SC2 has amazing graphics, and I was excited for it to come out. Over time, however, it hasn't lived up to my hopes. Its dwindling popularity seems to suggest I am not the only one who is a little disappointed. Why?
Anyone have thoughts on why this is the case? Here are a few of mine, but looking for other input!
Over Engineering Excessive addition, nerfing and buffing of units to try to engineer epic games is what killed SC2. Rather than letting players come up with creative strategies, Blizzard seems to have tried to prescribe strategies each time they add or change units. In other words, trying to make SC2 perfect made it substandard. Leaving Broodwar messy in many ways allowed players to apply their own problem solving skills to it.
Broodwar Some compositions have extremely hard counters, other compositions have NO hard counters, game somewhat broken and imbalanced, but players solve that through innovation (e.g. Zerg cannot win head on fights at all and must rely on tactics, an innovation resulting from players working through the dynamics of the game).
Fast expanding was an option, one that took guts, was risky, but offered upside. It could be countered in many scenarios, and you could just lose. Or you could try to expand and reap huge economic rewards later on, but the game would be far from decided.
Starcraft 2: Blizzard trying to engineer "epic, macro games". Considers vulnerability to rushes a flaw, and gives units anti-rush measures (e.g. Mothership Core). Considers differences between races a flaw, and makes all races comparable (e.g. Queens to cancel out the larva dynamic for Zerg, gives Zerg cheap armored units for head-on fighting (roach), gives Zerg siege units (swarm hosts), gives Terran armored cheap units (Marauders), etc. Blizzard also decides that rushing is not only a flaw, but should be prevented entirely and considered "cheese" all in efforts to make longer professional games. Ups starting worker count to 12.
If they keep on this route in SC2: all games will start out with both players having 4 bases, all their tech and maxed out armies so we can enjoy the so-called "good, macro games", cutting out all that supposed "cheese" that came in the form of rushing, strategy, risk taking, etc.
SC2: expanding is a necessity and comes with no risk as Blizzard has carefully prescribed how to easily stop any rushes. Therefore, in SC2, rushing is referred to as "cheese", and frowned upon.
SC1: raw, less engineered, more organic. Strategies flow from players.
SC2: engineered. Strategies flow from excessive and common "nerfing/patching" of units, as well as addition of new units. Blizzard trying to engineer the most spectator-friendly scenarios rather than letting the game evolve organically.
Anyone else have similar or opposing ideas? Curious if others have thought about this any...
I agree with XERX. I stopped playing because of Battle.net "2.0", I stopped watching because I stopped playing, and I stopped caring because I neither played nor watched.
Suffice to say, I'm quite relieved they aren't screwing with Battle.net too much with Remastered.
All the free units/Energy is one reason this game is so bad and the lack of good balancing , in BW u can have large maps and its still kinda balanced...in sc2 ur hoping too get small maps that and that u dont get Zerg on large maps.
The other reason is the lack of combat, in scbw u have several fights all over the place and in sc2 u have kinda 1 large fight with 2 hotkeys armee´s and thats all, boring too watch.
SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Ironically, A-moving in the current meta is a very, very, very bad idea, at least for zerg.
ZvP is Hydra bane vs immo/archon/storm, and since storm 2 shots hydras, and 1(?) shots banes, a-moving will lose your 120 supply of army in roughly half a second. The ZvP meta actually revolves around getting +2 melee and using it to 1 shot probes with bane drops in order to force the toss to attack into you rather than vice versa.
ZvT engagements are move wave based. Since widow mines can kill your entire army at once, engagements from zerg are usually small packs of ling bane, where the banes are used to either kill the burrowed mines with splash, set off the mines, or at the very least push the bio back so your mutas can pick off a mine or two. After ~140 supply, it's more runby based because it's very hard to set off said mines after there's enough bio so you start avoiding the army, pulling it apart with runbys in different positions, and muta flybys.
ZvZ's just shit though.
Not to say everything else is wrong with sc2. I hate the game 99% of the time, but it definitely has nothing to do with a-moving anymore. The longer lotv has been out, the further from a-moving we've gone
For me, Sc2 is a game with too many checkmates. Cheese might not be strong, but for example, the game on promixa station in the recent HSC between Zest and Byun, 7 minute buildup, ends in less than 2 seconds because Zest had 1 forcefield to few. I just won a ZvT, where the Terran was going for a mech push, and I knew, if I just lose my third and natural, as long as he does not scout the mutas before they hit his base, the game is over. There was no real interaction.
In BW, most of the time, even if a Reaver shot gets really lucky, you get behind, in Sc2, you are just dead.
I had a 16 minute back and forth ZvZ end with 3 fungals (less than 10 seconds), granted, I took a long break and now I will be more wary about that possibility, but still, to learn sc2 means to just die a million stupid deaths. The 3month break I was on last, I took after a speck of dust made my mouse spaz for a friction of a second, costing me the game. In BW, that puts me 5% behind my opponent, in Sc2 it is just game.
edit: it is just so unforgiving. I loved to watch Soulkey vs Life, because you could see how similiar Sc2 is to a fighting game, where you basically have to have frame perfect input. That still is an advantage in BW, but other skills matter too.
well first of all sc2 still has a healthy playerbase, its just that its 7 years old ... games doesnt hold up that long anymore in modern times.
for me it died with LOTV i really loved WOL and i still enjoyed HOTS but the changes to LOTV made game no fun for me anymore,
i think the reason is the community and blizzard listening to them, blizzard need to understand that "the mass" is a horde of idiots who want idiot things and when they get it they stop playing cause its boring ... the mass never know whats good for them and should be totaly ingored
but blizzard listened and with lesser minerals per base and higher starting probes and all that stuff they nerfed the "rushes" but what they rly did was nerfing diversity ... its now basicly ONE build to play ONE style the macro lame mass expand style ... i dont like the style and looking at the playerbase alot people dont like it!
but the "mass" wanted it ... and now the mass stopped playing becaue they got bored without all the rushes and shannanigans they formerly flamed so much about but still played
On July 26 2017 20:12 MKStyles wrote: Well in SCBW ASL League u can play BO1 and so often wins the guy with the better mechanics and the favourite in the game.
Do that in SC2 and we will see 1 base cheese all along.
i would disagree and say that in sc1 u had way more cheeses then in sc2, especially in lotv ... its basicly macro until 1 fight and end game ... teh rushed made u defend for so many possibilities and no one does that anymore in sc1 people doesnt do it that often ebcause people DO build to prefent all that becuase its all figured out
On July 26 2017 17:24 XERX wrote: The competitive game didn't destroy it the reason why it flopped was the arcade system wasn't implemented until forever.
The main bulk of people want to play to have fun playing the fun as fuck custom games in SC2.
This, this, and this. It's a misconception that the bulk of people ladder, from Brood War to WC3 it was all about the custom games and SC2 was no exception. It seemed that there were so many games within games, I mean a WC3 custom map ended up getting bigger than WC3 ever did. SC2 was poised to be even better with it's great editor and map marketplace, but the UI was so horrible you couldn't even look up games by list so no one even saw anything. So no one cared, which meant mapmakers stopped caring, which is why no one plays SC2 anymore after getting burnt out from ladder. Co-op helps, but it's basically 1 Blizzard sponsored custom map and can't keep people invested.
shitty custom games / mapmaker no casual game modes (see #1, blizzard couldve implemented some themselves though) blizzard caring too late about community blizzard not realizing what opportunity esports is Ladder design causing major anxiety issues for many ppl MLG fucking up several times Egoistic organizations wanting short term profit, dying off eventually Young Generation mostly wanting easy games with fast results [casual games going esports for masses]
Also, ppl have to realize sc2 was basically how twitch and the new esports era began. SC2 paved the way to what we have now with modern esports, and it is still a top 10 title (so "wrecked" isn't really fitting). SC2 made many mistakes that other titles could look at and not do them again.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
limited people like dustin browder and david kim leading the balancing.
Making a good RTS is not math. It needs to be a little wild, but blizzard had too much of a burden from BW, and they didn't really know how to make a great sequel, so they settled for mimicking BW and making the game not terribly imbalanced.
There's no true inspiration in SC2. Races have lost their distinctiveness, they seem very similar now , just with different 'faces'.
Like someone said, BW is organic, SC2 was synthesized in a lab, by a not-too-inspired scientist.
Infestor bloodlord in WoL Swarm hosts during HoTs Adepts in beginning of LotV Lack of fun maps to play with your friends after 1v1 trihard grinds. Maps maybe existed but it was extremely difficult to find anything worthwhile in arcade side.
list is biased and TL;DR version.
I had my share of joy and frustration from SC2 during its time and I don't regret putting tons of hours in. Like with many previous games I've played, the game ran its course and it was time to move on for me.
"Part of why I think SC2 died out is because people don't, in general, find it fun to grind relatively hard 1v1 games for hours every night. In contrast, even the most difficult MOBA is still fairly fun and there's a lot of variety to be found in changing up the variable of your team-mates.
I also do think that very hard games don't really have a place in modern esports. That has overwhelmingly been the trend over the history of esports and shows no signs of halting. Those who bill SC2, Dota2 or CS:GO as really hard games are fooling themselves or simply don't know enough about the games of the past.
Esports is like if Chess had been a breakout sport and then someone had cynically figured out that if you make it less difficult and turn it into checkers then more people will be interested in playing and watching. Then someone brought out Monopoly and beat out both and cornered the market."
Personally i think the competition "wrecked" sc2. Yes the game has problems and isn't the best designed game ever, i actually agree with that. But i think that part isn't really that important in the big picture. What's actually impactful is that games like dota2, csgo and lol exist. People simply would rather have a good time in these games with their friends than play some 1vs1 title which requires in comparison a lot of mechanics to play it somewhat decently. RTS in general is frustrating for the average "casual" gamer, you can start a game and lose in the first 2 minutes, that's not fun. In any given game you need the knowledge to react to the whole spectrum of strategies, while a moba has probably more you only need to react to 5 specific heroes (or make it 9 if you count your team as well).
It will be interesting to see what SC:R can do, in the west i think basically nothing but will it give bw a boost in korea? I doubt it, there the new, young gamers play lol or overwatch atm. SC:R will face the same problems there. I hope i am wrong though.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
Why in the BW subforum? Not all faults with SC2 are BW related.
For me at least, here is my two cents. I played SC2 for a bit, not upon release but before HotS came out. It was fun for a little while but it was almost like a dumbed down version of Brood War - and mentally, I could not help but constantly make the comparison that was pretty much never in SC2's favor. Fundamentally, it was clear that it was not as good as the first and that it never would be. I had my fill and moved on.
Competition with Brood War was only a small part of it in the grand scheme of things though. Even though SC2 is widely considered to be the worse game, it still has an appeal that is not so trivial. There's no reason there wouldn't be space for both... but the circumstances surrounding its release created bitter animosity between the two groups. That cost SC2 a large swath of the support of old Starcraft loyalists who might have helped keep the fanbase alive. Those most dedicated players are not many, but they build the community. Frankly it seemed like our own community consisted more of folk who wanted to "make it big" in Starcraft rather than just continue with BW. Those folk leave as easily as they come and LoL/DotA/CSGO straight up dwarf RTS in general.
Couple all that with the fact that SC2 could never shake the demons of BW (match fixing etc) and it's not a surprise that the game had its run then mostly bit the bullet.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
I don't contest any of these points, My point is that the people either making these claims (The first person in this quote chain), or are supposedly affected by these (the hoards of players that don't play/watch sc2) will never reach the point where any of this becomes relevant.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
I don't contest any of these points, My point is that the people either making these claims (The first person in this quote chain), or are supposedly affected by these (the hoards of players that don't play/watch sc2) will never reach the point where any of this becomes relevant.
Just look at a simple carrier. U have the same unit in BroodWar and StarCraft II, but u can't micro it in SC2. THEY SUCKED OUT THE MICRO. The reason for it was most likely so certain units would definitely counter it. In BroodWar a lot of units don't have any clear counters.
The foreign scene seemed a lot bigger and more accomplished to me in Sc2. It is just Korea where Sc2 flopped pretty hard, the place where it should have been gigantic, hence why we are getting SC:R
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
I don't contest any of these points, My point is that the people either making these claims (The first person in this quote chain), or are supposedly affected by these (the hoards of players that don't play/watch sc2) will never reach the point where any of this becomes relevant.
Is that why we had 3 Koreans at Homestory Cup and still an Korean final? Because average player can still squeeze an win out of pros?
As some intelligent guys said, SC2 is too volatile. And is not a problem of mechanics, but more of the pathing and units design. We don't see it on Starbow for example. SC2 could still be saved, I don't have any doubt.
shallowness of tactics due to overfluidified pathing system and lack of defender advantage / positional mechanics coupled with copious amounts of volatility is a huge root point imo, my #1 dislike with the game along with many elements of the race/unit designs (emphasis on hardcounters being one). If you make a sequel to starcraft I expect it to be at least as good as starcraft and hopefully even better, SC2 is absolutely not as good imo, overall and for quite a lot of reasons.
btw team games in SC2 are rather bad whereas in SC1 they are quite great, due in part to the volatility in SC2 which is worsened by playing in teams
success of SC2 came from it not being that bad overall despite many flaws, but also rather good 3D graphics (though I also prefer the art direction of sc1 by a very long shot, and also still prefer 2D for RTS^^) and lot of investment in communication and in its esport side, ofc capitalizing on the success of the legendary sc1
On July 26 2017 22:31 StarscreamG1 wrote: As some intelligent guys said, SC2 is too volatile. And is not a problem of mechanics, but more of the pathing and units design. We don't see it on Starbow for example. SC2 could still be saved, I don't have any doubt.
I disagree I think some of the mechanics such as multiple building selection, infinite units on a single control group and smart casting needed a look at. The economic model (macro mechanics turbo boosting units into the affray) could have been toned down a touch and if I am being brutally honest Protoss in general needed a redesign (especially thinking about warp tech breaking core RTS rules and units like the Colossus aka babies first siege unit).
The unit pathing works well generally in that unit react fairly consistently and logically to commands. I wouldn't expect a game released in 2010 to play much differently in that regard tbh.
On July 26 2017 22:31 StarscreamG1 wrote: As some intelligent guys said, SC2 is too volatile. And is not a problem of mechanics, but more of the pathing and units design. We don't see it on Starbow for example. SC2 could still be saved, I don't have any doubt.
I disagree I think some of the mechanics such as multiple building selection, infinite units on a single control group and smart casting needed a look at.
The unit pathing works well generally in that unit react fairly consistently and logically to commands. I wouldn't expect a game released in 2010 to play much differently in that regard tbh.
I don't disagree with that but I think there is no reason for any new game not to be able to feature both more consistent reacting of units (no bugs) and still maintain qualities of depth of micro and tactics and defender advantage etc, war3 has (most of) it... In fact that's what I would expect from a new game. Of note, in war3, I think there are less different behaviors for units I think than in bw, like for example a vulture in bw has very different mechanics from a zealot or a goon or a goliath very different stuff, that gives depth and details. In terms of how they are able to move, attack, or both @same time. It has huge consequences which are very positive overall in bw.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
its not hard to get high master in SC2 if you are good at bw... and you can tell a lot before you get there too
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Just no, you never played the game like me played bw and sc2 to the extreme. A crappy person will become supply blocked after 30, 40 supply, will macro bad behind his micro @ fight etc, just no dude. If both are equal in skill this would be a different topic.
In my opinion sc2 had issues but LotV is the best game sc2 ever was. It works very well in 1v1 and decent in teamgames. Nothing "wrecked" sc2 but the number of people that like to play hardcore 1v1 games is limited.
The important question is what do we need to change? The answer is probably nothing about the game. Coop showed that rts in itself isnt the problem, a lot of people enjoy it every day. I think teamgames in sc2 (2v2, 3v3 and 4v4) is the next logical step to increase the number of players. The games are a lot more forgiving than 1v1 because you have allies to rely on. And people dont have to play alone but can have fun with their friends.
Btw. it really didnt help that a lot of 1v1 players shit-talked teamgames in the past.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
I agree with everything you're saying, but I also don't think it's fair to say this is the reason why we don't see anyone dominate for longer periods. SC2 balance patches have been in a constant state of flux, and LofV isn't even 2 years old, and it's also worth noting that as the popularity has declined we have some of the oldest veterans in Korea still going strong.
There's no reason to assume that SC2 should succeed because of its predecessor. To me, SC2 is a different game entirely with some overlap here and there. Changing the graphics engine and mechanics is much more than it sounds like on the surface. Especially a game whose technology hasn't had time to evolve throughout the years. It ultimately makes the game feel different.
To me, the most different aspect was the fact that it felt more like a pure macro type of game. BW was awesome because it had a nice balance of both micro and macro. Again, mechanics, the way how units clump together, etc. all add to lean towards a more macro focused game.
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.
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.
I wouldn't say it's too easy, but it is undoubtedly relatively easier than bw. That being said, your opponent has just as much advantages and disadvantages as you do, so yes, that contributes to the competitive nature of sc2. Level of difficulty of a game usually doesn't have much to do with competition. Poker or go is a very simple game, yet very competitive at the same time.
EDIT: Please don't misunderstand when I say poker or go is a simple game. I meant in terms of mechanics and rules which are easy to pick up for just about anyone.
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...
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
I agree with everything you're saying, but I also don't think it's fair to say this is the reason why we don't see anyone dominate for longer periods. SC2 balance patches have been in a constant state of flux, and LofV isn't even 2 years old, and it's also worth noting that as the popularity has declined we have some of the oldest veterans in Korea still going strong.
Yeah even in sc2 players some players have managed to be extremely dominant during a certain time span/in a certain matchup. soO's ZvZ, PartinG's PvT or Inno's TvZ are good examples of that. The constant balance patches are a major factor why nobody can really dominate in sc2 imo.
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 dont play on a high enough level (4.6k MMR on EU) where those balance issues make a difference. And I dont play on a high enough level where you have to play a single certain build. Most people just dont play on a level where this matters.
watered down demand: in 1999 i couldn't watch awesome giant army battles on my Palm Pilot running on Palm OS. Now i can get my giant army battle fix in any one of 1000 ways on a dozen platforms. in the 1990s it was only possible on a desktop PC.
declining interest in the genre: when an entire genre faces declining interest even games that are better than the games that made the genre famous make a lot less money. Later on in a genre's life span great games can end up with a small community.
expectations: plenty of other RTS games and games older than Brood War have an active community evolving the meta and the communities are much smaller... everyone is having fun though.
who cares about scene size as long as you're having fun plenty of competitive games have much smaller communities than SC2 and people are having fun.
Online Team Play Was Not viable in 1995 by 2005 it was Team games are more fun for the general user than those 1-on-1 solitary hermit games played in 1995. In 1995 it was considered awesome to get a 1-on-1 game going with low latency. Now, its 6 on 6 plus a private server with the server acting as the arbiter of reality. For most players team play is more social and more silly fun.
SC2 is a great game and its currently in a great state. Its community is small relative to Overwatch, WoW, or Diablo. but.. who cares as long as you're having fun. Relative to Tecmo Bowl, NHL '94, and RA2 the SC2 community is huge... and those scenes have been going for 13, 24 or 29 years.
The same thing that wrecked BW. Game is too hard and kids don't like it. People now think that Dota 2 is the standard for hardcore, unforgiving and extremely mechanically demanding game... This is how low the bar is. The harder games like SC2 are played by a small group of gamers that have the patience and the time to learn them. Still SC2 somehow managed to gather 200k with the war chest within a week... which shows some signs of life - not completely dead.
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.
It is mechanically easier while being emotional stressful.
BW is about keeping high level decision making throughout the game while SC2 is about deciding the winner of the game in 1 or 2 battles.
On July 26 2017 17:47 HaN- wrote: According to HuK,
difficulty of game and solo game are good points.
that other stuff...meh. in the early to mid 90s there was lots more wrong with RTS games; the buzz of watching dozens of soldiers fight and die on screen in #s not possible in the 1980s made all the horrible flaws of those early games all worth it.
the RTS game genre grew by leaps and bounds from 1982 to 1995 despite the games being horribly flawed. game quality is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to popularity.
anybody remember the total BS their dad had to go through to get a simple 1v1 game going in 1994? The "gaming experience" of RTS back then was fucking horrible... and the genre grew any way.
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.
agreed with Ret, the slower pace of broodwar makes it more forgiving even if you have to click more to be efficient, always felt SC2 was more frustrating in several situations where if you didn't react in a split second you would lose your entire army or most of it
I don't think broodwar is harder than SC2, broodwar is just more fun because if you're good you can go 100-3 on ladder... who doesn't like pretty stats :D
the "forgiving" quality of bw gives it also more depth and is kinda the opposite of the "volatility" aspect of sc2. It means there are more choices available to the player and they have varying consequences and games play out more differently, allow more personal style (more available counter plays), just more complexity and depth imo, longer term thinking etc
Only played BroodWar for a few months before SC2 came out, so I can't make any meaningful comparisons about high level balance. But as a platform, BroodWar was MUCH better than SC2 in terms of allowing a somewhat casual player to improve.
I stopped playing pretty early on in WoL, and so did most of the people I played with, because the meta changed too fast. I think Thorin is right in saying that fewer people want to sit around and solo grind an RTS game than hop on Dota and play some 5v5 with friends; but I think there is enough of a crowd that actually prefer solo games specifically because you don't have to wait until you are 5 friends before playing some games (and solo grinding team games kills the soul).
I was definitely part of that crowd. But I couldn't keep up with every new patch and every new build. If I had been away for a week I couldn't just sit down and hop unto matchmaking. I needed to go look up new timings. Every time. Or the games would just feel like a waste of time because a push that couldn't come before 3 minutes before, now could come at 2:30 or something.
On top of this, the lack of good channels for custom games and the rigidness of matchmaking meant that if I wanted to practice for even just a few games I needed to do this research for every single match up; that is, if I wanted the practice to feel meaningful in any sort of way. On the contrary, you can hop on CS:GO and lose 0:16 on a map you never played before and you have AT LEAST practiced your aim, and that is an extremely rare example.
In BroodWar, unlike SC2, I could easily find matches against serious opponents (unlike SC2 custom games) playing whichever matchup I had prepared for, even on the map I specifically prepared for. This meant I could have only 2-3 hours on a week night and: go over a build, research reactions to opponents build, strategize how to play the map in late game/where to check for cheese etc, and STILL get a good amount of meaningfull games in.
SC2 could have been like that. I don't know whether or not that was the determining factor in it "dying" or not, but I would have stayed. As it is, I was too casual to SC2.
SC2 didn't live up to expectations because the designers overly relied on units with "flash" and pretty units instead of giving the game innovative units with usefulness. Also, dumbed down team games with shared bases made SC2's team games worse than SC1.
I would submit to you that the game did not get "wrecked", but rather, "shrekt". This term refers to when a game is so destroyed that it's completely ogre.
I don't like the idea of game being too difficult therefore not successful. There are plenty of games much more difficult and still successful enough. Should I mention chess, go, various board games and god knows what overly successful. There always be people who would want something more challenging because simple problems do not give you that amount of satisfaction. Easy games are popular just because the average Joe is much more frequent. I think SC2 is not a difficult games by all means, difficult to master -- probably. I think that ppl should just acknowledge that SC2 is boring gameplay-wise, story-wise and competition-wise. This corresponds to what former BW progamers said about SC2, few do really like it. I watched SC2 as long as BW guys played it, once they left I left to the lower sections of tl.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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...)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Another Sc2 vs BW thread. We didnt have one of those in a while. It is unfair to say that sc2 is "wrecked" or was a failure as some people state here, because it is just not true.
I wont get into an argument defending sc2 or BW, but let me just say that everyone in this thread who states that one game or the other one is "objectively" better looks stupid, because its only subjective. By saying that one game is objectively better than the other one, you must automatically assume that:
-Everyone agrees on what makes a game good. -Everyone agrees that more of these things are in one game than its counterpart
This is just not the case, because everyone has a different taste on what makes a game good. Therefor the logic that one game is objectively better just sounds silly.
What game is harder is also very debatable. I know there are many BW veterans in this forum who belittle sc2 players unskilled and get away with it without a warning, so I wont spend too much time on this topic otherwise this posts gets reported by triggered elitists. But believe it or not, sc2 is still a hard game, just in different ways than BW, which might be why it is for some BW players not their cup of tea.
Now on my personal opinion: I have played both BW and SC2 for a decent amount of years. And even though I was way better in Sc2, BW is my favorite game of all times.
Do I enjoy the design decisions in sc2 by Blizzard? No, frankly I think they are horrible. Do I enjoy the deathballing and snowballing mechanics, lack of defenders advantage, non-stop aggression worker-killing game? No. Luckily for me I don't have to play it and play BW instead. But there are plenty of people who do enjoy the game and like that it is so punishing for little mistakes. And that's fine. Trying to talk shit about the game just to stroke your e-penis is just really pathetic and miserable
On July 27 2017 05:49 Hadronsbecrazy wrote: hasnt this argument been done to death alreadY?
On the one hand, yes. On the other, all such threads show people have different reasons for their positions and hence the threads are useful for data mining anecdotes.
I actually do have faith that once SC2 stops getting patched the scene will stabilize. Even if smaller, it will consist of people who really enjoy it.
I also think game complexity preferences ebb and flow. For example, the original Wizardry games were complicated as all fuck. And then Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy came out and took over the market.
So it is with RTS vs. MOBA. BW and SC2 are both complex, and though there's a lull in the pereference for such games right now, it's just the current trend.
On the other hand, I do think BW is just so much more iconic and better than SC2 and that Blizzard has made serious missteps T_T
For the competitive scene to thrive, you need a health dose of casuals. BW's UMS was highly developed, and culminated to EUD. SC2 on the other hand was relatively hostile towards new UMS.
There was a stylistic change between the two games. BW was dark and gritty, whereas SC2 was a fucking WoW inspired game. Everyone is hypermasculine, the big plot is "we need to unite to defeat the big bad", the Protoss are clones, and to top it off they decided to add a fucking prophecy to a SCIENCE FICTION game.
Both of these factors greatly neglect the largest playerbase- the casual one.
1. The game is a solo game and got outmatched by competitive team games. As a pro player during WoL I was there when the decline in interest got noticeable. LoL kept getting bigger and bigger stages and more and more viewers. At the time I could not understand how a game like LoL actually was that popular. The game was easy to learn, relies a lot on team work, and the mechanics cant compare to RTS games.
But then thats just what makes it so much more e-sport friendly (which I realized after I quit). Compare it to regular popular sports, how many are individual? None. Sure some are quite big but they still cater to a smaller crowd than the big team games. Would anyone argue against that Basketball, Football, Hockey, Baseball, American football etc. is less popular than an individual sport? All of these sports can be enjoyed at amateur level with friends and its quite an enjoyable experience even if you are not very good at it. This in return naturally means the very same people will prefer to watch that over anything else. They can identify with the game and understand the complexity of whats going on to at least some degree.
2. SC2 is too unforgivining. This has always been SC2s biggest flaw in my opinion. Like some have pointed out, the pacing of SC2 and the fact that everything just hard counters everything means there are no room for minor mistakes or blunders. People might think that is a good thing and I dont fault them for that, to each their own. But personally I feel like a game shouldnt centre around this, humans make error in judgements daily and this means the game is too volatile. Had the room for error been higher and had mechanics actually been that big of a seperating factor then that would have made for a lot more interesting games. I remember always being nervous in group stages or qualifiers because I knew I couldnt just brute force a mechanical win if my opponents were decent enough. I also knew that one error in judgement could lose me the game instantly. Compared to BW I would never be nervous because I knew even a slip up here and there in decision making could be repaired if I just outplayed my opponent mechanically.
I really dont think its more complicated than that. E-sports follow the same path as regular sports. Games who are team based, easy to learn but harder to master, will always be more popular. DOTA2, League of Legends, CS:GO are to e-sports what football is to sports. SC2 is like.. tennis? I guess.
On July 27 2017 06:01 RWLabs wrote: You mentioned a few, but here are a few more.
For the competitive scene to thrive, you need a health dose of casuals. BW's UMS was highly developed, and culminated to EUD. SC2 on the other hand was relatively hostile towards new UMS.
There was a stylistic change between the two games. BW was dark and gritty, whereas SC2 was a fucking WoW inspired game. Everyone is hypermasculine, the big plot is "we need to unite to defeat the big bad", the Protoss are clones, and to top it off they decided to add a fucking prophecy to a SCIENCE FICTION game.
Both of these factors greatly neglect the largest playerbase- the casual one.
Warcraft 3 had by far the best UMS system until 2009 when spambots (empty game host bots) ruined it by spamming the games list with DOTA and advertisements to websites. This along with the release of SC2 caused a mass exodus from the game. Blizzard could have saved the scene by releasing a patch to add a filter that hides spambots by default but they had no interest maintaining the game any longer and their forum had no moderators at the time and basically functioned like 4chan or youtube comments.
On July 27 2017 06:01 RWLabs wrote: You mentioned a few, but here are a few more.
For the competitive scene to thrive, you need a health dose of casuals. BW's UMS was highly developed, and culminated to EUD. SC2 on the other hand was relatively hostile towards new UMS.
There was a stylistic change between the two games. BW was dark and gritty, whereas SC2 was a fucking WoW inspired game. Everyone is hypermasculine, the big plot is "we need to unite to defeat the big bad", the Protoss are clones, and to top it off they decided to add a fucking prophecy to a SCIENCE FICTION game.
Both of these factors greatly neglect the largest playerbase- the casual one.
Warcraft 3 had by far the best UMS system until 2009 when spambots (empty game host bots) ruined it by spamming the games list with DOTA and advertisements to websites. This along with the release of SC2 caused a mass exodus from the game. Blizzard could have saved the scene by releasing a patch to add a filter that hides spambots by default but they had no interest maintaining the game any longer and their forum had no moderators at the time and basically functioned like 4chan or youtube comments.
the thing that turned me off of sc2 when i was actively playing it was all the balance whining and patches... this was during the time when hots was out for a few months and it seemed like there was a balance change every month...
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.
I guess Stats and INnoVation (who openly admitted they enjoy sc2 more) just didn't play BW enough to understand it.
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.
On July 27 2017 06:07 dignitas.merz wrote: 2. SC2 is too unforgivining. This has always been SC2s biggest flaw in my opinion. Like some have pointed out, the pacing of SC2 and the fact that everything just hard counters everything means there are no room for minor mistakes or blunders. People might think that is a good thing and I dont fault them for that, to each their own. But personally I feel like a game shouldnt centre around this, humans make error in judgements daily and this means the game is too volatile. Had the room for error been higher and had mechanics actually been that big of a seperating factor then that would have made for a lot more interesting games. I remember always being nervous in group stages or qualifiers because I knew I couldnt just brute force a mechanical win if my opponents were decent enough. I also knew that one error in judgement could lose me the game instantly. Compared to BW I would never be nervous because I knew even a slip up here and there in decision making could be repaired if I just outplayed my opponent mechanically.
This is true. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. SC2 at the highest level is pretty similar to a knife fight with the 2 players constantly pressuring each other and taxing each others multi-tasking until 1 player makes a mistake and falls apart. And the top players got really fucking good at avoiding making those game-ending mistakes so beating them is really tough unless you're similarly good at it. I understand that people dislike it that a single mistake can decide the game but at a high level those mistakes only happen when a player gets heavily pressured into making it.
The scene may be more volatile than BW but upsets where a player who seems to be completely outclassed beats a superior opponent happen very rarely, especially not in bo5/7.
Once again I totally understand people disliking this aspect about sc2 but it has its own flair.
SCII for me is like a hard work. The game has been punishing and humilating me since I started to play it. It was as if it was telling me "FUCK YOU SCRUB YOUR HANDS ARE TO SLOW", "FUCK YOU, you better go sleep, you only shame yourself". But I carried on and from time to time I played well in my opinion and at such moments I really enjoyed the game. I thought like "damn I am good, my efforts were not wasted!". So it kinda pays off. But I don't think there are many people who would agree on this shit.
I don't think many people can put it down to succinctly build a real argument for what happened and why. There are so many variables, opinions, and even with raw numbers a lot of it just doesn't make sense to have even a 5 point list for why it happened.
I'll give my quick 2-minute dissertation of what killed it for me, a caster of 3 years in SC2 and why I stopped.
SC2 WoL was a really aggressive early game mixing into a midgame where victory generally happened, and very rare late-game from most of the matches I played/casted. Towards the end of WoL a lot of weird patches swung win-rates a lot until the Queen 5 range patch. It was a very good patch initially because Zergs were getting killed every game by Hellion run-by's. However, this signaled the community to realize that Blizzard was open to stopping cheese in the most drastic senses and I think started the whole push to what happened in HotS.
In Heart of the Swarm is where SC2 lost me. All the mechanics of stopping early aggression made games a subject of waiting. The MSC, the Queen at it's 5 range and Widow Mines for defense basically stopped a lot of aggression in the early game and made it so that the game really didn't start until 10 minutes in. I used to joke every ZvP that I could cast the first 12 minutes blind-folded and that was scarily true. However, Blizzard themselves have noted they designed the games to be 15 minutes long, so my long time problem was that if you push the game to start at 10 minutes, but designed for it to be over at 15 minutes, what now? 5 minutes of action, and if that didn't happen you get into that super weird 200/200 army on both sides stalemate of baiting your opponent into hopefully putting their army in a dumb spot for half a second so that you would win in a second.
It was no fun to cast that for me. There was no engaging back and forth unless some really unique stuff was happening. Even though I think the beginning of HotS was the peak of all viewership, it just sucked to play and to cast and so I know thats when a lot of my peers who weren't getting the bigger gigs just left.
I liked reading the responses here. Someone put it perfectly, "SC2 is a game of too many checkmates." Army differences are exponential in power, not linear like what I noticed in SCBW. Everything navigates and shoots so perfect that a +10 army supply or +1 upgrade means you get literally slaughtered at every step of the way. Small missteps in any direction is a loss.
Anyway, thats what stopped me from casting the game. That and the production tab.
On July 27 2017 06:07 dignitas.merz wrote: 1. The game is a solo game and got outmatched by competitive team games.... I really dont think its more complicated than that. E-sports follow the same path as regular sports. Games who are team based, easy to learn but harder to master, will always be more popular. DOTA2, League of Legends, CS:GO are to e-sports what football is to sports. SC2 is like.. tennis? I guess.
to add to your point. RTS exploded in popularity during an era when it was impossible to get 10-12 people in a game with low latency. it was tough enough to get 2 people into a game with low latency.. never mind 10.
improving technology has slaughtered many genres.... its time to add RTS to the list.
i don't think it was "'wrecked'' it was massive for a few years and is still doing fine 7 years later. Blizzard could never get it quite right with balance and maps, disappointing and frustrating players far too often. Also lets not forget it took them awhile to even make a half decent ui with chat channels and good replay watching. BW forever!
The only problem with the 1v1 argument is Conor McGregor is about to make 7 figures for one fight in a 1v1 sport he has never competed in professionally merely because he's good a shit-talking.
So there are layers to everything.
Actually another problem is dyed-in-the-wool RTSs could still have 3v3s or 3v3v3v3s or what have you, so it can't just be that they're single player, because they don't have to be.
On July 27 2017 09:11 Ancestral wrote: The only problem with the 1v1 argument is Conor McGregor is about to make 7 figures for one fight in a 1v1 sport he has never competed in professionally merely because he's good a shit-talking. So there are layers to everything.
the entire UFC is worth billions less than the New York Yankees+Los Angeles Dodgers. There are still another 28 teams. This year's baseball attendance will be over 60 million. MLB is the #3 sport in the USA.
The pre queen patch WoL playerbase got to small T.T . There is no other Sc2.
For what wrecked Starcraft 2. I think Starcraft 2 did really well despite the negative inputs it got, thanks to the unfinished battle net (they scrapped battle net completely 1 year prior. I am happy they didnt store Sc2 for 2 more years because of it) and Kespa trying to sabotage the Korea release, because of money greed on both sides. It actually did so good, that people from other genres swooped in. Genres that were being kept interesting by constant changing of unit balance. And Blizzard decided to side with the camp that made more money heh. But really hard games and constant variable changing rarely go well together. Later some game time limitations came into the mix, because science ! At the end the game just catered to a rather "small" group. It would be a pretty big group actually. But they prefer to ruin team games, they play as if its a solo game !
On July 27 2017 09:11 Ancestral wrote: The only problem with the 1v1 argument is Conor McGregor is about to make 7 figures for one fight in a 1v1 sport he has never competed in professionally merely because he's good a shit-talking. So there are layers to everything.
the entire UFC is worth billions less than the New York Yankees+Los Angeles Dodgers. There are still another 28 teams. This year's baseball attendance will be over 60 million. MLB is the #3 sport in the USA.
How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
In the top 10 we have Four singleplayer sports. Boxing, tennis, athletics and formula 1. Since iam biased i wanna say that at #11 spot we had golf.
In the whole top 25, i counted 14 singleplayer sports. Those above + Horse racing, skiing, wrestling, table tennis, swimning, cycling, badminton, MOTO gp, MMA and golf. Up for debate weather some of these sports should be considdered teambased as well(such as 2v2 badminton). Frankly i know table tennis 1v1 is way more popular than 2v2, but for the other sports i dont really know.
Still with this list and if the site is correct, this whole "teambased games are the way to go" is pure bullshit.
Also this whole "subjective" bullshit as well. Not everything is subjective here, and arguments do still matter.
@SC2 So many things wrong with this game. The start is to slow, to much buildup. You fight yourself for several minutes. Fights vs fights are usually uninteresting, and when a player can micro its usually a one sided micro. The fights end to fast, and not possible to retreat mostly without receiving tons of damage.
Strategy is based upon building correct unit, unless you wanna go all-in or cheese, then those strategies we do see aswell. Tactics are used to little in a game like this. The unit interractions are worse than in broodwar when it should have been alot better.
Deathballs are just 100% not fitting in a game like this, when time is of the essence. Real Time Strategy.
Even so, i would be able to enjoy this game if units such as collosus were removed, and fights were more even in general, so the game felt liek a true macro vs macro war where your units counts even if you didnt build a "hardcounter" unit such as is the case in the game now.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box. Now, if Hal Steinbrenner hit lead off and played 2nd base we could make a comparison.
Baseball makes more money than boxing.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
And Mayweather makes more than baseball players do.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson.
none of this matters though because baseball draws much more revenue than boxing. and baseball is #3. the NBA and NFL make more than baseball.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson
Are you making the worst possible arguments as a joke?
Mark Cuban is really rich so let's use him as an example of how much basketball players make in an argument about how much athletes make.
Nice you made a one line comment ignoring the total destruction of your argument the posted link performed.
Social: Starcraft is mainly 1v1 and it is ok, but that doesn't mean you have to be alone. There has to be encouragement to socialize and a big part of coming home and play starcraft is to feel you belong to something. Like, Blizzard should make mandatory to belong to a clan and rank clans instead of players. Just an idea. But I know people who didn't play Starcraft anymore because of not being social at all.
Gameplay: This should not be an issue. SC2 and BW are different games and different ideas. If you like one, play it. Rules are different for every game, whether be SC, CSGO, LoL, esport, traditional sport.
RTS being unpopular: I really think MOBAs and Shooters are way more famous, there's also a lot of games in these generes, and I think this is the main issue. People need to get into the genere, but you can't revive a genere with just one game. You have to make it with a few of them. If we have the greatest RTS games ever(BW, WC3, SC2) why aren't we using that triad to gain crowd. There should be a Blizzard RTS mega tournament with the three major RTSs beforementioned, not a TL thread about which one is better. UNITY people.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson
Are you making the worst possible arguments as a joke?
Mark Cuban is really rich so let's use him as an example of how much basketball players make in an argument about how much athletes make. Nice you made a one line comment ignoring the total destruction of your argument the posted link performed.
you respond too fast. baseball makes more than boxing. participation and attendance and revenue in baseball events dwarfs boxing events.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
You are extremely wrong on F1... Most people side with teams and not the drivers. The team is not the 2 drivers. It's the entire team of mechanics and engeneers. Actually the 2 drivers have separate teams. It's a technological sport and without a good car even Schumacher can't win. Cycling is 100% team sport, too - talking about the road cycling that is. I don't know how it is in track. Otherwise that argument is dumb... The most popular sports are team sports. And that has nothing to do with SC2 and BW being not popular. They are not sports.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson
Are you making the worst possible arguments as a joke?
Mark Cuban is really rich so let's use him as an example of how much basketball players make in an argument about how much athletes make. Nice you made a one line comment ignoring the total destruction of your argument the posted link performed.
you respond too fast. baseball makes more than boxing. participation and attendance and revenue in baseball events dwarfs boxing events.
Show me the numbers. You haven't posted numbers supporting your arguments.
