Smart casting hurts the game - An in depth look - Page 6

On December 29 2010 10:30 Megaliskuu wrote:


You don't know what you are talking about. It was 12 buddy.

On December 29 2010 10:30 Megaliskuu wrote:


You don't know what you are talking about. It was 12 buddy.

On December 29 2010 10:21 Lucid90 wrote:


hmm

let's look at the effect of a lowered skill ceiling. When a game has a lowered skill ceiling lowered skill players win more often against higher skilled players, and when the game has a higher skill ceiling players with lower skill do worse than players with higher skill.

But what exactly is skill? Is pressing buttons at 300 amp skill? Is controlling large amounts of terribly frustrating units with limited control resource that have bad ai (like controlling mass lings in bw) skill?

I guess you can say that sc2 got rid of a lot aspects of this skill set, because you don't need 300+ apm to control a large army. But does this mean that lowered skill players will start winning agaisnt higher skilled players? This means that players who coasted on their control and APM in bw are going to have a harder time in sc2, and players who had a bad APM but good decision making are going to excel in sc2.

This lowers the skill ceiling in controlling frustrating stupid units, but it doesn't lower the skill ceiling in the actual game. Things like timings, proper unit composition and scouting are just as relevant, even more so, because players can't rely as much on their APM to give them a leg up in the game.

Look at chess for example. Do you need 300 APM to do well in chess? No. Is it really easy to move the units in chess? Sure. But it's a very difficult game because it focuses on a different skill than unit control. Sc2 is similar in that regard because it doesn't punish you so much for worse unit control, it just rewards you more for proper decision making. SC2 got rid of a lot of the requirements for high maintenance unit control, but it's still just as difficult to make decision in the game, which is why the overall skill ceiling is just as high.

On December 29 2010 10:19 Comprissent wrote:
No smartcasting in BW was just a limitation. You can make the exact same argument for wanting to only be able to select 16 units at one time like in BW. Smartcasting doesn't really decrease a skill gap, it lowers the stupid amount of apm required to cast spells.

On December 29 2010 10:20 NicolBolas wrote:


If what you say is in fact true, then RTS gameplay is degenerate and should not be used as an eSport. If the only way to make the game lively and interesting is to deliberately and systematically gimp the interface, making it harder to do something for no reason other than to make it harder, then there's something seriously wrong with this kind of gameplay.

Interface is not and never should be a valid dimension of balance. No single ability or spell should ever be balanced by saddling it with a poor interface. And if that is the only way to make the game interesting for spectators, then the game is broken.

It's like saying that the way to make Team Fortress 2 into a better competitive game is to reduce everyone's mouse sensitivity to its lowest level. Or make it so that in order to fire sticky bombs you have to click 3 different buttons in rapid succession. These ideas may in fact work at making it a better competitive game. But they're not good ideas, so however much they may actually help in some respects, they hurt the game.

In any case, the main problem seems to be the amulet upgrade itself. Take that away, and HTs must be on the field for some time before throwing down Storms. Thus more opportunities to kill/EMP them, which cuts down on Storm spam. And that should make Storms more interesting by making them more rare. The tension will be on whether the non-Protoss can kill the HTs before they get into position to lay down the Storms. And personally, I like that tension more than whether the player can drop the Storms in the right place.

On December 29 2010 10:40 roadrunner343 wrote:


Yeah, because that COMPLETELY invalidates the point he was trying to make.

On December 29 2010 10:34 fdsdfg wrote:
It's all about chores. Starcraft 1 had a ton of chores - both macro (like sending workers to minerals and building units from many different buildings) and micro (such as attacking with more than 12 units or casting spells like psi storm).

Games can exist on either end. Look at Supreme Commander for the extreme of no chores - literally every strategic decision is one action (with the exception of reclaiming debris). You can create building templates (which are basically an automated build order), set buildings to auto-produce units in a particular order, set very complex rally and patrol points, etc. It is a valid game.

Starcraft 1 I would put at the other end of the spectrum. Players needed probably about 150apm of JUST chores in the late game in order to stay on top of everything. That's without unit micro, without any strategic decision or acts of aggression or defense. It's just keeping up with all your chores.

Starcraft 2 is in the middle. It has less macro chores and less micro chores than SC1, but more than Supcom. That's the direction Blizzard wanted to go, it's the direction they went, and it's still a valid game.

Arguments to restore chores are simply arguments to make SC2 more like SC1. Yes, eliminating the chores makes the game more different than SC1, but that's the point.

On December 29 2010 10:45 lkjewq wrote:
yeah instead of letting the 2 contestants run a lap, lets handicap them by breaking their legs and then watch them crawl a lap because thats so much more impressive!! Just think of all of the multitasking they have to do!!! Oh yeah and lets put in a bike that they have to peddle with their hands because that would require so much more skill and be that much more impressive!!

On December 29 2010 10:45 lkjewq wrote:
yeah instead of letting the 2 contestants run a lap, lets handicap them by breaking their legs and then watch them crawl a lap because thats so much more impressive!! Just think of all of the multitasking they have to do!!! Oh yeah and lets put in a bike that they have to peddle with their hands because that would require so much more skill and be that much more impressive!!

On December 29 2010 10:44 LolnoobInsanity wrote:
Did you ever think of the fact that this allows for more ridiculous things to be done? Like now that being able to blanket storms perfectly is easy, don't you think harder things will arise? Like I can't think of anything, because if I could I'd be a progamer or a fuckin like soothsayer or some shit and make shit tons of money on the stock market. Like holy crap, give the game some time.

THERE'S NOTHING INTERESTING ABOUT BLANKET STORMS EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS HARD TO DO IN SC1.

Anything in SC2 that is equally hard to do and is pulled off in a tournament game will cause the same amount of cheering and female orgasming that those blanket storms caused. Wait till something sufficiently hard comes along, and then you'll be complaining when SC3 comes out that double archon rainbow dickslaps are too easy or something because AutoDickSlap was implemented and QQing the same amount you are now.

Blanket storms shouldn't be impressive. That's how the spell was supposed to be implemented. They were only impressive because hard things are impressive.