four things at the same time and working out how to execute those things in real time is a true sign of skills.
True you'll find something else to do in the mean time, but something else that you now thing is nowhere near as boring will fill it's place and you'll just complain again.
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I have a better basketball analogy that applies to this discussion.
Phil Jackson vs Shaquille O'Neal.
I think everyone would say that phil jackson knows more about basketball and is a better strategist than Shaq. But Shaq is clearly the more dominant player because of his physical abilities. Would it make sense to say let's make the interface of basketball easier by reducing the height of the rim to 5 feet?
In the case of basketball, it would not because it is a sport that involves a combination of smarts/strategy and physical skills. There a few sports that are almost 100% physical, such as weightlifting or sprinting. But the vast majority of sports involve a balance of brains and braun.
Starcraft IMHO, is the ultimate e-sport because it involves the physical aspect on sports in addition to its strategical depth. Not everyone can pound away at a keyboard like nada, or click as accurately as he can. We marvel at top pros because the combine not only incredible physical abilities but also because it's in conjunction with strategical genius. There is a perfect balance ion starcraft. The game's interface does include a lot of "junk", but this junk requires insane hand-eye coordination and it is this hand-eye coordination that allows for variation of skill.
Chess or Go is a game of pure strategy. There is no physical aspect of it involved and implementing the recommendations of tal will turn it to a game of pure strategy. Personally, I think it's much better left as a sport.
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4 and 5 are the only ones I can agree with. Maybe Blizzard could increase the unit selection up to 20 at a time or so. With 1.12, players already should know where everything are because they intelligently used map preview =\ Sharper graphics would be nice. Everything else you said is utter crap, and it only makes the game easier, eliminates skill, and also eliminates mistakes. It's like saying the nex version of Counter Strike should have auto-head-targeting. If you suck, play more. Don't complain and ask Blizzard to make it easier for you. If you don't like good RTS's like Starcraft, go away and play your pathetically boring crappy games that die out after like a year. Long live Starcraft!
*EDIT*
I only read the first post, because I'm too lazy to read through 10 pages of other people's posts. So, if I'm sounding stupid due to my ignorance of the information contained in the said 10 pages, please accept my humble apologies.
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1)The 'two' still havent dealt with the issue of what they take away from the game with the interface changes (NOTWITHSTANDING what it MAY bring to the game); specifically the boxer '8 BC/Carrier lockdown'. The sheer brilliance of this move is completely lost with these changes. And my argument here is you've simply ignored this point.
2) The HT v Hydra situation has been brought up. The improvements to storm casting would basically make the mass hydra style completely unviable in the game's current form. "Re-balance the game" you say? "fix the problems it creates" you say? Guess what, you just indirectly changed the game, not the fucking interface. You're messing with the delicate balance that has tentatively been achieved in this game. A, lets face it, rare occurence in this genre.
3)The strength of 'oov' style players is not simply that they can macro, and live off that macro alone. It's because they can macro and yet still consider and EMPLOY the strategic and micro based elements of the game. Oov can still macro like a fucking machine and employ his 'gosu wraith harass'. Yellow can macro to a competent level, and still 'use his lings to cut off straggling marines'. Reach is known as 'mass toss', and yet who can forget some of the BRILLIANT fucking storms he's been able to pull off under immense pressure (think the game vs boxer on NFZ). The simple fact is, as has been mentioned here countless times, BW is ridiculously deep. There are many, many areas in which you can improve. Removing one of these areas is not guaranteed (nor anywhere near fucking likely imo) to improve the overall quality of the game.
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On May 21 2005 10:56 gravity wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2005 10:54 BinaryStar wrote:
If all that makes Oov good is his macro then maybe we're mistaken to "revere" him.
That's not what I said, but sure, OK. You said Oov was revered because of his macro. Maybe if would have been better for me to say that it's dumb to revere an SC player because they sequentially click their factories fast, rather than because of their strategic ability or their subtle timing and intuition or whatever.
If you guys think its just a matter of speed? Why not SPEED THE FUCK UP and do the same? What are you, one handed? Stop trolling and go play BW.
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On May 21 2005 13:20 Tal wrote:
Try and look at it in a different way. Playing with this poor interface is essentially the same as having a good interface but having to continuously bounce a basketball while playing, or continuously have to count backwards in 3's from 745 while playing. It's a distraction which means you cannot play the game as well as without it. Surely the game will be more fun and develop more if you take away the distraction so people can focus on sophisticated ambushes, complicated strategies and implementing their plans without fighting the game itself?
