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For me:
WoL: Infestor/Broodlord imbalance shit-tons of Terran and Protoss allins terrible maps no country-based chat channels
HotS: 2 base protoss allins in all matchups swarm hosts
LotV: fewer minerals is utter shit (makes comebacks even harder) cyclones, adepts and ravagers need major reworking imo disruptor is just... basically forces protoss to just attack and retreat, attack and retreat... compare that with the giant protoss armies vs mech terran in brood war... good times
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On July 27 2017 00:04 Fango wrote: People saying sc2 died because its too easy... Are you serious? The difficulty of starcraft it is what puts people off playing it. The so called "harder" brood war is 10x more dead in the west and will never as popular as sc2 was. And yet BW purists claim sc2 died because its not a mirror image of the original.
Sc2 is not as big as other esports because it actually has competition with other games now. Also its a 1v1 game, and its much more difficult/stressful to play in comparison.
Mobas require less skill to enjoy and even be competitive. You can get a high rank in csgo based of how fast you can point and click. Hearthstone has zero mechanical demand. Those are also mostly games you play with your friends.
Besides, as far as I'm concerned Starcraft has had a relatively stable fanbase for years now (along with people preaching ded gaem the whole time). Its not as big as 2011, big deal. Just because its not at its peak, or because it's not the number 1 esport, doesn't mean it's dead.
But it will always be overshadowed by its older brother, isn't it?
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The point is, if you never played BW you will stay a SC2 fan and that is a fact unless you're one of those strange RTS outliers.
So, the question is, did we all need a worse RTS game in the first place? The game which lead to BW pro scene being shut down in Korea and robbing us all off many more years of fun and new talents? This is what this "SC2 dedgame" all about, personally for me. I feel being forced to love SC2 because it has been literally shoved into our throats by denying the proleague, OSLs, MSLs we, BW fans, all loved. By that pretentious hype spread by progamers and casters alike. It was clear from the beginning that SC2 is a different game. And after some time it was absolutely clear that it was objectively less fun to watch and to play. So, for me the creation of SC2 is a failure no matter if it has a bigger fanbase or not in the west (oh my, if it was ever the definition of quality). All those people could just have had a much better RTS experience.
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On July 27 2017 02:54 letian wrote: And after some time it was absolutely clear that it was objectively less fun to watch and to play. That statement is not objective at all. 
There are people that like sc2 more than bw, maybe not the elitists but the majority are casual players anyway.
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Ill add my 2 cents:
Blizzard Activision is not the same Blizzard that made sc1 or diablo 1 and 2.
Blizzard wanted sales, and they got them. They never cared for E-Sports, but you cant go out and say that, so marketing was focusing on giving SC2 more sales by marketing it the right way, again, to generate sales.
There are a lot of companies that have gone this down this path, not only Blizzard Activision.
Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3, Dead space 3, Dishonored 2, half of the call of duties....
All those games were streamlined in order to appeal to the casual gamer (or non-hardcore gamer if you wish).
Why would that make a game fail? Well, if you streamline a game for players that play a game for a while and jump to the next game a few months later, why would it be a surprise that you get massive sales and then your player base is gone?
Less costs for server maintenance, more sales ... good business.
Look at pre-orders, early access, kickstarter.... if you give companies your money... they are simply going to take it.
In terms of things like Balance, weak chat system at launch, hard game, etc... If you are spending millions on advertisements, you are taking away that money away from money used to make a good game.
At least thats how I see it.
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You keep saying sc2 is bad in some way, and bw was far superior and for some reason this is a reason why sc2 got "wrecked". I understand that this was the original goal of the thread - a bunch of people can say how BW is superior... But guess what, both games are equally as 'dead'. Sc2 not being 'as good' as BW can't be a reason why sc2 'got wrecked'.
Also the person above me is wrong. Diablo 3 is a good game.