This has baseball above boxing, but there are still plenty of individual sports, and tennis is above baseball.
And note, *Brood War was a team sport* in the team leagues, even though the matches were 1 on 1. And there were 2v2s. AND if team games were more popular, they'd be played more and RTSs would be as big as MOBAs!
AND, the third game on that list is an individual or doubles game (like professional Brood War was).
All the evidence says the reason SC is so much smaller than the top games right now is NOT because of team vs. individual, because the gap is actually *too large.*
Finally, there are plenty of individual games that are single player beating individual games that are multiplayer. SCII beats Overwatch, for example, though that is surely going to change it seems.
It's not like the list is all multiplayer games first and then all single player games with no mixed results. All of this data, and any you will find, is only partial data.
But the bottom line is your one-dimensional explanation obviously doesn't cut it.
Is it actually wrecked? Still lots of tournaments, prize money.... However I do agree its not as good as it could be and its player base will keep diminishing.
The main reason is the design team simply didn't make the game fun for new players. Whether that be chat channels, easy to access arcade, ability to host own games, ease of play, maybe fairness of play (both SC2 and BW are hard, but SC2 you lose a lot more games where the lose seems arbitrary rather than being outplayed). The reason the golden age of BW lasted so long was that the pros kept being replaced by up and comers. We can see now in SC2 that there are hardly any new pro players, which is why the game seems stagnant. And the reason there are no new pro players is because Bliz didn't do a good enough job getting 12 year-olds hook on this game 5 years ago. I think it has little to do with certain patches or nerfs.... Sure a couple people will get annoyed and quit (this happens in a lot of games!), but if the game caters to new players these people will be replaced.
They should have made the game fun, before fair, before spectator friendly etc.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
You are extremely wrong on F1... Most people side with teams and not the drivers. The team is not the 2 drivers. It's the entire team of mechanics and engeneers. Actually the 2 drivers have separate teams. It's a technological sport and without a good car even Schumacher can't win. Cycling is 100% team sport, too - talking about the road cycling that is. I don't know how it is in track. Otherwise that argument is dumb... The most popular sports are team sports. And that has nothing to do with SC2 and BW being not popular. They are not sports.
They are, however, ESPORTS, and there are plenty of analogies to be made. You're absolutely right about the good cars, which is why fans of Alonso had a very low opinion of Ferrari (although they ironically got much better right when he left). People who are fans of teams are fans more because of where they are from, whereas the best competitors are popular across bounds. In cycling Italians definitely liked Liquigas, and Spaniards (especially Basques) liked Esukaltel-Euskadi.
I raced for my university for four years, I know cycling is a team sport, hence why I said "less of." However, equipment matters less in cycling because all the best companies are very equivalent. So Chris Froome could go anywhere with a big budget and still be a contender.
But, I actually agree with Jim Raynor on this one - ESPORTS are close enough to sports. And there are plenty of sports which are so passive in their physical requirements there's barely a difference. So the analogy is strong enough for an argument to be made one way or another.
The reason definitely includes both trends (MOBAs especially are popular) and the fact that Blizzard fucked up, a lot. All of the criticism of SCII in this thread is valid, and there are criticisms at the social features, balance, TOO MANY balance patches changing the metagame, the metagame itself, social features, just about everything. MOBAs would probably be winning now anyway but SCII did not do the best possible job of fulfilling BWs legacy.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson
Are you making the worst possible arguments as a joke?
Mark Cuban is really rich so let's use him as an example of how much basketball players make in an argument about how much athletes make. Nice you made a one line comment ignoring the total destruction of your argument the posted link performed.
you respond too fast. baseball makes more than boxing. participation and attendance and revenue in baseball events dwarfs boxing events.
Show me the numbers. You haven't posted numbers supporting your arguments.
This has baseball above boxing, but there are still plenty of individual sports, and tennis is above baseball.
And note, *Brood War was a team sport* in the team leagues, even though the matches were 1 on 1. And there were 2v2s. AND if team games were more popular, they'd be played more and RTSs would be as big as MOBAs!
AND, the third game on that list is an individual or doubles game (like professional Brood War was).
All the evidence says the reason SC is so much smaller than the top games right now is NOT because of team vs. individual, because the gap is actually *too large.*
Finally, there are plenty of individual games that are single player beating individual games that are multiplayer. SCII beats Overwatch, for example, though that is surely going to change it seems.
It's not like the list is all multiplayer games first and then all single player games with no mixed results. All of this data, and any you will find, is only partial data.
But the bottom line is your one-dimensional explanation obviously doesn't cut it.
tonight there are approximately 3000 pro baseball players playing in baseball games in the USA. of those 3000 more than 750 of them make a minimum of $0.5 Million per year. how many are playing NCAA baseball tonight under a full scholarship? thousands?
how many do you think are boxing tonight?
there are baseball fields all over the city and suburbs where i live. i can count on 1 hand the # of boxing clubs there are.
On July 27 2017 09:26 Ancestral wrote: How many Yankees players make as much per year as McGregor is making in this one fight? How many make more than Mayweather has averaged for his past 10? How many TOTAL baseball players make more than what Mayweather has averaged for his last 10?
Mayweather isn't a boxer. Mayweather is the head of a promotion company who happens to box.
On July 27 2017 09:46 Foxxan wrote: formula 1.
auto racing is a team sport. when u watch auto racing it is almost never 2 cars on the track.
Lmao one of the unarguable best boxers in history "isn't a boxer." Surely promotion is all that matters, so any two-bit fighter could easily make as much per fight as Mayweather...
Also, Mayweather is an idiot. He's rich despite his business savvy, not because of it. He has spent his whole life boxing, and he's good. That's why he's rich.
Also, F1 is less of a team sport than cycling. Two cars per team? You think that constitutes a team sport? Find an F1 fan who is a fan of a team rather than a driver...
You are extremely wrong. Although generally I adviser against such blatant wrongness, the fact that you're ignoring obvious evidence that your argument is weak and desperately looking for the most minute slivers within said evidence that could be maliciously misconstrued to support your argument indicates your a pro at this. So it's 13/25 instead of 14/25. Shows over folks, 1v1 sports are only 52% rather than 56% of the top 25! Nothing to see here.
and Mayweather is worth less than Hal Steinbrenner. Hal is a bigger idiot than Floyd. If Mayweather didn't own the promotion company he'd be in the same financial position as Mike Tyson
Are you making the worst possible arguments as a joke?
Mark Cuban is really rich so let's use him as an example of how much basketball players make in an argument about how much athletes make. Nice you made a one line comment ignoring the total destruction of your argument the posted link performed.
you respond too fast. baseball makes more than boxing. participation and attendance and revenue in baseball events dwarfs boxing events.
Show me the numbers. You haven't posted numbers supporting your arguments.
This has baseball above boxing, but there are still plenty of individual sports, and tennis is above baseball.
And note, *Brood War was a team sport* in the team leagues, even though the matches were 1 on 1. And there were 2v2s. AND if team games were more popular, they'd be played more and RTSs would be as big as MOBAs!
AND, the third game on that list is an individual or doubles game (like professional Brood War was).
All the evidence says the reason SC is so much smaller than the top games right now is NOT because of team vs. individual, because the gap is actually *too large.*
Finally, there are plenty of individual games that are single player beating individual games that are multiplayer. SCII beats Overwatch, for example, though that is surely going to change it seems.
It's not like the list is all multiplayer games first and then all single player games with no mixed results. All of this data, and any you will find, is only partial data.
But the bottom line is your one-dimensional explanation obviously doesn't cut it.
tonight there are approximately 3000 pro baseball players playing in baseball games in the USA. of those 3000 more than 750 of them make a minimum of $0.5 Million per year. how many are playing NCAA baseball tonight under a full scholarship? thousands?
how many do you think are boxing tonight?
At every boxing gym in the entire world (since you included NCAA, and note baseball teams tend to lose money, as do most NCAA sports periods outside of very successful teams)? A lot. How many people pay $150 a month to be in a boxing gym? See how many boxing gyms are in the nearest big city to you.
Baseball is big in two countries.
But it's all moot, because I'm not even arguing against "baseball is bigger." I just want to see numbers. Even my own link says baseball is bigger. It has Tennis above boxing, though. So again, the argument cannot be "team sports are necessarily bigger," because at least some individual sports are bigger than at least some team sports. And, the top lists are littered with individual sports.
The richest boxers are extremely rich, was what I started out saying, and it's true. And it's an important metric but not the only important metric.
Nor did you respond to any other part of the argument, especially (1) BW was a team sport at it's peak in that there was a team league, and (2) RTSs can be multiplayer. But 4v4 RTS is not bigger than 1v1. And, the technology is all there for 4v4 RTS.
I've only played WoL, so my opinions are probably way outdated.
But why I personally ended up quitting SC2 was that it was simply unfun and in some cases restricting. A lot of the new spells that Blizzard implemented ended up restricting micro instead of creating more interesting micro scenarios.
For example, back then the most used spells I remember were Force Field, Fungal Growth, and Concussive Shells, which would trap/slow your units to the point where they pretty much couldn't even move, let alone escape. This made the game extremely boring because once your unit got hit by that spell, it was just like, "well no point in microing it since I can't even move". For example, if your units got hit by Fungal Growth, it was pretty much a death sentence since they would just cast it again as soon as it wore off.
Compare the aforementioned spells to common Brood War spells like Plague, Stasis Field, or Irradiate. Even when plagued, your units can still move away and fight back. Even though Stasis Field stops your units from moving, they are invincible so the enemy can't kill them either. This allows for players to set up attacks and flanks at the right moment when stasis wears off. Even irradiate, which will inevitably kill any Zerg unit, gives Defilers enough time to consume to cast Dark Swarm or Plague. In Brood War's cases, the majority of spells still allow for micro and can create more exciting scenarios, rather than lock you down and just watch your units die.
Other things that killed SC2 for me were already touched on, such as Battlenet 0.2 being absolutely horrible in terms of a social experience and the custom map community.
I played SC2 casually for about a year with friends back in 2011-2012. It's a great casual game, but like most games, it gets old after a while. 2v2 was really fun, but even that mode eventually lost its charm. 1v1 was less entertaining to play (and has always been a snoozefest to watch) but for me it became unplayably repetitive and dull after about 1 month of playing (roughly the time it took me to get from not-knowing-anything-about-the-game gold league placement to master league, having played BW at a low level [D/D+ iccup]). Most of my friends, who were anywhere from bronze to master league, did not play the game for more than a year. To put it bluntly, people keep trying to hype SC2 up as a esport or timeless classic when it's really just an okay RTS taken by itself, and nothing more than that. You don't see people on message boards asking why Warcraft 3 or Age of Empires 3 aren't still big esports.
BW on the other hand is way too exhausting for me to want to play regularly with my low-ass apm and general gaming ability, but it will always be fun to watch. The game is simply much better suited as a spectator sport.
Lack of attention and balance patches from developers.
Aka 1.5 yrs of broodlord infestor, 1.5 yrs of swarmhosts, now LOTV which is all-in after all-in, and gimmick after gimmick. 12 worker start and economy had entirely adverse effects on the game.
12 worker start = short games like Command and Conquer + more build order wins/coin flips. Games get underway faster at the expense of you having no fucking clue if your opening build is getting mega hard countered by a proxy or random bullshit build from the opponent. By the time you scout their build and attack or all-in in LOTV it's already to your base with ZERO reaction time. You have to have already countered whatever it is they are doing or you lose.
In WOL/HOTS you had time to scout the all-in, and then another 30-45 seconds to prepare and react to the opponent. This created skill gameplay where the better player always will win. LOTV is not skill gameplay - it's coinflip / bullshit gameplay where a worse player can beat a better player through blind aggression.
To make the above point worse - removing 1500 mineral patches at each base again makes it so whoever blindly suicides units into worker lines and attack, attack, attacks gets the free advantage of expanding regardless if their attacks are stopped and held or not. This is terrible gameplay and allows worse players a chance to beat better players WHICH IS NOT HOW A SKILL GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
Now we get to balance patches again. They are non-existent since the game's inception. We have developers that for some reason refuse to fix things like adepts, swarmhosts, 8 armor ultras for almost 1+ yr at a time while these things completely ruin the game and dry up the player base that gets fed up with non-sense being in the game.
As of right now - swarmhosts, ravens, carriers, pylon cannon under the ramp, invincible nydus worms...are just a list of a FEW of the things that should require balance patches and are either ignored since LOTV launch or the devs simply do not care or acknowledge that they are issues at this point.
HOTS games lasted on average 25 minutes to 35 minutes i would say, for a very good macro game between two good players. This allowed viewers to open up a stream, and tune into the game most likely as it is getting underway or already is into the action.
LOTV games last on average 8-15 minutes, and often times end abruptly from the most random bullshit like adepts+WP or 10 workers getting murdered or a huge doom drop. This means a viewer that tunes into the game is already too late to watch the damn game. You open the stream and the game is either already over or a new one just started at the very beginning. The likelihood for you to open a stream and be already in the thick of things is just naturally less likely due to the average gamelength being artificially decreased by Blizzard entertainment. I still do not know why so few people acknowledge this or bring it up.
I remember getting 6000-7000 viewers on my stream during 3 hr swarmhost qualifier games. LONG GAMES BRING IN VIEWERS, SUSTAIN VIEWERS, AND ALLOW FOR PEOPLE TO TUNE INTO THE GAMES. WHY DO YOU THINK MOBA GAMES DO SO WELL? MOBA games on average last 25 minute to 45 minutes...JUST LIKE WOL/HOTS GAMES LASTED.
Region locking...this is a droplet of water in the pool compared to LACK OF BALANCE PATCHES/DESIGN patches and LACK OF ITERATION from Blizzard in regards to SC2. Arguments can be made for or against region locking, and peopel can argue what it's impacts had or didn't have from doing or not doing it. At the end of the day it does not matter if the core gameplay of the game we all know and love is dogshit from imbalance like mass infestors or swarmhosts.
The community of SC2, the SJW types, are also responsible for SC2's decline because these fucks out there won't ever acknowledge the issues that SC2 has in any meaningful type of discussion. These are the people on reddit, forums everywhere, even some here on TL - that try to stifle any discussion related to SC2 balance or design and immediately start to spout the:
"It's a perfect balanced game, stop saying stuff is imbalanced, nothing needs to change, our game is great."
No it's not. It's not 2011. It's 2017 and there are currently swarmhosts in the game that entirely negate mech play. There are carriers that have no counter when lategame is reached. There are hydra/bane buffs that pushed Zerg over the edge in the most recent patches. There is 3 rax reaper that has been busted since LOTV launch.
When myself or other people try to bring these things up there's either a vocal amount of people that always say "the game is fine" and don't want to push Blizzard to balance patch.
Meanwhile, LoL is getting a balance patch every 2weeks/month and massive content patches bi-weekly.
Skins were requested 3+ yrs ago by now? I still remember the post Destiny made on the SC2 reddit essentially listing a lot of stuff Blizzard could do to make SC2 grow more. And here we are today, years later finally some things are implemented.
But anyways, there's a lot i'm missing probably. But tbh none of it matters at all other than one thing as i said: BALANCE / DESIGN PATCHES. Until this happens on a consistent basis, SC2 will never grow again, and the game is indeed pretty dead and we'll stay at around the level we're at. Which maybe some people are OK with, but honestly i'd like to SC2 rise again to where it belongs.
I don't think we should be asking "what wrecked SC2?" but rather "why was it ever an esport to begin with?". I think the main reasons are:
1) marketing on the part of Blizzard (a big, famous game company) 2) non-Korean former BW players/casters/websites (as well as lower level Korean BW players) finally being able "make it" in some iteration of StarCraft that's superficially similar to BW 3) fans who care what country a player is from finally having a chance to root for non-Koreans 4) players/viewers who have never actually played and watched BW and thus don't realize how superfluous SC2 progaming is
A few people have said there are too many balance patches. Other people have said the balance patches are too frequent, i.e. Broodwar really grew after the last balance patch.
Some people say SC2 isn't more popular because it's harder than MOBAs. Some people are saying it's because it's less mechanically demanding than BW.
Obviously the two pairs above are mutually exclusive, but regardless there are obviously problems. It could be that the patches are just the wrong patches, and like others have said, force certain playstyles rather than allowing map-makers and players come up with them.
But people pretty consistently say it's "too random," as in, too many BO losses, too many hard counters, balanced on a razors edge the whole time where one mistake costs the game. That's definitely the impression I've gotten. The winrates are obviously not balanced but BW went through several such periods.
The tone was set by the announcement of two full price expansions before the Beta was even released. Cash was the priority. More important than gameplay. More important than esports. More important than players. And here we are.
On July 26 2017 21:00 vaL4r wrote: Thorin had this to say:
"Part of why I think SC2 died out is because people don't, in general, find it fun to grind relatively hard 1v1 games for hours every night. In contrast, even the most difficult MOBA is still fairly fun and there's a lot of variety to be found in changing up the variable of your team-mates.
I also do think that very hard games don't really have a place in modern esports. That has overwhelmingly been the trend over the history of esports and shows no signs of halting. Those who bill SC2, Dota2 or CS:GO as really hard games are fooling themselves or simply don't know enough about the games of the past.
Esports is like if Chess had been a breakout sport and then someone had cynically figured out that if you make it less difficult and turn it into checkers then more people will be interested in playing and watching. Then someone brought out Monopoly and beat out both and cornered the market."
I disagree entirely with thorin here. You can't corner a gaming market with simplicity. If that was true Checkers would be more popular than Chess. If that was true Tic Tac Toe would be more popular than Checkers. That makes no sense. A gaming market is beat out by what brings you to want to play a game: FUN.
The MAIN reason sc2 died was lack of fun, not because it's too hard. Be it the UMS fuck up, the HUGE rts flaws with the normal game, the massive failure that was the story line, the unexciting spells, uhg, I could go on. People were not enjoying themselves.
Blizzard made a game that looks very nice. But forgot what made RTS's fun in the first place.
Well, ESPORTS aside phone games are very popular, so simplicity does sell. But people also casually play civilization, which is more complex at least as far as the extent of techs, decisions, etc.
This has been discussed to death but I admit I have only played WoL, and the biggest reason why I quit was that the units were uninteresting and not fun to me. I think the unit design of sc1 is incredible. That's all ^^
Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
On July 27 2017 10:50 Sigrun wrote: I've only played WoL, so my opinions are probably way outdated.
But why I personally ended up quitting SC2 was that it was simply unfun and in some cases restricting. A lot of the new spells that Blizzard implemented ended up restricting micro instead of creating more interesting micro scenarios.
For example, back then the most used spells I remember were Force Field, Fungal Growth, and Concussive Shells, which would trap/slow your units to the point where they pretty much couldn't even move, let alone escape. This made the game extremely boring because once your unit got hit by that spell, it was just like, "well no point in microing it since I can't even move". For example, if your units got hit by Fungal Growth, it was pretty much a death sentence since they would just cast it again as soon as it wore off.
Compare the aforementioned spells to common Brood War spells like Plague, Stasis Field, or Irradiate. Even when plagued, your units can still move away and fight back. Even though Stasis Field stops your units from moving, they are invincible so the enemy can't kill them either. This allows for players to set up attacks and flanks at the right moment when stasis wears off. Even irradiate, which will inevitably kill any Zerg unit, gives Defilers enough time to consume to cast Dark Swarm or Plague. In Brood War's cases, the majority of spells still allow for micro and can create more exciting scenarios, rather than lock you down and just watch your units die.
Well, there's literally a lockdown spell in Brood War. But it only affects one unit per shot. Perhaps more irritating is maelstrom, which will freeze all biological units for a short period of time. Ensnare is another great spell to consider, because it slows down movement AND rate-of-fire, which in some cases, can render the ensnared units nearly hopeless to attempt to micro. So it does exist in Brood War, but it's not like that mothership vortex that eats everything up. rmbr that?
A couple of people share the same opinion as me: sc2 is just not fun, and I truly believe this is why it did not reach its potential and I think all other arguments are almost irrelevant. I only played WOL so it might be different now, but in a nutshell the game felt like an unstable equilibrium where even the slightest advantage quickly snowballs and abruptly ends the game. BW on the other hand feels like a tug of war combined with a slugfest. I think the biggest mistake was in unit design. Some of you made some great points that I agree with: anti-micro spells (how can you micro vs forcefields, fungal growth... compare this to dark swarm + psionic storm), lack of defenders advantage (in bw units inherently had defenders advantage, think lurkers, siege tanks, stronger static defense. Also cliff advantage), and certain mechanics stopped retreating (concussion shells, blink stalkers, super fast zerglings) . I could elaborate more but i'm too lazy. It feels like the unit design team didn't think with any depth at all (thanks Dustin Browder).
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
Actually, the rule on this forum is "Don't start a game vs. game flame war". I'm not sure why this thread is open. I know why it got started, though.
People want to change Brood War to accommodate them. These people are like 30ish-something dudes who think to themselves, "I'm really, really smart about strategy. I understand the game really well, and could be a god if there wasn't this stupid mechanics barrier." so they say Brood War's interface is outdated and demand stupid bullshit like multiple building selection be implemented into Brood War. When the forum inevitably rejects them, they cry about "Brood War elitism" every goddamn time because we generally don't even budge on little things. For example, to test the water, they go "HEY LET'S REDUCE SCOUTS BY 25 MINERALZ TO MAKE THEM VIABLE. WHAT DO YOU THINK FAM? ISN'T THAT IDEA GANGSTER AS FUCK?" and we're like "What? No." because that idea is garbage. If someone wants cheaper scouts, then they can make a custom map in StarEdit like the noob they are because true map-maker gosus use Scmdraft. But no, they get all huffy and want to push their shitty ideas on EVERYONE, because they got this idea in their heads that if they whine on this third-party forum hard enough, it's somehow going to influence Activision Blizzard because their genius idea could snowball and get featured on reddit's /fuckinghorribleideas/ forum. Then, in their imaginary reality full of free bacon and blowjobs, Blizzard's lead developers will call a staff meeting on a fucking weekend, and the guy in charge will be like, "Listen up, folks. I want you to clear your schedules and drop every project you're working on currently. I want you to go right into your cubicle and use your arms to slide everything off right onto the goddamn floor as a metaphor for having cleared your mind. You wanna know why? Because a friend sent me a Glarb + Show Spoiler +
It's a holographic telepathic social media thing from the year 2021
that said 'hey sup check this link out pppl be talkin' and linked me to this post that got almost four-thousand likes and it's about making the Scout from StarCraft: BroodWar cost 25 minerals less than it currently does, and he did all these charts and graphs and thought the whole idea all the way through for us, so I say we give the fans what they want, and change the entire game right now. Make it so. Engage. All crews reporting."
Then that fantasy-bubble gets popped by the Spiked Dildo of Ultimate Truth which says "hey ur idea suck" and they get all periody and go, "You all are a bunch of fucking elitists because I make a suggestion for one tiny little itty bitty change that is literally smaller than my tiny microscopic penis that is literally negative inches long, or negative centimeters, for all the world who isn't part of America." and this is because it starts with these "little" changes, and then before you know it, they're asking for MBS, infinite unit control, and a big red button that plays the game for then while they eat doritos and think about what a fucking Brood War god they are.
So no, I absolutely do not care that you like SC2 more than Brood War, and I'm glad you enjoy your game. May it live long and prosper. No, SC2 is not "dead" or "wrecked" or "ded" or "rekt" or "shrekt" or anything like that. The game has a huge multiplayer scene after 7 years, and it's still going. Very few other games can claim that. You can still go on SC2, click "find match" and get a game easily.
So no no no, the reason people make threads like this is not to bash SC2, but is to beg the question, "Shouldn't we learn from SC2's demise so that Brood War won't also die?" which, again, uses the faulty premise that SC2 is "gone". This has two purposes:
1. Circlejerk; so someone from the old school can argue in favor of something a majority of people are already in favor of, which isn't to change anything but the graphics.
2. To lure people into raging about BW elitism, so essentially, trolling SC2 people.
Both happened, so congratulations. I have cancer now.
On July 27 2017 15:19 Gak2 wrote: A couple of people share the same opinion as me: sc2 is just not fun, and I truly believe this is why it did not reach its potential and I think all other arguments are almost irrelevant. I only played WOL so it might be different now, but in a nutshell the game felt like an unstable equilibrium where even the slightest advantage quickly snowballs and abruptly ends the game. BW on the other hand feels like a tug of war combined with a slugfest. I think the biggest mistake was in unit design. Some of you made some great points that I agree with: anti-micro spells (how can you micro vs forcefields, fungal growth... compare this to dark swarm + psionic storm), lack of defenders advantage (in bw units inherently had defenders advantage, think lurkers, siege tanks, stronger static defense. Also cliff advantage), and certain mechanics stopped retreating (concussion shells, blink stalkers, super fast zerglings) . I could elaborate more but i'm too lazy. It feels like the unit design team didn't think with any depth at all (thanks Dustin Browder).
I think the changes were actually all deliberate that way and achieved what they wanted -
No defenders advantage means that games were more centered around aggression, which I remember their saying they wanted.
Starting with 6 or now 12 workers means the "boring early game" gets cut out (even though there's plenty of strategic diversity in the early game).
Effectiveness of early game harass was increased so there was "action right from the start," because apparently planning, warming up, etc. are bad but action is good.
More spells and macro mechanics in order that have something to do with your APM now that so much more is automated and control groups are unlimited in size.
But the faster paced and increased aggression were things that no one I know ever complained about... I literally never heard anyone say "God the beginning of the game is so slow and boring," at least not competitive players. Blizz must have looked at fastest map possible and thought "people are playing this, so we need to inject it in some form into the competitive scene."
But Brood War was already stressful, and the faster opening and increased aggression made SC2 even MORE stressful. BW was hard enough that 1-2 minutes in the beginning of each game where you're not focusing on a million different things wasn't bad.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I haven't finished reading all the responses yet, but so far they have been very insightful. Thanks everyone. I am glad to have found this community. Lots of smart and insightful ppl!
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
5 stages of grief. He is at bargaining i.e. telling everyone the SC2 situation isnt bad.
Aka 1.5 yrs of broodlord infestor, 1.5 yrs of swarmhosts, now LOTV which is all-in after all-in, and gimmick after gimmick. 12 worker start and economy had entirely adverse effects on the game.
Uh huh, uh huh.
12 worker start = short games like Command and Conquer + more build order wins/coin flips. Games get underway faster at the expense of you having no fucking clue if your opening build is getting mega hard countered by a proxy or random bullshit build from the opponent. By the time you scout their build and attack or all-in in LOTV it's already to your base with ZERO reaction time. You have to have already countered whatever it is they are doing or you lose.
Mhm, mhm.
In WOL/HOTS you had time to scout the all-in, and then another 30-45 seconds to prepare and react to the opponent. This created skill gameplay where the better player always will win. LOTV is not skill gameplay - it's coinflip / bullshit gameplay where a worse player can beat a better player through blind aggression.
Gotcha.
To make the above point worse - removing 1500 mineral patches at each base again makes it so whoever blindly suicides units into worker lines and attack, attack, attacks gets the free advantage of expanding regardless if their attacks are stopped and held or not. This is terrible gameplay and allows worse players a chance to beat better players WHICH IS NOT HOW A SKILL GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
Yeah, removing 1500 minerals is stupid but have you tasted garlic bread? which 'skill games' have you played that you've been successful in? Because there's this one game called "Poker" and maybe you've heard of it, but it's a skill game that is based on risk management. People who git gud at Poker make millions of dollars, and in fact, one of those successful Poker players who made millions of dollars played StarCraft: Brood War.
Now we get to balance patches again. They are non-existent since the game's inception. We have developers that for some reason refuse to fix things like adepts, swarmhosts, 8 armor ultras for almost 1+ yr at a time while these things completely ruin the game and dry up the player base that gets fed up with non-sense being in the game.
THEN PLAY A DIFFERENT FUCKING GAME. Holy mother of shit, why would you play a game that you sincerely believe is fundamentally broken? You're acting like the game is your baby or your dog, and Russian gangsters are trying to kill your dog and steal your car.
As for balance patches, I can't even count how many fucking balance patches they've released, which is precisely why I don't play SC2 anymore. Ever.
As of right now - swarmhosts, ravens, carriers, pylon cannon under the ramp, invincible nydus worms...are just a list of a FEW of the things that should require balance patches and are either ignored since LOTV launch or the devs simply do not care or acknowledge that they are issues at this point.
HOTS games lasted on average 25 minutes to 35 minutes i would say, for a very good macro game between two good players. This allowed viewers to open up a stream, and tune into the game most likely as it is getting underway or already is into the action.
LOTV games last on average 8-15 minutes, and often times end abruptly from the most random bullshit like adepts+WP or 10 workers getting murdered or a huge doom drop. This means a viewer that tunes into the game is already too late to watch the damn game. You open the stream and the game is either already over or a new one just started at the very beginning. The likelihood for you to open a stream and be already in the thick of things is just naturally less likely due to the average gamelength being artificially decreased by Blizzard entertainment. I still do not know why so few people acknowledge this or bring it up.
blah blah blah
Sounds like personal issues.
I remember getting 6000-7000 viewers on my stream during 3 hr swarmhost qualifier games. LONG GAMES BRING IN VIEWERS, SUSTAIN VIEWERS, AND ALLOW FOR PEOPLE TO TUNE INTO THE GAMES. WHY DO YOU THINK MOBA GAMES DO SO WELL? MOBA games on average last 25 minute to 45 minutes...JUST LIKE WOL/HOTS GAMES LASTED.
Too much causation vs. correlation fallacy here. The average game-time in WoL was around 15 minutes, and yet, the viewer counts for streamers and professional tournaments were higher than during the HotS era. Because this directly contradicts your point here, you will curl up into a shell of denial and anger, because once again, you show that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You're not a game designer, and you have no idea what makes a game popular. It has more to do with marketing than actual game content. That's why Angry Birds became the biggest game in North America and even got turned into a major motion picture.
Region locking...this is a droplet of water in the pool compared to LACK OF BALANCE PATCHES/DESIGN patches and LACK OF ITERATION from Blizzard in regards to SC2. Arguments can be made for or against region locking, and peopel can argue what it's impacts had or didn't have from doing or not doing it. At the end of the day it does not matter if the core gameplay of the game we all know and love is dogshit from imbalance like mass infestors or swarmhosts.
The opposite is more likely to be true. Blizzard should have implemented less balance patches, but they seem like they over-correct constantly.
The community of SC2, the SJW types
What the fuck does "social justice" have to do with this? That's a fucking useless pejorative, unlikely to lend any sort of legitimacy to your argument because "EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS AN SJW" is some tired shit.
, are also responsible for SC2's decline because these fucks out there won't ever acknowledge the issues that SC2 has in any meaningful type of discussion. These are the people on reddit, forums everywhere, even some here on TL - that try to stifle any discussion related to SC2 balance or design and immediately start to spout the:
"It's a perfect balanced game, stop saying stuff is imbalanced, nothing needs to change, our game is great."
Dare I ask why...
No it's not. It's not 2011. It's 2017 and there are currently swarmhosts in the game that entirely negate mech play.
So finally it comes out. The real fucking reason. Because it hurts your feelings, because your goddamn limp-dick mech-play doesn't win games, and now you're so stuck in your ways that you can't bring yourself to consider playing with a unit composition that actually wins games. Nope. It's gotta be the goddamn mech because... reasons? I mean, mech is like... anti-strategy. You just sit there and slowly move shit forward. I mean, if it was good enough for WORLD WAR ONE, it's good enough for StarCraft Too. But THEN, when a Zerg does the same shit -- makes a unit where they can just sit there and do a war of attrition -- with swarmhosts, you shit your fucking pants over it. Another thing that gets me is that when you sit there in a fixed position, you essentially forfeit offense to your opponent, which means they have to decide when and where and how to attack, but THEN, get mad when they do something smart like a drop. Why would they not do a drop? Why would they just attack into your strongest defenses? Do you not understand human psychology? It's just remarkable how you continuously tout this obtuse play style and yet fail to understand the limitations that it puts on you, so you blame the game itself for being counter-productive to your wins.
Just... don't come to Brood War. You're going to get stomped so hard over here, then blame it on the game. I already know every excuse you're going to make before you even make them. "This map is bullshit", "They did a bullshit all-in", "They're stream-sniping", "There are definitely maphacks in Brood War now", "Stupid units won't listen to my commands", "Stupid game is bullshit", "There too much lag", "The pathing in this game is so retarded it makes me not even want to play.", then you throw your stupid backwards hat at the webcam. You know how I know? Not because you're a predictable person, but because virtually everyone experiences this shit. I've said all of these things. And you know what? I didn't have a good attitude, but at least I try to change it and not blame anything outside of myself. You do the exact opposite and double-down on blaming everything but yourself, and that's why people make fun of you.
But anyways, there's a lot i'm missing probably. But tbh none of it matters at all other than one thing as i said: BALANCE / DESIGN PATCHES. Until this happens on a consistent basis, SC2 will never grow again, and the game is indeed pretty dead and we'll stay at around the level we're at. Which maybe some people are OK with, but honestly i'd like to SC2 rise again to where it belongs.
No, they need to get it right and then stop fucking with it.
My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ... I actually bought broodwar 3 weeks ahead of the sc2 release, played it a little but didn't touch it again until mid 2011.
There was huge hype surrounding sc2, watched every esport tournament and played a good amount. Even is my little town in east germany we had public viewing at one point^^ I stopped playing by april 2011, its was not fun anymore but kept watching sc2 esports until 2014/2015.
What made me sick were most of these maps like steps of war, lost temple (blizzards attempt to design maps ... slag pits anyone?) http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Slag_Pits close spawn and others with short rush distance. I felt "cheated" by protoss, just not fun to play against blink stalker all in (yes more bullshit was possible) thanks to chrono boost/ at the time 5 rax reaper all in and others. You had to identify these builds very fast or its just that gg, games end in a matter seconds ... its stressful and not fun. My problem was not balance but the units/design in general.
Last hope was blizzcon 2011, saw the units presented and was disappointed. - removal of custom bnet ui (Kpop for example) by early 2011 - took blizzard until 2013 april to implement a simple button into the launcher "watch MLG" yes thats how slow these guys work!
--- I followed the discussion broodwar vs sc2 at the time, decided to watch some bw (wcg2010 flash vs jaedong casted by apollo) and it was love at first sight. Followed the last last osl/spl and still love the game to this day
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
Chances to watch esports back then in Germany were very slim, the only TV show I can think of that might have covered something like this was GIGA.
LoL and other popular games might've had an effect on it. I lost interest after WoL. I was more into playing Minecraft and LoL at the time. Of course now I'm all about watching BW games again. Loving the ASL.
similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
This differentiation between players only becomes more apparent the more mechanical skill becomes scarce in players. if you watch two C level zerg players play on iccup, you'll see WILDLY different playstyles because they have such different takes on how to win the game (and different skillsets to apply those understandings of the game). This just makes bw really really volatile and fun to play at lower levels, because despite what people say games from D to B aren't all cheese or macro, there is definitely a large variation of weird ass playstyles made possible only by mechanical scarcity.
In sc2, i think the most true statement that i have heard is this: "the most fun anyone has in SC2 is in bronze," which i agree with. in bronze, everyone is still experiencing mechanical scarcity and as a result the builds are still wild and you can still win with different strategies. once you start moving up the ladder, people start thinking that strategy matters less because they'll do wild builds and get crushed by standard openers, which is a result of the strength of inexpensive defense in sc2 (salvageable bunkers, movable sunkens/queens, forcefield, etc) and the strength of macro that is normal in all of rts (more units = win lol). but in broodwar, that macro kicks in slower as you rise up the ranks because it takes so much more knowledge and finese to play perfectly, so weird strategies remain potent for a long time because low level macro players still make a lot of mistakes and get thrown off their game by rushes. so the bronze level honeymoon phase just doesn't really end until probably like E on fish and B or A on iccup, because macro players just aren't that comfortable in broodwar like they are on sc2.
This has two implications: the first being that it screws over low to mid level players when the easier macro is meant to HELP those players, and the second being that it artificially accelerates the development of meta strategies since the game is relatively more dependent on strategy since there is literally no mechanical barrier past 200 or 250 apm.
Silver to masters level players suffer since they're thrown into the situations that previously only like jaedong, flash, savior, effort, july, bisu, stork etc had to face: what do i do when i hit a player with mechanical perfection? You have to start REALLY caring about strategy and meta and timings, instead of just playing the game and waving your micro or macro dick around and crushing noobs in your own personal way. JD might be able to mess around vs a B level fish player, but when flash is in form you can be sure that he is spending his time developing/practicing specific builds to kill him, because he knows that he can't rely on his player skill alone. This aspect of fun being taken away really kills the scene and promotes ladder anxiety and the idea that "the game is fun to watch but shitty to play."
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
i won't comment on the state of the game past like WOL beta and or half of the way through WOL because it quickly became apparent back then that the game wasn't worth playing to me because the dev team didn't get it, but the lack of social features that WC3 and broodwar had was absolutely comical. also, shitting on BW's scene right after the matchfixing scandal to pave the way for sc2's scene didn't warm many hearts.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and they didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
The question that was being asked is why is SC2 dying. I gave the correct answer. Is it special? Not really, it isn't, most games and most TV shows and most products die. It's special in the fact that I happen to like SC2 and I don't like that it's dying because of you, but that's on me. There is some amount of "specialness" in the fact that generally when people don't like a product, they tend to move on and go to other products rather than whine for years on end about how the product is bad on a fansite where so many "fans" agree with them that I end up being the toxic opinion, and thus facilitate its death. But again it's not that special, it can easily be explained.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
The question that was being asked is why is SC2 dying. I gave the correct answer. Is it special? Not really, it isn't, most games and most TV shows and most products die. It's special in the fact that I happen to like SC2 and I don't like that it's dying because of you, but that's on me. There is some amount of "specialness" in the fact that generally when people don't like a product, they tend to move on and go to other products rather than whine for years on end about how the product is bad on a fansite where so many "fans" agree with them that I end up being the toxic opinion, and thus facilitate its death. But again it's not that special, it can easily be explained.
People who actually couldn't stand sc2 at all moved on, that's the reason we don't have the same player- and viewerbase of a few years back anymore. You exaggerate the issue a lot, yes there is discussion about the game and there are critical voices for sure. But again, that happens in every other community as well. Noone is ever happy 100% with the product and when a lot of people meet on a discussion forum, well things will be discussed. If you want everyone to leave who would change things with the game then you might have a problem tbh. BW is the exception here, most communities don't pretend their game is the work of god
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
The question that was being asked is why is SC2 dying. I gave the correct answer. Is it special? Not really, it isn't, most games and most TV shows and most products die. It's special in the fact that I happen to like SC2 and I don't like that it's dying because of you, but that's on me. There is some amount of "specialness" in the fact that generally when people don't like a product, they tend to move on and go to other products rather than whine for years on end about how the product is bad on a fansite where so many "fans" agree with them that I end up being the toxic opinion, and thus facilitate its death. But again it's not that special, it can easily be explained.
People who actually couldn't stand sc2 at all moved on, that's the reason we don't have the same player- and viewerbase of a few years back anymore. You exaggerate the issue a lot, yes there is discussion about the game and there are critical voices for sure. But again, that happens in every other community as well. Noone is ever happy 100% with the product and when a lot of people meet on a discussion forum, well things will be discussed. If you want everyone to leave who would change things with the game then you might have a problem tbh. BW is the exception here, most communities don't pretend their game is the work of god
I've been on this forum long enough and been disgusted by it often enough to not just accept your claim that I'm exaggerating about it. And it's by far the best forum associated with SC2.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
The question that was being asked is why is SC2 dying. I gave the correct answer. Is it special? Not really, it isn't, most games and most TV shows and most products die. It's special in the fact that I happen to like SC2 and I don't like that it's dying because of you, but that's on me. There is some amount of "specialness" in the fact that generally when people don't like a product, they tend to move on and go to other products rather than whine for years on end about how the product is bad on a fansite where so many "fans" agree with them that I end up being the toxic opinion, and thus facilitate its death. But again it's not that special, it can easily be explained.
People who actually couldn't stand sc2 at all moved on, that's the reason we don't have the same player- and viewerbase of a few years back anymore. You exaggerate the issue a lot, yes there is discussion about the game and there are critical voices for sure. But again, that happens in every other community as well. Noone is ever happy 100% with the product and when a lot of people meet on a discussion forum, well things will be discussed. If you want everyone to leave who would change things with the game then you might have a problem tbh. BW is the exception here, most communities don't pretend their game is the work of god
I've been on this forum long enough and been disgusted by it often enough to not just accept your claim that I'm exaggerating about it. And it's by far the best forum associated with SC2.
So you are extremely unhappy with the product (this forum; the people here) but still didn't move on?