What "distraction" ??.... i've been playing 7 years and to change the interface now would be more of a distraction than leaving it alone.1.12 - being able to rally unfinished builds was a good feature , right click rally is an extremely annoying feature because a misclick and you have to reset your rally and i still use l-left click out of habit anyway.The latter thing has taught me that i usually fight new features more than any ones i have become used to since 1998.
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Cuddly cute kitten and tenbagger make some good points, and I can now at least see that there is a decent argument against the changes.
However, it should be considered that the theoretical level of micro someone could get to is huge. Imagine muta harassing 5 areas simultaneously. So the game would not become pure strategy like go or chess, there would still be a large element of physical skill.
Imagine if SC2 was released with my changes (tweaked of course, and maybe without making spellcasting easier). Would you really still play this version, spending vast amounts of time hammering the keyboard when there's a version that lets you concentrate on strategy and micro?
Oh and could you briefly describle to me total anihilation kingdoms (cuddlykitten), as you make it sound interesting but I'd never really heard much about it. Does it have the same speed and ''1 slip and your fucked'' aspect of starcraft mixed with great strategy and balance? If so I will certainly give it a go.
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I'd play the new version, and I'd probably be tired off it very, very quickly.
Thing is Tal, why would you muta harass in 5 different areas at the same time? 2 mutas in each area? That won't do any damage at all, and you only need 1 cannon to stop that.
The game wouldn't suddenly magical be funnier just because you don't need to "hammer on your keyboard", which you incidently need anyway. Progamers don't peak with their APM when they are producing things, they peek when there are large important battles, and even the best gamers drop their macro when everything is on the line.
So you'd still need speed.
And I don't need any time to focus on strategy, that's about the only thing I think about when I'm playing. I can micro/macro and think at the same time.
Also one problem is that I'm an average gamer today. I can macro near perfectly, and I can micro near perfectly. I can't do both at the same time however. I think it's pretty fun to do both, even when I lose because I have 600 minerals early game after intense zealot micro.
About TA:
No. Units were to easy to produce (Auto facts and very easy macro) so you basically had an endless stream.
Basically TA kingdom sucked balance oriantated and both games (Especially TA) sufferd from too good defensive structures. But with them disabled you simply started massing while building as many energy and metal producers as possible (nvm defending them, the opponent couldn't find them all anyway) and just massed units onto your opponent. There were preciously little micro except for your commander and your more expensive units, most of them which sucked, but a few were worthwhile.
TA was good because it was cool, feautured some really MASSIVE battles (like 100 units on each side with 20 aircraft flying support and artillery and shit) and some new innovative things.
Unforgiving on the other hand it was not.
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I've alwys thought of it like this:
The higher the skill of macro for player A--->The higher the skill of micro required for player B
The higher the skill of micro for player A--->The higher the skill of macro required for player B
Getting rid of macro means that the micro player will always win. There is skill and strategy required for these "useless chores" of macro. Why do you think that some players prefer one over the other? Maybe it fits their style, or they think that one is strategically superior in a given situation.
Plus, one of the most important aspects of strategy, timing, is found 99% with macro. That is why ILoveOov is so good, while, say, Pusan is not as successful. Sure, they both have incredible macro, but ILoveOov implements his troops differently with perfect timing and control.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On May 22 2005 11:58 Tal wrote:
Cuddly cute kitten and tenbagger make some good points, and I can now at least see that there is a decent argument against the changes.
However, it should be considered that the theoretical level of micro someone could get to is huge. Imagine muta harassing 5 areas simultaneously. So the game would not become pure strategy like go or chess, there would still be a large element of physical skill.
Imagine if SC2 was released with my changes (tweaked of course, and maybe without making spellcasting easier). Would you really still play this version, spending vast amounts of time hammering the keyboard when there's a version that lets you concentrate on strategy and micro?
Oh and could you briefly describle to me total anihilation kingdoms (cuddlykitten), as you make it sound interesting but I'd never really heard much about it. Does it have the same speed and ''1 slip and your fucked'' aspect of starcraft mixed with great strategy and balance? If so I will certainly give it a go.
Tal, if blizzard released your version of the game, and people changed to it, I'd quit BW COMPLETELY. And this is from one of the absolutely most addicted people on this site.
Hammering your keyboard for 50 minutes is so fucking intense, SO FUCKING FUN. This: http://www.theidteam.com -> first rep, iD.FA vs VDP]TRAVIN
Do you have any idea how satisfying winning something like that is?
TA: Kingdoms is a game where you go like: "ATTACK MOTHERFUCKREATTACK NO NOT WALK I SAID ATTACK, OH SHIT I JUST LOST 50 UNITS VS 1 TOWER FUCK FUCK FUCK".
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EPT