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I've been lately stumbling over a new RTS that launches shortly after SCR (Tooth and Tail) - and the devs there seem closely linked to the brood war and sc2 scene: They made some interesting points about how a good RTS is shaped - and one word that was stuck to my mind is intensity. When I think about old BWCL clan wars or other old brood war games that is what strikes me the most. Every game was different and exciting, it was mentally and physical challenging - Real time skills (aka mechanics) and strategy and a very direct comparison of both when you go to 1on1. I never got that feeling at SC2. In beta it was exciting and the early days of WoL were fun but never the same and never as intense. Yes, death balls, faster games, smaller maps blabla all that may contributed towards me loosing interest in SC2, but it all felt less like a sport or challenge to me - more like a casual game with orcs in space and some fast paced elements of strategy. Anyway, it is still a good game nevertheless and with all that success of Dota and LoL I feel like the younger generations with shorter attention spans and more hectic lifestyles make Brood War more of a niche game. Perhaps we see a little revival in SCR and a change of trends - if not we still have two great games to enjoy together.
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Only ever made it to Platinum early in WOL but my issues have been
1. Unit deaths cannot be seen. In BW, you know when a unit dies. In SC2, you have to look at your population counter and calculate which units must have died based on supply cost. You have to pull out your TI-83 and do your pluses and minuses because even the most advanced AI can not be fed information from the computer screen and discern when a unit died due to the animations.
2. Even for sports, if I participate in a sport, I watch it. I was a cyclist in undergrad and I watched cycling. Now I powerlift and I watch powerlifting. SC2 was less fun to watch because there were far too many leagues and tourneys. With BW, everything was consolidated, and leagues were hype because they were regular but there weren't too many. Winning tournaments was prestigious, and the scene was easy to follow. SC2 was impossible to follow.
3. Watching even the big LOTV tournaments, even if cheese is less viable due to the 12 worker start, so many games ended just due to harassment. Basically Protoss and Terran both have a unit that kills all enemy workers instantaneously, and whoever uses this unit the fastest wins. People talk about mass expansion being the only viable strategy, but that is a trick. The trick is to build, I forget what it's called, but something like the "Instantaneous Worker Destroyer Game Winner" from the Barracks or what have you. It's neither fun to watch nor to play. Harassment exists in BW but is riskier, takes APM away from other tasks, and outright wins games less often.
4. Less important, but the story sucks. In BW it felt like you were really vying for survival (Terran and Protoss) or universal conquest (Zerg). The actions of the characters were human, relatable, and good vs. evil was fuzzier. Actually Vanilla SC had the best story, since once Metzen was given autocratic control everything started falling apart. But still, in both, the dialog was epic and the story compelling. In SCII, the Protoss dialog, which used to use elevated diction and sound especially epic, now basically follows the formula of "poo poo pee pee doo doo the universe is going to be destroyed. Nothing that happened in SC or BW matters kill the Xel'Naga."
On the other hand, warpgates, the new creep mechanics, and plenty of other things really fit the lore of the races, although Terran and Zerg low tier units are too tough now. Not to mention the Zerg are no longer on a quest to become the perfect life form a-la the Borg, and are rather just like Chaos from Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.
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Blizzard lost the plot with balancing, I remember David Kim interviews saying they tried to get this or that strategy viable, since when should game designers chose wich strategy should be used ? Leave that to players creativity for christ sake!
Focus on making a fun and intense game, focus on making it fun to watch since it's E-sports, only balance grossly to make units cost effective in the begining then leave it to the players and the mother fucking mapmakers!! Maps are the main balance factor of late broodwar, they where the buffer that compensated stategies balance shift...
If you are worried about balance give good tools to the mapmakers, so they may influence balance easily.
But people will whine everytime they loose anyway :D
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I don't like SC2 and didn't find watching it very interesting, but there's no way it was a failure or didn't work. I don't know what your baseline is. A lot of people liked it, played it professionally, made money off it, broadcast it, etc.
The main difference between SC1 and SC2 is Blizzard was hands-off with SC1, comparatively, with just a couple of patches that mostly just fixed bugs after the first year or two. So the pro-scene, the cool tools the community developed, the growth of understanding how rts works and how to design maps had a much greater sense of ownership. With SC2 Blizzard was all over it all the time, controlling its direction and growth and dictating how it would be played and experienced. As it turned out, a lot of people don't care and did watch SC2, and it doesn't really matter that their experience was manufactured.
I think the big thing to realise is that BW was more than its mechanics and gameplay. It was mostly a blank canvas that seemed to always have more areas to fill out. The experience with current Blizzard is that they're going to fill in that canvas for you, and if there are blank spots in the canvas, they're going to control how they get filled.