Srsly though i think you are exaggerating. Are you part of other communities as well? The csgo community for example regularly has threads dedicated to how bad valve is at developing the game, etc. It really doesn't matter in the big picture. What does matter is if enough people have enough fun playing the game. "Enough" is obviously highly subjective here. In sc2's case sc2unmasked says there are about 80k 1vs1 ladder players atm. I am one of those and still would like to change the game. It's simply the best option i have atm for my 1vs1 rts experience.
In the end sc2 has to compete against every other game out there because every consumer only has so much time to spend on his gaming/entertainment. Some people would rather use their time to play csgo, lol, dota2, or any other game there is. The perceived quality matters, not if some forum poster is critical about the game from time to time.
Ninas reply to avilo is oddly satisfying. Probably because its nice to see that BW players wont put up with his shit and because she is right. Avilo should stay in the sc2 community and continue spreading his cancerous poison there instead of here.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
I am not sure what your point is, yes ofc people "kill" the game when they don't like it enough. I just told you that this isn't specific to the starcraft community though. It happens everywhere. Angry/disappointed customers complain about the product because they perceive there is a problem with it. It's a result, not the cause. You saying the starcraft community is somewhat special here seems absurd. YOu know what happened with lol? A lot of angry/disappointed dota people did the same things, it didn't matter though because there were just as many (if not more) people simply not giving a fuck about the negativity because they genuinely enjoyed league of legends. There also are people who genuinely enjoy sc2, but it's still fair to say that a lot of people did not and left because of that. Not because of people arguing on forums, that's sucha shitty excuse.
The question that was being asked is why is SC2 dying. I gave the correct answer. Is it special? Not really, it isn't, most games and most TV shows and most products die. It's special in the fact that I happen to like SC2 and I don't like that it's dying because of you, but that's on me. There is some amount of "specialness" in the fact that generally when people don't like a product, they tend to move on and go to other products rather than whine for years on end about how the product is bad on a fansite where so many "fans" agree with them that I end up being the toxic opinion, and thus facilitate its death. But again it's not that special, it can easily be explained.
People who actually couldn't stand sc2 at all moved on, that's the reason we don't have the same player- and viewerbase of a few years back anymore. You exaggerate the issue a lot, yes there is discussion about the game and there are critical voices for sure. But again, that happens in every other community as well. Noone is ever happy 100% with the product and when a lot of people meet on a discussion forum, well things will be discussed. If you want everyone to leave who would change things with the game then you might have a problem tbh. BW is the exception here, most communities don't pretend their game is the work of god
I've been on this forum long enough and been disgusted by it often enough to not just accept your claim that I'm exaggerating about it. And it's by far the best forum associated with SC2.
So you are extremely unhappy with the product (this forum; the people here) but still didn't move on?
Your criticism is valid, I should move on from this community and the fact that I can't is something that I dislike about myself. Whenever I start watching SC2 again, I get enthusiastic and I come back here. I'd rather I didn't. I'm not always acting rationally.
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
I mean it was just a tease but at the end of the day you have to decide if you get enough pleasure out of it for you to be worth it. Personally i think no matter what gaming community you look at, you will always see lots of negativity. It's true for the big ones as well (dota, lol, csgo, etc).
On July 27 2017 23:42 The_Red_Viper wrote: I mean it was just a tease but at the end of the day you have to decide if you get enough pleasure out of it for you to be worth it. Personally i think no matter what gaming community you look at, you will always see lots of negativity. It's true for the big ones as well (dota, lol, csgo, etc).
And in a few years when dota will die people will be asking why and wondering if it was that nerf or that buff. But it'll be because the negative voices have overtaken the others. It'll be the case then and it's the case now.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
Wait, no! Just... No! That the winrate was at 20% in a matchup and that the players later on figured out the matchup WITHOUT a balance patch and brought it back to close to 50% is the OPPOSITE of a problem. It speaks just to how well-designed the game is.
Sometimes something isn't as imbalanced as it seems and jumping the gun with a million patches is just going to take away the joy of figuring the game out from the players.
I think the #1 reason SC2 wasn't successful is because it wasn't fun to play.
First example: force fields. It's an anti-fun mechanic. Once a force field is down and you don't have anything to break it, you can just get up from your computer. There is no counter-micro. They added a counter to it for Zerg, but that doesn't make it fun. That just means you click to counter it and now force fields are useless instead.
Second example: fungal growth. Another anti-fun mechanic. You can't do anything except let your units sit there and be fungalled again. And again until they die. Might as well leave the game when the first one gets your mutas. At least in BW when you get ensnared they still have to kill your units and you can actually still decide to slowly run away to a cliff. The subtle genius of design of ensnare means that it's a pretty bad and situational spell. If it was actually used every game, it would be very frustrating to play against.
Third example: stalker blink. Because fuck balance. Let's give Protoss incredibly weak units, but make them have a huge ability that lets them ignore cliffs and keep units alive almost indefinitely.
Fourth example: parasitic bomb. The unit has INFINITE energy because it can suck energy out of structures. Then it casts fucking irradiate on air units over and over again because again, it has infinite energy. At least plague doesn't kill and irradiate is limited by vessel mana. It just makes you never want to build air units again.
these abilities are just cancer
Although the SC2 marine is probably the most cancerous of all since your army literally just disappears in seconds. Can't really micro when everything instantly dies.
So why is the brood war marine not as scary? Because they have 40 hp, don't stack into a tight little ball and have to be microed 12 units at a time. Not to mention they can't stutter step because they have to turn around to run backwards.
Banelings available at tier 1 are also annoying in ZvZ - Zerg can't wall their ramp so it's just retardation. Every other race can just put layers and layers of buildings early on to prevent baneling busts as they happen. A zerg player can see banelings already morphing and just start to count down the moment to the time when he has to split his workers.
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
nah i disagree, i think the game is mechanically simplistic and it is reflected in the lack of variation in games/builds/play styles compared to all level of broodwar, although maybe there's variation in the foreigner scene because i have overestimated the current scene's ability to play at a competitive level. mechanically bad players doesn't excuse the fact that any C level iccup player could macro perfectly under any conditions in sc2.
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Maybe, just maybe. The problems that you listed in BW are not the kind of problems that drain the fun out of it and alienates an audience? I mean BW never alientated its audience because of those problems. In fact it remained relevant for 20 years.
All problems aren't equal you know.
The fact of the matter is that Brood War built modern E-sports and is relevant to this day. While SC2 could never really convert the core BW audience and is fading away, especially in Korea. When you say that the game is dying because of negative voices you're putting the blame on the players and the community, which is ridiculous. The responisbility lies on the game, not the other way around.
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
nah i disagree, i think the game is mechanically simplistic and it is reflected in the lack of variation in games/builds/play styles compared to all level of broodwar, although maybe there's variation in the foreigner scene because i have overestimated the current scene's ability to play at a competitive level. mechanically bad players doesn't excuse the fact that any C level iccup player could macro perfectly under any conditions in sc2.
I'm a C level zerg on iccup, but I can't inject or creep spread in SC2 because those are bullshit repetitive tasks that need to just be practiced. They don't really offer any choice. They're like sending workers to mine in brood war. It's just extra APM you have to spend. The fact that they PUT THAT IN TO MAKE YOU DO REPETITIVE SHIT is what really makes me angry.
At least Terran or Protoss mechanics offer you a choice. With Zerg, you just set up some tumors and inject most of the time. Maybe make an extra queen and tumor up some more.
Speaking of macro mechanics, mules are stupid af. Let's let a race suicide SCVs and get a bigger army because god forbid you have to spend supply to mine minerals.
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.
I wasn't talking about him specifically for voicing criticism, I was talking about the sc2 community. It's trash. It's the main reason why the game isn't doing well.
Anything, regardless of quality, will be destroyed by its own fanbase deciding to be dicks about it.
Two or three years ago I came across someone who was tired of BW, they made a post on TL about how it was boring and he didn't like Flash, I don't remember the specifics. The community jumped on him, defended its game. This is what is supposed to happen on a fan site.
Any fan site where "Is the game that we are supposed to be fans of complete shit?" is a recurring discussion and where you are called toxic for not appreciating this discussion will not lead to a healthy future for the subject of said site.
Sorry but if anything this behavior is a result of there being (perceived) problems with the game. This also happens in every community ever, go to the big subreddits and you will see threads complaining about the game, the developer, etc. That's just how things go and as long as it's somewhat constructive that's also how it should be. If the developer reacts and actually understands what the majority of the community wants, that's another issue.
WIth that being said, i still stand to my first statement that starcraft "got wrecked" (well it obviously didn't die or anything that extreme) because there is actual competition right now. Competition the more casual audience would rather play. The same will happen to SC:R in korea as well, young people play OW and LoL there.
The fact that there are problems within a game isn't enough. Broodwar has units that literally can't be controlled accurately, dragoons. That is what we call, objectively, a problem. They created a legend of autumn protoss schematically cause protoss couldn't win in normal conditions and so in autumn they put favorable maps for protoss in the map pool and a protoss would win the competition off of that. That's a problem. I'm pretty sure I remember reading about periods where a race would be at 20% winrate against another and no patch would come. That's a problem.
Problems don't kill a game on their own. You do.
Wait, no! Just... No! That the winrate was at 20% in a matchup and that the players later on figured out the matchup WITHOUT a balance patch and brought it back to close to 50% is the OPPOSITE of a problem. It speaks just to how well-designed the game is.
Sometimes something isn't as imbalanced as it seems and jumping the gun with a million patches is just going to take away the joy of figuring the game out from the players.
And during this time the players of the unfortunate race make 40% of the money they should be making in a match-up. That is a problem. You also don't know for a fact that the problem will be fixed when it's happening, cause if you did, you would know how and it would be fixed already. So the manifestation of a game that is just 80% imbalanced and has no issue is the same as the manifestation of a game that is 80% imbalanced by the meta and will be corrected in a few years.
But your reaction is the healthy one, you see what can be perceived as a problem and you defend the game. That's what a fan community should be doing.
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
Chances to watch esports back then in Germany were very slim, the only TV show I can think of that might have covered something like this was GIGA.
GIGA was a channel, not a show. And yes, they broadcasted games every week. Popular ones such as Warcraft 3 obviously had more games shown (Wednesday, Friday, often Saturday). There was also GIGA 2 but since it was only a stream and I had a crappy connection at the time, I never bothered.
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Maybe, just maybe. The problems that you listed in BW are not the kind of problems that drain the fun out of it and alienates an audience? I mean BW never alientated its audience because of those problems. In fact it remained relevant for 20 years.
All problems aren't equal you know.
SC2 community can't stand a 45-55 imbalance and thinks the game is dying because Blizzard is shit and don't listen to the community if it lasts for a month. BW community stands a 80-20 imbalance for longer periods and defends it.
Maybe, just maybe it's not the size of the problems that is important, but how you react to them?
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Well i am stating that in the end the only thing that really matters is if the audience has (enough) fun with the game. If not then the audience will criticize it. People who extremely unhappy will move on, other people will stay because it's still worth their time, etc. This is a spectrum, i am sure there is nobody who can say he is 100% happy with any product. I am still not quite sure if you are suggesting that the criticism of the game itself makes other people leave who wouldn't otherwise (cause) or if you are simply stating that unhappy people mean that the game loses players (reaction; also quite obvious) I don't know enough about the history of the bw community, but i would assume that back then there also were a lot of balance whiners, etc. Right now the active core treats bw like the word of god though.
I mentioned other communities like csgo, dota2 and lol because there people also make angry posts about the game. I really don't think this is special to sc2, which is why i say you are exaggerating.
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Maybe, just maybe. The problems that you listed in BW are not the kind of problems that drain the fun out of it and alienates an audience? I mean BW never alientated its audience because of those problems. In fact it remained relevant for 20 years.
All problems aren't equal you know.
SC2 community can't stand a 45-55 imbalance and thinks the game is dying because Blizzard is shit and don't listen to the community if it lasts for a month. BW community stands a 80-20 imbalance for longer periods and defends it.
Maybe, just maybe it's not the size of the problems that is important, but how you react to them?
I think the part of my post that you decided to leave out answers that
When you say that the game is dying because of negative voices you're putting the blame on the players and the community, which is ridiculous. The responisbility lies on the game, not the other way around.
It's the game that bears the responsibility. I think Blizzard releasing too many balance patches and conditioning the audience into expecting new updates everytime a winrate changes is what's to blame here.
If BW still had an 80-20 imbalance, nobody would have defended it.
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Maybe, just maybe. The problems that you listed in BW are not the kind of problems that drain the fun out of it and alienates an audience? I mean BW never alientated its audience because of those problems. In fact it remained relevant for 20 years.
All problems aren't equal you know.
SC2 community can't stand a 45-55 imbalance and thinks the game is dying because Blizzard is shit and don't listen to the community if it lasts for a month. BW community stands a 80-20 imbalance for longer periods and defends it.
Maybe, just maybe it's not the size of the problems that is important, but how you react to them?
I think the part of my post that you decided to leave out answers that
When you say that the game is dying because of negative voices you're putting the blame on the players and the community, which is ridiculous. The responisbility lies on the game, not the other way around.
It's the game that bears the responsibility. I think Blizzard releasing too many balance patches and conditioning the audience into expecting new updates everytime a winrate changes is what's to blame here.
If BW still had an 80-20 imbalance, nobody would have defended it.
I have higher expectations for human beings than you do. I don't think "releasing too many patches" is a sufficient factor to go "oh well obviously they are conditioned now it's not their fault". Yeah, it's their fault. They shouldn't be reacting this way.
When BW has an imbalance, the community starts to play maps that have a different win rate in those match-ups or comes up with new maps to fix those imbalances.
It used to be that Fighting Spirit was considered a balanced map, but recently Terrans have been dominating on it because of its turtly nature, so Circuit Breaker became the new standard map.
Now, this also made it harder for Protoss players vs. Zerg, so ASL 3 is going to have new maps. We'll see how Protoss players do vs. Zerg and how Zerg does vs. Terran. Historically TvP has been the closest to 50% matchup, so it's usually not a point of emphasis when it comes to balance.
i would add that SC2 Skill ceiling isn't that high because of MBS, unlimited unit selection, very intelligent units, smartcasting, etc. which give us more randomize results. In broodwar you have to train hard, and be very good at your mechanics to have good macro, you have to train a lot to have great micro skills, and so on in order to get the edge over your opponent, it's what separates casuals, from experienced players, or amateurs from professionals, while in SC2 even a novice player can have decent macro or micro thanks to those automatic features to macro and micro
On July 28 2017 00:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: You think it's a cause, i think it's a reaction. The outcome is obviously the same. (unhappy people who might leave sooner or later)
When you say it's a reaction it seems to imply that there's a root cause x (problems in the game) that inevitably leads to y (community being shit). I used the example of problems in BW to show that it's not the case. If you didn't mean the inevitable part, then sure it's a reaction, but that's not really an interesting point to make cause I would then argue it's a bad reaction.
Well i am stating that in the end the only thing that really matters is if the audience has (enough) fun with the game. If not then the audience will criticize it. People who extremely unhappy will move on, other people will stay because it's still worth their time, etc. This is a spectrum, i am sure there is nobody who can say he is 100% happy with any product. I am still not quite sure if you are suggesting that the criticism of the game itself makes other people leave who wouldn't otherwise (cause) or if you are simply stating that unhappy people mean that the game loses players (reaction; also quite obvious) I don't know enough about the history of the bw community, but i would assume that back then there also were a lot of balance whiners, etc. Right now the active core treats bw like the word of god though.
I mentioned other communities like csgo, dota2 and lol because there people also make angry posts about the game. I really don't think this is special to sc2, which is why i say you are exaggerating.
Can you imagine any way a positive community could improve the fun you have with a game and a negative community could decrease it?
Let's go play poker. I'm going to stand next to you and every time a coinflip happens, I'm going to tell you how this game is so dumb cause you have to take these and you only win 50% and any dumbass can win a flip.
Alternative hypothesis, I'm next to you and I speak enthusiastically about constructing ranges and creating a strategy that helps you reduce the luck factor in the game and outskill your opponents using the exact same tools they have.
Do you think any of these scenarios can influence the fun you'll have with poker?
Btw, there has never been a (prolonged) period of 80-20 imbalance in any matchup, not even 60-40 ( just check out ogn-mbc yearly statistics). But yeah, balance works differently in BW as iopq explains.
On July 28 2017 01:01 MymSlorm wrote: i would add that SC2 Skill ceiling isn't that high because of MBS, unlimited unit selection, very intelligent units, smartcasting, etc. which give us more randomize results. In broodwar you have to train hard, and be very good at your mechanics to have good macro, you have to train a lot to have great micro skills, and so on in order to get the edge over your opponent, it's what separates casuals, from experienced players, or amateurs from professionals, while in SC2 even a novice player can have decent macro or micro thanks to those automatic features to macro and micro
But this simply wrong on so many levels, unless you suddenly redefine a novice as high master/gm player. I recently played at ~5k mmr and in now way did I ever saw a game where somebody came close to player perfect.
Also lol at the argument that any C lvl player can have perfect macro games. Even most of the top pro's in the current scene can't, and that includes most ex-kespa players. And I don't even know how many pros had "perfect games" on multiple occasions.
Gameplay rewarding doomstacking way too much. Lack of stabilized metagame. Units killing each other way too fast. Multiplayer beeing less exiting that BW (for Koreans) Dark ages for RTS
And besides that: Ultra retarded story in single player
On July 28 2017 01:01 MymSlorm wrote: i would add that SC2 Skill ceiling isn't that high because of MBS, unlimited unit selection, very intelligent units, smartcasting, etc. which give us more randomize results. In broodwar you have to train hard, and be very good at your mechanics to have good macro, you have to train a lot to have great micro skills, and so on in order to get the edge over your opponent, it's what separates casuals, from experienced players, or amateurs from professionals, while in SC2 even a novice player can have decent macro or micro thanks to those automatic features to macro and micro
But this simply wrong on so many levels, unless you suddenly redefine a novice as high master/gm player. I recently played at ~5k mmr and in now way did I ever saw a game where somebody came close to player perfect.
Also lol at the argument that any C lvl player can have perfect macro games. Even most of the top pro's in the current scene can't, and that includes most ex-kespa players. And I don't even know how many pros had "perfect games" on multiple occasions.
I don't think MBS or unlimited unit selection or smartcasting is synonymous with "low skill ceiling" in RTS at all, BW would still be rly hard with these and the skill ceiling is never purely mechanical imo in a good RTS. In SC2 I guess if you play Z, there is a high mechanical skill ceiling there. It's probably harder to manage your queens and production than it is in bw in a mechanical way, but not at all in a decision making way. It depends on the rest of the parameters, if the micro and macro is complex you'd still have a high skill ceiling with more efficient controls. I played P in SC2 (wol), it's true that the mechanical (and decision making) skill ceiling was pretty low, both macro and micro (way too low to keep my interest). But it seemed different for Z? (mechanical skill ceiling higher for macro, lot higher than P however rather dumb too so I mostly didn't want to play Z at all lol, tedious) anyway I don't feel like MBS or unlimited selection or smartcasting is bad, for example with smartcasting, look at how units move and how templars cast (everything kinda instantaneous and fluid). Imagine playing bw with smartcasting, you'd still want to be careful and measured and accurate with your storming, more than in SC2, and the skill ceiling would still be high imo. So basically, I think if the base mechanics of the game are good (give depth, etc), then making controls more efficient doesn't hurt a rts.
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
Chances to watch esports back then in Germany were very slim, the only TV show I can think of that might have covered something like this was GIGA.
GIGA was a channel, not a show. And yes, they broadcasted games every week. Popular ones such as Warcraft 3 obviously had more games shown (Wednesday, Friday, often Saturday). There was also GIGA 2 but since it was only a stream and I had a crappy connection at the time, I never bothered.
Wasn't GIGA just a weekly show on NBC Europe initially?
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
TBH I totally agree with you. That is why the old school BW gamers freaked out when they started doing pressure to implement H.O.T.K.E.Y.S. influencing the game to be more like SC2.
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.
I guess Stats and INnoVation (who openly admitted they enjoy sc2 more) just didn't play BW enough to understand it.
Outliers, who cares about outliers. Just look at the number of BW streamers in the right column if you want to know the opinion of the vast majority of RTS pros.
People need to stop bashing each other's games and just provide their own subjective opinion about why they personally stopped playing and stop trying to bring forth a unifying theory why sc2 is not as popular as it could be.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Lol "educate" BW fans, you are nothing but toxic in the BW forums, maybe just go and post in your beloved game forum, I dont think that SC2 is dead or something like that, but it failed big about being the succesor of BW, anyway, waiting for you in another BW forum thread to "educate" BW fans.
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
Chances to watch esports back then in Germany were very slim, the only TV show I can think of that might have covered something like this was GIGA.
GIGA was a channel, not a show. And yes, they broadcasted games every week. Popular ones such as Warcraft 3 obviously had more games shown (Wednesday, Friday, often Saturday). There was also GIGA 2 but since it was only a stream and I had a crappy connection at the time, I never bothered.
Wasn't GIGA just a weekly show on NBC Europe initially?
Initially, it was only a segment. But nevertheless, it's not like it was that short (5 hours every day).
Also, I found a video of Grand Slam III in 2004, live from the Games Convention. Games: Need for Speed: Underground, BW (Mondragon vs Hexer[pG] btw), FIFA 2004, Warcraft 3 TFT, Counterstrike 1.6 and UT 2004.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Lol "educate" BW fans, you are nothing but toxic in the BW forums, maybe just go and post in your beloved game forum, I dont think that SC2 is dead or something like that, but it failed big about being the succesor of BW, anyway, waiting for you in another BW forum thread to "educate" BW fans.
But since most BW players don't care to venture into SC2 forums, how would we ever hear the wise regurgitations of opisska if he didn't descend from his high horse to deliver them to us personally? How would he ever have the opportunity to educate us on why our time-tested opinion that the game is inferior is wrong? Sorry, your argument makes no sense here ):
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
What he says is not true but he has a point. Obv in sc2 there are huge differences in terms of macro (Inno's macro for example is much better than Gumiho's) but ONLY if there's a lot of action happening on the map and the players have to divide their attention/apm on multiple things. When there's nothing happening on the map pretty much all good players have the same macro and even mid-master players can hit the same timings as top pros.
I personally prefer this aspect about sc2. You don't get automatically ahead by having good mscro and instead you have to "force" macro mistakes out of your opponent to get a lead. SC2 is a lot more interactive in that way.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Lol "educate" BW fans, you are nothing but toxic in the BW forums, maybe just go and post in your beloved game forum, I dont think that SC2 is dead or something like that, but it failed big about being the succesor of BW, anyway, waiting for you in another BW forum thread to "educate" BW fans.
But since most BW players don't care to venture into SC2 forums, how would we ever hear the wise regurgitations of opisska if he didn't descend from his high horse to deliver them to us personally? How would he ever have the opportunity to educate us on why our time-tested opinion that the game is inferior is wrong? Sorry, your argument makes no sense here ):
He never said that the opinion that sc2 is inferior is wrong. He just said it's not a fact - which is a fact
On July 27 2017 16:50 ionONE wrote: My first starcraft game was sc2, saw it advertised in late 2009. I was always a huge RTS fan, starting with dune 2000 and Age of Empires in 1998 but somehow didnt know starcraft/broodwar was a thing ...
Damn, why didn't you watch Brood War on TV? It was there, along with CS 1.6, Fifa, Warcraft 3 and the like.
Chances to watch esports back then in Germany were very slim, the only TV show I can think of that might have covered something like this was GIGA.
GIGA was a channel, not a show. And yes, they broadcasted games every week. Popular ones such as Warcraft 3 obviously had more games shown (Wednesday, Friday, often Saturday). There was also GIGA 2 but since it was only a stream and I had a crappy connection at the time, I never bothered.
Wasn't GIGA just a weekly show on NBC Europe initially?
Initially, it was only a segment. But nevertheless, it's not like it was that short (5 hours every day).
Also, I found a video of Grand Slam III in 2004, live from the Games Convention. Games: Need for Speed: Underground, BW (Mondragon vs Hexer[pG] btw), FIFA 2004, Warcraft 3 TFT, Counterstrike 1.6 and UT 2004.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Lol "educate" BW fans, you are nothing but toxic in the BW forums, maybe just go and post in your beloved game forum, I dont think that SC2 is dead or something like that, but it failed big about being the succesor of BW, anyway, waiting for you in another BW forum thread to "educate" BW fans.
Oh please let him educate us with his clearly superior intellect. We here are simply too narrow-minded and too into nostalgia to see past our hatred for SC2.
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
What he says is not true but he has a point. Obv in sc2 there are huge differences in terms of macro (Inno's macro for example is much better than Gumiho's) but ONLY if there's a lot of action happening on the map and the players have to divide their attention/apm on multiple things. When there's nothing happening on the map pretty much all good players have the same macro and even mid-master players can hit the same timings as top pros.
I personally prefer this aspect about sc2. You don't get automatically ahead by having good mscro and instead you have to "force" macro mistakes out of your opponent to get a lead. SC2 is a lot more interactive in that way.
I like how some people turn an absolute clear bad aspect of a game into something which is supposedly making it a better game.
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.
I guess Stats and INnoVation (who openly admitted they enjoy sc2 more) just didn't play BW enough to understand it.
Outliers, who cares about outliers. Just look at the number of BW streamers in the right column if you want to know the opinion of the vast majority of RTS pros.
But you can also say that those streamers are outliers and have a large financial intensive to do so, it also has a big selection bias applied to it.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Lol "educate" BW fans, you are nothing but toxic in the BW forums, maybe just go and post in your beloved game forum, I dont think that SC2 is dead or something like that, but it failed big about being the succesor of BW, anyway, waiting for you in another BW forum thread to "educate" BW fans.
Oh please let him educate us with his clearly superior intellect. We here are simply too narrow-minded and too into nostalgia to see past our hatred for SC2.
On July 27 2017 20:48 Endymion wrote: similar to the arguments against allowing hotkey rebinding in bw, i just don't think that there was enough mechanical stress in the game, so every single game above a certain level started becoming exactly the same game. what i mean is, since it was so easy to macro perfectly like flash, if you took every terran above like C- on iccup or F on fish and put them on sc2, they would never miss a single step with macro, scvs, depots, mules, etc. so every game was mechanically playing like flash, which is cool for a while maybe, but it gets boring after a while since there is no variation between players. in broodwar the game is so difficult mechanically that there's a "scarcity of mechanical skill," and players actively have to make the decision to either macro or micro more, and they choose whatever avenue is more effective on a w/l% for them personally, since it wasn't a cut and dry decision most of the time. what this results in for pro players is you get players like jaedong and julyzerg who both have very different playstyles, both of which are still effective at a pro level, given their different outlook on the game and their different idiosyncratic skillsets.
at a GM or pro level it sucks even more because literally all of your time better be spent studying strats, because your mechanical skill at the game is irrelevant since everyone is a mechanical god past GM. it also means that literally every player is the same and they're all doing the same strats, unless they're playing at a distinct disadvantage or doing something stupid. So imo, it hurts ALL aspects of the scene despite being intended to help the new players.
This is just not true at all...even the best pros miss macro steps in SC2. Where do you get the idea that everyone could easily master SC2 mechanically? It's complete bullshit. And pros have many distinct playstyles. Bly is not Scarlett who is not Nerchio who is not Elazer. All foreign zergs, all different playstyles.
What he says is not true but he has a point. Obv in sc2 there are huge differences in terms of macro (Inno's macro for example is much better than Gumiho's) but ONLY if there's a lot of action happening on the map and the players have to divide their attention/apm on multiple things. When there's nothing happening on the map pretty much all good players have the same macro and even mid-master players can hit the same timings as top pros.
I personally prefer this aspect about sc2. You don't get automatically ahead by having good mscro and instead you have to "force" macro mistakes out of your opponent to get a lead. SC2 is a lot more interactive in that way.
I like how some people turn an absolute clear bad aspect of a game into something which is supposedly making it a better game.
You cannot just say something is "clearly bad". That doesn't mean anything. There are pros and cons to any design decision, it just depends on what you want to achieve and what your biggest priorities are.
On July 27 2017 11:11 avilo wrote: Lack of attention and balance patches from developers.
Aka 1.5 yrs of broodlord infestor, 1.5 yrs of swarmhosts, now LOTV which is all-in after all-in, and gimmick after gimmick. 12 worker start and economy had entirely adverse effects on the game.
12 worker start = short games like Command and Conquer + more build order wins/coin flips. Games get underway faster at the expense of you having no fucking clue if your opening build is getting mega hard countered by a proxy or random bullshit build from the opponent. By the time you scout their build and attack or all-in in LOTV it's already to your base with ZERO reaction time. You have to have already countered whatever it is they are doing or you lose.
In WOL/HOTS you had time to scout the all-in, and then another 30-45 seconds to prepare and react to the opponent. This created skill gameplay where the better player always will win. LOTV is not skill gameplay - it's coinflip / bullshit gameplay where a worse player can beat a better player through blind aggression.
To make the above point worse - removing 1500 mineral patches at each base again makes it so whoever blindly suicides units into worker lines and attack, attack, attacks gets the free advantage of expanding regardless if their attacks are stopped and held or not. This is terrible gameplay and allows worse players a chance to beat better players WHICH IS NOT HOW A SKILL GAME IS SUPPOSED TO BE.
Now we get to balance patches again. They are non-existent since the game's inception. We have developers that for some reason refuse to fix things like adepts, swarmhosts, 8 armor ultras for almost 1+ yr at a time while these things completely ruin the game and dry up the player base that gets fed up with non-sense being in the game.
As of right now - swarmhosts, ravens, carriers, pylon cannon under the ramp, invincible nydus worms...are just a list of a FEW of the things that should require balance patches and are either ignored since LOTV launch or the devs simply do not care or acknowledge that they are issues at this point.
HOTS games lasted on average 25 minutes to 35 minutes i would say, for a very good macro game between two good players. This allowed viewers to open up a stream, and tune into the game most likely as it is getting underway or already is into the action.
LOTV games last on average 8-15 minutes, and often times end abruptly from the most random bullshit like adepts+WP or 10 workers getting murdered or a huge doom drop. This means a viewer that tunes into the game is already too late to watch the damn game. You open the stream and the game is either already over or a new one just started at the very beginning. The likelihood for you to open a stream and be already in the thick of things is just naturally less likely due to the average gamelength being artificially decreased by Blizzard entertainment. I still do not know why so few people acknowledge this or bring it up.
I remember getting 6000-7000 viewers on my stream during 3 hr swarmhost qualifier games. LONG GAMES BRING IN VIEWERS, SUSTAIN VIEWERS, AND ALLOW FOR PEOPLE TO TUNE INTO THE GAMES. WHY DO YOU THINK MOBA GAMES DO SO WELL? MOBA games on average last 25 minute to 45 minutes...JUST LIKE WOL/HOTS GAMES LASTED.
Region locking...this is a droplet of water in the pool compared to LACK OF BALANCE PATCHES/DESIGN patches and LACK OF ITERATION from Blizzard in regards to SC2. Arguments can be made for or against region locking, and peopel can argue what it's impacts had or didn't have from doing or not doing it. At the end of the day it does not matter if the core gameplay of the game we all know and love is dogshit from imbalance like mass infestors or swarmhosts.
The community of SC2, the SJW types, are also responsible for SC2's decline because these fucks out there won't ever acknowledge the issues that SC2 has in any meaningful type of discussion. These are the people on reddit, forums everywhere, even some here on TL - that try to stifle any discussion related to SC2 balance or design and immediately start to spout the:
"It's a perfect balanced game, stop saying stuff is imbalanced, nothing needs to change, our game is great."
No it's not. It's not 2011. It's 2017 and there are currently swarmhosts in the game that entirely negate mech play. There are carriers that have no counter when lategame is reached. There are hydra/bane buffs that pushed Zerg over the edge in the most recent patches. There is 3 rax reaper that has been busted since LOTV launch.
When myself or other people try to bring these things up there's either a vocal amount of people that always say "the game is fine" and don't want to push Blizzard to balance patch.
Meanwhile, LoL is getting a balance patch every 2weeks/month and massive content patches bi-weekly.
Skins were requested 3+ yrs ago by now? I still remember the post Destiny made on the SC2 reddit essentially listing a lot of stuff Blizzard could do to make SC2 grow more. And here we are today, years later finally some things are implemented.
But anyways, there's a lot i'm missing probably. But tbh none of it matters at all other than one thing as i said: BALANCE / DESIGN PATCHES. Until this happens on a consistent basis, SC2 will never grow again, and the game is indeed pretty dead and we'll stay at around the level we're at. Which maybe some people are OK with, but honestly i'd like to SC2 rise again to where it belongs.
what wrecked SC2 was when WoL was released, it was a soulless game with no chat mode, all those B.Net chat features came too late and many people didn't want to buy HotS thinking they were paying for the same game again.
But the real killer was no LAN mode, a lot of tournaments had issues when B.Net would go down, it hurt a lot of communities.
Reading some of the thread i figured out the answer. Way too many and at the same time no reason at all.
People here mentioned a huge list of different ways the game went "wrong", thus, clearly, everyone has their personal reasons to not like the game too much but those are not what went wrong for everyone, or the majority or any significant part of the player base.
There are some objective reasons why the game was not a big commercial hit, but actual gameplay flaws? Just a big list personal reasons. "game is too hard" and "game is too easy" at the same time.
Seriously, you can point out a big list of flaws in Sc2 and BW, some of them may not be too subjective. But in the end what is important for one is not for another. What ruined the game for you may be good for someone else.
And for god sake, no game is superior. This is a very bold claim. Bad pathfinding in BW is a terrible problem for some people, but others enjoy it. It comes with an obvious objective flaw and subtle objective qualities. In the end, pick whatever floats your boat, the final qualitative judgement is purely subjective.
So, my most important point is that some guys are mixing up the lack of commercial success with their own reasons to dislike (or like) the game.
On July 28 2017 06:55 Superbanana wrote: Bad pathfinding in BW is a terrible problem for some people, but others enjoy it.
I don't think anyone "enjoys" bad pathfinding. It's just that there is always some arbitrary level of mechanical demand that must be met, and BWs seems quite optimal for a highly competitive game.
In basketball, it is the laws of physics that every player has to contend with. We could design smart-balls with neural nets and thrusters that self-correct so your passes always get to the intended target. The fact that we don't want that doesn't mean players "enjoy it" when their passes get intercepted.
I was hyped as all hell when I saw the early trailers for SC2. The gameplay footage was awesome at the time too.
I guess the first thing that made me go "wait what?" was then Blizzard first had put up the webpage that was introducing the three races. There was a developer story about how the protoss players did early pressure with zealots in PvT, and they thought it was too hard to deal with so they introduced marauders with the concussive shell ability. And my reaction to it was something like "But wait? Early game micro like that is fun, why did they remove it?"
I was still hyped though, and got even more hyped when me and my friends were in Jönköping at Dreamhack Winter (2008 or 2009 I believe) and I got to play SC2. I even managed to win a competition to get an SC2 beta key despite being mechanically not that great at Starcraft. I still use the mousepad that I won there too. And the beta was fun as hell.
I was super hyped when SC2 released and I even got the collector's edition because I wanted to support my favourite game series of all time. And I played SC2 pretty regularly for about a year. It was great. I had just started university and lots of people in my class played it. When I was a university freshman and just getting to know the people there, being around so many people that played a new Starcraft game after having grown up on BW is probably what I remember the most fondly about SC2.
But after that, the flaws of the game crept up on me and I just... lost interest. I stopped playing WoL and went back to BW long before HoTS released.
First off, I just couldn't stand playing vs terrans. I'm a micro player in Brood War. Mostly because I'm not good at macro and mostly because I think micro is where all the fun is at. And all of a sudden my early game fun is ruined by these marauders whose concussive shells just invalidate everything i liked to do. I run into the terran army and I lose control of my units instantly and then I either win or lose the fight with no input from me. Well... that was fun, GG.
Second, I hated the story soo much. Brood War really built up the player's hatred for Kerrigan. I mean that ending when she killed Fenix and Raynor swore to kill her was an awesome setup for the player getting revenge on her. Raynor really, really meant it in that Brood War mission. And then what's the first thing that happens in SC2? "Hey Raynor we know how to make your girlfriend human again with magic!" "Cool let's do that!!" And then the prophecy and all that nonsense. Everything was a personal story, in an RTS. Which just doesn't work. Almost nothing was a story about the universe or the factions. Except maybe in LotV with the protoss but by then I'd long since stopped playing.
I also realized that the non-spell micro was pointless. At first I thought that they really proritized micro because I loved controlling the blink stalkers and the forcefield guys, and the anti-gravity of the phoenixes. But I slowly realized that there wasn't really anything else to control. Yeah, some units had spells, but that was pretty much it. When you tried to micro basic units it just made them less efficient because of the pathing. You couldn't turn zealots into MANlots a-la Reach or muta micro or anything else to give you an edge.
Many new unit designs were just not fun for me. I already mentioned what I hated about the marauder. I liked the collossi first, but after a while of only A-moving them I started wishing I had reavers in shuttles instead. Some units were basically only designed to be harrassers that could kill your entire worker line, wich was just not interesting. Broodlords were cool though.
As for the easier macro. I actually liked MBS and all that stuff. They felt like sensible evolutions of the interface. Yeah they may reduce the skill ceiling APM wise, but it's my honest opinion that if SC2's fundamentals would have been designed so that unit control mattered more then there would be other things to sink APM into. I don't like the macro mechanics though. I remember when the communtiy asked for more things to do macro wise and Blizzard introduced the macro mechanics. I liked it at first but they just became stressful extra things that you have to do to compete.
I also didn't like that their matchmaking didn't let me play against totally random opponents. I mean I liked climbing the leagues, but it got stressful after too many games. In WC3's matchmaking you never knew if you'd get ROFLstomped or if you'd school somebody or if it would be an even epic game. That uncertainty made it interesting and more relaxing. And I wish I could have had such a way of playing besides the leagues.
Also the races stopped feeling distinct. My protoss infantry stopped being high-tech but expensive badasses that despite their dwindling numbers could take one foes more numerous than themselves and still win. Instead, protoss infantry felt like overpriced Zerg units. Terran infantry with their beefy marauders started feeling like how protoss infantry should have felt like. Tanky and powerful.While Zerg stopped feeling numerous and expendable because of their tanky roaches. Zerg also stopped feeling like zerg because of how limited their early game aggression was. I'm the monster race damnit, let me rush people.
But the thing that killed it the most for me was probably the hard counters. They sucked more fun out of the game than everything else I listed combined.
In Brood War if I messed up and built too many dragoons, I could still micro them vs zerglings and get some value out of them, and maybe win. In SC2 everything is a hard counter. If you go in with the wrong units, your army is gone in 0.3 seconds. No micro can ever save you. Void rays vs marines? GG. Zergligns vs hellions? GG Zealots vs Marines/Marauders? GG. It's just not fun when every unit interaction consists of ripping another kind of units to shreds in five nanoseconds. It feels more like rock paper scissors than an RTS. Yeah having counters is fine. But having "I went this unit so now your army is gone" type of counters just makes it unplayable to me. I like trying to get my troops though tough situations and this makes it impossible.
So that's why I think I lost interest. It's a shame really because I keep thinking about what could have happened if we had a game that could actually be a real successor to BW. It could have been a new exciting era, but instead it turned into a dark age for me. With the BW pro scene I loved gone and a successor I just couldn't bring myself to play or watch anymore.
Thinking about it makes me so happy that BW bounced back. I hope it never dies again.
MBS, unlimited unit selection, death blobs, and to some extent just unit design period. A lot of the units had a finite realistic capacity. Banelings are functionally only capable of killing so much; a lurker could kill a thousand marines in bw if your not looking. Couldnt do small degrees of skirmishes because the economics of the game didnt allow for much expanding [and army blobbing/pathing/unlimited selection means your attention isnt diverted in the same way late game, as in bw], but also because the macro features skewed results just generally. Going one base in bw and doing a bit of harass, forcing the game into low economy, thats viable. SC2 you just had to all in. I played the game and got fairly good, top masters. Half the time there simply wasnt anything to do. Spread creep just to keep yourself busy, quickly double check how many workers you have, do some larve injects...and then run your blob into their blob, more or less.
Hell even most of those things were simplified with later patches. For an RTS game to be good it needs guerrilla warfare, harassment, low economy and high economy games, all ins but also simply aggressive builds that hinge on micro, etc. 2 rax in tvz was fairly abusive for a while in 2010, so what happened? Buff queens, cut out close spawns, increase map size, patch rax timing to be slower etc, until 2 rax was comparatively useless. When queens can just fend off microable rushes you have a bad game.
Protoss were horribly designed. When you allow for immediate reinforcements at pylons, one of two things happen: The protoss army either crushes you, or, because its weaker [in order to make up for that very reinforcement potential], you crush them. Stupid.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
What if he's actually Mike Morhaime?
If Opisska is Mike Morhaime, then we're all doomed.
If I were a hardcore sc2 fan, the title of this thread would definitely affect me in some way, too. But it's undeniable that the sc2 scene is indeed shrinking in terms of twitch viewership from my own personal observation (whatever that means).
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
What if he's actually Mike Morhaime?
If Opisska is Mike Morhaime, then we're all doomed.
Mike Morhaime seems pretty passionate about SC2, if he ever had a secret account on TL, I'm pretty sure he'd been already permabanned after repeatedly telling SC2-haters to go fuck themselves. I am sure I wouldn't be able to stay civil here if I was personally invested in SC2.
On July 28 2017 08:12 eviltomahawk wrote: Does this kind of thread really need to exist for the thousandth time?
Exactly my thoughts as well. And why is it in the BW forum?
It's in this forum to get a different perspective/opinion than what you might find on SC reddit or SC2 general. If anyone doesn't like the thread, I suggest they don't click on it and stop coming in here backseat moderating.
BW fans waited over a decade for a true sequel that never came. I like reading SC2 analysis from people who potentially have 20+ years of RTS genre experience.
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
What if he's actually Mike Morhaime?
You brought it up, so what if you're actually Mike Morhaime :O
On July 27 2017 14:37 opisska wrote: Nothing "wrecked" SC2. It's a great and fun game, for me much more interesting to both play and watch than broodwar. It doesn't have a huge following, but that's mostly the effect of comparing it with BW which was a unique cultural phenomenon of its time. Most people have since moved on to more social and casual games, that's just where the society is heading. But it still, after 7 years from launch, keeps a dedicated community that can raise 25 thousand bucks in an hour for a tournament. How many games can really say that?
I understand that shitting on SC2 is somewhat of a popular pastime in the BW forum, but all this talk about SC2 being a total failure is delusional. It did pretty good given the circumstances. Thus the "analysis" of ots failure is completely nonsensical.
It was a complete fail, it never could replaced the original and that was its goal, It was so well sold because the BW hype. I remember when you often bashed BW and praise SC2 as the ultimate phenomenon in games history, but here you are in this forum, why?.
I come here to educate BW fans and clear their misunderstanding of SC2. I saw a thread falsely claiming that SC2 is "wrecked" and decided to briefly correct this errrorneous statement. I do not praise SC2 as the ultimate game, it's simply the game I enjoy the most. I have no problem with people enjoying BW more unless they a) shit on my game pointlessly or b) try to influence my gamr to be more like BW. The later has luckily been given up by most years ago, but I just don't see a reason to condone the former.
Thanks for the "education", but since SC2 is not dead, that should be self-evident and would not require a counter-argument. SC2 still has a large viewership and player-base, which I have explained, so by that merit alone, SC2 is not a dead game. If someone has already made up their mind that SC2 is dead, there is no convincing them at this point of reality. If you're concerned that they're spreading "misinformation", then so be it. It's not going to change the facts, and if it's not being posted in the SC2 forums, then it really doesn't matter to the perception of SC2 players.
Finally, as I have pointed out previously, the rule here is not to game-bash or start a game vs. game argument. If you feel personally insulted because someone said something about "your game", then the problem may be one of perspective because the game of SC2 as a playable entity does not inherently belong to any particular group of people, and legally, only belongs to Blizzard Entertainment Inc., so even if I said "Fuck SC2, game's trash, fam", you should not be personally insulted like I said something horrible about you or your family. It is just game, why you have to be mad?
What if he's actually Mike Morhaime?
If Opisska is Mike Morhaime, then we're all doomed.
Mike Morhaime seems pretty passionate about SC2, if he ever had a secret account on TL, I'm pretty sure he'd been already permabanned after repeatedly telling SC2-haters to go fuck themselves. I am sure I wouldn't be able to stay civil here if I was personally invested in SC2.
As for the easier macro. I actually liked MBS and all that stuff. They felt like sensible evolutions of the interface. Yeah they may reduce the skill ceiling APM wise, but it's my honest opinion that if SC2's fundamentals would have been designed so that unit control mattered more then there would be other things to sink APM into
I believe so to. I hear the argument that these things are bad, but then again those people usually dont imagine HOW AN RTS CAN LOOK LIKE unit control wise.
Also funny thing what you read on blizzards site back in the days. Pvt, zealot rushing hard for terran to deal with so they get consussive shells. HOLY FUCK? That says alot.
Also somehting else that says alot, when they showed us their pre-alpha video of immortals hardcountering siege tanks BIG TIME. Well, we had signs there already. But yeah, the pre-alpha footage had some things that looked cool as fuck.
Nydus canal looked to have fun tactic involved. Since zerg is a swarmy race, this could be really good strategic and tactical wise. Also charge zealots looks... fun as well. I probably imagined i could micro those zealots.
If i think about it, consussive shells vs micro able charge lots. Could probably be a bit of fun atleast. OH well.
i play RTS games since 20 years. I played BW and now i play only SC 2. I will play bw remastered.
First of all SC 2 is not a dead game. We have a healthy playerbase and tournaments. The number of players is constant since the decline from 2015 - end of 2016.
This dead game thing is stupid. Its normal that many people play the game and leave after sometime. BW was never popular in europe. It doesnt matter if SC 2 would be more like BW we would have nearly the same playerbase as we have now. Because BW and SC 2 are hardcore games in multiplayer. Most People are to casual to play a hardcore 1v1 game. Thats the main reason why we have a small playerbase now in multiplayer in SC 2!
I played every RTS on the market. You know what the only 3 games which are good are BW and SC 2 and WC 3. They are all from Blizzard. Perhaps AOE 2 but ist not my cup of tea. Supcom was ok but it was more a fun game for some time and not really competitive.
There is no other RTS that can compete with BW, SC 2 and WC 3. Look how bad Dawn of war 3 or halowars 2 is. SC 2 is the best RTS on the market there is no other game except BW or maybe Warcarft 3.
If you compare BW and SC 2 there are many problems.
Hardcore BW fans argue that there should be limited unit and building selection in SC 2. If Blizzard would have done this in 2010 our playerbase would be even smaller! And no its not fun to control 6 different unit groups. Even hardcore players have to understand that this mechanic is not up to date anymore and you will push people away with it. You have to Group 1-3 Units in SC 2 Lotv anyway to play efficient. And i dont understand why people argue that unlimited building selection is bad for the game. I really like macro but its stupid to click on everey buiding to build your units! I hated it in BW and i will hate it in BW remastered (i know that this is necessary for balance but its not fun to get over this mechanic). We are in the year 2017 and not longer in the 90s!
Many People say that the unit design is bad in SC 2
I disagree here partially. You cant just make a game which is BW 2.0. Than we dont need SC 2. There have to be new things. Broodwar has many Units which are not used often. In SC 2 every unit can be usefull.
Bad Units Units in BW are:
Scout= no use at all
Queen= Very very niche unit
Devourer (I hope im right its the mutated Zerg anti air unit). Nearly no use for Zerg.
Wraith: Some use in TvT in other matches very cheesy and a niche unit.
Now pls tell me which unit in SC 2 has no use at all. There are niche units like Ghosts but you can use them.
Lotv did many good things for SC 2. It made the game better. We have more battles all over the place and there is more micro in SC 2 Lotv. The Problem is that many People left multiplayer because its to hardcore for them and they want to play teamgames like Lol (i tried lol and hereos of the storm by the way and hate it to play these games because its so simple and gets boring so fast).
The problems of SC 2 are:
The Story is mediocre ( Iliked the first Episode of SC 2 but Hots and Lotv story plot were really bad).
Design of Protoss is bad (Skytoss, low skillcap if you compare toss to other races). The Units are not as fun as the Units from the other 2 races.
There is only 1 style to play terran (Bio). Many of us want mech to be viable. Blizzard promised it with Lotv but it never really happened.
SC 2 needs more patches and changes constantly. We have a test Balance map. But Blizzard is too afraid to test any changes its a shame!
Lets compare the different matchups from SC 2 and BW.
TVT = They are really good in both games.
TvP = Here is BW the better game. T v P is top notch in BW (relaly nice gameplay fun to play and to watch). Toss is so bad designed in SC 2 that it is not fun to play as toss or against it!
TvZ= This is the best matchup in SC 2. Its fun to watch and to play. For me its even more fun than BW. It is really super entertaining. I really dont understand why hardcore BW people say Zerg is bad designed and doesnt feel zergy in SC 2. Zerg has really cool units which have fun interaction with your opponent. The creep mechanic is awesome and gives zerg more identity. Also i dont see any unit which is not zergy. The role of the queen is better than in BW. Also you can mass really big armys with the macro mechanic and it feels really zergy. The art design of Zerg in SC 2 is really good they feel really dark!
Zerg is better designed in SC 2 than the Zerg in BW.
PvZ: This is a hard one but i would say its more fun in BW because toss is bad designed in SC 2.
ZvZ: Is bad in both games and not fun to watch or to play.
PvP: Is better in BW because Protoss is bad designed!
I know that SC 2 has many flaws but its a fantastic game and does some things better than BW. Its not fair to bash SC 2 all the time Blizzard did some things really good in SC 2!
On July 28 2017 06:55 Superbanana wrote: Bad pathfinding in BW is a terrible problem for some people, but others enjoy it.
I don't think anyone "enjoys" bad pathfinding. It's just that there is always some arbitrary level of mechanical demand that must be met, and BWs seems quite optimal for a highly competitive game.
In basketball, it is the laws of physics that every player has to contend with. We could design smart-balls with neural nets and thrusters that self-correct so your passes always get to the intended target. The fact that we don't want that doesn't mean players "enjoy it" when their passes get intercepted.
(to superbanana) the "bad" in the pathfinding of bw is the "bugs", nobody enjoys the bugs in the pathfinding of bw, but this is separate from the rest of the pathfinding which is of great quality and produces the mechanics of movement and attack in the game which produce much deeper tactical counter play in the game. And it's not just mechanical, its the decision making too. Its not just twitch disruption / dodge but actual unfolding of different phases in a battle with multiple details all influencing each other in a different way over time with a pace that the player can actually follow and control and choose his style.. without extreme crippling damage being caused in 2 sec to units automatically clumping together for the most "liquid" experience possible (easiest to play at first, easiest to attack and dish out damage with your stupid coloball) (rather than following the moto easy to lean, hard to master, I'd say trivial to learn, tedious to master lol that's how it felt to me, just learn the base standard ownage strat, then learn the multiple all ins, then you're set high "master" gg 200 games played. Because the game is too simple-minded though fast paced and you might lose in a blink to whatever all in or spell). So in short if you like the easy to get into, SC2 will help you a ton, but if you like depth and want to get good, it will just turn mostly into a speed gambling core game. That's what I dislike the most about it, starcraft is not like that you see, it's a lot smarter than that (it still has gambling in it too! but not just speed volatile gambling). Anyway its not like you can't make an argument about why a game is better than another, "subjective" or "objective" tbh are concepts I have never really grasped that well, can be right, can be wrong, can be a little right a little wrong. But for example, when you talk about the bad pathing of bw, pls open your eyes, despite a few bugs the mechanics of movement and combat in bw absolutely own those of sc2, and it doesn't stop there.
That's a rant, I gotta be honest SC2 is just a little bit better than that cause I focused on the worst. But yeah I'm not impressed how it was developped and all the history there. I think the lack of chat they did on purpose so we wouldn't criticize publicly too easily (someone actually pulled a shareholder meeting transcript where they said that some years ago, basically the line I read was "if people publicly criticize the games using the chat we lose money"). They always knew the chat was very important and loved in their games. So this is on their bosses who said no chat and mocked the communities who asked for it by avoiding and tricking. Its like, blizzard is/was full of incredible talents led by terribly selfish and stubborn bosses pulling strongly in a bad direction. And they just made a far inferior sequel, very disappointed.
About pathing in bw, ling/muta vs marines,medics anyone. When terran moves out. The pathing literally makes it possible to tactically attack for ling/muta here. Its a fun fight as well. Both are microing their units.
SC2 isn't a bad game at all and in fact it's better than pretty much any other RTS for competitive play. It's just that BW was one of those 'lightning strike' moments when almost by accident something really phenomenal is created and it was always going to be impossible to match or top it. Their best bet would have been to remake BW with shiny graphics and as few changes as possible while adding some cool new campaigns and UMS stuff. The problem is, if they had have done that, they would have probably been accused of laziness and 'resting on their laurels'. It was a no-win situation.
it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
You always are so extremely vague when you talk about that. Can you give examples of how a fun unit interaction would look like in your dream rts game.
Just watched Byun v Maru this morning, that TvT pretty much summed up most of SC2 problems in a nut shell.
No map control required , just worker harrass or doomdrop into base. You could basically glue the starting spots together and delete the rest of the map. As a viewer experience its pretty poor
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I think one primary reason for the state of SC2 was the desire to make it a trilogy. It makes much sense to monetize a reboot of a game that has been going on strong, even until this day (BW). But the fact that you've already solidified the inclusion of new units for each expansion, whether WOL was deemed relatively balanced or not, was a big issue. We've all witnessed the pain with trying to include new units (a lot were super gimicky and are) for the sake of new units for each expansion. There are units whose roles overlap with other units i.e. siege tank/widow mine/liberator - that's something that you don't' find in BW which is relatively balanced. A lot of the new SC2 units actually had recycled BW abilities etc... This then led to a lot of units not being used. Also, I never understood the fervor for the balance team to make Bio 'viable' in the late game. Why? Who cares? Let the game figure itself out like TvP in BW.
Another thing was the approach to balance. I remember when the Thor had this attack that stunned a unit while dealing splash damage and it was deemed too strong for the Ultralisk, then they introduced a passive ability specifically for the Ultralisk so it wouldn't stun. That implementation was almost the beginning of the end as you'd then see countless examples of units getting abilities and unit classes just because people in the community weren't patient enough to find a creative solution to unit engagements and army compositions. This evolved into the current scenario of where you have units whose sole purpose is to harass workers in the beginning of the game. I'm only comparing to BW as that's the only other RTS i've played, but I mean, I'm pretty sure BW units don't share that approach to harassing early game.
One last thing would definitely be the desire for Blizzard to cater directly to the needs of the massive beginner pool. Games such as BW are super fun to play and watch because they require a lot of skill- the pay off is big when you win because you know that it was because of the time you invested to improve your skills. Instead of letting people improve their skill set, the game was constantly being made simpler and easier to play and removed different skills needed to be good. There was a smaller pool of skills to acquire that differentiates you from your opponent, and that led to a playstyle that was primarily centered around sneaking a base snipe and not losing your maxed out army.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
You always are so extremely vague when you talk about that. Can you give examples of how a fun unit interaction would look like in your dream rts game.
Its hard to provide a concrete picture of this. Also internal testing is very important, to see how to make it a good interraction. Lets try.
Take zealot and marines. The charge of zealot is used manually, and only go point instead of target(targets ground). No cooldown, 1sec casttime. Movespeed is 0.5 less than a marine.
Marine: stimpack removed, instead using an ability to walk and shoot at the same time. Turns slower when using this,can also only move in the angle from when you started. Movespeed slowed by 50% when using this.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
You always are so extremely vague when you talk about that. Can you give examples of how a fun unit interaction would look like in your dream rts game.
C&C has early action nailed. check out RA2 and RA3. your ability to macro in the early-mid-game is impacted in a big way by early game fights. early game action and combat in RA3 is fantastic.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
On July 28 2017 23:06 saalih905 wrote: I think one primary reason for the state of SC2 was the desire to make it a trilogy. It makes much sense to monetize a reboot of a game that has been going on strong, even until this day (BW). But the fact that you've already solidified the inclusion of new units for each expansion, whether WOL was deemed relatively balanced or not, was a big issue. We've all witnessed the pain with trying to include new units (a lot were super gimicky and are) for the sake of new units for each expansion. There are units whose roles overlap with other units i.e. siege tank/widow mine/liberator - that's something that you don't' find in BW which is relatively balanced. A lot of the new SC2 units actually had recycled BW abilities etc... This then led to a lot of units not being used. Also, I never understood the fervor for the balance team to make Bio 'viable' in the late game. Why? Who cares? Let the game figure itself out like TvP in BW.
Another thing was the approach to balance. I remember when the Thor had this attack that stunned a unit while dealing splash damage and it was deemed too strong for the Ultralisk, then they introduced a passive ability specifically for the Ultralisk so it wouldn't stun. That implementation was almost the beginning of the end as you'd then see countless examples of units getting abilities and unit classes just because people in the community weren't patient enough to find a creative solution to unit engagements and army compositions. This evolved into the current scenario of where you have units whose sole purpose is to harass workers in the beginning of the game. I'm only comparing to BW as that's the only other RTS i've played, but I mean, I'm pretty sure BW units don't share that approach to harassing early game.
One last thing would definitely be the desire for Blizzard to cater directly to the needs of the massive beginner pool. Games such as BW are super fun to play and watch because they require a lot of skill- the pay off is big when you win because you know that it was because of the time you invested to improve your skills. Instead of letting people improve their skill set, the game was constantly being made simpler and easier to play and removed different skills needed to be good. There was a smaller pool of skills to acquire that differentiates you from your opponent, and that led to a playstyle that was primarily centered around sneaking a base snipe and not losing your maxed out army.
Great post! I agree 100% and I don't think I could've worded it better.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
Wont touch much about fps or fighting games, it takes to much from me but those also have old concept applied. It works better for those genres but they are still lacking alot as well.
As for the easier macro. I actually liked MBS and all that stuff. They felt like sensible evolutions of the interface. Yeah they may reduce the skill ceiling APM wise, but it's my honest opinion that if SC2's fundamentals would have been designed so that unit control mattered more then there would be other things to sink APM into
I believe so to. I hear the argument that these things are bad, but then again those people usually dont imagine HOW AN RTS CAN LOOK LIKE unit control wise.
Also funny thing what you read on blizzards site back in the days. Pvt, zealot rushing hard for terran to deal with so they get consussive shells. HOLY FUCK? That says alot.
Also somehting else that says alot, when they showed us their pre-alpha video of immortals hardcountering siege tanks BIG TIME. Well, we had signs there already. But yeah, the pre-alpha footage had some things that looked cool as fuck.
Nydus canal looked to have fun tactic involved. Since zerg is a swarmy race, this could be really good strategic and tactical wise. Also charge zealots looks... fun as well. I probably imagined i could micro those zealots.
If i think about it, consussive shells vs micro able charge lots. Could probably be a bit of fun atleast. OH well.
Yeah the early immortals were a red flag too, for all the hard counters that were to come. And the early thor.
Also do you remember the early roaches? They were units that constantly regenerated HP and you had to take them out by target firing them, Blizzard scrapped that idea because they felt it created a "micro or die" situation. I still think the regeneration was a fun idea that created more micro. I think they should have just scrapped the roaches after they removed the regen because as they are now they just make zerg less zergy.
As for the easier macro. I actually liked MBS and all that stuff. They felt like sensible evolutions of the interface. Yeah they may reduce the skill ceiling APM wise, but it's my honest opinion that if SC2's fundamentals would have been designed so that unit control mattered more then there would be other things to sink APM into
I believe so to. I hear the argument that these things are bad, but then again those people usually dont imagine HOW AN RTS CAN LOOK LIKE unit control wise.
Also funny thing what you read on blizzards site back in the days. Pvt, zealot rushing hard for terran to deal with so they get consussive shells. HOLY FUCK? That says alot.
Also somehting else that says alot, when they showed us their pre-alpha video of immortals hardcountering siege tanks BIG TIME. Well, we had signs there already. But yeah, the pre-alpha footage had some things that looked cool as fuck.
Nydus canal looked to have fun tactic involved. Since zerg is a swarmy race, this could be really good strategic and tactical wise. Also charge zealots looks... fun as well. I probably imagined i could micro those zealots.
If i think about it, consussive shells vs micro able charge lots. Could probably be a bit of fun atleast. OH well.
Yeah the early immortals were a red flag too, for all the hard counters that were to come. And the early thor.
Also do you remember the early roaches? They were units that constantly regenerated HP and you had to take them out by target firing them, Blizzard scrapped that idea because they felt it created a "micro or die" situation. I still think the regeneration was a fun idea that created more micro. I think they should have just scrapped the roaches after they removed the regen because as they are now they just make zerg less zergy.
Oh yeah, the reg on roaches looked like an interesting idea as well. I remember that. They kinda are somehwat to similar to marauder/stalker as well. But yeah. I believe they said afterwards that they scrapped it because when you amove, the rng kicks in to heavy. Same scenario could mean you win big or lose big deponding weather the a.i targeted the same roach or not.
But yeah blizzard had some interesting concepts which they either scrapped or left in lackluster.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I couldn't agree more with this. Much of the strategic diversity in BW comes from the early game and some of the most exciting moments can come from early game rushes. Only starting with four workers is part of the very soul of BW.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I couldn't agree more with this. Much of the strategic diversity in BW comes from the early game and some of the most exciting moments can come from early game rushes. Only starting with four workers is part of the very soul of BW.
LOL in WCII you just started with one worker and no command center even
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I couldn't agree more with this. Much of the strategic diversity in BW comes from the early game and some of the most exciting moments can come from early game rushes. Only starting with four workers is part of the very soul of BW.
LOL in WCII you just started with one worker and no command center even
I edited my response if interested. In case you missed as well.
AlphaAeffchen actually put some effort into writing a quality post and it really should be read by anyone who want to know what some people seem to like in SC2. However, with many of those points I cannot agree with.
On July 28 2017 21:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: Hardcore BW fans argue that there should be limited unit and building selection in SC 2. If Blizzard would have done this in 2010 our playerbase would be even smaller! And no its not fun to control 6 different unit groups. Even hardcore players have to understand that this mechanic is not up to date anymore and you will push people away with it. You have to Group 1-3 Units in SC 2 Lotv anyway to play efficient. And i dont understand why people argue that unlimited building selection is bad for the game. I really like macro but its stupid to click on everey buiding to build your units! I hated it in BW and i will hate it in BW remastered (i know that this is necessary for balance but its not fun to get over this mechanic). We are in the year 2017 and not longer in the 90s!
Unit selection limit, beeing a little pain in the ass when you play, is one of the key factors that limits the power of the doomstacks. And as such, it makes the game more spectacular. Bad pathing, unit selection limit and big disproportion in speed limits are what makes the doomstacks less powerfull. It also is balancing factor for mutalisk stacks.
Many People say that the unit design is bad in SC 2
I disagree here partially. You cant just make a game which is BW 2.0. Than we dont need SC 2. There have to be new things. Broodwar has many Units which are not used often. In SC 2 every unit can be usefull.
Bad Units Units in BW are: (...) Queen= Very very niche unit
Niche unit, yes. Limited use. Still, not completely useless. It is one of the effective counters for havy tank late mech.
Wraith: Some use in TvT in other matches very cheesy and a niche unit.
Not at all. Everybody who watched BW regulary knows what a competent terrans can do with this unit. In TvT they are very important. Guys like Leta and Fantasy also used that regulary against Zergs with big success and its role as guardian killer is difficult to overestimate. Even in it's niche in TvP has some less important role too. It was one of the key unit in Fantasy's tactic against Stork in the Bachus 2010/2011 final, when it was used to shut down Stork's reaver tactic. Besides, what the hell even "cheesy unit" means?
Now pls tell me which unit in SC 2 has no use at all. There are niche units like Ghosts but you can use them.
All of the units you talked about are usable too. The problem with devourers and scouts is that island maps, where their usefullness drasticaly increases, are never played in tournaments.
The problems of SC 2 are:
The Story is mediocre
Its as mediocre as 90% of movies with Steven Seagal. It basicly means it's serious insult to anyone who likes a good story. Or in other words - it's complete shit overall.
On July 28 2017 21:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: The art design of Zerg in SC 2 is really good they feel really dark!
Funny, I had completely different feeling. After seeing Zerg unit design in SC2 my first though was "Did WoW concept artists really infested MY GAME?"
On July 28 2017 23:06 saalih905 wrote: I think one primary reason for the state of SC2 was the desire to make it a trilogy. It makes much sense to monetize a reboot of a game that has been going on strong, even until this day (BW). But the fact that you've already solidified the inclusion of new units for each expansion, whether WOL was deemed relatively balanced or not, was a big issue. We've all witnessed the pain with trying to include new units (a lot were super gimicky and are) for the sake of new units for each expansion. There are units whose roles overlap with other units i.e. siege tank/widow mine/liberator - that's something that you don't' find in BW which is relatively balanced. A lot of the new SC2 units actually had recycled BW abilities etc... This then led to a lot of units not being used. Also, I never understood the fervor for the balance team to make Bio 'viable' in the late game. Why? Who cares? Let the game figure itself out like TvP in BW.
Another thing was the approach to balance. I remember when the Thor had this attack that stunned a unit while dealing splash damage and it was deemed too strong for the Ultralisk, then they introduced a passive ability specifically for the Ultralisk so it wouldn't stun. That implementation was almost the beginning of the end as you'd then see countless examples of units getting abilities and unit classes just because people in the community weren't patient enough to find a creative solution to unit engagements and army compositions. This evolved into the current scenario of where you have units whose sole purpose is to harass workers in the beginning of the game. I'm only comparing to BW as that's the only other RTS i've played, but I mean, I'm pretty sure BW units don't share that approach to harassing early game.
One last thing would definitely be the desire for Blizzard to cater directly to the needs of the massive beginner pool. Games such as BW are super fun to play and watch because they require a lot of skill- the pay off is big when you win because you know that it was because of the time you invested to improve your skills. Instead of letting people improve their skill set, the game was constantly being made simpler and easier to play and removed different skills needed to be good. There was a smaller pool of skills to acquire that differentiates you from your opponent, and that led to a playstyle that was primarily centered around sneaking a base snipe and not losing your maxed out army.
Great post! I agree 100% and I don't think I could've worded it better.
Except for the last paragraph which was pretty horrible and doesn't account for the downturn in Sc2. Biggest e-sport over the last 5 years is a game that very much does an amazing job of being a good game for casuals, with enough capacity/depth for a pro scene. Not sure if you guys have noticed but extreme/top end mechanics based games are not exactly seeing much love in recent years. BW is the last of its kind (at least in mainstream gaming), Quake has been relegated to a low tier FPS in terms of popularity. Fighting Games struggle to keep playerbases (although the genre has had a good year). I actually don't care personally if a game is seriously mechanically demanding or not, but rather concern myself with things such as if I enjoy the game.
the problem was poorly designed units that had no micro such as the colossus, immortal, and so on, or worse units that were anti micro such as force fields or fungal. then there was the problem of clumping. pvt became turtle up and macro into one deathball engage that decided the match. made it boring to watch. with the queen range patch zerg deathball of gglord and winfestor made it 1000x worse, it official killed the viewership of WOL, from which the game NEVER recovered. ryung said it best when he cried "imba imba imba" when he lost to sniper in GSL. the better player lost, as evidenced by bads such as roro and sniper who faded into obscurity once winfestor were nerfed.
people who bravely pointed it out were either banned or ridiculed. the results speak for themselves.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
As a random choice of example, I just watched Innovation vs Maru on Proxima, G2 in IEM Shanghai (played this morning I think). Absolutely incredible game to watch in my opinion. I would be curious, if the people critical to SC2 in this thread would think the same if they watched it - if it is just ignorance of how good SC2 is nowadays or genuinely different taste.
On July 29 2017 02:56 fishjie wrote: the problem was poorly designed units that had no micro such as the colossus, immortal, and so on, or worse units that were anti micro such as force fields or fungal. then there was the problem of clumping. pvt became turtle up and macro into one deathball engage that decided the match. made it boring to watch. with the queen range patch zerg deathball of gglord and winfestor made it 1000x worse, it official killed the viewership of WOL, from which the game NEVER recovered. ryung said it best when he cried "imba imba imba" when he lost to sniper in GSL. the better player lost, as evidenced by bads such as roro and sniper who faded into obscurity once winfestor were nerfed.
people who bravely pointed it out were either banned or ridiculed. the results speak for themselves.
no spectators = dead game
spectators =/= players in terms of game popularity
On July 28 2017 23:00 Topdoller wrote: Just watched Byun v Maru this morning, that TvT pretty much summed up most of SC2 problems in a nut shell.
No map control required , just worker harrass or doomdrop into base. You could basically glue the starting spots together and delete the rest of the map. As a viewer experience its pretty poor
Funny you say that, a lot of the map makers have strong opinions about all the units that ignore terrain.
Goes hand in hand with your "glue the map together" comment.
On July 29 2017 02:56 fishjie wrote: the problem was poorly designed units that had no micro such as the colossus, immortal, and so on, or worse units that were anti micro such as force fields or fungal. then there was the problem of clumping. pvt became turtle up and macro into one deathball engage that decided the match. made it boring to watch. with the queen range patch zerg deathball of gglord and winfestor made it 1000x worse, it official killed the viewership of WOL, from which the game NEVER recovered. ryung said it best when he cried "imba imba imba" when he lost to sniper in GSL. the better player lost, as evidenced by bads such as roro and sniper who faded into obscurity once winfestor were nerfed.
people who bravely pointed it out were either banned or ridiculed. the results speak for themselves.
no spectators = dead game
spectators =/= players in terms of game popularity
No, but units with limited micro potential beyond concave and retreat impacts spectators and players. There's something very fun for a player, while still not very good (let's say iCCup rank of D)... which is still substantially better than complete casuals who make 1-2 factories and have the average apm of 30. Anyways for D and up, there's something inherently fun with learning things like muta micro, vulture attack-retreat micro, or boxing vultures to lay mine fields, or reaver micro, or getting faster and faster at storming, or dragoon attack-retreat micro, or maybe learning mineral hopping tricks.
It's flashy and adds some pizaz compared to just building up large groups of units and attacking... consider something like Supreme Commander, which I've been playing a lot more of lately because I'm having a hard time convincing a friend to play Starcraft. Supreme Commander FA is heavily strategic and has impressively large units that do terrible, terrible damage, and you need to multi-task to launch multi-pronged attacks, etc. But it's not very flashy. You tend to work from a fairly zoomed out perspective for grand strategy- but that really tactical back and forth with small bands of units, not nearly so present and not nearly so visceral as the micro found in BW. So, I find the individual battles not nearly so satisfying to control.
The micro in BW has been compared to fighting games, and I think that's fairly apt- there are certain moves/ key combinations that you learn that allows you to create amazing combos on screen. It's fun for the players to learn, and it's fun for spectators to watch. SC2 had some of that, but far too many units had their DPS spread out in a continuous attack, rather than in short bursts. Short burst DPS, means you can move your unit in between the next burst and not lose damage. Moving Collossi too much would cancel their attacks and so, something like drop micro is not incentivized compared to the reaver, which has burst splash damage, but is quite slow. Also, where there was micro potential, the movement felt quite sloppy: BW muta micro vs SC2 muta micro. LaLuSh has looked into a lot of that sort of thing in far more detail.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
On July 29 2017 03:20 opisska wrote: As a random choice of example, I just watched Innovation vs Maru on Proxima, G2 in IEM Shanghai (played this morning I think). Absolutely incredible game to watch in my opinion. I would be curious, if the people critical to SC2 in this thread would think the same if they watched it - if it is just ignorance of how good SC2 is nowadays or genuinely different taste.
They would think it's a horrible match because SC2 is a BAD DOG. What an un-fun game. Who would ever play SC2? It's literally worse than Mao Tse-Tung.
On July 29 2017 03:44 ProMeTheus112 wrote: i think there can be good games in sc2, just not as good not as often, and lot of pretty bad games
Re: opisska:
This is my thought as well. I often watch TL's "top games of 20XX" and I even went through the trouble of watching the rest of the series in some cases. There were a few TvZ's I truly thought were good games; Inno vs. TaeJa was a good game too. SC2 just doesn't deliver those games frequently enough for me to commit to watching anything but the "best of." Certainly doesn't motivate me to pick the game back up.
On July 29 2017 02:56 fishjie wrote: the problem was poorly designed units that had no micro such as the colossus, immortal, and so on, or worse units that were anti micro such as force fields or fungal. then there was the problem of clumping. pvt became turtle up and macro into one deathball engage that decided the match. made it boring to watch. with the queen range patch zerg deathball of gglord and winfestor made it 1000x worse, it official killed the viewership of WOL, from which the game NEVER recovered. ryung said it best when he cried "imba imba imba" when he lost to sniper in GSL. the better player lost, as evidenced by bads such as roro and sniper who faded into obscurity once winfestor were nerfed.
people who bravely pointed it out were either banned or ridiculed. the results speak for themselves.
no spectators = dead game
spectators =/= players in terms of game popularity
WRONG. no spectators - no competitive scene. this coincided with the death of NASL, MLG dropping sc2, dreamhack dropping sc2 and etc. with only a few thousands for live finals vs hundreds of thousands or whatever for MOBA, there was no contest. spectators are everything. they bring ad revenue. no ad revenue, no tourneys, smaller prizepools. no way teams can play for players. also coincided with many players retiring. there's a reason there is no new blood in korea for sc2 now.
On July 28 2017 21:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: The art design of Zerg in SC 2 is really good they feel really dark!
Funny, I had completely different feeling. After seeing Zerg unit design in SC2 my first though was "Did WoW concept artists really infested MY GAME?"
This. Every Blizzard game since 2004 has been infested with this crap art style to the point where it borders on incompetence. The SC2 extractor looks like an inflatable bouncy castle for heavens sake.
It doesn't matter if the style looked decent in WoW (which itself is debatable), games from completely different universes should not look alike just because they come from the same company. We get it Mr. Art Director, you really like concave shapes and big shoulder guards. Now can you please get back to azeroth?
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
My 2 cents: I have put my fair share of hours into sc2, and have followed the pro-scene quite a bit. I do not really play, or watch it anymore, though, and I believe my reasons are the same for many others:
1: Reaching and maintaining a high level is VERY demanding and time consuming. I reached platinum once, but it was obvious that it was a one-time thing, it required too much of me. 2: The "endgame" ladder experience itself is very lonely, it is you vs. your opponent, over and over. I ended up swiching to Heroes of the Storm to play with my friends on skype. 3: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons, but we are having wives and children. Playing a demanding game like sc2 is very hard to combine with family life, especially as it is not as social as other hobbies. 4: A lot of gaming in the recent years have moved to phones and i-pads. SC2 is the anithesis to that. I have played quite a bit of Hearthstone on my phone, as it is so much easier to just pull up and get a game done.
Nothing about balance, nothing about graphics, very little about game design, although, they could have made a much better job at the social aspect of the game, especially from the beginning.
putting B tier console designers in charge of a PC game. Ruined the UMS scene. sc:bw or wc3 would have died in their infancy if they had the sc2 arcade system at launch.
sc:bw wc3 sc2
these games live or die by their custom mapping scene.
The Blizzard from our childhoods is dead. The people that blizzard have now have absolutely no clue what they're doing, or what made them great.
On July 28 2017 21:43 AlphaAeffchen wrote: The art design of Zerg in SC 2 is really good they feel really dark!
Funny, I had completely different feeling. After seeing Zerg unit design in SC2 my first though was "Did WoW concept artists really infested MY GAME?"
This. Every Blizzard game since 2004 has been infested with this crap art style to the point where it borders on incompetence. The SC2 extractor looks like an inflatable bouncy castle for heavens sake.
It doesn't matter if the style looked decent in WoW (which itself is debatable), games from completely different universes should not look alike just because they come from the same company. We get it Mr. Art Director, you really like concave shapes and big shoulder guards. Now can you please get back to azeroth?
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
On July 29 2017 03:20 opisska wrote: As a random choice of example, I just watched Innovation vs Maru on Proxima, G2 in IEM Shanghai (played this morning I think). Absolutely incredible game to watch in my opinion. I would be curious, if the people critical to SC2 in this thread would think the same if they watched it - if it is just ignorance of how good SC2 is nowadays or genuinely different taste.
for me it was the blobs of units, and nothing they do is super impressive i dont think. For example mass transfuses while macroing well would be incredible if it wasnt for smart cast.
Also the fact they made zerg less zergy, since iirc zerglings and banelings? not counting drones ofc, are the only 1 supply units?
On July 29 2017 03:20 opisska wrote: As a random choice of example, I just watched Innovation vs Maru on Proxima, G2 in IEM Shanghai (played this morning I think). Absolutely incredible game to watch in my opinion. I would be curious, if the people critical to SC2 in this thread would think the same if they watched it - if it is just ignorance of how good SC2 is nowadays or genuinely different taste.
i really love to watch Maru games ,back in proleague or GSL OSL,IEM,he makes any game looks interesting,(mostly hots games) but it doesnt mean i like to watch sc2 or i follow sc2,i think is just a boring game that u can play 4 times in a year(my case in wol hots lotv,im still asking myself why i did buy every expansion.)i really loved the wol campaign,have to finish hots and lotv =)
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I couldn't agree more with this. Much of the strategic diversity in BW comes from the early game and some of the most exciting moments can come from early game rushes. Only starting with four workers is part of the very soul of BW.
LOL in WCII you just started with one worker and no command center even
Did that bring as much strategic diversity in the early game in WC2 as it did to BW?
What you call "cat and mouse" is simply powerspikes. If you have unique races with unique units they will be strong at different times of the game depending on what buildorder they use and the general strategy (economy, tech, army).
You can see the same concept even in the new rts genre: moba
About hardcounters: This is always a question of quality, at the end of the day when you compare certain units and unit compositions you will always be able to tell who should win in theory. The execution should be the x-factor here though, it has to be challenging to execute it "perfectly" and thus the human error is the deciding factor in the end and not if you have in theory the better army. So yes, there should never be the feeling of havign no chance simply because the army composition isn't 100% optimal, you should still get an advantage though because that's part of the strategy.
In general it seems to be that you want to add a lot of abilities and make it "micro focused" that way. You probably have to reduce the macro aspect of the game by quite a lot in this case, otherwise it won't feel fun. What do you think about the concept of macro in this future rts?
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
I couldn't agree more with this. Much of the strategic diversity in BW comes from the early game and some of the most exciting moments can come from early game rushes. Only starting with four workers is part of the very soul of BW.
LOL in WCII you just started with one worker and no command center even
Did that bring as much strategic diversity in the early game in WC2 as it did to BW?
I'm pro-4 workers but WCII is just not a good competitive game. Ironically, though the races are almost identical, it is not balanced. The small differences were enough to make Orcs overwhelmingly better. It is also just simpler - no high ground, no cover, no damage types, etc.
As far as openings - the very early game is always identical, especially because you don't start with the command center type building, so first you build it. But it also only provides 1 supply, so you must immediately next build supply depot (farms) because you are still supply capped when the command center finishes. Then you start pumping workers no matter what (no one worker aggressive openings LOL). So in WCII, it DOESN'T add depth. But in BW, it does. Which just goes to show, it's not always "more is better" or "less is better." 4 is better than 1 and better than 12.
It all comes down to artistic qualities – an underrated aspect that BW got right and the SC2 devs screwed up with their soulless excel sheets and pre-conceived strategies.
Imagine a game of Starcraft as a story. No good story jumps straight to the dramaturgical climax. A good story needs exposition to set the mood and build suspense, without being overly circuitous.
So you can't just shove the numbers into an excel sheet like you're min-maxing a D&D character. You need to have a feel for what works. BW works.
In general it seems to be that you want to add a lot of abilities and make it "micro focused" that way.
Not necessarily. They just show examples easier. if i was to talk about movementspeed, how units walk i would not be able to do that over text. There are literally thousands of way to make this happen.
What do you think about the concept of macro in this future rts?
Not sure i understand what you mean. Easy to macro. Same as in sc2. Still important how many production buildings you have.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
"yey we finally got something new... let's shit on SC2 as much as we can in our BW General, and dare if someone say that he enjoy SC2.. here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"...
I'm really sick of this... StarCraft is still StarCraft it doesn't matter if you like SC2 or BW you still like StarCraft as an RTS and this constant "mouse&cat" with "BW vs SC" is just old boring and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
On July 28 2017 22:36 Foxxan wrote: [quote] Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
most of the counters in bw are soft and kinda multidimensional (depend on many factors) so you have a ton more space for counterplay in many different ways, in the micro details over longer time and space, and also in the macro details, so you're rarely stuck in a binary situation of "gotta run away with all my units" or "gotta directly inflict damage with all my units" and games tend to play out different from one another and more multilayered, rarely ends on a crippling shot, develops in complexity
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"... and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
do 12 year olds have consistent exposure to a physical qwerty keyboard these days? i don't know if the PC was the essential home appliance it was in 2000.
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"... and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
do 12 year olds have consistent exposure to a physical qwerty keyboard these days? i don't know if the PC was the essential home appliance it was in 2000.