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On July 26 2017 20:25 Nebuchad wrote: It's dying because of you. Yes, criticizing the game and trying to identify ways to make it better is toxic, we should all just suck off Blizzard and say SC2 is the best it's ever been. Burying your head in the sand and saying SC2 is great while all the sponsors and players are leaving did more damage than anything. If people actually acknowledged the problems with SC2 and if Blizzard actually listened to the community than the game would be in a much better place.
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Imo they lost the plot big time with LoTV which brought the minerals change (expanding is nice but not in this artificial way) and gimmicky units like the cyclone, ravager, adept and liberator along with the perhaps the biggest jokes of them all; flying siege tanks and shooting pylons. The game essentially became a parody of itself.
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On July 27 2017 03:56 Chef wrote: I don't like SC2 and didn't find watching it very interesting, but there's no way it was a failure or didn't work. I don't know what your baseline is. A lot of people liked it, played it professionally, made money off it, broadcast it, etc.
The main difference between SC1 and SC2 is Blizzard was hands-off with SC1, comparatively, with just a couple of patches that mostly just fixed bugs after the first year or two. So the pro-scene, the cool tools the community developed, the growth of understanding how rts works and how to design maps had a much greater sense of ownership. With SC2 Blizzard was all over it all the time, controlling its direction and growth and dictating how it would be played and experienced. As it turned out, a lot of people don't care and did watch SC2, and it doesn't really matter that their experience was manufactured.
I think the big thing to realise is that BW was more than its mechanics and gameplay. It was mostly a blank canvas that seemed to always have more areas to fill out. The experience with current Blizzard is that they're going to fill in that canvas for you, and if there are blank spots in the canvas, they're going to control how they get filled.
Yeah I agree, they certainly did not loose money with SC2, but we did not get a scene like the Korean brood war scene all over the world either...
I don't get why they are such control freaks, it seems like an awfull waste of time and money to accomplish what ?? (beside removing player creativity from the game...)
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On July 27 2017 03:57 Solar424 wrote:Yes, criticizing the game and trying to identify ways to make it better is toxic, we should all just suck off Blizzard and say SC2 is the best it's ever been. Burying your head in the sand and saying SC2 is great while all the sponsors and players are leaving did more damage than anything. If people actually acknowledged the problems with SC2 and if Blizzard actually listened to the community than the game would be in a much better place.
As if anyone is trying to do that in this thread.
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On July 27 2017 03:03 Yrr wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2017 02:54 letian wrote: And after some time it was absolutely clear that it was objectively less fun to watch and to play. That statement is not objective at all.  There are people that like sc2 more than bw, maybe not the elitists but the majority are casual players anyway. It is objective because ppl who you claim enjoy SC2 more are the ones who didn't play BW enough to understand it. This is like comparing chess to checkers and there have been numerous posts why, covering both the game mechanics and social aspects. There are plenty of activities in the world that are undeservedly more popular just because they are more accessible for average Joe. Have you asked yourself what if BW had been remastered and received all that Blizzard sponsorship money SC2 did in the first place? I bet my pants there would be nothing to argue about right now.
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On July 27 2017 04:35 letian wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2017 03:03 Yrr wrote:On July 27 2017 02:54 letian wrote: And after some time it was absolutely clear that it was objectively less fun to watch and to play. That statement is not objective at all.  There are people that like sc2 more than bw, maybe not the elitists but the majority are casual players anyway. It is objective because ppl who you claim enjoy SC2 more are the ones who didn't play BW enough to understand it. This is like comparing chess to checkers and there have been numerous posts why, covering both the game mechanics and social aspects. There are plenty of activities in the world that are undeservedly more popular just because they are more accessible. Have you asked yourself what if BW had been remastered and received all that Blizzard sponsorship money SC2 did in the first place? I bet my pants there would be nothing to argue about right now. Based on what do you say this? There are still players that still play SC2 and that did play BW on a high level, players like NonY and dimaga come to mind.
When we consider what game is better, we delve into an argument that is so complex, that it is nearly impossible to say one is more objectively fun than another. If such thing exists anyway.
On July 27 2017 03:33 Ancestral wrote: Only ever made it to Platinum early in WOL but my issues have been
1. Unit deaths cannot be seen. In BW, you know when a unit dies. In SC2, you have to look at your population counter and calculate which units must have died based on supply cost. You have to pull out your TI-83 and do your pluses and minuses because even the most advanced AI can not be fed information from the computer screen and discern when a unit died due to the animations.