I would absouletely say the average 12 year old generally has much more exposure to PCs in recent years than in 2000. Most households (at least in Europe, should imagine most other regions fair worse) did not have a PC, where as in recent years it is quite rare to encounter a household that does not have a PC or laptop. What was your point ? Or is it another boring link to kids playing war gaimz on their phones these days instead of on PCs (they're not btw, the kind of kids who were attracted to RTS are in this gen are mostly playing something else competetive like Dota2)
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"... and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
do 12 year olds have consistent exposure to a physical qwerty keyboard these days? i don't know if the PC was the essential home appliance it was in 2000.
On July 28 2017 22:36 Foxxan wrote: [quote] Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
There's a point in TvZ where Terran gets +1 and range, but lurkers are not out yet - but Zerg wants to get a third. This is where Zerg has to use muta micro to prevent Terran from attacking too quickly.
Maybe the Zerg doesn't succeed, but cancels the third and builds it in another corner - while sending hydras there (in cross map scenarios). That's kind of a "draw" where Zerg gets a later third, but Terran can't deny it or do damage in the main either.
Or maybe Terran straight up kills the third which is a victory since Zerg doesn't cancel. Sometimes Terran tries to kill it, but muta/ling finally pics the Terran force apart. That's a Zerg victory.
It's VERY micro intensive - it's all about picking off units that don't move in formation. In SC2, the Terran army would just walk into the third and kill it. This is because there are no banelings in BW - muta/ling is strictly inferior to the Terran army if there's formation movement and stutter stepping. Muta stacking works weird in SC2 as well.
On July 28 2017 22:26 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it could have been much better at least and avoid so many pitfalls, it's true that its rly rly hard to do better than bw but I believe it can be done, I think when I look at zvz and also the state of early zvt today I see imperfections there (z hard to take 3rd rely strongly on 1 repetitive build thats sorta volatile and costs a lot, but I'm curious see how it develops on new maps like the new ASL maps some have 2 bases with gas near main, 1 nat 1 behind for example)
Less buildup time. "action" start earlier, iam talking about relevant action. Better unit interractions. ALOT of stuff can improve from broodwar its just that this whole rts concept is old, and designers dont understand the format.
If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
Easy, start with 12 workers and 400 minerals. You could throw down a pool and gas and make three workers, or you could make three workers and make your way towards towards the expansion with one.
The meta would be different, since now 12 pool gas is the aggressive build and three hatch before pool is the macro build. But it would still be an RTS game. There would still be two barracks and two gate builds (maybe 3 rax and 3 gate?!). You might have maps with 12 mineral patches where 3 of them run out faster just to kick start the game.
What I don't like about SC2 is that it has many things that in my opinion should not exist in an RTS. There is not much advantage in highground, there are units that break this like the Reaper or the Colossus. Another unit that for me has been a cancer is Medevac, being a transport unit but also has the function of healing becomes an obligation to build it and the drops are not produced by tactical decision but because you build four or eight Medevacs To heal your bio units and it is stupid not to take advantage of them to try a drop if there is the opportunity, therefore producing this unit is not a tactical decision, it is an obligation when you have bio units (and doomdrops are stupid).
Deathballs are unacceptable and no aesthetic in an RTS, that coupled with poorly designed units creates very unfair situations; The other I saw a video of Innovation against Scarlett, Scarlett had mass banelings and did not need skills to destroy the Army of Innovation, this has happened to me a lot in ladder, Zerg players who earn me with broken units like the banelings.
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"... and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
do 12 year olds have consistent exposure to a physical qwerty keyboard these days? i don't know if the PC was the essential home appliance it was in 2000.
Are you kidding? Now every teenager has a laptop.
its a question. you've provided nothing but an anecdote. so easy off with the "are you kidding" BS. http://fortune.com/2016/06/09/pc-sales-are-worse-than-you-think/ "The company's researchers had thought that a slowdown in sales of smartphones and tablets, which many younger people use as their primary computing devices, would mean stronger PC sales, but that did not play out as expected."
i think Gaming Specific PCs sales are up. However, most 12 year olds don't have the money to buy one. So they have to hope some kind of general use PC is laying around the house.
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"... and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
do 12 year olds have consistent exposure to a physical qwerty keyboard these days? i don't know if the PC was the essential home appliance it was in 2000.
I would absouletely say the average 12 year old generally has much more exposure to PCs in recent years than in 2000. Most households (at least in Europe, should imagine most other regions fair worse) did not have a PC, where as in recent years it is quite rare to encounter a household that does not have a PC or laptop. What was your point ? Or is it another boring link to kids playing war gaimz on their phones these days instead of on PCs (they're not btw, the kind of kids who were attracted to RTS are in this gen are mostly playing something else competetive like Dota2)
in 2000 every kid i knew had a PC in their house. the internet is definitely a lot faster with a lot lower latency now than in 2000 though. That aspect has seen a huge improvement.
For me there were a couple major issues, but I don't know how many of them translated to the wider audience. As the onset I was very into SC2 and trying hard to like it, but it rapidly deteriorated to the point where I actively disliked it.
As a viewer, fight's felt too "blob of stuff vs blob of stuff." At the top levels players are obviously doing lots of microing and little nuanced things during fights, but you just can't tell. I think maybe one of the reasons marine splits were so hyped up originally was their visibility. But in a normal fight there's just a lot of tiny units and a ton of particles everywhere and you really can't tell what's going on because everything is either too small or too covered up. In Broodwar everything was always far more apparent because the screen just felt less crowded.
As a player, and partially as a viewer, the balance always felt very poor and this was exacerbated by the map pool when I played. Lots of small, close together maps and lots of strats that involved cheesy-feeling play like reaper rushes that were very effective even in pro-play.
I also hated a lot of the general mechanics of the game, such as:
Marauders having stim and a slow
Forcefields (Both using and playing against. Looked away for 1 second against zerg? Placed it one hex off during their attempted runby? Well they're up your ramp and you lose the game now. Not watching army for a second? Well it's sectioned off now and you lose the game. It just wasn't enjoyable.)
Medivacs, conceptually (Your healing unit also being used for drops resulting in too much flexibility)
Nydus Worms, conceptually (Having to invest in the ability to drop gives a nice opportunity cost and good counterplay; Nydus just bypassed too much of that.)
Wall climbing, conceptually (It felt like bypassing terrain just took something away from the game and the AI was very poor at coping with units that wen't up a wall out of range)
The list of course goes on, but that's just to highlight many of the things I didn't like.
There were also a bunch of issues Koreans had with using SC2 in PC bangs in general.
And then, of course, there was the association between SC2 and the death of the old BW scene. Many of the same people pushing for SC2 to succeed, e.g. Blizzard, were directly responsible for what happened to BW. That caused a lot of resentment.
In many ways that probably is what led to League of Legends growing so rapidly in Korea. The absence of BW and animosity toward or disinterest of SC2, but the lingering desire for some kind of big competitive scene. Riot came along at just the right time and gave something to do with all that lingering infrastructure that had been used in BW (teams, coaching, sponsorships, TV channels and their venues, personnel, equipment, etc.). They largely gave the Koreans free reign to run the league and they ran with it.
On July 29 2017 03:44 ProMeTheus112 wrote: i think there can be good games in sc2, just not as good not as often, and lot of pretty bad games
Re: opisska:
This is my thought as well. I often watch TL's "top games of 20XX" and I even went through the trouble of watching the rest of the series in some cases. There were a few TvZ's I truly thought were good games; Inno vs. TaeJa was a good game too. SC2 just doesn't deliver those games frequently enough for me to commit to watching anything but the "best of." Certainly doesn't motivate me to pick the game back up.
This is certainly a valid point. I watch so much SC2 that I come by the good games naturally, but it's true that a lot of games is just filler. I never really watch more BW than what someine point to as a good game, ao I have no idea how doea BW compare to SC2 in good game frequency. The advantage of LoTV is that the boring games are usually done with pretty fast. Also it's matchup dependent - most of TvPs are very similar to each other, but TvTs tend to be variable as hell. TvZ can be formulaic, but leads to good games often anyway, ZvP is really hit or miss, ZvZ is a few total gems in a sea of rubbish, PvP I don't get much at all ...
BW has huge watchability and is arguably the most spectator friendly game ever, not just on the pro level. Back in the day on b.net there would be tons of "1v1 + obs" rooms where 4-5 people would watch total noobs play eachother. The game is just that entertaining.
On the pro level even more so. You'd be hard pressed to find a non-mirror pro game that is completely uninteresting.
On July 29 2017 03:44 ProMeTheus112 wrote: i think there can be good games in sc2, just not as good not as often, and lot of pretty bad games
Re: opisska:
This is my thought as well. I often watch TL's "top games of 20XX" and I even went through the trouble of watching the rest of the series in some cases. There were a few TvZ's I truly thought were good games; Inno vs. TaeJa was a good game too. SC2 just doesn't deliver those games frequently enough for me to commit to watching anything but the "best of." Certainly doesn't motivate me to pick the game back up.
This is certainly a valid point. I watch so much SC2 that I come by the good games naturally, but it's true that a lot of games is just filler. I never really watch more BW than what someine point to as a good game, ao I have no idea how doea BW compare to SC2 in good game frequency. The advantage of LoTV is that the boring games are usually done with pretty fast. Also it's matchup dependent - most of TvPs are very similar to each other, but TvTs tend to be variable as hell. TvZ can be formulaic, but leads to good games often anyway, ZvP is really hit or miss, ZvZ is a few total gems in a sea of rubbish, PvP I don't get much at all ...
In BW TvP, PvZ and TvZ games were frequently good-to-excelent. TvT is insanely good too, the problem is it requires players from absolute top to be interesting to watch. With a bit incompetence and cowardines it can end with boring slugfest with both players never risking to end the stalemate. In PvP most of games are quite similar, the good games are not that frequent, but there are. The closest comparison is to the early WoL games. There was some good games, but most of it wasn't worth it.
ZvZ is shit, period. The late ZvZ is the most exiting mirror match, the problem is the chances to get a hive in ZvZ are as high as the chances of killing a fly by hitting it with your ass.
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: This post is just sad its just another...
"yey we finally got something new... let's shit on SC2 as much as we can in our BW General, and dare if someone say that he enjoy SC2.. here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"...
I'm really sick of this... StarCraft is still StarCraft it doesn't matter if you like SC2 or BW you still like StarCraft as an RTS and this constant "mouse&cat" with "BW vs SC" is just old boring and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
This is just your opinion. I am on the contrary sick of this kind of defeatist or "let's enjoy the happy merry times together" posts like yours. Because this is exactly what non-constructiveness is. There's been a lot of arguments and counter-arguments if you cared to read the thread. You didn't though.
People must argue because this is how we understand things better, draw conclusions and improve.
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
On July 29 2017 08:58 PharaphobiaSC wrote: This post is just sad its just another...
"yey we finally got something new... let's shit on SC2 as much as we can in our BW General, and dare if someone say that he enjoy SC2.. here is milion unrelevant arguments why is XX better than YY"...
I'm really sick of this... StarCraft is still StarCraft it doesn't matter if you like SC2 or BW you still like StarCraft as an RTS and this constant "mouse&cat" with "BW vs SC" is just old boring and nothing constructive will come from it in 2017...
This is just your opinion. I am on the contrary sick of this kind of defeatist or "let's enjoy the happy merry times together" posts like yours. Because this is exactly what non-constructiveness is. There's been a lot of arguments and counter-arguments if you cared to read the thread. You didn't though.
People must argue because this is how we understand things better, draw conclusions and improve.
Well since one side wants to other to scrap everything or not exist at all... whats the point? It's not like Blizz staff jump here and redo SC2 from strach anyway...
Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
On July 28 2017 23:03 Jealous wrote: [quote] If I understood your post correctly and it all pertains to BW, then I have to say that the "buildup time" before "relevant action" is a key element of Brood War and what makes it so great IMO. It's a hallmark of strategy, in that depending on what build your opponent chose, you have certain windows of opportunity depending on what build you did in response. "Oh, Terran walled? I should cancel this Zealot and I should throw down my Nexus instead."
What you seem to criticize as down time is in effect the strategic interplay between two players. Only a noob would try to engage a Terran who went for a wall, has Marines behind the wall, and is going for Siege expand, for example. The lesson you learn when you try to do that and lose your first Zealots/Dragoons and get counter-attacked and contained is you getting better at the game. The concept that at every juncture in the game you should have the opportunity to do something offensive, defensive, or greedy and it should all be viable would dilute the meta and is a childish "But I want it MY way!" mentality that seems common to inexperienced players who also want every unit to be viable in every MU and situation.
Starting with only 4 workers, thus allowing for builds like 5 Pool, and thus requiring Protoss to double scout at Pylon and Forge on 4 player maps if they want to be safe (or 9 Pool Speed, etc.), is a beautiful element of the game and is not something I think anyone who ACTUALLY PLAYS Brood War complains about. This down time before you can have an engagement is really the product of multiple correct insinuations and decisions made by both players. This is STRATEGY. It is the ebb and flow of safety vs. aggression, greed vs. vulnerability, etc. all done based on the presence or absence of scouting information.
Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
There's a point in TvZ where Terran gets +1 and range, but lurkers are not out yet - but Zerg wants to get a third. This is where Zerg has to use muta micro to prevent Terran from attacking too quickly.
Maybe the Zerg doesn't succeed, but cancels the third and builds it in another corner - while sending hydras there (in cross map scenarios). That's kind of a "draw" where Zerg gets a later third, but Terran can't deny it or do damage in the main either.
Or maybe Terran straight up kills the third which is a victory since Zerg doesn't cancel. Sometimes Terran tries to kill it, but muta/ling finally pics the Terran force apart. That's a Zerg victory.
It's VERY micro intensive - it's all about picking off units that don't move in formation. In SC2, the Terran army would just walk into the third and kill it. This is because there are no banelings in BW - muta/ling is strictly inferior to the Terran army if there's formation movement and stutter stepping. Muta stacking works weird in SC2 as well.
This is exactly right, When people say "power spikes" they don't see the differences between the games. In BW, since the counters are soft, it means that one side has to micro more intensively for a while but can still win a fight. But in SC2 it means that if you engage the enemy now then you die, GG.
I mean lurkers are supposed to counter M&Ms but the SK Terran build exists, and that consists of nothing but M&Ms + vessels vs lurkers. There is virutallly no situation in SC2 where you can micro a unit versus the unit that counters it. And there is virtually no situation where you can come out on top if you engage at the wrong timing.
I think the difference is because Dustin Browder might have designed SC2 like he designed Red Alert 2. One side just steamrolls the other depending on the timing.
From the beginning, the SC2 dev team has proved to be comically inept at designing a well rounded RTS. 'Design by committee' at its worst. Feature creep at its worst. Corporate heavy-handedness at its worst. The entire design philosophy can be summed up as: "We have a bunch of money to spend. That should equal a great game, right?"
They were too arrogant to draw on the vast knowledge of the existing BW pro circuit.
They are reactive in all the wrong ways (over-correcting balance issues disregarding the need for a stable environment) and proactive in all the wrong ways (artificially synthesizing whole new metas in their endless arrogance).
Imagine if FIFA changed the rules of soccer every 5 minutes and essentially told the teams what tactics they should use. Soccer would be seen as a joke. You don't need to nerf dribbles just because Messi is good at them. You don't need to nerf free kicks just because Ronaldo can hit knuckle balls. Just let the players shine.
They are completely oblivious to what their role should be. Their role should be to create a fun playing field with well designed units and then stay the hell out and let the players do their thing.
On July 28 2017 23:11 Foxxan wrote: [quote] Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
There's a point in TvZ where Terran gets +1 and range, but lurkers are not out yet - but Zerg wants to get a third. This is where Zerg has to use muta micro to prevent Terran from attacking too quickly.
Maybe the Zerg doesn't succeed, but cancels the third and builds it in another corner - while sending hydras there (in cross map scenarios). That's kind of a "draw" where Zerg gets a later third, but Terran can't deny it or do damage in the main either.
Or maybe Terran straight up kills the third which is a victory since Zerg doesn't cancel. Sometimes Terran tries to kill it, but muta/ling finally pics the Terran force apart. That's a Zerg victory.
It's VERY micro intensive - it's all about picking off units that don't move in formation. In SC2, the Terran army would just walk into the third and kill it. This is because there are no banelings in BW - muta/ling is strictly inferior to the Terran army if there's formation movement and stutter stepping. Muta stacking works weird in SC2 as well.
This is exactly right, When people say "power spikes" they don't see the differences between the games. In BW, since the counters are soft, it means that one side has to micro more intensively for a while but can still win a fight. But in SC2 it means that if you engage the enemy now then you die, GG.
I mean lurkers are supposed to counter M&Ms but the SK Terran build exists, and that consists of nothing but M&Ms + vessels vs lurkers. There is virutallly no situation in SC2 where you can micro a unit versus the unit that counters it. And there is virtually no situation where you can come out on top if you engage at the wrong timing.
I think the difference is because Dustin Browder might have designed SC2 like he designed Red Alert 2. One side just steamrolls the other depending on the timing.
LBM vs MMM?
Hydra bane vs Archon/Chargelot/Immo/Storm?
Zerg vs Carrier/Storm?
Can you not make broad statements without actually knowing anything about the game. Come on.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
If the 'actual discourse' is people who have hardly touched or watched SC2 flaming it because they never liked it in the first place, then yes it has very little value. So many posts in here are a complete joke of inaccuracy
On July 29 2017 10:08 Hannibaal wrote: What I don't like about SC2 is that it has many things that in my opinion should not exist in an RTS. There is not much advantage in highground, there are units that break this like the Reaper or the Colossus. Another unit that for me has been a cancer is Medevac, being a transport unit but also has the function of healing becomes an obligation to build it and the drops are not produced by tactical decision but because you build four or eight Medevacs To heal your bio units and it is stupid not to take advantage of them to try a drop if there is the opportunity, therefore producing this unit is not a tactical decision, it is an obligation when you have bio units (and doomdrops are stupid).
Deathballs are unacceptable and no aesthetic in an RTS, that coupled with poorly designed units creates very unfair situations; The other I saw a video of Innovation against Scarlett, Scarlett had mass banelings and did not need skills to destroy the Army of Innovation, this has happened to me a lot in ladder, Zerg players who earn me with broken units like the banelings.
The medivacs are also really bad for E-sport broadcasting as they totally take away the trill of an incoming drop. Sc2 Maps terrain just lost most of the relevance.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
If the 'actual discourse' is people who have hardly touched or watched SC2
Of course we did. I think everyone who you perceive as blind SC2 haters genuinely gave it a chance and tried to enjoy it. It's the broken promises and wasted potential that made us turn back to BW.
I think two points. 1. They listened to people's constant bitching way too much and didn't let shit sort itself out 2. They wee too delayed in releasing good game features, someone already mentioned it took them so long to release tournaments, public channels, arcade, etc, etc
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
If the 'actual discourse' is people who have hardly touched or watched SC2 flaming it because they never liked it in the first place, then yes it has very little value. So many posts in here are a complete joke of inaccuracy
The people who complain about SC2 don't complain because they didn't give it a chance, they complain because they did.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
If the 'actual discourse' is people who have hardly touched or watched SC2 flaming it because they never liked it in the first place, then yes it has very little value. So many posts in here are a complete joke of inaccuracy
Then correct the faulty viewpoints with non-opinion facts, so that the ones that do have value can stand out?
On July 29 2017 03:44 ProMeTheus112 wrote: i think there can be good games in sc2, just not as good not as often, and lot of pretty bad games
Re: opisska:
This is my thought as well. I often watch TL's "top games of 20XX" and I even went through the trouble of watching the rest of the series in some cases. There were a few TvZ's I truly thought were good games; Inno vs. TaeJa was a good game too. SC2 just doesn't deliver those games frequently enough for me to commit to watching anything but the "best of." Certainly doesn't motivate me to pick the game back up.
This is certainly a valid point. I watch so much SC2 that I come by the good games naturally, but it's true that a lot of games is just filler. I never really watch more BW than what someine point to as a good game, ao I have no idea how doea BW compare to SC2 in good game frequency. The advantage of LoTV is that the boring games are usually done with pretty fast. Also it's matchup dependent - most of TvPs are very similar to each other, but TvTs tend to be variable as hell. TvZ can be formulaic, but leads to good games often anyway, ZvP is really hit or miss, ZvZ is a few total gems in a sea of rubbish, PvP I don't get much at all ...
I think there's a big issue you point out here... I like to play and watch protoss. As you implicitly said while defending SC2, Protoss in SC2 is just really not fun and don't tend to lead to good games. That's what really turned me off from it. Watching Has can be funny but that's about it.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
I don't agree. WC2 and SC are 2d RTS games with a lot of similarities, like workers gathering 2 types of resources, fog of war, upgrading townhalls, a supply system, the range and vision of units, length of gamed, multitasking and micro... I tried SC late, and was surpried by how many Warcraft 2 features they had managed to squeeze into a spacegame, many of which make absolutely no sense from a scifi p.o.v, like futuristic assault rifles with the range of 15 meters and massive space ships with the max speed of 40 km/h.
WC3 to WoW was a complete change of genre, the same kind of jump the Warcraft adventure game would have made.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 18:46 Slydie wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:57 Jae Zedong wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
I don't agree. WC2 and SC are 2d RTS games with a lot of similarities, like workers gathering 2 types of resources, fog of war, upgrading townhalls, a supply system, the range and vision of units, length of gamed, multitasking and micro... I tried SC late, and was surpried by how many Warcraft 2 features they had managed to squeeze into a spacegame, many of which make absolutely no sense from a scifi p.o.v, like futuristic assault rifles with the range of 15 meters and massive space ships with the max speed of 40 km/h.
Literally all of that except the 2D applies to SC2 as well. So by your logic, SC2 is a sequel to WC2. Gimme a break.
And before you retort with the counter argument I know you'll make: sequels don't have to be in chronological order. Return of the Jedi is a sequel to A New Hope despite The Empire Strikes Back intersecting them.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 18:46 Slydie wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:57 Jae Zedong wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
I don't agree. WC2 and SC are 2d RTS games with a lot of similarities, like workers gathering 2 types of resources, fog of war, upgrading townhalls, a supply system, the range and vision of units, length of gamed, multitasking and micro... I tried SC late, and was surpried by how many Warcraft 2 features they had managed to squeeze into a spacegame, many of which make absolutely no sense from a scifi p.o.v, like futuristic assault rifles with the range of 15 meters and massive space ships with the max speed of 40 km/h.
Literally all of that except the 2D applies to SC2 as well. So by your logic, SC2 is a sequel to WC2. Gimme a break.
And before you retort with the counter argument I know you'll make: sequels don't have to be in chronological order. Return of the Jedi is a sequel to A New Hope despite The Empire Strikes Back intersecting them.
You could very easily skin the SC games in a fantasy world and vice versa. The lore and art concept are the main differences, but all main game mechanics of the genre are essentially the same. WC3, on the other hand, made some drastic changes, like heroes, items and upkeep.
Also, remember that when the 1st starcraft game came out, none of the newer Warcraft games existed, which made it look much more like a direct sequel than it does now. I believe it was even discussed in the team, they could have chosen the same world, but went for the most different one they could come up with. War-craft, Star-craft... get it? Dune 2 was pretty much 3-race "Warcraft, Orcs and Humans" in space, though, so the link was already there.
I stopped playing because i used to watch a lot of sc:bw, flash, etc. when they didn't play well or retired from sc2, i lost interest because its the same reason people watch pro sports for the super stars playing.
The far east Asians, including the Koreans have 3000 years old history of competitive mental sports like "the-game-of-GO" (kind of chess) where the families where proud of they'r children becoming professional at those games.
When I come back to TL and see the main page full of sc2 news and not a single BW news is kind of pathetic and in terms of gaming I'm ashamed of being a westerner.
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 18:46 Slydie wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:57 Jae Zedong wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
I don't agree. WC2 and SC are 2d RTS games with a lot of similarities, like workers gathering 2 types of resources, fog of war, upgrading townhalls, a supply system, the range and vision of units, length of gamed, multitasking and micro... I tried SC late, and was surpried by how many Warcraft 2 features they had managed to squeeze into a spacegame, many of which make absolutely no sense from a scifi p.o.v, like futuristic assault rifles with the range of 15 meters and massive space ships with the max speed of 40 km/h.
Literally all of that except the 2D applies to SC2 as well. So by your logic, SC2 is a sequel to WC2. Gimme a break.
And before you retort with the counter argument I know you'll make: sequels don't have to be in chronological order. Return of the Jedi is a sequel to A New Hope despite The Empire Strikes Back intersecting them.
You could very easily skin the SC games in a fantasy world and vice versa. The lore and art concept are the main differences, but all main game mechanics of the genre are essentially the same. WC3, on the other hand, made some drastic changes, like heroes, items and upkeep.
Also, remember that when the 1st starcraft game came out, none of the newer Warcraft games existed, which made it look much more like a direct sequel than it does now. I believe it was even discussed in the team, they could have chosen the same world, but went for the most different one they could come up with. War-craft, Star-craft... get it? Dune 2 was pretty much 3-race "Warcraft, Orcs and Humans" in space, though, so the link was already there.
Still doesn't make it a sequel. As if the vast differences between WC2 and Starcraft weren't enough, it is not a sequel lore wise or even set in the same universe. Having a slightly similar name is irrelevant, which I tried to illustrate by pointing out that World of Warcraft obviously isn't a sequel to Warcraft 3.
If you consider SC2 to be a sequel to Starcraft and Starcraft to be a sequel to WC2, then by extension you consider SC2 a sequel to WC2. Which should serve to illustrate how silly the notion that Starcaft is a sequel to WC2 is.
lol did you know artanis says "This is not warcraft in space!" when you click on him a lot perhaps the biggest similarity between warcraft 2 and starcraft is that when you click many times on a critter it makes a big explosion^^
On July 29 2017 18:55 Jae Zedong wrote: Typical conflict-averse mindset. "Let's be merry together and have forced positivity. Oh you want to have actual discourse? WELL SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN THEN SORRY FOR TRYING".
On July 29 2017 18:46 Slydie wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:57 Jae Zedong wrote:
On July 29 2017 06:22 Slydie wrote: RTS-games were at it's peak in the mid 90s with the Dune 2, Warcraft, C&C and Age of Empires series. Many players bought and played sc2 for nostalgic reasons
I'm sorry, but why the hell did you leave out Starcraft from that list? You as a Starcraft 2 player list classic RTSes from the 90's and leave out the best selling RTS from that period? Are you not aware what the 2 in Starcraft 2 means?
No reason to state the obvious, and Starcraft was a sequel to the Warcraft series, set in space.
It was a sequel to Warcraft as much as World of Warcraft was a sequel to Warcraft. They are completely different games. And Starcraft massively outsold both Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.
I don't agree. WC2 and SC are 2d RTS games with a lot of similarities, like workers gathering 2 types of resources, fog of war, upgrading townhalls, a supply system, the range and vision of units, length of gamed, multitasking and micro... I tried SC late, and was surpried by how many Warcraft 2 features they had managed to squeeze into a spacegame, many of which make absolutely no sense from a scifi p.o.v, like futuristic assault rifles with the range of 15 meters and massive space ships with the max speed of 40 km/h.
Literally all of that except the 2D applies to SC2 as well. So by your logic, SC2 is a sequel to WC2. Gimme a break.
And before you retort with the counter argument I know you'll make: sequels don't have to be in chronological order. Return of the Jedi is a sequel to A New Hope despite The Empire Strikes Back intersecting them.
You could very easily skin the SC games in a fantasy world and vice versa. The lore and art concept are the main differences, but all main game mechanics of the genre are essentially the same. WC3, on the other hand, made some drastic changes, like heroes, items and upkeep.
Also, remember that when the 1st starcraft game came out, none of the newer Warcraft games existed, which made it look much more like a direct sequel than it does now. I believe it was even discussed in the team, they could have chosen the same world, but went for the most different one they could come up with. War-craft, Star-craft... get it? Dune 2 was pretty much 3-race "Warcraft, Orcs and Humans" in space, though, so the link was already there.
Still doesn't make it a sequel. As if the vast differences between WC2 and Starcraft weren't enough, it is not a sequel lore wise or even set in the same universe. Having a slightly similar name is irrelevant, which I tried to illustrate by pointing out that World of Warcraft obviously isn't a sequel to Warcraft 3.
If you consider SC2 to be a sequel to Starcraft and Starcraft to be a sequel to WC2, then by extension you consider SC2 a sequel to WC2. Which should serve to illustrate how silly the notion that Starcaft is a sequel to WC2 is.
Sequels or not, the games were in the same genre, made by the same company, had the same core gameplay mechanics (if you compare to other rts games) and had the same audience.
My point though, around the launch of sc, rts war games were among the most popular out there, with many successful series. That is not the case anymore, and the people who play rts for nostalgic reasons are getting too old now.
On July 30 2017 02:15 Slydie wrote:My point though, around the launch of sc, rts war games were among the most popular out there, with many successful series. That is not the case anymore, and the people who play rts for nostalgic reasons are getting too old now.
??? lol yeah we're all playing only "for nostalgic reasons" (not) and also we're "too old" (for what???) dunno what point you're making with this funny statement, or maybe its just your way of trying to insult everyone
On July 28 2017 23:11 Foxxan wrote: [quote] Wrong dude. As i said, the concept is old. You are thinking in old terms. I never stated how you scout for example. You are leaving out very many intells here and assuming BW is the way to go.
What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
There's a point in TvZ where Terran gets +1 and range, but lurkers are not out yet - but Zerg wants to get a third. This is where Zerg has to use muta micro to prevent Terran from attacking too quickly.
Maybe the Zerg doesn't succeed, but cancels the third and builds it in another corner - while sending hydras there (in cross map scenarios). That's kind of a "draw" where Zerg gets a later third, but Terran can't deny it or do damage in the main either.
Or maybe Terran straight up kills the third which is a victory since Zerg doesn't cancel. Sometimes Terran tries to kill it, but muta/ling finally pics the Terran force apart. That's a Zerg victory.
It's VERY micro intensive - it's all about picking off units that don't move in formation. In SC2, the Terran army would just walk into the third and kill it. This is because there are no banelings in BW - muta/ling is strictly inferior to the Terran army if there's formation movement and stutter stepping. Muta stacking works weird in SC2 as well.
This is exactly right, When people say "power spikes" they don't see the differences between the games. In BW, since the counters are soft, it means that one side has to micro more intensively for a while but can still win a fight. But in SC2 it means that if you engage the enemy now then you die, GG.
I mean lurkers are supposed to counter M&Ms but the SK Terran build exists, and that consists of nothing but M&Ms + vessels vs lurkers. There is virutallly no situation in SC2 where you can micro a unit versus the unit that counters it. And there is virtually no situation where you can come out on top if you engage at the wrong timing.
I think the difference is because Dustin Browder might have designed SC2 like he designed Red Alert 2. One side just steamrolls the other depending on the timing.
Actually, during the development of sc2 there were many people arguing that bw was better than wc3. It was about as prevalent as sc2 vs bw discussions are now. One of the most used arguments back then was that the hard counter system of bw was more enjoyable than the soft counters of wc3. I don't remember people arguing that bw actually had soft counters. It was a given that bw had hard counters, wc3 had soft counters and the discussion was about which was better. Blizzard may have even referenced these discussions during the development of sc2, my memory is not clear on that.
On July 30 2017 02:15 Slydie wrote:My point though, around the launch of sc, rts war games were among the most popular out there, with many successful series. That is not the case anymore, and the people who play rts for nostalgic reasons are getting too old now.
??? lol yeah we're all playing only "for nostalgic reasons" (not) and also we're "too old" (for what???) dunno what point you're making with this funny statement, or maybe its just your way of trying to insult everyone
Bad wording maybe. Just assuming some players would return to the franchises of their youth, same as for Diablo 3, for example.
Anyway, what is the most popular rts war-game released after Wings of Liberty? Maybe I am not completely on top of it, but the only other rts games I see in stores are rewrappings of Age of Empires bundles...
I still think EG were a large reason for SC2's demise.
I've made this point before, but I think they exploited SC2 for short term drama-based viewer spikes ("OMG look at what IdrA said today!") and people like Incontrol were actively pushing Koreans to become "personalities" rather than good players. Focus on brand deals, call someone an asshole, whine a little about balance. The sort of behaviour that EG encouraged made a pretty big short term profit for them and I wager for some tournaments as well, but they HAD to know it would hurt SC2 in the long.
Anyone who worked on the Kardashianisation of SC2 is someone who, in my views, contributed to its demise.
If I go back and play WoL now & compare it to LoTV then it's easy for me to see that WoL was much better. For me the problem with the game is the fact that 1 base play is practically dead & there are too many dumb units that disregard strategy & the game is too fast. It sucks playing protoss in 1v1 being 1 base ahead and be ahead in supply & even have home advantage and still lose just because the other protoss had lucky disruptor hits. Stuff like that kills 1v1. Also the fact that 1v1 is basically harasscraft 2 is also super annoying.
On July 30 2017 03:39 Jan1997 wrote: If I go back and play WoL now & compare it to LoTV then it's easy for me to see that WoL was much better. For me the problem with the game is the fact that 1 base play is practically dead & there are too many dumb units that disregard strategy & the game is too fast. It sucks playing protoss in 1v1 being 1 base ahead and be ahead in supply & even have home advantage and still lose just because the other protoss had lucky disruptor hits. Stuff like that kills 1v1. Also the fact that 1v1 is basically harasscraft 2 is also super annoying.
Why do you guys keep arguing that pretty minor gameplay details are the reason why the game is declining? It is a genre-problem, not a hardcore-geeks only balance issue. I just had a look at this:
The only RTS game to sell over 1 million copies after 2010, except the Starcraft ones, was Europa Universalis, which might not even be a RTS game at all. There are plenty of games on the list, though, but the genre as a whole has been on a decline for a long time. You can't blame the boring design of the marauder for that.
Then I looked at this:
The Warhammer game might have some potential, but the 2 major titles for this year are tuneups to old classics, the other games seem pretty awful for being on a top-list!
Also, you guys are overrating SCBW! I did in fact play the game quite a bit, but I never got into playing 1v1, because the game was simply too hard, even after a substantial amount of hours put into it. I remember a friend of mine said "I have never met a guy knowing so much about a game", and that was just about the units of each race and their abilities...
SC2 is dead because it's not such a good game. The only reason it did not die before is because there are not many alternatives, SC2 has not had competition in its genre and so did not lose players before. Those who say RTS are in decline, that's a bad excuse. You can not expect an RTS to compete with LoL, but you can expect an RTS with a scene larger than SC2. I repeat, SC2 is not such a good game, it has been kept a long time for lack of alternatives, but SC2 is a huge disappointment, a game with many design flaws, and many have mentioned it in this thread.
On July 30 2017 03:39 Jan1997 wrote: If I go back and play WoL now & compare it to LoTV then it's easy for me to see that WoL was much better. For me the problem with the game is the fact that 1 base play is practically dead & there are too many dumb units that disregard strategy & the game is too fast. It sucks playing protoss in 1v1 being 1 base ahead and be ahead in supply & even have home advantage and still lose just because the other protoss had lucky disruptor hits. Stuff like that kills 1v1. Also the fact that 1v1 is basically harasscraft 2 is also super annoying.
Why do you guys keep arguing that pretty minor gameplay details are the reason why the game is declining? It is a genre-problem, not a hardcore-geeks only balance issue. I just had a look at this:
The only RTS game to sell over 1 million copies after 2010, except the Starcraft ones, was Europa Universalis, which might not even be a RTS game at all. There are plenty of games on the list, though, but the genre as a whole has been on a decline for a long time. You can't blame the boring design of the marauder for that.
The Warhammer game might have some potential, but the 2 major titles for this year are tuneups to old classics, the other games seem pretty awful for being on a top-list!
Also, you guys are overrating SCBW! I did in fact play the game quite a bit, but I never got into playing 1v1, because the game was simply too hard, even after a substantial amount of hours put into it. I remember a friend of mine said "I have never met a guy knowing so much about a game", and that was just about the units of each race and their abilities...
if you didn't get into 1v1 you know nothing about bw.
On July 30 2017 04:29 Hannibaal wrote: SC2 is dead because it's not such a good game. The only reason it did not die before is because there are not many alternatives, SC2 has not had competition in its genre and so did not lose players before.
that's because RTS games don't provide ROI so Ensemble, EALA, Westwood etc all get shutdown. the counter to this i sometimes hear is.. "everyone sucks at making RTS games". i think people are bored of RTS games the same way they got bored of Gallery Shooters and Dot-Eating-Maze games. SO they're just blaming the games.
For me the big deal breaker how quickly the game forced me to play seriously. In most games I can fool around, play a little sloppy here and there and still beat my opponent by being better in some other areas. In SC2 it felt like I've barely got comfortable with the basic stuff and I'm already asked to memorize and optimize my build orders and play very disciplined. Too often being better than your opponent was through making less mistakes rather than doing more awesome and immensely challenging stuff. Combine all this with the lack of custom fun maps and you've got a very serious game.
As far as I can tell, there are two options to appreciate the game. You either start taking the game very seriously and try to climb the ladder or give up any hope of actual competitive gameplay and just appreciate the terrible terrible damage and explosions somewhere lower in the ladder. Both suit some groups of people, but players between those two categories aren't going to have that much fun.
Honestly it's embarrassing that people keep saying things like "what great graphics it had" when the graphics were a big reason why it was so garbage for spectators. The first time I tried to watch professional SC2, having never played it and as a professional Brood War watcher, it looked like fucking mud.
try watching C&C4 if you want to see bad graphics.
On July 30 2017 04:29 Hannibaal wrote: SC2 is dead because it's not such a good game. The only reason it did not die before is because there are not many alternatives, SC2 has not had competition in its genre and so did not lose players before.
i'd say RTS games have way more competition than they did in the 90s. The big payoff for the most mainstream audience are cool graphics and large scale battles between hundreds of units. This was only possible on a desktop PC in 1995 and so this funneled all the demand into that 1 platform. YOu couldn't watch giant cool big army battles on your Palm Pilot in the 1990s. Now you can play Smartphone games and Tablet games with huge army fights and tactical decisions with slow army buildups.
demand is now splintered amongst all kinds of alternatives that didn't exist during the growth period in the RTS genre during the 1990s. And the RTS games made in the 1990s had lots of flaws and problems.. its not like the games were all amazing.. and the genre kept on growing.
if you didn't get into 1v1 you know nothing about bw.
I was enough into it to download some progamer replays, and watch some VODs. The definitions of being a noob and knowing "nothing" are not exactly set in stone.
However, it was simply so much more relaxing to play tower-defence and moneymaps, and you got some teamplay in there as well.
However, I think we will have both a pro-scene and good laddergames in sc2 for years to come, if nothing else, for the lack of alternatives. And... the price of the game will fall, so some new players will always give it a shot, if they like the campaign.
On July 30 2017 04:51 lolmlg wrote: Honestly it's embarrassing that people keep saying things like "what great graphics it had" when the graphics were a big reason why it was so garbage for spectators. The first time I tried to watch professional SC2, having never played it and as a professional Brood War watcher, it looked like fucking mud.
Yup. The fact that all pros turn down the graphics settings to literal mud should give a hint as to just how goddamn awful the graphics are in a genre that thrives on visual clarity.
No I don't want to see 4000 particle effects every time something happens. Just show me what the hell is going on.
there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
No, you are wrong. Let's say the latest Landrover SUV is not living up to the expectations, but the SUV sales 20 years ago was great. Then, add to the fact that Landrover still has a 90% marketshare, every other SUV released the last 10 years have been small blips on the radar, and SUV sales in general has gone down 90% the last 15 years. Do you blame the design of the new rear-view mirror, or is the market simply shifing towards other types of cars, and the fail is caused by the fact that it is an SUV, rather than the quality of the product itself?
I didn't play sc2 since 1,5 years and did not watch a lot of it anymore but each time I'm seeing stuff with protoss involving, I shiver, the design of this race in hots and its dominance though the extension made me not interesting in lotv anymore just like many ppl get disgusted by the bl/infest. A lot of games are/were extremely frustrating especially against toss and criticism over protoss design and overall design of the game has been already adressed since 7 years.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
On July 30 2017 05:58 stilt wrote: I didn't play sc2 since 1,5 years and did not watch a lot of it anymore but each time I'm seeing stuff with protoss involving, I shiver, the design of this race in hots and its dominance though the extension made me not interesting in lotv anymore just like many ppl get disgusted by the bl/infest. A lot of games are/were extremely frustrating especially against toss and criticism over protoss design and overall design of the game has been already adressed since 7 years.
This, a lot of poor stuff that has happened but no longer is in the game anymore seems to be one of the issues. People don't play LotV because of 4 gate, Broodlord/Infestor, initial Swarm Host design... I remember how D3 was criticized and how D2 was superior to it because it had seasons. Well, seasons got added and people quickly found other stuff to dislike. Similar situation here, some just will never look positively at SC2 when their initial standpoint is that the game is bad and refuse to take another look.
I'm not sure why I even join the discussion with such stupid hypothesis, SC2 is not "wrecked"... wait, this is Brood War forum, what else could I expect on TL.
But I'll agree fully with the statement that SC1 is a 'non-engineered' game, most of the things that people regard as important to BW were completely unintended, also the whole popularity of the game came from random Korean idea
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-game genre comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
People showing interest to something new. What a surprise. People getting bored of something that lacked depth from the beginning? Who could see that coming.
On July 30 2017 05:58 stilt wrote: I didn't play sc2 since 1,5 years and did not watch a lot of it anymore but each time I'm seeing stuff with protoss involving, I shiver, the design of this race in hots and its dominance though the extension made me not interesting in lotv anymore just like many ppl get disgusted by the bl/infest. A lot of games are/were extremely frustrating especially against toss and criticism over protoss design and overall design of the game has been already adressed since 7 years.
This, a lot of poor stuff that has happened but no longer is in the game anymore seems to be one of the issues. People don't play LotV because of 4 gate, Broodlord/Infestor, initial Swarm Host design... I remember how D3 was criticized and how D2 was superior to it because it had seasons. Well, seasons got added and people quickly found other stuff to dislike. Similar situation here, some just will never look positively at SC2 when their initial standpoint is that the game is bad and refuse to take another look.
I'm not sure why I even join the discussion with such stupid hypothesis, SC2 is not "wrecked"... wait, this is Brood War forum, what else could I expect on TL.
But I'll agree fully with the statement that SC1 is a 'non-engineered' game, most of the things that people regard as important to BW were completely unintended, also the whole popularity of the game came from random Korean idea
Bad move bringing up Diablo 3 as that game actually refutes your point. Diablo 3 went from being pretty universally disliked to being considered good by almost everyone, thanks to the dev team finally getting its act together.
Diablo 3 proves it is possible to turn a negative trend by making correct decisions – something the SC2 dev team rarely have.
D3 when it come out, seasons were not even the most important missing when compared to D2, D2 itemization and stat system was just a ton more interesting (the whole char customization and progression system basically), also some of the mechanics and difficulty, also the chat (many things in D3 were sacrificed and twisted to play in favor of auction house, it was rly rly terrible) ton of ppl left D3 at that point, many of those who stayed or came back seem rather happy with it now (not all, kripp gave exemple of bad stuff like the diablo "remake" in D3), I heard it got a lot better in a lot of ways, its not just about seasons though. Some guys were also talking about how end game is all about wearing certain OP sets of items and doing repetitive and boring rifts. Personally I'm not bothering with this game any more, not to mention the artistic direction had too many poor elements. Many players still prefer D2 to D3, I dunno but possibly there are more D2 players right now than D3? but blizz hides their numbers now D3 was actually the biggest hit to blizzard reputation. I think I did read a few times how past bad decisions of D3 are still damaging it today despite the improvements. When I look at it it doesn't look nearly as fun as D2.
the new games are inferior to the older games, cause the company has turned to industrious money making with heavy advertising and diluting quality for quantity. yeah like fast food, bad food, still sells
The only similarity is that both D3 and SC2 lost a bunch of players early because of dumb dev decisions. But the difference now is that D3 is considered good whereas SC2 is considered average to bad depending on who you ask. The SC2 community is pretty darn gloomy and few people seem to genuinely enjoy the current state of the game.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
This is absolutely not true. Every competitive game that has been really beloved by a diehard fanbase has subsequently been alienated by a sequel that's comparatively shit. BW --> SC2. Quake 2/3 --> 4. CS 1.6 --> Source. Melee --> Brawl/Smash4. MvC2 --> MvC3. SF3 --> SF4 --> SF5. DOTA --> League (people might argue that this isn't a sequel, but at its inception, League was a blatant ripoff of DOTA).
People overcomplicate the flaws with SC2's evolution. The doom and gloom people in WoL were the most accurate. LaLush wrote about how Blizzard killed micro, like moving shot, because all anyone talked about was macro. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but controlling your units to outmaneuver and crush your opponents is much more fun than building shit in your base. And Destiny was pretty on point about how Blizzard was fucking shit up for the casual base. At its core, SC2 is not a very fun game. It's not "too competitive" or "dead genre," it's that the game has little to offer any demographic. You want a sick, rewarding, hardcore solo game? Games of the past are much more appealing than SC2. You want something casual and fun? MOBAs or whatever else are the most popular games, so go play those. SC2 needed to do SOMETHING better. Why does no one ever talk about teams in StarCraft? Blizzard COULD have made 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 real formats with cool maps and a balance philosophy that took this into account. Blizzard COULD have had an interface that encouraged custom games and casual play more. Blizzard COULD have made a fucking sick 1v1 game so that people like Idra hadn't been so vocal that the game sucks ass.
StarCraft 2 is a casualty of mediocre and worn out game design based on a design philosophy that is completely out of touch with any potential player base. With how much hype was behind its release and how much time went into creating it, it's a pathetic product. It brings virtually nothing new to the RTS genre and takes away some of the good things that existed in it. People have had way too much faith in Blizzard. Since Diablo 2, their game design has been timid and they haven't listened to any people who give meaningfully bold and decisive feedback.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
This is absolutely not true. Every competitive game that has been really beloved by a diehard fanbase has subsequently been alienated by a sequel that's comparatively shit. BW --> SC2. Quake 2/3 --> 4. CS 1.6 --> Source. Melee --> Brawl/Smash4. MvC2 --> MvC3. SF3 --> SF4 --> SF5. DOTA --> League (people might argue that this isn't a sequel, but at its inception, League was a blatant ripoff of DOTA).
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-game genre comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
People showing interest to something new. What a surprise. Your argument is beating me hands down. People getting bored of something that lacked depth from the beginning? Who could see that coming.
10/10 argument, lets end here you win
City simulator games, turn-based strategy, tychoon games, flight-simulators... Deep games can also go out of fashion. As for the RTS genre as a whole, I believe there are some key problems:
1: A long, steep learning curve, gamers expect to get the basics have fun right away more than a generation ago.
2: Controlling things that are not in your vision with the keyboard.
3: Not only keeping an eye on the minimap, but moving your screen around to control many units in locations far apart at once.
4: Managing resources and microing at once.
I do not know that many gamers from 7 to 20 nowdays, but FPS games seem more resistant to the tides of time. As for the guys that would have played RTS 20 years ago, they play minecraft now, and focus more on their creative skills instead. Even MOBAs might not last forever, but I believe well made adventure- and RPGs will keep having an audience, especially if VR takes off.
On July 30 2017 05:58 stilt wrote: I didn't play sc2 since 1,5 years and did not watch a lot of it anymore but each time I'm seeing stuff with protoss involving, I shiver, the design of this race in hots and its dominance though the extension made me not interesting in lotv anymore just like many ppl get disgusted by the bl/infest. A lot of games are/were extremely frustrating especially against toss and criticism over protoss design and overall design of the game has been already adressed since 7 years.
This, a lot of poor stuff that has happened but no longer is in the game anymore seems to be one of the issues. People don't play LotV because of 4 gate, Broodlord/Infestor, initial Swarm Host design... I remember how D3 was criticized and how D2 was superior to it because it had seasons. Well, seasons got added and people quickly found other stuff to dislike. Similar situation here, some just will never look positively at SC2 when their initial standpoint is that the game is bad and refuse to take another look.
I'm not sure why I even join the discussion with such stupid hypothesis, SC2 is not "wrecked"... wait, this is Brood War forum, what else could I expect on TL.
But I'll agree fully with the statement that SC1 is a 'non-engineered' game, most of the things that people regard as important to BW were completely unintended, also the whole popularity of the game came from random Korean idea
Bad move bringing up Diablo 3 as that game actually refutes your point. Diablo 3 went from being pretty universally disliked to being considered good by almost everyone, thanks to the dev team finally getting its act together.
Diablo 3 proves it is possible to turn a negative trend by making correct decisions – something the SC2 dev team rarely have.
Maybe it was a bad move, but it was motivated by constantly seeing comments about D2 being much better than D3 even very recently. Probably we've seen different comments about it in different places. See ProMeTheus112's post above for instance, it's the worst Blizzard game to date there
On July 30 2017 06:50 ProMeTheus112 wrote: D3 when it come out, seasons were not even the most important missing when compared to D2, D2 itemization and stat system was just a ton more interesting (the whole char customization and progression system basically), also some of the mechanics and difficulty, also the chat (many things in D3 were sacrificed and twisted to play in favor of auction house, it was rly rly terrible) ton of ppl left D3 at that point, many of those who stayed or came back seem rather happy with it now (not all, kripp gave exemple of bad stuff like the diablo "remake" in D3), I heard it got a lot better in a lot of ways, its not just about seasons though. Some guys were also talking about how end game is all about wearing certain OP sets of items and doing repetitive and boring rifts. Personally I'm not bothering with this game any more, not to mention the artistic direction had too many poor elements. Many players still prefer D2 to D3, I dunno but possibly there are more D2 players right now than D3? but blizz hides their numbers now D3 was actually the biggest hit to blizzard reputation. I think I did read a few times how past bad decisions of D3 are still damaging it today despite the improvements. When I look at it it doesn't look nearly as fun as D2.
I agree with everything except with the artistic direction which is just brilliant to me, this with the gameplay being less repetittive than most hack n slash are the things that make launch the game for 2 weeks every years or so. The lack of "purpose" ie item & character customization is what make the game bad to me.After PoE, D3 have no point at all.
To me i would say though more hard,BW feel more "fun" (while much more unpleasant to play) at least at low level than SC2 , which, while maybe in a less good shape of BW, is a game more serious and maybe too well constructed
Also as a big fan of the first Doom i must says here i can understand the BW fans : the movements feels & gameplay of the original Doom make it unique for me, except for Doom it's mostly solo gameplay that is still amazing,with the original engine feelings and the projectile based monsters that are bound with it (for those who does'nt know those game were released as open source and still have solids communities with amazing creators check it out)
But also thanks to Pwad (levels/mods) that could be made easily : more gameplay time for work time if you compare with modern fps ,but still lots of creative possibilities, Solos levels created long time after Doom2 was released have a much more refined gameplay with the original setup (same monsters&weapons), the gameplay here too evovled "alone" on the same monsters stats&weapons on a 20 years scale. Honestly, the originals game levels feels fun yet lame after you tried those. The comparison also stand for arcade of SC2, where the lack of both great maked solo maps (and visibility) and fun multiplayer maps is disturbing, and probably wrecked SC2 more than all the rest,it's probably because 1) Galaxy editor is more complicated 2) I suspect also most people get less into sci-fi theme (more "geeky") than the fantasy , aka WC3 where lots of people were playing customs.Not competitive players, but surely both casuals & mapsmakers would'nt "trip" on a Starcraft based custom maps like they do in it's time in WC3 maps with all the "cool" creature (in europe).
Because the arcades games are boring on SC2, there were innovations but not maps that would attract people like on WC3, only desert strike is played consistently, and while polished this map is lame, too much time-consuming. On WC3 there was X Heroe siege, more towers defense, fortress survival. Legion TD still rocks and people are playing it actively. The SC2 versions is less fun to play to me, the SC design as well as pace make it less enjoyable.
Also the 2.0 Bnet initial fail is astonishing to me (no chats awful arcade system with no "opens games" tab), much more than balance/design issues than people complain about , it makes me wonder if it was'nt planned.
On top of that, while i enjoy it very much, the design of the races&game for 1v1 make the teams games poorly enjoyable, and also you need the correct setup to play it (Macro 3v3 was litterally A click &pray to me) unlike WC3.
All this led to poor casual player retention which hurt the game in the first place.
the art direction in D3, what I didn't like basically is all the music/atmosphere and also dialogue lines like the Act3 demon constantly repeating smtg about what he's going to do idk when I compared this with D2 or D1 I was pretty apalled. Lot of work in many aspects but overall it didnt feel very interesting. But at the same time there are qualities yeah. could have been such a great game and instead it was quite bad
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
FPSs are as old as Rob Halford is gay and are still huge. Dune II and Wolfenstein 3D were both released in 1992, and were, if not the first, the genre-defining titles.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
It's not ignoring flaws to note that the genre is inherently niche, which is a major factor in the games longevity. It's probably a miracle that the game has lasted so long.
Especially when people consider that the games that people compare SC2 to in regards to their super popularity, are HUGE. Dota has 12 million players a MONTH. League had 11 million a month back in 2011. Counterstrike has sold 31 million copies.
If we take a look at SC2. Even at its prime. It sold around 3m in the first few months iicr and took 2 years for it to sell 6 million copies. And the vast majority of those people are only going to play for the campaign and quit.
SC2 never stood a freaking chance. It's too niche.
Among other issues it's Blizzard's fault that they attempted to create a game with no features sucking money off people. They never had will to incorporate skins or anything in the engine since they wrongly assumed that people care more about the gameplay than flashiness and all, until they were begged for it. Global Offensive seemingly never took off before Valve added skins and let scams/gambling go rampant, this impressive bold number of 31 million copies is not accurate regarding active player numbers. It has quite less players than DOTA 2.
Unforuntately with that, SC2 is a victim of using an old business model, as that giant micro transaction wave took out a bit before and after SC2 was released. It took them forever to break down the game's engine so it could even do that kind stuff.
On July 30 2017 12:38 lestye wrote: Unforuntately with that, SC2 is a victim of using an old business model, as that giant micro transaction wave took out a bit before and after SC2 was released. It took them forever to break down the game's engine so it could even do that kind stuff.
I agree, maybe the game wouldn't be at the very top at the moment among League and the rest, but if you could play dress-up in SC2 from the start it would definitely keep many more people in.
Some left SC2 because of the problems it had, some don't like the design, but I believe majority was not satisfied that it's only a game. Nowadays no developer would dare to make a multiplayer game where you can't change your character's pants color. For real money ofc. And today it seems to be more of a customer requirement than product of company's greed.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
FPSs are as old as Rob Halford is gay and are still huge. Dune II and Wolfenstein 3D were both released in 1992, and were, if not the first, the genre-defining titles.
The FPS genre can be played with a team like in Overwatch. So developers of FPS games have been able to harness improving technology and make it part of the genre. Harnessing improving technology and incorporating it into an existing game type staves off boredom. However, this is not always possible in every genre otherwise we'd all be playing variants of Pong, Space War, and Night Driver.
technology is constantly improving. it kills some genres and others live on. Gallery Shooters and Dot Eating Maze games were way bigger than RTS ever was. Side-scrolling brawlers.. now dead. etc If better tech can kill them .... RTS is easy.
improving technology wiped out the RTS genre years ago. the Starcraft franchise is the last man standing being held together by a company with an unmatched williness to support their games forever.
Over the next 10 years SCR and LotV support will be used to convert the SC customer base to Starcraft games that do not require a PC.
On July 30 2017 15:11 Ancestral wrote: PC gaming is the biggest it has been in years. And, RTSs, as I've repeated many times in this thread, can be played in teams.
PC gaming is the biggest has been in years, but RTS has not seen that growth. An RTS is lucky if it breaks a million, let alone beating the hits of 20 years ago, which aren't even that high compared to the blockbusters of today.
And just because it "can" be played in teams, doesn't mean its as fun as FPS/MOBAs/RPGs for the casual audience.
On July 30 2017 15:11 Ancestral wrote: PC gaming is the biggest it has been in years. And, RTSs, as I've repeated many times in this thread, can be played in teams.
PC gaming is the biggest has been in years, but RTS has not seen that growth. An RTS is lucky if it breaks a million, let alone beating the hits of 20 years ago, which aren't even that high compared to the blockbusters of today.
And just because it "can" be played in teams, doesn't mean its as fun as FPS/MOBAs/RPGs for the casual audience.
Custom games are. The problem is that it's a hard sell to casual outsiders.
"You should totally buy this game that contains a sandbox mode that contains other games made by other users!"
On July 30 2017 15:11 Ancestral wrote: PC gaming is the biggest it has been in years. And, RTSs, as I've repeated many times in this thread, can be played in teams.
PC gaming is the biggest has been in years, but RTS has not seen that growth. An RTS is lucky if it breaks a million, let alone beating the hits of 20 years ago, which aren't even that high compared to the blockbusters of today.
And just because it "can" be played in teams, doesn't mean its as fun as FPS/MOBAs/RPGs for the casual audience.
Custom games are. The problem is that it's a hard sell to casual outsiders.
"You should totally buy this game that contains a sandbox mode that contains other games made by other users!"
"...What?"
Ultimately thats a problem for the genre. "yeah, the most appealing mode is the part where they take everything away that makes it part of the genre".
What is the popularity of the customs even good for? Why is it even desirable? It has minimal effect on the sustainability of the scene for the actual game. If people don't care for the real SC, the popularity of completely different gamea that happen to run on the same software won't do anything about it.
That's honestly one thing I never got, people complaining about bad support for UMS games in SC2 and linking that to the declining popularity of the game itself.
On July 30 2017 15:11 Ancestral wrote: PC gaming is the biggest it has been in years. And, RTSs, as I've repeated many times in this thread, can be played in teams.
PC gaming is the biggest has been in years, but RTS has not seen that growth. An RTS is lucky if it breaks a million, let alone beating the hits of 20 years ago, which aren't even that high compared to the blockbusters of today.
And just because it "can" be played in teams, doesn't mean its as fun as FPS/MOBAs/RPGs for the casual audience.
Custom games are. The problem is that it's a hard sell to casual outsiders.
"You should totally buy this game that contains a sandbox mode that contains other games made by other users!"
"...What?"
Ultimately thats a problem for the genre. "yeah, the most appealing mode is the part where they take everything away that makes it part of the genre".
For sure. It is pretty remarkable how such a decidedly unfun (from a casual point of view) game like SC2 managed to draw and retain casuals for a pretty long time. Every other office in 2010 had in-house SC2 tournaments.
Nostalgia and marketing should probably not be underrated in this equation.
On July 30 2017 17:21 opisska wrote: What is the popularity of the customs even good for? Why is it even desirable? It has minimal effect on the sustainability of the scene for the actual game. If people don't care for the real SC, the popularity of completely different gamea that happen to run on the same software won't do anything about it.
That's honestly one thing I never got, people complaining about bad support for UMS games in SC2 and linking that to the declining popularity of the game itself.
It gets people in the door. WC3 had a healthy scene until SC2 release, and in part because people actually logged into battle.net to play customs
Having bought and installed the game to play Dota, they may or may not choose to play something casual like 4v4 RT. That's called having an install base.
On July 28 2017 23:28 Ancestral wrote: [quote] What do you mean by the RTS "concept" is old? It's less old than fighting games or FPSs, which are still plenty active as far as development, casual play, and ESPORTS.
The thinking in rts games are old, there are no modern thinking made in rts games. The old "concept" is: High buildtime without any interraction with your opponent. Meaning, you build supply, units, gets your economy bigger, can take litteral several minutes this alone. No real micro involved in this period, or real tough decisions or tactics. Big emphasize of hardcounters.
Very outdated. Yes some old concepts can still be good but there are several that doesnt fit in a modern rts game.
From curiosity, let's run with this.
What would you see in a game if you were designing one. Obviously, the RTS genre itself is still enjoyed by many, so I don't think it quite makes the concept of RTS outdated...but what you seem to be suggesting is some fundamental to changes to how RTS plays.
In your updated version of RTS, can you give some sort of conceptual idea of how game flow/unit interactions/etc would operate?
That is a hard thing to do. Deponding on what kind of RTS design it is. Not sure i understand your question either? My word knowledge is rather bad.
Yes i want to change how RTS games are played. Not sure how to describe it, without getting a headache. And i usually am vague with my explanations, if i was to try and really make people understand it would take a while. Not something i really wanna do. Still i dont quite understand what kind of answer you would have liked.
You talk about how the RTS concept is old and designers don't understand the format. To me, this means that you have some ideas of what designers should do differently. I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Right now, it feels sort of like if I was learning to play an instrument and you said "you're playing is bad", this may be true; but it's not very useful for understanding. You haven't said why it's bad/what should be better. Right now the only thing I know is "Foxxan thinks RTS design concept is old", but don't really have any idea what that means, or what could/should be different.
I understand what you mean now.
Hmm.
Make marines/marauders, move to protoss. Terran has big advantage now. Protoss makes zealots/sentries. Now protoss has adantage and terran cant fight. Terran moves home. Protoss move to terran natural. Terran gets stim. Protoss cant fight, needs to go home.
Another scenario
bio+medivacs vs zealots/stalkers/sentires. Protoss has no chance, cant fight. Protoss adds colossus, now terran has no chance. Terran adds vikings. Terran has a chance now.
Terran does alot of hit and run in combat. Against storm, also splits. Protoss uses blink stalkers to snipe vikings and uses spells.
So what we have here in a conrete way is a cat and mouse type of gameplay. At the same time there is not much micro involved for protoss here. The tactics in combat.. Are bland. Vikings shoot colossus, stalkers shoot vikings. Bio kite and do its insane damage.
This whole deathball vs deathball doesnt have much finesse or color.
Bad stuff: cat and mouse gameplay and one sided micro I would change this drastically. For example, instead of viking hardcountering colossus, they should instead add some sort of tactic used in combat. Perhaps transform to the ground and get to the backfront of protoss armee. While being able to be microed as well. This shouldnt work in sc2, but if we use our imagination how an rts could look like. My point is, units should add some sort of tactic to the race instead of having the "outdated" hardcounter formula. It aint interesting or fun.
So in sc2, you make a few stalkers move outside zerg natural and pokes a bit, then moves home. Protoss uses walls against zerglings and roaches. Nothing Really Happens here. You play with yourself pretty much, in an rts game. Thats very wrong.
What could be happening then? Well first off, units shouldnt hardcounter each other especially so early in the game. The strengt of each armee and production needs to be more equal.
With that said, if protoss wants to poke outside zerg with stalkers? Then do it. When the zerglings gets speed? It shouldnt force protoss to be the mouse here. Protoss could stay.
Now here, there are so many possibilites to do here, even when its this early in the game. I mean designwise. And not to be arrogant but i dont really want to talk about my personal ideas much.
The zerglings vs stalkers in this scenario should have micro value added. How? Many ways. Just to try and give a picture of what i mean even though the example might not work in practice before beeing tested.
Zerglings slightly slower than stalkers with the speedupgrade. Instead they get the burrow ability from roaches.
Zerglings press burrow->Now you need to decide where you want to go or else you unburrow immediately. Where you decide to go, the enemy sees this and the zerglings pop up there, toss can dance around this. No cooldown.
There are like one million ways of designing an rts game.
i mean, isn't this kind of how a lot of BW matches work? TvZ in particular - specific units and upgrades give each side distinct advantages at different points in the game. terran has the early advantage with marine/medic until zerg gets mutas out, giving them the advantage., until terran gets marine range, then zerg responds with lurkers, then terran counters them with tanks, then zerg gets defilers, then terran starts massing up science vessels...
bw has early game unit counters too, remember that early game protoss roflstomps terran so hard they have to turtle in their base and wait for tanks to do anything.
strict unit counters are important to rts games, regardless of whether they require heavy micro or not - they're part of what forces tactical decision making, and they also help boost the defender's advantage if you have time to scout and respond to an incoming attack. without proper unit counters in place you end up with zvz, aka (arguably) the worst matchup in both bw and sc2. you just smash armies into each other to see which is bigger (see sc2 roach vs roach), or who can micro better (see bw muta vs muta). at least the 2nd one is kind of fun to watch, but the actual strategy element is lacking.
There's a point in TvZ where Terran gets +1 and range, but lurkers are not out yet - but Zerg wants to get a third. This is where Zerg has to use muta micro to prevent Terran from attacking too quickly.
Maybe the Zerg doesn't succeed, but cancels the third and builds it in another corner - while sending hydras there (in cross map scenarios). That's kind of a "draw" where Zerg gets a later third, but Terran can't deny it or do damage in the main either.
Or maybe Terran straight up kills the third which is a victory since Zerg doesn't cancel. Sometimes Terran tries to kill it, but muta/ling finally pics the Terran force apart. That's a Zerg victory.
It's VERY micro intensive - it's all about picking off units that don't move in formation. In SC2, the Terran army would just walk into the third and kill it. This is because there are no banelings in BW - muta/ling is strictly inferior to the Terran army if there's formation movement and stutter stepping. Muta stacking works weird in SC2 as well.
This is exactly right, When people say "power spikes" they don't see the differences between the games. In BW, since the counters are soft, it means that one side has to micro more intensively for a while but can still win a fight. But in SC2 it means that if you engage the enemy now then you die, GG.
I mean lurkers are supposed to counter M&Ms but the SK Terran build exists, and that consists of nothing but M&Ms + vessels vs lurkers. There is virutallly no situation in SC2 where you can micro a unit versus the unit that counters it. And there is virtually no situation where you can come out on top if you engage at the wrong timing.
I think the difference is because Dustin Browder might have designed SC2 like he designed Red Alert 2. One side just steamrolls the other depending on the timing.
Actually, during the development of sc2 there were many people arguing that bw was better than wc3. It was about as prevalent as sc2 vs bw discussions are now. One of the most used arguments back then was that the hard counter system of bw was more enjoyable than the soft counters of wc3. I don't remember people arguing that bw actually had soft counters. It was a given that bw had hard counters, wc3 had soft counters and the discussion was about which was better. Blizzard may have even referenced these discussions during the development of sc2, my memory is not clear on that.
Yeah I remember this. The thing about WC3 was the opposite, that everything was too tanky. There were fewer units, so they had to live longer. And that it had no macro. I don't remember describing SC as having hard counters in comparison but I wouldn't rule it out.
The pendulum really swung too far in the other direction in SC2 though, because the hard counters started taking away micro from the game.
I mean the rule of thumb should be that battles should be intense, the players should feel like they are in control of what's happening, and units should stand a fighting chance even if you build some of them wrong. With good micro of course.
On July 30 2017 04:29 Hannibaal wrote: SC2 is dead because it's not such a good game. The only reason it did not die before is because there are not many alternatives, SC2 has not had competition in its genre and so did not lose players before.
that's because RTS games don't provide ROI so Ensemble, EALA, Westwood etc all get shutdown. the counter to this i sometimes hear is.. "everyone sucks at making RTS games". i think people are bored of RTS games the same way they got bored of Gallery Shooters and Dot-Eating-Maze games. SO they're just blaming the games.
Everyone DOES suck at making RTS games. Games like BW and AoE2 and especially WC3 remained crazy popular even when the genre declined. I've no idea if it has to do with the jump to 3D graphics or with EA draining the blood of Westwood and Ensemble making AoE3 then being closed.
I never stopped loving RTS games. Somehow it really rubs me the wrong way to be told that I've gotten bored of the basic gameplay when I still play and love the old games, and when I would buy and play a new one to death if a good one came out. I've been hungry for a new good RTS for a long time.
No game with the caliber and casual appeal of WC3 was released since WC3 and you know it.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
If people got better at making RTS games I'm sure you can point to a fantasy RTS game in a classical fantasy setting with heroes and a cool story mode and balanced gameplay that is strictly better than Warcraft 3. Is Battle for Middle Earth by EA supposed to fit this? Haha. Or a Sci-fi strategy game with more balanced, fun and intense gameplay than SCBW. Or a game that does what Total Anihilation did and improves upon it.
On July 30 2017 18:42 KungKras wrote:I never stopped loving RTS games. Somehow it really rubs me the wrong way to be told that I've gotten bored of the basic gameplay when I still play and love the old games, and when I would buy and play a new one to death if a good one came out.
Please try to look past your own narcissism. This isn't about you or even people on this forum.
You think you're some kind of special snowflake who enjoys RTSes while posting on TL.net? We all do. This is about the bigger picture.
On July 30 2017 18:42 KungKras wrote:I never stopped loving RTS games. Somehow it really rubs me the wrong way to be told that I've gotten bored of the basic gameplay when I still play and love the old games, and when I would buy and play a new one to death if a good one came out.
Please try to look past your own narcissism. This isn't about you or even people on this forum.
You think you're some kind of special snowflake who enjoys RTSes while posting on TL.net? We all do. This is about the bigger picture.
I was making an agrument, although I should probably have emphasized it more.
The big games of the genre like Warcraft 3 continued to be popular among players during this "decline".
And I just can't find any games to point to that came out after the really good games in the genre that can be pointed to as improvement over the classics. I mean if the industry became progressively better at making RTS games, there should be lots of games out to point to as being better than the greats.
Some people like SC2 more than Warcraft 3 or SCBW but that's it. Nobody other than Blizzard even tried to make a new WC3 for example.
I also don't know what I said that could have implied that I thought I was the only one on the TL, the biggest RTS fansite, who likes RTS games.
On July 30 2017 18:42 KungKras wrote:I never stopped loving RTS games. Somehow it really rubs me the wrong way to be told that I've gotten bored of the basic gameplay when I still play and love the old games, and when I would buy and play a new one to death if a good one came out.
Please try to look past your own narcissism. This isn't about you or even people on this forum.
You think you're some kind of special snowflake who enjoys RTSes while posting on TL.net? We all do. This is about the bigger picture.
Different people do different things and not everyone can play rts games. Maybe relatively few people play them now, but there are also a lot of new kinds of games that never existed before. Story-driven indie puzzle games and all those things you couldn't do in 95
Making things easier: 1. Automining 2. Start with 12 harvesters 3. Clumping AI 4. Ability to grab more than 12 units at a time 5. Making units for one purpose or hard counters 6. (To go along with last point) Making units just for harass in mind makes them one dimensional 7. Making units that just sit there without good purpose for hold-command 8. Lazy design for "cool factor", i.e. Colossus, Marauders, Roach 9. Added mechanics: Warp in, Queen (with the new abilities), Mule, no high ground advantage 10. More unit complaints: Medivacs, Swarm hosts, Banelings, Warp Prism, Reaper, Marines, Window Mine
These may just be preference, but a lot of it is lazy design. With all this said, I still play SC2, just so much annoys me about it, I don't take it seriously. Which I guess is why I never care about ladder in the game so never get ladder nerves. BW had many great design choices comparatively. Really quick: multiple usage for units, each races feels powerful to each other, making multiple choices viable, movement of units, slower gameplay allows for better decision making, etc.
I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
On July 30 2017 18:42 KungKras wrote: Everyone DOES suck at making RTS games. Games like BW and AoE2 and especially WC3 remained crazy popular even when the genre declined. I've no idea if it has to do with the jump to 3D graphics or with EA draining the blood of Westwood and Ensemble making AoE3 then being closed.
Everyone doesn't all of a sudden get bad at some activity.
take a hard look at the RTS games made from 1982 to 1995. A lot of them had major, major flaws and the genre grew any way. Same thing happens in other genres. The initial games of a new genre are crap, but the game mechanics are so cool and the on screen action is never-before-seen. The consumer can't get enough of it. So even though Space Invanders and Pacman are objectively totally fucking crap. the genre grows any way. and even though Galaga and Ms. Pacman are way better games ... the genre declines as it ages... even though Galaga >> Space Invaders and Ms. Pacman >> Pacman the Gallery Shooter and the Dot-Eating-Maze-Game genres died while its best games were out there to be played.
furthermore , demand is also watered down. when your typical mainstream video game player wanted to watch hundreds of fighting units on scream independently controlled and all trying to kill each other.. the only place they could go was the DESKTOP PC. There was no big army fights on your Palm Pilot. There were no giant team fighting games because you couldn't get low latency 10 player games going. Improving technology cut into the demand for PC RTS games with intricate micro because the mainstream guy wants the 100s of units fighitng and the chaos and the screaming. They care a lot less for all the micro tactics that require daily practice. However, in the 1990s there was no alternative. Now, alternatives on your smartphone, tablet and PC are everywhere and demand is watered down because of it.
Improving technology was a big factor in RTS's demise. Not a bunch of people in dev studios saying "hey i think we'll all simultaneously make lousy games so all the RTS studios can go broke and we can all lose our jobs". "we love being unemployed".
SC2 is a way better RTS game than 95%+ of the games made in the history of the genre and its suffering the same fate as Ms. Pacman and Galaga. Like, MsPacman and Galaga... SC2 is a game that is behind the times.
DISCLAIMER: i love RTS games. i watched IEM Shanghai with my clanmates last night at 1 of those 24/7 LAN Cafes. We had fun but we all realize we are the last dinosaurs left alive.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
It is because even the SC2 internationally is smaller than BW Korea was, the prize money now is Blizz throwing it, offering support to the game so they pleased its base (when they released OW , and now that they launched BW :SR , you as a customer knows that Blizzard doesnt ditch games like they did use to do in the past, so maybe you would buy those new games), SC2 is not dead, but its only real support is Blizzard now, in less than two years the viewers are a half of what they used to be, so the declining is fast btw.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
This is absolutely not true. Every competitive game that has been really beloved by a diehard fanbase has subsequently been alienated by a sequel that's comparatively shit. BW --> SC2. Quake 2/3 --> 4. CS 1.6 --> Source. Melee --> Brawl/Smash4. MvC2 --> MvC3. SF3 --> SF4 --> SF5. DOTA --> League (people might argue that this isn't a sequel, but at its inception, League was a blatant ripoff of DOTA).
People overcomplicate the flaws with SC2's evolution. The doom and gloom people in WoL were the most accurate. LaLush wrote about how Blizzard killed micro, like moving shot, because all anyone talked about was macro. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but controlling your units to outmaneuver and crush your opponents is much more fun than building shit in your base. And Destiny was pretty on point about how Blizzard was fucking shit up for the casual base. At its core, SC2 is not a very fun game. It's not "too competitive" or "dead genre," it's that the game has little to offer any demographic. You want a sick, rewarding, hardcore solo game? Games of the past are much more appealing than SC2. You want something casual and fun? MOBAs or whatever else are the most popular games, so go play those. SC2 needed to do SOMETHING better. Why does no one ever talk about teams in StarCraft? Blizzard COULD have made 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 real formats with cool maps and a balance philosophy that took this into account. Blizzard COULD have had an interface that encouraged custom games and casual play more. Blizzard COULD have made a fucking sick 1v1 game so that people like Idra hadn't been so vocal that the game sucks ass.
StarCraft 2 is a casualty of mediocre and worn out game design based on a design philosophy that is completely out of touch with any potential player base. With how much hype was behind its release and how much time went into creating it, it's a pathetic product. It brings virtually nothing new to the RTS genre and takes away some of the good things that existed in it. People have had way too much faith in Blizzard. Since Diablo 2, their game design has been timid and they haven't listened to any people who give meaningfully bold and decisive feedback.
This could be seen after the announcement of SC2s release on this very forum. Countless oldschoolers, having played BW for 10+ years trying to get Blizzard to listen. Then the forums got flooded by hypekids, most of them probably have left years ago. The "BW elitist" whining started and the whole forum experience declined rapidly. I used to read TL daily and mostly not for BW-related things, needless to say I don't anymore. You also have to realize, back in the day, almost everyone online playing BW, being hardcore about it and thus creating an account on TL to keep up with the korean scene, used to be a serious geek. "There are no women online" wasn't just a meme and the atmosphere was rather "1v1 me" than "kys haHAA".
If anybody doesn't get what I'm trying to imply: The average level of intellect, education and discipline was way higher overall, even at the "casual" levels of the game. Shit, getting your internet to work on Windows95/98 was a heroic task on its own sometime. Understanding and playing one of the arguably most competitive online games is a whole different beast. Accessbility is a double-egded sword when it comes to the quality and longevity of a competitive game. Tilt it just too much towards one direction and you will get SC2, which sells great on launch because of its name and then does nothing but decline. Everyone on this forum saw it coming, when Blizzard neglected the very people who gave them all those sales and publicity, by elevating BW to the gaming olymp.
Blizzard just minimally patched BW, the only real balance change i can remember was making spawning pool cost 200 instead of 150, a justified reaction to ling all-ins being too prevalent in games. The community did everything else. Mapeditor is too limited? Let's just hack it and make it about 1000% more effective. Blizzard doesn't fix latency issues on their own servers? Here, have a tool that lets you play on fucking LAN latency. Blizzard doesn't care about botted accounts making up 90% of their own ladder rankings? Here, have a bunch of people organize leagues which essentially served as the foundation of "eSports" in its actual state.
The problem about SC2 isn't so much the game itself. It's part Blizzards philosophy up from the point they basically invented a way to print money with WoW. And it's part the community, which consists too much of newschoolers who never experienced just "being online" before the mid 2000s. Kids these days don't know the struggle of having about 1-2 valid options to play games, because your PC was too slow or your internet connection was or your parents weren't massive failures who shoved money down your throat, so you shut the fuck up while they're busy being the narcissistic generation X/babyboomer fucks they are. Availability is so high, the emotional attachment to a game just doesn't exist anymore the same way it did back then. In my youth, among the gaming crowd, you were either "CS" or "SC", people who just casually played games to kill time didn't really exist. Then came The Sims.
Back to topic, so Blizzard restricts their game being modifiable and "you", as in the typcial regdate 2010 poster, are happy with being told what to like and how to play the game. BW was flawed, people made it better. Imagine having to play LT or the other great Blizzard-made maps in official tournaments. The mapping scene in BW achieved not only making the game the longest standing competitive onlinegame, they also spawned a whole new genre with AoS. The coder scene transformed the most glaring weaknesses into some of the strongest points of the game.
Also, Dustin Browder LOL. How on earth can you hire a guy who has shit on the whole genre with taking the strategy out of RTS and make it nothing but a shiny shitshow with most gimmicky and "funny" units? Games in the 90s were made by gamers for gamers. Games nowadays get made by everyone but gamers for everyone and their mum. Fix it yourself, play the superior game in the respective genre or live with being judged as a lesser gamer.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
Thanks for giving me a nice example of what I just tried to explain in way too many words with way too much emotion:
- You root for a guy you don't know, just because there's a flag other than the South-Korean one next to his name. In my eyes, this makes you more of a fan, less of a (serious) gamer, since you prefer fandom over the actual better player. BW fans did nothing but watch Koreans play each other for a decade. Yes, WCG was a thing and of course everyone rooted for players out of their homecountry, but that was once a year and foreigners were expected to lose against Koreans. Nobody ever shed a tear about that, apart from a bunch of whiners, who wanted Koreans banned from every event outside South-Korea, just so they didn't have to watch their hero get exposed by better players.
- Since 2001 BW was dominated by Koreans, I'd go as far as to say the gap was significantly wider between foreigners and koreans in BW than it is in SC2. This didn't deter interest in the other regions, it made people only try so much harder at becoming better at the game.
- Price money in SC2, from the start, largely comes from Blizzard, artificially keeping the game alive.
- Comparing sales of a computer game released in 2002 to another released in 2010 is kind of dumb. Do I really need to explain why? Also, BW was just starting to really thrive when WC3 got released, I amongst countless other people just didn't feel the need to get another RTS when you already are playing one you're happy with.
- SC2 isn't doing well mate, Just right now there are more people viewing featured BW streams than SC2 streams and that's while the biggest BW event in the last 8 years is taking place. SC2 was born dead, as it lacks a soul. Nobody will remember it 10 years from now and I'll bet you any amount, then you will still find people playing BW, even if the Remaster never came out.
- Lastly you deliberately delude yourself with "market changes" being a possible reason for SC2s expansions not selling well. Why not assume the most obvious? Most people who bought the original didn't like it and thus didn't want to spend money on it.
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
it doesn't matter to me that league of legends is a bigger esports, back in the early days of esports bw and CS1.6 were pioneers and esports was built from the passion of gamers who were mass gaming the best skilled games, nowadays esports is industrialized and the broadest audience games make more viewership just like blockbusters in theaters. the best games aren't always at the top of charts and the top of charts rarely are the best games, the stuff taylored to broadest audience gets there most easily and the stuff taylored to be the best quality may be fully understood only by connoisseurs
aquaSC yeah bw esports scene was attacked and diverted by blizzard while they released sc2 also they made efforts in their communication to portray bw as being the past, see morhaime even today saying nonsense like "we would like the community of our classic games to join our current communities" or whatever lol rly dont like this guy
> Bad design (ridiculously high damage, Protoss never finding a sweet spot, etc) > Dumbed down mechanics (cheese easier than ever, smart casting, unlimited unit groups) > BNet 2.0, unforgivable. > Blizzard not ever truly listening to the warnings they were given by potent members of the community, who rightfully demanded a complete overhaul of the game and only got silly tweaks. > Being so incredibly inferior to BW. > RTS having become a niche genre, way too hard for the average post-1995 born gamer who wants something easier to learn and more casual.