This got fixed in hots. The death animation for zerglings for example will make it split in 2, slide on the ground if it was running, and leave it there for a while.
On July 27 2017 04:10 Ake_Vader wrote: Imo they lost the plot big time with LoTV which brought the minerals change (expanding is nice but not in this artificial way) and gimmicky units like the cyclone, ravager, adept and liberator along with the perhaps the biggest jokes of them all; flying siege tanks and shooting pylons. The game essentially became a parody of itself. Did you even play the game?
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And if SC2 was the first game of the series people would argue for it the same way as they do for BW now.
BW might be better on a very high competitive level but that doesnt mean it is the better game for the average gamer.
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I mean to be honest none of you here would even play SC2 anyway (except few) u would stick with BW anyway )
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On July 27 2017 04:42 sabas123 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2017 04:35 letian wrote:On July 27 2017 03:03 Yrr wrote:On July 27 2017 02:54 letian wrote: And after some time it was absolutely clear that it was objectively less fun to watch and to play. That statement is not objective at all.  There are people that like sc2 more than bw, maybe not the elitists but the majority are casual players anyway. It is objective because ppl who you claim enjoy SC2 more are the ones who didn't play BW enough to understand it. This is like comparing chess to checkers and there have been numerous posts why, covering both the game mechanics and social aspects. There are plenty of activities in the world that are undeservedly more popular just because they are more accessible. Have you asked yourself what if BW had been remastered and received all that Blizzard sponsorship money SC2 did in the first place? I bet my pants there would be nothing to argue about right now. Based on what do you say this? There are still players that still play SC2 and that did play BW on a high level, players like NonY and dimaga come to mind. When we consider what game is better, we delve into an argument that is so complex, that it is nearly impossible to say one is more objectively fun than another. If such thing exists anyway. ... White-Ra, Bly.
Honestly, you can't refer to progamers because they will never be independent and will follow the hype, teams and money pools. Even though many of them will tell you that BW is more fun they will play whatever is paid for and SC2 is much more promising career and money wise than BW, not because this is a better game. A significant part of it's popularity is artificial because it is powered by money, business. If BW had all that support from Blizzard we would still be watching Flash playing vs Nerchio in WCG 2017. Now you have fan base fragmentation and unfulfilled expectations (at least somebody in Blizzard office is happy). And it will always be like that in the world of entertainment. Why don't we get surprised when some moronic superman / superwoman / transformer movie gets the box office when it is obvious that such content is far from being worth your time. Should I talk about music industry? No.
Do you see my point? I am not against SC2, I am angry because it became the reason why BW is less known and Korean scene suffered a shutdown. I am angry because the decision what to watch was forcefully taken from me by Blizzard who represents entertainment industry in all its disgusting modern glory.
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On July 27 2017 01:27 sabas123 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2017 00:21 playa wrote: I'll never understand how people not paid by Blizzard can say LotV is the best SC 2 has ever been. I played against one race 15% of the time. "They" have no one ranked in the top 10 of ELO. The balance numbers have never been worse. It's the same build every game. Then again, if an expansion completely removed Terran and Zerg from the game, I'd view that as a huge improvement...
I like it the most right now, the game does have variation, has the most diverse amount of unit interaction, and it feels like multi-tasking is rewarded. A few viable builds does not indicate poor balance, otherwise ZvT was terrible in BW(which it wasn't). And the balance was waaaaay worse in GomTvT, patchzeg era, or early HOTS.
Man, it's like people are playing completely different games. It's unfortunate. If I played Terran, I'd definitely view it as the best expansion. If I played as Zerg, I might feel the same, due to all of the options. But, as Toss? The race is a punching bag. Not a single thing to prefer in this expansion. Well, maybe recall being changed to 50...
This is actually as bad as balance has ever been, from 2011-now. It's not even close. P vs Z has been around 42% for months. P vs T has had multiple periods at 42%, within the last 5. Every game is phoenix adept or zealots vs Terran. Every game vs Zerg is mass immortals + storm.
They've literally scarified 1/3 of the game to increase the enjoyment of others... Even playing against "unviable mech" is WAY easier in Broodwar.
When Remastered comes out... if there is a single Toss player playing SC 2, besides Neeb and maybe Showtime... biggest face palm ever.
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