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
This is absolutely not true. Every competitive game that has been really beloved by a diehard fanbase has subsequently been alienated by a sequel that's comparatively shit. BW --> SC2. Quake 2/3 --> 4. CS 1.6 --> Source. Melee --> Brawl/Smash4. MvC2 --> MvC3. SF3 --> SF4 --> SF5. DOTA --> League (people might argue that this isn't a sequel, but at its inception, League was a blatant ripoff of DOTA).
People overcomplicate the flaws with SC2's evolution. The doom and gloom people in WoL were the most accurate. LaLush wrote about how Blizzard killed micro, like moving shot, because all anyone talked about was macro. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but controlling your units to outmaneuver and crush your opponents is much more fun than building shit in your base. And Destiny was pretty on point about how Blizzard was fucking shit up for the casual base. At its core, SC2 is not a very fun game. It's not "too competitive" or "dead genre," it's that the game has little to offer any demographic. You want a sick, rewarding, hardcore solo game? Games of the past are much more appealing than SC2. You want something casual and fun? MOBAs or whatever else are the most popular games, so go play those. SC2 needed to do SOMETHING better. Why does no one ever talk about teams in StarCraft? Blizzard COULD have made 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 real formats with cool maps and a balance philosophy that took this into account. Blizzard COULD have had an interface that encouraged custom games and casual play more. Blizzard COULD have made a fucking sick 1v1 game so that people like Idra hadn't been so vocal that the game sucks ass.
StarCraft 2 is a casualty of mediocre and worn out game design based on a design philosophy that is completely out of touch with any potential player base. With how much hype was behind its release and how much time went into creating it, it's a pathetic product. It brings virtually nothing new to the RTS genre and takes away some of the good things that existed in it. People have had way too much faith in Blizzard. Since Diablo 2, their game design has been timid and they haven't listened to any people who give meaningfully bold and decisive feedback.
This could be seen after the announcement of SC2s release on this very forum. Countless oldschoolers, having played BW for 10+ years trying to get Blizzard to listen. Then the forums got flooded by hypekids, most of them probably have left years ago. The "BW elitist" whining started and the whole forum experience declined rapidly. I used to read TL daily and mostly not for BW-related things, needless to say I don't anymore. You also have to realize, back in the day, almost everyone online playing BW, being hardcore about it and thus creating an account on TL to keep up with the korean scene, used to be a serious geek. "There are no women online" wasn't just a meme and the atmosphere was rather "1v1 me" than "kys haHAA".
If anybody doesn't get what I'm trying to imply: The average level of intellect, education and discipline was way higher overall, even at the "casual" levels of the game. Shit, getting your internet to work on Windows95/98 was a heroic task on its own sometime. Understanding and playing one of the arguably most competitive online games is a whole different beast. Accessbility is a double-egded sword when it comes to the quality and longevity of a competitive game. Tilt it just too much towards one direction and you will get SC2, which sells great on launch because of its name and then does nothing but decline. Everyone on this forum saw it coming, when Blizzard neglected the very people who gave them all those sales and publicity, by elevating BW to the gaming olymp.
Blizzard just minimally patched BW, the only real balance change i can remember was making spawning pool cost 200 instead of 150, a justified reaction to ling all-ins being too prevalent in games. The community did everything else. Mapeditor is too limited? Let's just hack it and make it about 1000% more effective. Blizzard doesn't fix latency issues on their own servers? Here, have a tool that lets you play on fucking LAN latency. Blizzard doesn't care about botted accounts making up 90% of their own ladder rankings? Here, have a bunch of people organize leagues which essentially served as the foundation of "eSports" in its actual state.
The problem about SC2 isn't so much the game itself. It's part Blizzards philosophy up from the point they basically invented a way to print money with WoW. And it's part the community, which consists too much of newschoolers who never experienced just "being online" before the mid 2000s. Kids these days don't know the struggle of having about 1-2 valid options to play games, because your PC was too slow or your internet connection was or your parents weren't massive failures who shoved money down your throat, so you shut the fuck up while they're busy being the narcissistic generation X/babyboomer fucks they are. Availability is so high, the emotional attachment to a game just doesn't exist anymore the same way it did back then. In my youth, among the gaming crowd, you were either "CS" or "SC", people who just casually played games to kill time didn't really exist. Then came The Sims.
Back to topic, so Blizzard restricts their game being modifiable and "you", as in the typcial regdate 2010 poster, are happy with being told what to like and how to play the game. BW was flawed, people made it better. Imagine having to play LT or the other great Blizzard-made maps in official tournaments. The mapping scene in BW achieved not only making the game the longest standing competitive onlinegame, they also spawned a whole new genre with AoS. The coder scene transformed the most glaring weaknesses into some of the strongest points of the game.
Also, Dustin Browder LOL. How on earth can you hire a guy who has shit on the whole genre with taking the strategy out of RTS and make it nothing but a shiny shitshow with most gimmicky and "funny" units? Games in the 90s were made by gamers for gamers. Games nowadays get made by everyone but gamers for everyone and their mum. Fix it yourself, play the superior game in the respective genre or live with being judged as a lesser gamer.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
Thanks for giving me a nice example of what I just tried to explain in way too many words with way too much emotion:
- You root for a guy you don't know, just because there's a flag other than the South-Korean one next to his name. In my eyes, this makes you more of a fan, less of a (serious) gamer, since you prefer fandom over the actual better player. BW fans did nothing but watch Koreans play each other for a decade. Yes, WCG was a thing and of course everyone rooted for players out of their homecountry, but that was once a year and foreigners were expected to lose against Koreans. Nobody ever shed a tear about that, apart from a bunch of whiners, who wanted Koreans banned from every event outside South-Korea, just so they didn't have to watch their hero get exposed by better players.
- Since 2001 BW was dominated by Koreans, I'd go as far as to say the gap was significantly wider between foreigners and koreans in BW than it is in SC2. This didn't deter interest in the other regions, it made people only try so much harder at becoming better at the game.
- Price money in SC2, from the start, largely comes from Blizzard, artificially keeping the game alive.
- Comparing sales of a computer game released in 2002 to another released in 2010 is kind of dumb. Do I really need to explain why? Also, BW was just starting to really thrive when WC3 got released, I amongst countless other people just didn't feel the need to get another RTS when you already are playing one you're happy with.
- SC2 isn't doing well mate, Just right now there are more people viewing featured BW streams than SC2 streams and that's while the biggest BW event in the last 8 years is taking place. SC2 was born dead, as it lacks a soul. Nobody will remember it 10 years from now and I'll bet you any amount, then you will still find people playing BW, even if the Remaster never came out.
- Lastly you deliberately delude yourself with "market changes" being a possible reason for SC2s expansions not selling well. Why not assume the most obvious? Most people who bought the original didn't like it and thus didn't want to spend money on it.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
Thats a stupid excuse. Doesnt explain why no one plays or watches it in korea then if there is a korean dominance
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
what do you expect. the only time i see this username around here is to shit on the bw community and spout complete illogical BS
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
what do you expect. the only time i see this username around here is to shit on the bw community and spout complete illogical BS
Poor guy he should be watching the streams of his beloved game instead fo shitting in these forums.
On July 30 2017 05:10 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is a lack of good RTS coming out, possibly most developpers have limited understanding of the genre SC2 is not declining merely because the genre is declining, seriously you can't just ignore all of its flaws :/
Jimmy raynors logic is perfect. Its not the quality that matters, its the name of the genre. No one in the world is no longer eating icecream, so its the declining of icecream that is the cause and not because icecream is full of virus.
See this list right here, look how few developers are making icecream? See? Very few. The icecream they make still has virus but thats not the issue, its the decline of the icecream that is causing it.
no, people are bored of the genre's basic mechanics. so they label every RTS game as lousy and claim no one knows how to make RTS games any longer... even though.. the longer you do something the better you get at it. a genre's games get better as the genre matures.
similarly look at dot-eating-maze games. one of the worst game in the dot-eating-maze-games ever made comes out in 1980 and it breaks records everywhere. it impacts mainstream culture the way almost no game has before or since. time passes...people slowing get bored of the basic mechanics of the genre. much better dot-eating-maze games come out and they can't make a fraction of what the original record breaker made or have any cultural impact whatsoever.
you can say this same scenario with Space Invaders and hte gallery shooter genre. games got better as the genre got older. interest waned even though the games got better.
same shit with RTS... different decade.
there is a lot more to a game's success than the quality of the game.
Fortunately, ATVI is 1000X better at monetizing the RTS genre than any one else... so we still get some pretty good support from Blizzard even though the entire genre is way way beyond is "best before" date.
This is absolutely not true. Every competitive game that has been really beloved by a diehard fanbase has subsequently been alienated by a sequel that's comparatively shit. BW --> SC2. Quake 2/3 --> 4. CS 1.6 --> Source. Melee --> Brawl/Smash4. MvC2 --> MvC3. SF3 --> SF4 --> SF5. DOTA --> League (people might argue that this isn't a sequel, but at its inception, League was a blatant ripoff of DOTA).
People overcomplicate the flaws with SC2's evolution. The doom and gloom people in WoL were the most accurate. LaLush wrote about how Blizzard killed micro, like moving shot, because all anyone talked about was macro. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but controlling your units to outmaneuver and crush your opponents is much more fun than building shit in your base. And Destiny was pretty on point about how Blizzard was fucking shit up for the casual base. At its core, SC2 is not a very fun game. It's not "too competitive" or "dead genre," it's that the game has little to offer any demographic. You want a sick, rewarding, hardcore solo game? Games of the past are much more appealing than SC2. You want something casual and fun? MOBAs or whatever else are the most popular games, so go play those. SC2 needed to do SOMETHING better. Why does no one ever talk about teams in StarCraft? Blizzard COULD have made 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 real formats with cool maps and a balance philosophy that took this into account. Blizzard COULD have had an interface that encouraged custom games and casual play more. Blizzard COULD have made a fucking sick 1v1 game so that people like Idra hadn't been so vocal that the game sucks ass.
StarCraft 2 is a casualty of mediocre and worn out game design based on a design philosophy that is completely out of touch with any potential player base. With how much hype was behind its release and how much time went into creating it, it's a pathetic product. It brings virtually nothing new to the RTS genre and takes away some of the good things that existed in it. People have had way too much faith in Blizzard. Since Diablo 2, their game design has been timid and they haven't listened to any people who give meaningfully bold and decisive feedback.
This could be seen after the announcement of SC2s release on this very forum. Countless oldschoolers, having played BW for 10+ years trying to get Blizzard to listen. Then the forums got flooded by hypekids, most of them probably have left years ago. The "BW elitist" whining started and the whole forum experience declined rapidly. I used to read TL daily and mostly not for BW-related things, needless to say I don't anymore. You also have to realize, back in the day, almost everyone online playing BW, being hardcore about it and thus creating an account on TL to keep up with the korean scene, used to be a serious geek. "There are no women online" wasn't just a meme and the atmosphere was rather "1v1 me" than "kys haHAA".
If anybody doesn't get what I'm trying to imply: The average level of intellect, education and discipline was way higher overall, even at the "casual" levels of the game. Shit, getting your internet to work on Windows95/98 was a heroic task on its own sometime. Understanding and playing one of the arguably most competitive online games is a whole different beast. Accessbility is a double-egded sword when it comes to the quality and longevity of a competitive game. Tilt it just too much towards one direction and you will get SC2, which sells great on launch because of its name and then does nothing but decline. Everyone on this forum saw it coming, when Blizzard neglected the very people who gave them all those sales and publicity, by elevating BW to the gaming olymp.
Blizzard just minimally patched BW, the only real balance change i can remember was making spawning pool cost 200 instead of 150, a justified reaction to ling all-ins being too prevalent in games. The community did everything else. Mapeditor is too limited? Let's just hack it and make it about 1000% more effective. Blizzard doesn't fix latency issues on their own servers? Here, have a tool that lets you play on fucking LAN latency. Blizzard doesn't care about botted accounts making up 90% of their own ladder rankings? Here, have a bunch of people organize leagues which essentially served as the foundation of "eSports" in its actual state.
The problem about SC2 isn't so much the game itself. It's part Blizzards philosophy up from the point they basically invented a way to print money with WoW. And it's part the community, which consists too much of newschoolers who never experienced just "being online" before the mid 2000s. Kids these days don't know the struggle of having about 1-2 valid options to play games, because your PC was too slow or your internet connection was or your parents weren't massive failures who shoved money down your throat, so you shut the fuck up while they're busy being the narcissistic generation X/babyboomer fucks they are. Availability is so high, the emotional attachment to a game just doesn't exist anymore the same way it did back then. In my youth, among the gaming crowd, you were either "CS" or "SC", people who just casually played games to kill time didn't really exist. Then came The Sims.
Back to topic, so Blizzard restricts their game being modifiable and "you", as in the typcial regdate 2010 poster, are happy with being told what to like and how to play the game. BW was flawed, people made it better. Imagine having to play LT or the other great Blizzard-made maps in official tournaments. The mapping scene in BW achieved not only making the game the longest standing competitive onlinegame, they also spawned a whole new genre with AoS. The coder scene transformed the most glaring weaknesses into some of the strongest points of the game.
Also, Dustin Browder LOL. How on earth can you hire a guy who has shit on the whole genre with taking the strategy out of RTS and make it nothing but a shiny shitshow with most gimmicky and "funny" units? Games in the 90s were made by gamers for gamers. Games nowadays get made by everyone but gamers for everyone and their mum. Fix it yourself, play the superior game in the respective genre or live with being judged as a lesser gamer.
On July 30 2017 22:26 Doso wrote: I grew up, got a lot older and didn't have the APM required to play SC2 anymore. I stopped playing, watching SC2 was kinda boring so i stopped that too. SC2 was the same 20 korean players play each other every other weekend.. meh.
The dominance of the Koreans is actually a major reason why the pro-scene has fallen apart. I remember the korean pvpvp in the first WCS, it is just difficult to get excited about that.
Also, remember that SC2 outsold WC3 with 3 million copies, and has been a much more succesful e-sport than any other previous blizzard title. The BW scene was big in Korea, but SC2 dwarfed it internationally, counting players, audience, price money and whatever. Sc2 has done, and still does pretty well. The one weak, pizzeling point is how HotS and LotV has sold compared to the first game, but it could be due to market changes.
Thanks for giving me a nice example of what I just tried to explain in way too many words with way too much emotion:
- You root for a guy you don't know, just because there's a flag other than the South-Korean one next to his name. In my eyes, this makes you more of a fan, less of a (serious) gamer, since you prefer fandom over the actual better player. BW fans did nothing but watch Koreans play each other for a decade. Yes, WCG was a thing and of course everyone rooted for players out of their homecountry, but that was once a year and foreigners were expected to lose against Koreans. Nobody ever shed a tear about that, apart from a bunch of whiners, who wanted Koreans banned from every event outside South-Korea, just so they didn't have to watch their hero get exposed by better players.
- Since 2001 BW was dominated by Koreans, I'd go as far as to say the gap was significantly wider between foreigners and koreans in BW than it is in SC2. This didn't deter interest in the other regions, it made people only try so much harder at becoming better at the game.
- Price money in SC2, from the start, largely comes from Blizzard, artificially keeping the game alive.
- Comparing sales of a computer game released in 2002 to another released in 2010 is kind of dumb. Do I really need to explain why? Also, BW was just starting to really thrive when WC3 got released, I amongst countless other people just didn't feel the need to get another RTS when you already are playing one you're happy with.
- SC2 isn't doing well mate, Just right now there are more people viewing featured BW streams than SC2 streams and that's while the biggest BW event in the last 8 years is taking place. SC2 was born dead, as it lacks a soul. Nobody will remember it 10 years from now and I'll bet you any amount, then you will still find people playing BW, even if the Remaster never came out.
- Lastly you deliberately delude yourself with "market changes" being a possible reason for SC2s expansions not selling well. Why not assume the most obvious? Most people who bought the original didn't like it and thus didn't want to spend money on it.
This was magnificent.
[quote- You root for a guy you don't know, just because there's a flag other than the South-Korean one next to his name. In my eyes, this makes you more of a fan, less of a (serious) gamer, since you prefer fandom over the actual better player. BW fans did nothing but watch Koreans play each other for a decade. Yes, WCG was a thing and of course everyone rooted for players out of their homecountry, but that was once a year and foreigners were expected to lose against Koreans. Nobody ever shed a tear about that, apart from a bunch of whiners, who wanted Koreans banned from every event outside South-Korea, just so they didn't have to watch their hero get exposed by better players.][/quote]
So how many foreigners did really follow the Korean BW scene? That you did, does not prove anything, it was an extreme nieche, comparable to something like following Aussie-rules football. Norwegian dominance in cross-country skiing has been considered a major danger for that sport as well. You are right about Korea itself, though, but I guess Koreans are not that different from the rest of the world in terms of gaming habits.
- Comparing sales of a computer game released in 2002 to another released in 2010 is kind of dumb. Do I really need to explain why? Also, BW was just starting to really thrive when WC3 got released, I amongst countless other people just didn't feel the need to get another RTS when you already are playing one you're happy with.
Yes, ftp-titles has come in strong, but pirate-copying was as common or more in the 90s, especially since many games did not require you to be online. Minecraft and GTA 5 are recent games which have sold a lot of copies, top 4 all time both of them. There were several RTS titles selling over 3 million copies 10-20 years ago, that will probably never happen again. I feel this is relevant:
- Lastly you deliberately delude yourself with "market changes" being a possible reason for SC2s expansions not selling well. Why not assume the most obvious? Most people who bought the original didn't like it and thus didn't want to spend money on it
Nope, market changes is very much relevant. The only game after 2013 who sold well was "Pokemon sun and moon". The marked shifted greatly, to ftp micro transactions and mobile games, rather than big "one price" titles.
I agree that BW has a cleaner design, and was certainly much more ground-breaking in the genre than SC2. It might also survive longer, sort of how the very first "super mario" and "space invaders" are remembered and played more than more recent versions. However, the whole concept of the game could not possibly make it become what BW was. One of the main critisisms to the game was that it was too similar to the original, and old school in terms of style and mechanics. On the other end, BW hardcore gamers would not be happy unless they got an exact copy in 3d. They tried to make everybody happy, and did OK, and actually very well compared to any other recent RTS title.
On July 26 2017 20:39 KalWarkov wrote: The game itself is NOT the reason
shitty custom games / mapmaker no casual game modes (see #1, blizzard couldve implemented some themselves though) blizzard caring too late about community blizzard not realizing what opportunity esports is Ladder design causing major anxiety issues for many ppl MLG fucking up several times Egoistic organizations wanting short term profit, dying off eventually Young Generation mostly wanting easy games with fast results [casual games going esports for masses] Also, ppl have to realize sc2 was basically how twitch and the new esports era began. SC2 paved the way to what we have now with modern esports, and it is still a top 10 title (so "wrecked" isn't really fitting). SC2 made many mistakes that other titles could look at and not do them again.
no no no my arcade games are awesome, it must be the chip on YOUR shoulder and on the shoulders of all the other self entitled runts that spit all over mapmakers/their work that should be addressed! while you play with that,chip you ignored those games/maps/mapmakers.. and you think you got what you think you got, oblivious to the reality of the arcade.
If you ask 100 people, what led to SC2's failure, you will get 300 answers. In my opinion the most important factor was the lack of fun. And this is mainly due to the mining and production mechanics. Everything was too fast. From the beginning on, I suggested cutting mules, chrono boost and larva injects. But well, there surely were lots of other factors, too.
I know the joke, but if you asked 100 people and got 300 answers, then still 75% would be shared between more than fifty percent of the participants. And then all the rest would be random personal gripes. There are a lot of consistent themes itt, even though some people give literally opposite reasons.
But then, some reasons seem to be opposite but aren't. e.g., people say both "it's too hard" and "it's too easy," but are referring to different aspects sometimes.
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
I just play the game and I'm having fun dude, rekax =)) THAT's why I don't care I play for fun and the game was fun for me eversince I picked it up
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
what do you expect. the only time i see this username around here is to shit on the bw community and spout complete illogical BS
If there would be posts like these and hundrets of other narcistic and elitist posts, than I might write different things, but it almost feels like someone needs to please their ego because blizzard did XX wrong and YY right... All I do fire up few games of SC2 few games of BW and I don't care about anything else as long as game is fun. But, apparently you can't be fan of both games it is simply nogo here )
sc2 is dwindling in popularity because it's 7 years old. that's basically it. of course it's had some design and balance issues over the years, but that's arguably true of the majority of multiplayer games. it's only real "failure" is that it didn't quite live up to the impossible task of succeeding the best competitive rts there is. people had unrealistically high expectations when it launched in 2010, which artificially drove up the initial popularity. but when you take bw out of the equation, and compare sc2 it to other multiplayer games, and other contemporary games of its genre, it's still doing pretty well.
so yeah i agree with some of your gameplay complaints, and i think bw is the better designed game (partially by accident). but i don't think sc2 is by any means "wrecked", or "ded", or whatever the latest doom and gloom buzzword is that people are spamming on the forums.
On July 30 2017 02:29 Jae Zedong wrote: Well I think Starcraft and Warcraft are profoundly different, but whatever.
Here is a list of how many RTS games have been released per year over the last 25 years, courtesy of Wikipedia:
I made this graph
Sorry if I'm an idiot but what is this graph representing? Or was this a next level shitpost?
You can for instance refer to the post quoted in the post you quoted, which gives a number of released RTS games per year.
On July 31 2017 09:01 Llama wrote: RTS releases per year, with a bunch of incorrect labels for years of release for Blizzard games
So which years are incorrect? I added some fucking lines so you can see the releases. BW + WC3 are maybe a bit cramped and WC1 is maybe a bit to the right, but why do you have to be so nasty for no reason?
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
what do you expect. the only time i see this username around here is to shit on the bw community and spout complete illogical BS
If there would be posts like these and hundrets of other narcistic and elitist posts, than I might write different things, but it almost feels like someone needs to please their ego because blizzard did XX wrong and YY right... All I do fire up few games of SC2 few games of BW and I don't care about anything else as long as game is fun. But, apparently you can't be fan of both games it is simply nogo here )
who said that? BS, its fine if you like both games, trying to victimize yourself now
On July 31 2017 18:42 -NegativeZero- wrote: but i don't think sc2 is by any means "wrecked", or "ded", or whatever the latest doom and gloom buzzword is that people are spamming on the forums.
sure yeah that's only in the title of the topic, but who is spamming it even in this thread? but people are saying why they think it's lost popularity or why they don't like it themselves
On July 31 2017 18:42 -NegativeZero- wrote: sc2 is dwindling in popularity because it's 7 years old. that's basically it. of course it's had some design and balance issues over the years, but that's arguably true of the majority of multiplayer games. it's only real "failure" is that it didn't quite live up to the impossible task of succeeding the best competitive rts there is. people had unrealistically high expectations when it launched in 2010, which artificially drove up the initial popularity. but when you take bw out of the equation, and compare sc2 it to other multiplayer games, and other contemporary games of its genre, it's still doing pretty well.
so yeah i agree with some of your gameplay complaints, and i think bw is the better designed game (partially by accident). but i don't think sc2 is by any means "wrecked", or "ded", or whatever the latest doom and gloom buzzword is that people are spamming on the forums.
With WC3 and BW, the games only really blew up (from a competitive standpoint) with the release of the expansion packs. So really, we should be saying SC2 is like 2 years old. And Blizzard made an even bigger point of shoving SC2 expansion packs down our throats, not even having a complete single player campaign unless you buy all 3. Arguing that SC2 is small because it's old is a really awful argument. The best competitive games have staying power. That's the nature of competitive depth. SC2 was supposed to be that game. CS, DOTA, and even SSBM are over a decade old and all MUCH more popular than they were only a few years ago.
On July 31 2017 17:58 Ancestral wrote: I know the joke, but if you asked 100 people and got 300 answers, then still 75% would be shared between more than fifty percent of the participants. And then all the rest would be random personal gripes. There are a lot of consistent themes itt, even though some people give literally opposite reasons.
But then, some reasons seem to be opposite but aren't. e.g., people say both "it's too hard" and "it's too easy," but are referring to different aspects sometimes.
Where are you getting these numbers (75%, 50%)? I don't see what's preventing those 300 answers from being completely unique.
On July 31 2017 09:01 Llama wrote: RTS releases per year, with a bunch of incorrect labels for years of release for Blizzard games
So which years are incorrect? I added some fucking lines so you can see the releases. BW + WC3 are maybe a bit cramped and WC1 is maybe a bit to the right, but why do you have to be so nasty for no reason?
LOL your lines still point to the wrong years man. I'm not sure what you're looking at.
On July 31 2017 17:58 Ancestral wrote: I know the joke, but if you asked 100 people and got 300 answers, then still 75% would be shared between more than fifty percent of the participants. And then all the rest would be random personal gripes. There are a lot of consistent themes itt, even though some people give literally opposite reasons.
But then, some reasons seem to be opposite but aren't. e.g., people say both "it's too hard" and "it's too easy," but are referring to different aspects sometimes.
Where are you getting these numbers (75%, 50%)? I don't see what's preventing those 300 answers from being completely unique.
Nothing is "preventing" them from being unique, they just aren't. So the actual reality is what is preventing them from all being unique. If you read this thread or looked anywhere else people complained about SC2, you'd see there are common themes that come up over and over again.
On July 31 2017 09:01 Llama wrote: RTS releases per year, with a bunch of incorrect labels for years of release for Blizzard games
So which years are incorrect? I added some fucking lines so you can see the releases. BW + WC3 are maybe a bit cramped and WC1 is maybe a bit to the right, but why do you have to be so nasty for no reason?
On July 30 2017 19:18 Garmer wrote: because sc2 named itself after the greatest of all Starcraft Broodwar
It's constantly strange how some people act as if SC2 defiled their sacred relationship with Brood War, while if anything it raised awareness and interest of it outside of Korea. Brood War never had anything similar to WCS maybe except WCG which eventually went down the drain and not because of SC2, so it's not like it was stolen anything really. I'll omit Korean situation and their KeSPA - Blizzard stuff since I don't know that much about it though. It's nice though that eventually it turned out that they are resilient in their taste and majority seems to prefer other games than SC2, which still has enough support and playerbase to be what it is now, let them have what they like. Last time I checked LotV internationally retained about 2/3 of HotS at it's peak.
Some people care too much what is in the top 5 on twitch or which game is loved the most in Korea as if this was some magic guidance to what they feel they should get into, just like what you like and stop being so hostile, I prefer RTS over any other competitive genre with 1v1 shooters on second place, and there's no competition to SC2 and BW. I just can't get into team games and yet you can't see me go to League forums and spit on it because it took the viewership from BW
You sir are banging your head against the wall.. these ppl will use SC2 killed (insert anything BW related) as an excuse for anything... it is like trying to explain to mentally ill guy that moon is not mady from gummy bears... it's sad but true...
Honestly the best punishment for this elitism would be hard region lock for BW to only Korea and than have fun trying to figure out the VPN =))
keep your head in the sand, ignore everything that is said and insult everyone who argue and agree on smtg you wish wasn't true
what do you expect. the only time i see this username around here is to shit on the bw community and spout complete illogical BS
If there would be posts like these and hundrets of other narcistic and elitist posts, than I might write different things, but it almost feels like someone needs to please their ego because blizzard did XX wrong and YY right... All I do fire up few games of SC2 few games of BW and I don't care about anything else as long as game is fun. But, apparently you can't be fan of both games it is simply nogo here )
who said that? BS, its fine if you like both games, trying to victimize yourself now
He's not victimizing himself. Some years ago it was proven that he has a dedicated individual or group following him and making sure that his reputation is ruined wherever he goes. He is a legitimate victim. Please refer to NinaZerg's and my investigation in this thread:
I never had as much fun on SC2 as BW, straight up. Not at any point of SC2's life time.
Some people say because of the custom game system, the custom game system did come too late, and I did not have as much fun in SC2 custom games as BW custom games.
But even the base game. Macro mechanics completely ruined the balance imo, it made macro of every race similar in a sense (as mentioned in OP) while at the same time, giving every race a way to snowball. This is the core of the economic issues from the very start of the game, and gets worse as the game goes on. This affects EVERY single other mechanic in the game, and makes the other problems worse.
The game itself because all focused on macro mechanics. You could no longer specialize in a specific style of play. It all came down to mechanics. The game is more like one of the guitar hero/rock band games than StarCraft, because it's more about practicing your mechanics and executing properly, rather than adapting dynamically & responding strategically.
Scouting changes forced you down paths that limited your options, or else you were vulnerable to instant losses.
Hard counters limited the strategic options of every matchup.
The changes to Armor system forced specific options in matchup and lowered strategic options.
As a Zerg player, the balance of Zerg removed most of the fun. I don't mean if they could win or lose, I mean how entertaining it is to play. At no point in SC2's lifetime did it feel like BW Zerg, at all.
The closest the game was to BW for Zerg, was the LotV beta before they completely gave up on the direction they claimed they were happy with and reverted the macro mechanic removal. They did need to rebalance unit prices, but the economy was in a much better place. Reverting the removal was the worst change they made in SC2 history, and is the reason for every single issue LotV had. From the harrassment strength issues, to constant expanding, to out of control economy.
Many people blame the higher worker start #, but if you played beta when MM were out, it was not an issue. It started higher, but the economy grew much slower. MM being reintroduced makes the economy grow exponentially as fast...
To add some substance to this post, I do agree with the posters that have said that animosity between the scenes probably contributed to the "wreck" of SC2 because BW players were less inclined to give SC2 a chance after the "lol give up ur ded gaem and make room for SC2" posters and because SC2 posters saw BW players as elitists; whether either is true or not is irrelevant to how people took it and what impression it left on them. In other words, perception is reality.
Outside of korea, sc2 was more successful than BW right? (correct me if I'm wrong). Yet sc2 is dead because it's not as good as BW?
I'm not trying to offend anyone, but it's just strange to see BW elitists talk about sc2 being the dead one. Especially considering RTS is dead genre in general
Edit: oh and btw I'm not disagreeing that BW is better etc. I've never even played it (sc1 was long before my time)
sc2 came at a much different time of mass online gaming, it doesn't look "dead" (people playing online no?) but yeah it didn't click with a lot of people for a lot of reasons, I mean many of us I guess have permanently given up on it, I don't want to play it again at all but I would play again AoE2 or War3 honestly (or even total annihilation and others^^ some games may have flaws but still be fun) I don't even know whether sc2 in terms of # people playing was more successful than BW, but BW was niche in the west after war3 came out I guess (public servers deserted, lack of ladder), private servers was a thing in asia before PGT or abyss maybe more commonly known (gamei, brain ?). It prob helps a lot that they play in PC bangs too, around here PCbangs aka cyber cafes are not very popular, too expensive
The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
you can keep playing SC2, no one is trying to stop you if you enjoy it. I'm just explaining why its basically irrelevant in 2017 esports.
FFS, FIFA gets more viewers on twitch than SC2 does.
Casual players have complained about SC2 since day one, blizz didn't listen to the hardcore community and they didn't listen to the casuals instead they created this weird limbo product that only a few thousand people still enjoy.
I think if you ask the ordinary person who heard about SC2 in 2010 and picked it up and then abandoned it for Dota/LoL/CS, I'm not very sure they would be receptive to the idea of playing a game with harder mechanics and a tougher learning curve than SC2.
I'm in agreement with saying that SC2 isn't a failure. I think it did fairly well.
On July 26 2017 17:08 PhaedrusSCV wrote: SC2 has amazing graphics, and I was excited for it to come out. Over time, however, it hasn't lived up to my hopes. Its dwindling popularity seems to suggest I am not the only one who is a little disappointed. Why?
Anyone have thoughts on why this is the case? Here are a few of mine, but looking for other input!
Over Engineering Excessive addition, nerfing and buffing of units to try to engineer epic games is what killed SC2. Rather than letting players come up with creative strategies, Blizzard seems to have tried to prescribe strategies each time they add or change units. In other words, trying to make SC2 perfect made it substandard. Leaving Broodwar messy in many ways allowed players to apply their own problem solving skills to it. ...
100% agreed on the overengineering aspect and your reasoning of it
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
you can keep playing SC2, no one is trying to stop you if you enjoy it. I'm just explaining why its basically irrelevant in 2017 esports.
FFS, FIFA gets more viewers on twitch than SC2 does.
Casual players have complained about SC2 since day one, blizz didn't listen to the hardcore community and they didn't listen to the casuals instead they created this weird limbo product that only a few thousand people still enjoy.
irrelevant? Someone who give TL the memo then, they should be covering the vibrant competitive Fifa community with all their grand tournaments.
If SC2 esports is dead, I'm not sure how you would describe BW's competitive scene then, because it's not that lively either compared to other esports and would probably match your description of "irrelevant".
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
On July 31 2017 17:58 Ancestral wrote: I know the joke, but if you asked 100 people and got 300 answers, then still 75% would be shared between more than fifty percent of the participants. And then all the rest would be random personal gripes. There are a lot of consistent themes itt, even though some people give literally opposite reasons.
But then, some reasons seem to be opposite but aren't. e.g., people say both "it's too hard" and "it's too easy," but are referring to different aspects sometimes.
Where are you getting these numbers (75%, 50%)? I don't see what's preventing those 300 answers from being completely unique.
On August 01 2017 04:10 Letmelose wrote:From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
How much of the discrepancy of 100,000 between Afreeca peak viewership and total viewership can be attributed to foreign viewers? It would be hilarious if foreigners alone beat the SC2 peak total viewership.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
Take viewership doesn't matter much if there's not many big tournaments or sponsors in the scene.
Also keep in mind the absolutely drought between Brood War tournaments versus the abundance of Starcraft 2 tournaments.
On August 01 2017 05:42 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: It is harder to come up with a list of things that SC2 did right. What went wrong?
Ugly, washed out GFX that make it hard to see what is going on.
Terrible custom ums game system that saw the same dozen maps played.
Over emphasis on competitive ladder play.
No LAN
No chat rooms for the first year or so
Unit sounds not as good especially zergs which were dreadful.
Blob vs blob gameplay mostly due to the engine
Gimmicks like adepts and useless macro sinks like mules and queen larva spawn
It wasnt an entire year before chatrooms. I don't think that mattered. A lot of of the most popular games out didnt have chatrooms for longer, or still dont have chatrooms, same with LAN.
"over emphasis on competitive ladder play" as opposed to what?
I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years. There still is a following.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
CSGO only got populair because of the skins/betting. before that it was deader than sc ever was.
Ow and btw, CSGO isn't an pure 1 on 1 copy from either source nor 1.6 IIRC and had some balance changes.
For me, it was the way the units moved. I might have played more SC2 if it was more of a legacy sequel, with the same mechanics and feel of the original.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
CSGO only got populair because of the skins/betting. before that it was deader than sc ever was.
Ow and btw, CSGO isn't an pure 1 on 1 copy from either source nor 1.6 IIRC and had some balance changes.
The differences of CSGO and CSS aren't exactly huge. Some new weapons added and different animations/hitboxes. It's essentially the same game. Nothing major changed. Definitely not a totally new game, like SC2 is compared to BW. Funny how you didn't mention Dota 2 as well.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
The whole point of this thread is that there is a third option. Nothing about the way SC2 turned out suggests they were even remotely aware of or even cared to find out what made BW work. There was no respect for or curiosity towards all the things BW got right by chance. They kind of just arrogantly assumed they could wing it. Hell, the marauder was added after Mike Morhaime had trouble dealing with zealots in early in-house testing. That says quite a bit about the lack of a cohesive vision.
Not that I think the development of BW was any more sophisticated, but they should have realized BW's success was mostly due to luck. That presents a unique opportunity to study and take heed of BW's winning formula that was utterly squandered.
SC2 could have been good had it resembled an actual sequel and not an arrogant usurper with no respect for its heritage.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been happy ? I strongly disagree. There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
On a surface level SC2 is more similar to BW than almost any other RTS. Or even many RTS sequels are to their predecessors. Most of its units are either direct translations of BW units or remixes, merging/splitting elements.
Rather, I'd say most of what gives SC2 a different character from BW are things like unit movement/clumping and the loss of BW high ground mechanics.
But can you blame any developer for making a new game (as RTS sequels generally are) instead of a graphical update? If there was a failure then I'd guess it was a failure to understand BW well enough (on either a strategic or spectator level) in order to reverse engineer the real meat of the game. I wonder how many of its key designers had watched, say, 1000 proleague games before shipping WoL.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
The whole point of this thread is that there is a third option. Nothing about the way SC2 turned out suggests they were even remotely aware of or even cared to find out what made BW work. There was no respect for or curiosity towards all the things BW got right by chance. They kind of just arrogantly assumed they could wing it. Hell, the marauder was added after Mike Morhaime had trouble dealing with zealots in early in-house testing. That says quite a bit about the lack of a cohesive vision.
Not that I think the development of BW was any more sophisticated, but they should have realized BW's success was mostly due to luck. That presents a unique opportunity to study and take heed of BW's winning formula that was utterly squandered.
SC2 could have been good had it resembled an actual sequel and not an arrogant usurper with no respect for its heritage.
This nails it.
SC2 looked great, but some of the devs failed to do their homework.
On August 01 2017 09:43 -NegativeZero- wrote: [quote]
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
You respond with ad hominem to facts... That screams insecure to me. I didn't defend SC2 at all... There is nothing to defend. All I'm doing is pointing out how wrong you are about pretty much everything. From Dota2 through CS:GO to SC2. I'm here at the bw forums, cus maybe... you know... I play the game... duh
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
You respond with ad hominem to facts... That screams insecure to me. I didn't defend SC2 at all... There is nothing to defend. All I'm doing is pointing out how wrong you are about pretty much everything. From Dota2 through CS:GO to SC2. I'm here at the bw forums, cus maybe... you know... I play the game... duh
Now this is just silly. People here are discussing what wrecked SC2. You are here telling the thread is horseshit and that SC2 isn't wrecked. If that is not defending SC2 I don't know what is.
On August 01 2017 10:18 Pr0wler wrote: [quote] The original dota was never an actual game. It was a mod, Valve took that mod and created infrastructure around it. CS:GO is different game than 1.6... So both cases don't apply.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
You respond with ad hominem to facts... That screams insecure to me. I didn't defend SC2 at all... There is nothing to defend. All I'm doing is pointing out how wrong you are about pretty much everything. From Dota2 through CS:GO to SC2. I'm here at the bw forums, cus maybe... you know... I play the game... duh
Now this is just silly. People here are discussing what wrecked SC2. You are here telling the thread is horseshit and that SC2 isn't wrecked. If that is not defending SC2 I don't know what is.
The whole notion that a game that sold multi-million copies and is still popular after 7 years is 'wrecked' is horseshit. If I'm defending anything, it's the human logic. The whole purpose of this thread is circle jerking, so yeah... it's what I said it is.
Dota was a game. Not a standalone game? Sure, but it had a gameplay and it was untouched in Dota 2. BWR is a different game than BW then =D. It definitely applies in CS case.
So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
You respond with ad hominem to facts... That screams insecure to me. I didn't defend SC2 at all... There is nothing to defend. All I'm doing is pointing out how wrong you are about pretty much everything. From Dota2 through CS:GO to SC2. I'm here at the bw forums, cus maybe... you know... I play the game... duh
Now this is just silly. People here are discussing what wrecked SC2. You are here telling the thread is horseshit and that SC2 isn't wrecked. If that is not defending SC2 I don't know what is.
The whole notion that a game that sold multi-million copies and is still popular after 7 years is 'wrecked' is horseshit. If I'm defending anything, it's the human logic. The whole purpose of this thread is circle jerking, so yeah... it's what I said it is.
On August 01 2017 10:25 Pr0wler wrote: [quote] So you are actually saying that, if Blizzard released Remastered as SC2, everyone would've been be happy ? I strongly disagree.
There is a difference between recreating indie mod and releasing a sequel to your own game, this is the difference. CSS and 1.6 are different from CS:GO mechanics wise, so NO it doesn't apply - they are different games.
I'm not saying everyone would be happy. But I'm pretty sure recreating a multiplayer gem like BW would probably work out pretty well. Maybe some slight changes like from CSS to CSGO. What I do know though is that trying to do SC2 completely from scratch, while ignoring most of major points that made BW great, wasn't exactly a great idea, was it?
I don't know man... It made a lot of money. The game is still popular after 7 years... So yeah, it was pretty good decision actually. This whole thread is horseshit, btw
I guess you are a little pissed that the game you like is dwindling while BW is growing. It's ok pal, no need to be so salty. =D
Lol I barely even play SC2 anymore - mostly co-op, so it's hardly 'my game'. But you are wrong on pretty much everything you said in the last 2-3 pages, so I decided to point it out. That response shows your insecurity.
Are you sure you don't care about sc2 anymore? Then why are you here at BW forums strongly defending it? What exactly I'm insecure about btw? =D
You respond with ad hominem to facts... That screams insecure to me. I didn't defend SC2 at all... There is nothing to defend. All I'm doing is pointing out how wrong you are about pretty much everything. From Dota2 through CS:GO to SC2. I'm here at the bw forums, cus maybe... you know... I play the game... duh
Now this is just silly. People here are discussing what wrecked SC2. You are here telling the thread is horseshit and that SC2 isn't wrecked. If that is not defending SC2 I don't know what is.
The whole notion that a game that sold multi-million copies and is still popular after 7 years is 'wrecked' is horseshit. If I'm defending anything, it's the human logic. The whole purpose of this thread is circle jerking, so yeah... it's what I said it is.
Nothing about the way SC2 turned out suggests they were even remotely aware of or even cared to find out what made BW work. There was no respect for or curiosity towards all the things BW got right by chance. They kind of just arrogantly assumed they could wing it.
yeah it dawned on me when they revealed the replicator ("replicant") in early hots days.
it was clear they didn't have a master plan with respect to the game design.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
On July 26 2017 18:58 superjoppe wrote: SC2 is like Smash 4. Time for a battle in SC2? Just A-move everything because the AI is smart enough to micro the army. Afraid to be edge guarded after been kicked off from the stage in Smash 4? No worry, you will automatically grab the ledge. For me, the skill cap is way too low in SC2. A crappy person can win a game just due to build order.
Reading something like this is always funny. It's so ironic that most other communies dislike sc2 because it's "to hard" while the BW community dislikes sc2 because it's "to easy".
The most ironic thing is that most of the people whining here aren't even high level in SC2 (at least high master)
bw is harder in a lot of ways but also more forgiving for sure, in sc2 everything happens so quickly and snowballs out of control, and then there's a lot of games that are deciced in a matter of seconds during a big fight
bw feels a lot more dynamic, you start the game, there are many timings in the game in which both players fight, micro their units, try to gain edges, untill the game finally ends (small edges don't feel impossible to comeback from like they do in sc2). It doesn't usually just end after 2 massive hugely expensive armies crash into each other either.
I'm not sure if you can consider sc2 easier. It's harder to be consistent in sc2, for sure. you need insane mental strenght/concentration, whereas in sc1 if ur a good player, ur just going to beat people cuz ur mechanics are better. Practice is more rewarding in sc1 for that reason. It has a more solid foundation based on pure mechanics. You don't need to feel 100%, slept perfectly, the right nutrition, no drama with your girlfriend, so you can make that perfect split second decision in a big fight and lose the game like you would in sc2.
This is why we almost never see anyone dominate in sc2 for longer periods of time, and there is never really a clear 'best' player. Even the best player in sc2 could lose to an average player in sc2 if the early game snowballs, so long as that average player is above a certain skill treshhold.
Overall it makes BW more rewarding & less stressfull to play, for me.
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
It wasn't until this post that I realized how much of the brunt force of the criticism David Kim had to endure until he was blamed for continuing faults of the game long after he stopped being the face of the entire SC2 balance franchise outside of Browder and Moraime's forrays into the public sphere. Poor "DK."
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
You strike a good point here, but you're contradicting yourself a bit with the jab at DK. I'm not defending the guy, he has definitely his share of shit on the game's fate. BUT - speaking of multiplayer shortcomings, terrible terrible damage and softcounters - Dayvie Kim is not at fault here. Dustin Browder is.
I sometimes feel bad for Kim for receiving all the flak, because the fact is you can balance something with a faulty base all the way you want and there will still be some spot, which is under less pressure, then another. The most common thing I hear when talking about Starcraft 2 decline was that "SC2 was imbalanced for too long". I disagree. It wasn't just imbalance it was pretty much a design fault: for example the whole flashy Warpgate thingy people were so hyped about turn the race upside down pretty much (and many sc veterans were vocal about what it will do even back then).
I was pretty flabbergasted back in 2008 or so when people were cheering at the announcement of Dustin Browder joining Team Two as Lead Game Developer, noting his "great success" with Red Alert 2. I've played the game, it's not bad, but it suffers from the same problem as sc2 - battles are over in a blink and that creates hardcounters with pretty much no way out. I think that the reason people were happy about that back then had a lot to do with the fact that previous C&C, Tiberian Sun, suffered from the exact opposite problem. All units were bullet sponges even the lowliest infantries unless exposed to a flamethrower. In the end I really don't think Dustin Browder was the right man for the job. And come to think about it neither was Christ Metzen on the storyline lol.
TLDR: Kim's work was only balancing: that is fiddle around with the numbers here and there, not to just take the whole structure by fire. That was Dbro's work..
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
Isn't your first option exactly what Dota 2 and CS did? Do you think they have been successful or not? That's exactly what they ended up doing with BWR, btw.
those two got away with it because they aren't full-priced games, notably dota is completely free. sc2 slightly predated the big microtransaction craze, so it got stuck with what you could arguably consider an outdated business model.
and bw remastered is being marketed specifically as a remaster, not a sequel. people know exactly what they're getting.
I don't think Chris Metzen killed SC2, but God, what was he thinking... (Or what has he ever been thinking)
Really, why is completely retconning/ignoring his own past stories in a given franchise his hole shtick? It's like "remember that epic shit that happened in the last game/before the expansion? Yeah, none of that matters. We're going to have the same characters but on some totally different shit."
The whole story arc of StarCraft is basically what I'd imagine a StarCraft fanfic by a 13 year old would be based just on having seen the multiplayer. It's an awful mess.
The most coherent narrative is vanilla SC, which is the only one where he isn't the sole writer.
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
You strike a good point here, but you're contradicting yourself a bit with the jab at DK. I'm not defending the guy, he has definitely his share of shit on the game's fate. BUT - speaking of multiplayer shortcomings, terrible terrible damage and softcounters - Dayvie Kim is not at fault here. Dustin Browder is.
I sometimes feel bad for Kim for receiving all the flak, because the fact is you can balance something with a faulty base all the way you want and there will still be some spot, which is under less pressure, then another. The most common thing I hear when talking about Starcraft 2 decline was that "SC2 was imbalanced for too long". I disagree. It wasn't just imbalance it was pretty much a design fault: for example the whole flashy Warpgate thingy people were so hyped about turn the race upside down pretty much (and many sc veterans were vocal about what it will do even back then).
I was pretty flabbergasted back in 2008 or so when people were cheering at the announcement of Dustin Browder joining Team Two as Lead Game Developer, noting his "great success" with Red Alert 2. I've played the game, it's not bad, but it suffers from the same problem as sc2 - battles are over in a blink and that creates hardcounters with pretty much no way out. I think that the reason people were happy about that back then had a lot to do with the fact that previous C&C, Tiberian Sun, suffered from the exact opposite problem. All units were bullet sponges even the lowliest infantries unless exposed to a flamethrower. In the end I really don't think Dustin Browder was the right man for the job. And come to think about it neither was Christ Metzen on the storyline lol.
TLDR: Kim's work was only balancing: that is fiddle around with the numbers here and there, not to just take the whole structure by fire. That was Dbro's work..
Well, I don't really know historically what DB and DK did before SC2. And who exactly implemented SC2 multiplayer as it is. As far as I know, here are the facts: - DB worked on whole game including Single player, which was a lot of work btw. - DK presented first 1v1 battle report. - DK was always presented as a guy who is responsible for multiplayer in panels, interviews etc. - DB left to make Heroes of the storm, which is a good game btw, and stands strong eventhough competition is harsh. - DK had whole 7 years to change multiplayer game - DK changes stats and numbers of units - DK had a chance to make major overhaul in LOTV. Which he somewhat did, but in wrong direction. - Gameplay, at least for me, didn't improve one bit for me. And judging by popularity I am not only one who lost interest.
As you can see my blame is not baseless. So, you'd ask, why don't they replace DK, well from business perspective I get it. SC2 made $$$ as it was expected (due to huge legacy of BW). Blizzard is more involved with their most recent projects, and SC2 was put on low priority. Therefore DK is still there, game is not improving, small groups of unsatisfied people like us are not important enough to make drastic changes.
Am I raging or mad? No. I am just critisizing. Why don't I leave the game? I left it. Why do I discuss? Because people are social beings and want to share their ideas and viewpoints.
Looking through this thread, I am still not sure what you guys wanted from SC2. It seems that every small deviation the creators from BW could have done would have ended up criticized anyway. But some people also dislike the graphics, claiming that BW's superior, so a 3D-remake of faithfull BW gameplay also wouldn't be universally welcome. So what should SC2 have been? I get that you like BW, but the game didn't magically cease to exist upon SC2's release, so why are you so upset that SC2 is different?
for me basically I would have loved SC2 if it had comparable depth in tactics and strategy as bw or preferably better, and with comparably great sound/music/art or better. Better is what I would expect from it really, I think it's totally possible so. upset that SC2 is different? well because for terrible marketing reasons, its simply way inferior, etc
On August 01 2017 15:18 opisska wrote: Looking through this thread, I am still not sure what you guys wanted from SC2. It seems that every small deviation the creators from BW could have done would have ended up criticized anyway. But some people also dislike the graphics, claiming that BW's superior, so a 3D-remake of faithfull BW gameplay also wouldn't be universally welcome. So what should SC2 have been? I get that you like BW, but the game didn't magically cease to exist upon SC2's release, so why are you so upset that SC2 is different?
Asking the last of those questions makes all of the former seem rhetorical but I'll bite.
From SC2, first and foremost I expected very little outside of what made BW be what it is. So immediately I paint myself the "elitist." My range for what was acceptable was isometric view and a familiar dynamic between three races, which includes high ground defensive advantage, discrete group hotkeys, similar unit navigation around the map (no climbing of ledges and no 2-tier units that were both ground and air, not to mention discrete hotkey army movements), static units like siege tanks and lurkers and reavers playing a big role in conjunction with the previous statements, similar spells that were micro-inclusive and not micro-denying and most definitely not "smart" casted, a map pool drawing on the wealth of knowledge and effort and experience that made latter day Brood War what it is, improved graphics for a burgeoning definition market, improved connectivity and reactivity (native LAN settings), B.net equivalent chat channels and account management and clan versatility... The list goes on and on but basically things that were building on the existing model and not as "experimental" as it turned out. As soon as I saw the announce, I knew I would have to flush half of my expectations down the drain.
I played closed beta for the first time at Blizzcon 2009. I started working for Blizzard in January of next year in Austin. Never once did I feel like the game was moving anywhere close to what I expected as a successor for BW. By the time open beta closed, I had given up hope. I still had ample opportunity to play and watch thenceforth, and did so once in a blue moon. But I never found what I was looking for, which I thought were a list of legitimate expectations.
As to your final question, the reason why I am upset about SC2 being different from BW and from my expectations is:
1. It was forced down our throats by every available outlet. 2. It therefore diluted the "final stage" of BW competitive play. 3. It failed to live up to my expectations. 4. It gave jingoists an outlet into a game that should be based on skill and execution to wave their banner and yell loudly. 5. It helped destroy established communities like r/starcraft. 6. It brought with itself a surge of new users I couldn't relate with in the genre for better but in my eyes for worse, with the vast majority of these "kids" not being palatable to my hitherto experience with what was a seasoned, tight, and overall much less commercialized community. 7. I could go on but it is getting late and this is getting tiring from my phone which lags in accessing this page due to TL having to accommodate for peak user levels with ads due to SC2 coming about and increasing server costs.
If I really wanted to write a TL;DR: Life (on TL and in the competitive BW sphere) was different before SC2 came out. Life got worse after SC2 came out. Life is just now returning to some semblance of normalcy, barely and against the odds, in the twilight of SC2. As such, it is very easy to confound causation with correlation when we look at the time line of the perceived rise and fall of both SC2 and BW.
WoL before broodlord/inferstor meta was very entertaining. However, the further balance changes and new toxic units(mothership,swarm hosts, oracle) ruined the game.
For me, the biggest reasons why sc2 failed as a esport is that the game was neither fun to play nor to watch, and that Blizzard was very slow in making changes (or rather, waited until the expansions to implement them). The way ladder was designed in the beginning was a chore for many people. There was no unranked. Maps were terrible (steppes of war, anyone?). Arcade was poorly done. Heck, you couldn't even search for open games. Bnet 0.2 was laughable. Coop was added in way too late. As an esport, it was frustrating to watch. WoL had broodlord/infestors and protoss had 1a deathballs. HotS had swarmhosts. LotV had adepts. Units like the Colossus shouldn't be in the game in the first place.
Lack of accessibility for the top tournaments was also an issue, specifically, GSL during the GOM days. GSL was marketed as the place for the best sc2 matches in the world but it was restrictive as hell to watch. GSL airtimes was inconvenient for NA and EU users. Vods were locked behind a paywall. They only offered 140p streams unless you pay for the subscription. Sure, when there was no competition, you could get away with it, but once games like LoL and dota2 came along offering free HD streams, GSL was still stuck to their old business model. Combined with the fact that game was frustrating to watch, the casual viewers moved on to other games.
The thing is that sc2 is still doing well outside of Korea. It just failed to live to the success of BW in Korea.
One thing I haven't really seen people mention is the fact that Starcraft 2 released with the biggest cashgrab expansion schedule. 3 Expansions all for around the price of a full game. This was made even worse by the fact that games with free2play systems like League of Legends were being released and becoming popular. Why would the average kid with very little spare money buy a game like Starcraft 2 when they can just play League of Legends for free and so can their friends (not to mention lesser system requirements). Brood War was essentially free in Korea considering you only needed to pay for your time at the PC, whereas Starcraft 2 wasn't. I feel like this is one of the biggest reason that after the initial surge the game fell off. It makes sense to buy a game when all your friends are playing it and it's brand new but when most of your friends have left the game it makes it harder to justify buying the game. It makes even less sense to buy a game when you know you're going to have to pay the same amount again in about a year's time just to continue playing online.
I feel like the poor timing of Starcraft 2 coming out as the free2play model was becoming popular really hurt the game's potential to keep people playing on and off or bring in people as the games lifespan continued.
Honestly there are countless reasons Starcraft 2 is not that popular and the Starcraft 2 community seems to be very insecure about it's popularity because it was once the top dog. It's not really something I care about these days but it's definitely a shame that things weren't done differently to give Starcraft 2 the best chance possible.
as others have said, the game is too punishing. sc2 is hard, but hard in the wrong areas. you need to drink 2 liter red bulls to keep your eyes peeled open because anything can kill your army in 4 sec. had to sneeze in the wrong moment? sorry your entire army is dead.
for example things i can think of right now are ZvZ ling bane or TvT doomdrops.
You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
You strike a good point here, but you're contradicting yourself a bit with the jab at DK. I'm not defending the guy, he has definitely his share of shit on the game's fate. BUT - speaking of multiplayer shortcomings, terrible terrible damage and softcounters - Dayvie Kim is not at fault here. Dustin Browder is.
I sometimes feel bad for Kim for receiving all the flak, because the fact is you can balance something with a faulty base all the way you want and there will still be some spot, which is under less pressure, then another. The most common thing I hear when talking about Starcraft 2 decline was that "SC2 was imbalanced for too long". I disagree. It wasn't just imbalance it was pretty much a design fault: for example the whole flashy Warpgate thingy people were so hyped about turn the race upside down pretty much (and many sc veterans were vocal about what it will do even back then).
I was pretty flabbergasted back in 2008 or so when people were cheering at the announcement of Dustin Browder joining Team Two as Lead Game Developer, noting his "great success" with Red Alert 2. I've played the game, it's not bad, but it suffers from the same problem as sc2 - battles are over in a blink and that creates hardcounters with pretty much no way out. I think that the reason people were happy about that back then had a lot to do with the fact that previous C&C, Tiberian Sun, suffered from the exact opposite problem. All units were bullet sponges even the lowliest infantries unless exposed to a flamethrower. In the end I really don't think Dustin Browder was the right man for the job. And come to think about it neither was Christ Metzen on the storyline lol.
TLDR: Kim's work was only balancing: that is fiddle around with the numbers here and there, not to just take the whole structure by fire. That was Dbro's work..
You are quite spot on. I also felt (and still feel) that DB is the responsible for most of SC2's shortcomings. I never liked the units designs (compared to BW) and the terrible terrible damage was deliberately put in the game and marketed as a great addition. It also doesn't help how he seemed pressured about BW's community input to SC2. He even said at one point something to the effect of: If you wanna play BW, then go play BW. To me, it felt like he was deliberately trying to steer the game design away from BW, and not trying to learn from it.
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
I cant think of a single unit that was introduced in sc2 that made the game better, in fact they all made the game worse, i dont need to name them because imo it really was all of them.
warpgate, mule and inject made the games snowballing even more than the new units.
Simple fixes like queen range fixed one problem (reaper/hellion allins) but introduced several greater problems like broodfestor and almost unstoppable full saturated 3base greedy macro.
unit pathing made deathballs too strong, 1 fight ended the game while in bw its constant action from midgame until lategame when people start with macro builds.
its just a worse game, u cant make a sequel to chess =)
For me personally, what killed the interest in the game was that the games were a snoozefest, they either ended due to some rush in a few minutes, or they dragged out until 200 vs 200 deathballs which again ended in a blink of an eye (most of the time anyways). Im not a very good expert at SC2 to point out why the games were like this, but I think its due to units having too much damage and things dying too quickly. Could be wrong though.
Another thing which absolutely annoyed me to no end were the premium streams, especially GSL and MLG. At that time Dota and LoL were rising as well, but all their streams were free, the game was free, everything was free and accessible, yet SC2 decided to keep their premium model ...
Third reason were the metas, which barely changed for months on end, so the game felt very stagnant.
Fourth, sorry to say: the snowflake community. Good lord, people cried BM about absolutely everything, expecting players to act like freaking Presidents of countries. That shit annoyed me to no end. I guess I can lump the casters in here as well, most of the time their casting revolved about the bad things players would do, criticizing them endlessly.
After a 3 year break, I started watching SC2 again and I have to say the game feels a lot more interesting than before. Though Im not sure how long is gonna keep me interested, we'll see.
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
imo sc2 had a problem where it tried to model brood war's pacing. this has no business in its entirely different engine.
if you look at the time it takes to assemble a squad of units that "get in each other's way" or "have trouble with terrain" you will see that in starcraft 2 that time has been stretched greatly.
@Jealous: It seems to me that more than a half of your problems with SC2 are quite silly. Why would you care that something is "shoved down your throat", why would you care so much about how something is called and categorized? I really don't want to argue about what should you like or dislike in the game, but that's not really even what you talk about most in your post ... maybe if you just tried to ignore the marketing for a bit, you'd realize that there isn't that much of a problem after all?
I know this is between you two, but I think (in a way) it's kind of comical to not care about something when that something is being shoved down your throat. Unless maybe if you lack a properly functioning nervous system or don't have a need to breath -which means you're dead.
@opisska just imagine they announce a starcraft 3, shut down the SC2 scene entirely while saying "good things have to come to an end", starcraft 3 ends up being some kind of dumbed down version of a moba with no micro and no macro in it (but huge easy to cast nukes that is repetedly shouted to be extreme extreme annihilation by the star-lead-designer coming from Skylanders) and you don't like it at all as you know the previous game was tons better and takes a lot more skill, they pull people with this marketing while calling starcraft 3 just "starcraft" constantly as if it was what starcraft always was and most importantly what it now exclusively is, and stop supporting SC2 entirely by letting the ladder be overcome by hackers and ppl move to private servers dividing and hiding the remaining community from newcomers.
On August 01 2017 17:44 Yikes64 wrote: One thing I haven't really seen people mention is the fact that Starcraft 2 released with the biggest cashgrab expansion schedule. 3 Expansions all for around the price of a full game. This was made even worse by the fact that games with free2play systems like League of Legends were being released and becoming popular. Why would the average kid with very little spare money buy a game like Starcraft 2 when they can just play League of Legends for free and so can their friends (not to mention lesser system requirements). Brood War was essentially free in Korea considering you only needed to pay for your time at the PC, whereas Starcraft 2 wasn't. I feel like this is one of the biggest reason that after the initial surge the game fell off. It makes sense to buy a game when all your friends are playing it and it's brand new but when most of your friends have left the game it makes it harder to justify buying the game. It makes even less sense to buy a game when you know you're going to have to pay the same amount again in about a year's time just to continue playing online.
I feel like the poor timing of Starcraft 2 coming out as the free2play model was becoming popular really hurt the game's potential to keep people playing on and off or bring in people as the games lifespan continued.
Honestly there are countless reasons Starcraft 2 is not that popular and the Starcraft 2 community seems to be very insecure about it's popularity because it was once the top dog. It's not really something I care about these days but it's definitely a shame that things weren't done differently to give Starcraft 2 the best chance possible.
Cash grab? They were 2 huge expansions 2 years apart each.
I think BW was more of a cash grab since they rushed it out 8 months after Vanilla Starcraft.
But yeah, I could definetely see the argument it had an outdated business model, but those plans were set and F2P became a thing at the last minute (given SC2's long development cycle)
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
I feel that the second part can be directed equally to both SC2 and BW. Also do you have some more evidence as to how the game lets worse players win with the better ones? Part of this can be explained by smurfing, off-racing etc
On August 01 2017 15:18 opisska wrote: Looking through this thread, I am still not sure what you guys wanted from SC2. It seems that every small deviation the creators from BW could have done would have ended up criticized anyway. But some people also dislike the graphics, claiming that BW's superior, so a 3D-remake of faithfull BW gameplay also wouldn't be universally welcome. So what should SC2 have been? I get that you like BW, but the game didn't magically cease to exist upon SC2's release, so why are you so upset that SC2 is different?
Golden rule of creating things is that people can tell you what they think is wrong but not how to fix it. The person who fixes something becomes the creator. So your question doesn't make sense.
I also think it's a mistake trying to get cohesion out of the opinions of a few dozen people on the internet. Of course nothing is going to be universally liked.
What did people want from SC2? A game they would enjoy. A game that would thrive on its own and create its own magic. There isn't a much more specific qualification you can give for a group of people. People who felt hurt by the hybrid league and the forced transition of players from SC1 to SC2 were always going to be 100x harder to impress. There is an aspect of politics to BW -> SC2 that is at least as important as what the actual game was. Lots of people wanted to see SC2 fail hard because it seemed to ruin something that was good, and it hurts to see that kind of action rewarded with success. It offends a basic sense of justice. So any little thing that's wrong with SC2 is magnified ten fold, because it wasn't coexisting with BW, it was replacing it. There's 100 things wrong with BW too, but BW wasn't replacing anything. We don't really care that units freeze, or there's major stack glitches on ramps, or valks stop firing at higher supplies, zealots will randomly speed boost and tanks will gain cloak from arbiters in strange situations. Beyond bugs, people have always found PvP and ZvZ to be too influenced by build-order choice, ZvZ to be a little too repetitive (although some rare people get very interested in the finer details of ZvZ), and the overall trend of T>Z>P>T to be worth criticizing the entire lifetime of BW even though they love the game.
Basically SC2 should have been a game without those politics. It shouldn't have consumed the existing professional player base. It is not that any particular flaw in SC2 makes it a game not worth playing, it's not that BW is a perfect game, it's that a lot of people can't handle the dissonance of supporting a company that has done some things they really didn't like. So we all want to say "See, look how you tried to contrive an esport, look how bad it is compared to what we had before." Only we are an incredible minority, a few dozen, generously a few hundred, people on an internet forum who don't matter. The dissonance those politics created has had a completely negligible effect from Blizzard's perspective. And that frustrates us all the more
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
I feel that the second part can be directed equally to both SC2 and BW. Also do you have some more evidence as to how the game lets worse players win with the better ones? Part of this can be explained by smurfing, off-racing etc
how about the fact we don't have any consistent good players? last gsl champion (not even long ago) gumiho got knocked out ro16 in iem shanghai 1-4. Zest from being gsl champion to losing everything, then coming to HSC suddenly winning it? as i said before my BW knowledge is limited because i didnt play it, but werent Flash, Bisu, jeadong etc. consistent winners for extended periods of times?
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
I feel that the second part can be directed equally to both SC2 and BW. Also do you have some more evidence as to how the game lets worse players win with the better ones? Part of this can be explained by smurfing, off-racing etc
how about the fact we don't have any consistent good players? last gsl champion (not even long ago) gumiho got knocked out ro16 in iem shanghai 1-4. as i said before my BW knowledge is limited because i didnt play it, but werent Flash, Bisu, jeadong etc. consistent winners for extended periods of times?
Also what about consistency besides the absolute top players? It's true that the gods like Flash and jaedong were more consistent, but does the same appear to be true for the players just below them? I actually think people exaggerate the volatitlity of sc2 a lot, the scene definitely has top players who are rather consistent
On July 26 2017 17:47 HaN- wrote: According to HuK,
I agree with most of HuK's points.
Lack of region locking
WCS in general was a disaster. Back in 2013 the scene's stakeholders were barely consulted or warned about Blizzard's plans before MLG, ESL and GOMTV were abruptly told to change their plans and host the league. We saw plenty of organisational cock-ups and even witnessed MLG leave the SC2 scene behind and NASL go bankrupt due to the effects WCS had on their business models.
The lack of region locking also ensured there would be no non-Korean champions at all. WCS Europe and WCS America pretty much became WCS Korea 2 and WCS Korea 3 respectively taking on the overflow of Code B Koreans that couldn't break GSL, OSL or SSL.
Balance issues
I think the correct term is design issues. While this is a whole 'nother topic that you could write an entire Masters thesis on, I'll just elaborate on a few of these design issues below:
Corrosive Bile - This Ravager ability does ridiculous damage and makes the unit absurdly broken against structures and immobile units like Siege Tanks that can't dodge the bile in time. It's actually the core reason why Forge Fast Expand is no longer a viable build in LotV and why Mech vs Z sucked for a long time.
Hydralisk buffs - Hydras were already in a good spot, yet buffing their movement speed, health and attack range has made them absurdly broken in all three matchups.
9 Range Lurkers - This one breaks ZvZ to a ridiculous extent. The only way to reliably deal with Lurker contains is to tech all the way to tier 3 and bombard them from range with Brood Lords. Of course, if you're being contained, you're pretty much dead.
Adepts - It took Blizzard well over a year to give them a shield nerf. They used to have the same effective HP and armor as a Zealot, yet had vastly superior range, mobility and damage potential (while they did less damage, they could more reliably hit their target which made them better than a Zealot in almost all situations) which made Zealots obsolete in the meta.
Liberators - Look at the numerous range and damage nerfs that came to this unit from LotV's release and tell me they were honestly balanced.
Dropship harassment - By LotV, dropships have become OP as hell. Medivacs can now pick up and stim to safety in almost every situation, Warp Prisms can drop micro units from a pretty big range, and Overlord buffs now ensure that you can be drop harassed by Zerg from tier 1 with roaches, lings and banes.
Colossus - They are rarely if ever used in the LotV metagame because they were given a steep 20% damage nerf.
Solo game
Yet there are loads of successful 1v1 fighting games like Super Smash Bros Melee and Street Fighter IV?
Poor story lines
Repetitive events
Lack of rivalries
HuK hit the nail on the head there. Compared to the storylines and rivalries we got back in 2011 and 2012, SC2's been really stale since the switchover to WCS. This could partially be due to Blizzard's inability to build up rivalries and storylines to the same extent that teams and players were previously able to. Or this could be due to the scene's more interesting and controversial players like Naniwa and Destiny being driven out of the scene.
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
I feel that the second part can be directed equally to both SC2 and BW. Also do you have some more evidence as to how the game lets worse players win with the better ones? Part of this can be explained by smurfing, off-racing etc
how about the fact we don't have any consistent good players? last gsl champion (not even long ago) gumiho got knocked out ro16 in iem shanghai 1-4. as i said before my BW knowledge is limited because i didnt play it, but werent Flash, Bisu, jeadong etc. consistent winners for extended periods of times?
Also what about consistency besides the absolute top players? It's true that the gods like Flash and jaedong were more consistent, but does the same appear to be true for the players just below them? I actually think people exaggerate the volatitlity of sc2 a lot, the scene definitely has top players who are rather consistent
I'll add that it's easier to spot consistency in players from outside of Korea, since they never were affected by the KeSPA breakdown and disbanding teams on which Korean players depended a lot.
Not quite sure about your point, this is korea only. I am saying that the narrative that sc2 is oh so volatile is made up for the most part. It is true that we had no bonjwa performance, but that's about it. I would actually be interested in comparing bw to sc2 when we look at the players below god level, if there is a difference at all (so players who would make ro8s and stuff)
Your life doesn't have to be decided by marketing. Hell the BW scene is a perfect example of that, with private servers and grassroots tournaments after Blizzard abandoned the game. Why do you care so much for big daddy Blizz acceptance? I think what BW had after SC2 was still pretty cool and the worst aspect of the scene has been the constant bitching about SC2.
If SC3 comes out and I don't like, I will derive inspiration for what to do next from what BW did, except for the hate.
On August 01 2017 20:42 QzYSc2 wrote: You can outmicro, outmacro and outmultitask, have the better 'strategy' and still lose in this game.
Isn't this called a 'comeback potential'? Of course given that player's perspective of being ultimately better and doing everything correctly is objectively correct and not illusion. I remember Polt having a lot of success in situations that seemed very dire, but due to Terran mechanics he could hold on.
its a very dumb comeback though. if i got outplayed by a better player for 60 mins and caught him not paying attention for 2 secs wouldnt feel very rewarding winning either.
The damage on units are just way too high in this game. wc3 didnt have this, and i didnt play bw, but judging by watching the remastered tournament this wasnt the case either. 1 battle didnt decide the game, but multiple ones slowly decided the winner.
I feel like we're watching different SC2 versions, I'm pretty sure that we're far from the era of one big battle for the win with LotV. The games are much more spread out and last longer, with more opportunities for players to build. Don't BW matches also end over 1 battle that decides the game? At the very end? Also storm damage in BW is ridiculous. The only thing that balances the Reaver are unintentional bugs. Also Lurkers, with hold position glitch too.
I'd like to see a recent SC2 match that is decided in a single engagement. I tend to agree that burst damage in SC2 could be toned down but it's not bad unless you intentionally stack everything or just go in not necessarily caring about how it happens.
Why does the game need to be designed around pro matches? (balance is another subject). Im masters and i have lost to platinum players, and taken games off GMs. my point in saying that, is that shouldnt happen as often as it does, the reason being sc2 = extremely volatile. Alot of decisions you have to make are split second, and they are mostly learned by trial and error. Where do you think the majority/casual player base will go if every game they play is build your army for 10 min and lose it in 10 secs because blizzard designed it to be for superhuman computers who play this game 12 hours a day?
I feel that the second part can be directed equally to both SC2 and BW. Also do you have some more evidence as to how the game lets worse players win with the better ones? Part of this can be explained by smurfing, off-racing etc
how about the fact we don't have any consistent good players? last gsl champion (not even long ago) gumiho got knocked out ro16 in iem shanghai 1-4. as i said before my BW knowledge is limited because i didnt play it, but werent Flash, Bisu, jeadong etc. consistent winners for extended periods of times?
Also what about consistency besides the absolute top players? It's true that the gods like Flash and jaedong were more consistent, but does the same appear to be true for the players just below them? I actually think people exaggerate the volatitlity of sc2 a lot, the scene definitely has top players who are rather consistent
i dont see the point of bringing up winrates. you consider winrates correlates to consistency? so if you win everything in a tournament going 50-0 then losing everything the next day 0-12 you have about 70% winrate and you're consistent? im sorry for extreme examples but i just dont see what the point is. you can say its simple variances, but my opinion thinks its because of the volatility.
On August 01 2017 23:58 opisska wrote: Your life doesn't have to be decided by marketing. Hell the BW scene is a perfect example of that, with private servers and grassroots tournaments after Blizzard abandoned the game. Why do you care so much for big daddy Blizz acceptance? I think what BW had after SC2 was still pretty cool and the worst aspect of the scene has been the constant bitching about SC2.
If SC3 comes out and I don't like, I will derive inspiration for what to do next from what BW did, except for the hate.
nah life marketing acceptance daddy bitching what are you talking about, I think you don't get it, or maybe you don't care, you decide to just call it "hate", "shut up and play your game" basically, well maybe don't bitch about people having opinions you don't agree with then lol (after asking them no less)
Well as you said it's an extreme example and quite unlikely to happen like that. And yes high winrates usually correlate with good performance aka consistency over a decent samplesize. Well you can have any opinion you want, but the bw community especially tries to paint sc2 as an extreme volatile game when that's not really the case.
maybe its exagerated sometimes (?), but at least its a key difference between the two games that describes and explains why we like BW better, I mean DISRUPTORS man lol (being a bandaid to deathballs!), its rather extreme!
I mean i saw a few of your posts and even in these you rather state things as facts without anythign reasonable. Maybe i missed your big, well thought out post though. It's possible i guess.
But saying things like "I mean DISRUPTORS man lol (being a bandaid to deathballs!), its rather extreme!" i actually doubt it.
On August 02 2017 00:29 ProMeTheus112 wrote: there is my post list in my profile^^
Didn't think it would search your posts for a phrase.
2015
"disruptors are completely unstable, its not even rly micro"
"you can't know when enemy disruptors have started firing cause you can't always see them, that + the speed makes the shots results very random and can decide the game at any time, it is almost the worst kind of thing you can put into a RTS"
"disruptor is RLY ridiculous^^"
"There is too much run away/run forward trying to get a crippling shot or dodge, can't seem to rely on any positionning or planning for more than a few seconds, small lucky events are too dominant. It feels a bit too much like a game of speed-poker. Things like Disruptors are really stupid"
"Well Parting said himself interviewed after his win vs Huk (was it 3-1) that the disruptor shots involve luck so as well as being really tedious to control they give potential to the better player to lose to a bad exchange"
"Disruptors I've already written many times why I think it's broken I think even in this topic" (what you wrote is above)
2016
"disruptors (horrible random volatility)"
"SC2's problem is the pathing, the colossus, the clumping, the disruptors, the rather binary relationships between units, the chargelots no micro, etc"
"At WoL time what made me leave is many things, I also disliked playing against bioballs, marauders, broodlords, and nowadays I would not like using adepts or oracles or mothership core or disruptors (://) or playing against liberators"
That's all I found. I don't believe most of those luck factors and volatility you mentioned are any different nowadays than taking advantage of someone not covering his mineral line at some point.
also it is interesting what you said about mineral line aquaSC, because the insta damage that some of the mineral line attacks can do in BW is exactly one of my least favorite parts of the game and everybody knows it is much worse in sc2 (in my dream game workers would be significantly more resilient or the quickest worker-attacking moves less quickly devastating)
On August 02 2017 00:39 ProMeTheus112 wrote: But you just state this as fact, you're not explaining why you don't think that's extreme volatility! (to me it is kinda obvious)
also it is interesting what you said about mineral line aquaSC, because the insta damage that some of the mineral line attacks can do in BW is exactly one of my least favorite parts of the game and everybody knows it is much worse in sc2 (in my dream game workers would be significantly more resilient or the quickest worker-attacking moves less quickly devastating)
Yeah it's equally interesting that I'm not a great fan of high burst damage in SC2 as you (mainly just stim as it can snowball so hard), but I don't dislike it enough to not like the game as a whole.
If the attacks on workers are not as devastating then why do these at all instead of something more worthwhile? Drops lose any sense and we're heading into a game based on lanes and towers I feel
That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it. Maybe you think the micro is not fun, but that's another topic.
How does this volatility manifest itself? People argue it's apparent in proplay, that we had no bonjwa, etc. That's kinda arbitrary though, we still have top players which are really consistent. If i compare bw to other 1vs1 games i could also make the case that it's volatile when the best of the best only have around 70% winrate for example.
On August 02 2017 00:44 aQuaSC wrote:If the attacks on workers are not as devastating then why do these at all instead of something more worthwhile? Drops lose any sense and we're heading into a game based on lanes and towers I feel
Let's say dropships are more resilient, and your units kill one worker every few shots but nothing kills 10 probes in 3 seconds, situations like this actually do happen and we do it with drop or not (some goons or zealots attacking scvs). No lanes and tower, I agree that would just be oversimplifying and loss of depth, just a more balanced and less volatile game in my opinion.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it. Maybe you think the micro is not fun, but that's another topic.
How does this volatility manifest itself? People argue it's apparent in proplay, that we had no bonjwa, etc. That's kinda arbitrary though, we still have top players which are really consistent. If i compare bw to other 1vs1 games i could also make the case that it's volatile when the best of the best only have around 70% winrate for example.
But I did, and like I said I don't necessarily want to go all over it again every time. It's my choice. What you said about the reaver drop, I totally agree! I think reaver drops are pretty stupid! lol. I've said a few times, if I made any balance change to bw I would reduce the size of reaver AoE for sure (and make scarabs less random). What you said about SC2, well it's more about being constantly on your feet like ready to jump back and forth, and engage and all in at the right time. Whereas in BW you have a lot more phases to engaging, and you can disengage, but you still do have the "being ready to jump back & forth" in it too (more so if you are T, less if you are P, for example). And obviously battles last longer, and there is all this defender advantage, the positioning that takes countless shapes that you have time to set up, etc. And it makes the less volatile, more nuanced tactical and strategic game. Basically, you have more choices to make in a battle, and you get to choose what you keep and take or not a lot more.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
Call it "babysit" or "micro", it's essentially the same. As i said before, it's fine if you don't like that but it's still micro. They require more "micro" or "babysit" because efficiency in sc2 is more important than in bw. I mean just watching Jaedong play ZvP, he sometimes doesn't give a damn that his hydras are in a storm because he knows he can win through sheer macro advantage. He could decide otherwise and focus more on micro and thus macro a bit worse. I get that this decision has value. But at the same time it means that "microing" or "babysitting" is less important. I am just trying to give a different perspective here, i don't care about "which game is better objectively" because nobody can make sucha claim to begin with. I like both games for different reasons, both are imperfect.
On August 01 2017 17:44 Yikes64 wrote: One thing I haven't really seen people mention is the fact that Starcraft 2 released with the biggest cashgrab expansion schedule. 3 Expansions all for around the price of a full game. This was made even worse by the fact that games with free2play systems like League of Legends were being released and becoming popular. Why would the average kid with very little spare money buy a game like Starcraft 2 when they can just play League of Legends for free and so can their friends (not to mention lesser system requirements). Brood War was essentially free in Korea considering you only needed to pay for your time at the PC, whereas Starcraft 2 wasn't. I feel like this is one of the biggest reason that after the initial surge the game fell off. It makes sense to buy a game when all your friends are playing it and it's brand new but when most of your friends have left the game it makes it harder to justify buying the game. It makes even less sense to buy a game when you know you're going to have to pay the same amount again in about a year's time just to continue playing online.
I feel like the poor timing of Starcraft 2 coming out as the free2play model was becoming popular really hurt the game's potential to keep people playing on and off or bring in people as the games lifespan continued.
Honestly there are countless reasons Starcraft 2 is not that popular and the Starcraft 2 community seems to be very insecure about it's popularity because it was once the top dog. It's not really something I care about these days but it's definitely a shame that things weren't done differently to give Starcraft 2 the best chance possible.
Cash grab? They were 2 huge expansions 2 years apart each.
I think BW was more of a cash grab since they rushed it out 8 months after Vanilla Starcraft.
But yeah, I could definetely see the argument it had an outdated business model, but those plans were set and F2P became a thing at the last minute (given SC2's long development cycle)
They announced day 1 they were going to release 3 expansions. I don't recall them ever saying "and watch out for the Brood War expansion pack" when SC1 was released, perhaps they had it planned though. DLC planned from day 1 always rubs me the wrong way because it's basically saying "well we could make this all one package but then again we could just cut it up and sell it piece by piece." Not to say the expansions weren't big enough to warrant being expansions but for the average consumer it's hard to justify buying 3 copies of what is essentially 1 game. Whenever I ask my friend if he'd ever want to get into WoW with me and my other friends he says "yeah I'd like to but I'd have to buy all the expansions" it's just not attractive to consumers or people that are careful with how they spend their money to have multiple expansions for a single game.
But yeah mostly my point was about f2p and unlucky timing that was for Blizzard to use the expansion business model at that time. It was never in Blizzard's control but maybe if the game was coming out a year or more later they would have looked at the f2p model and seen it's success and maybe applied it to Starcraft 2.
A lot of what I would post has already been stated. For me, I thought WoL was a dynamic game at first but after playing it enough times, I got sick of the Colossi in TvP and of how things overall always progressed in a similar direction. I watched a lot of the pro scene (or what I could) and streams but even then, eventually I just got really bored of the game. When I tried to get to masters and be serious, I made it to platinum, played a diamond (or two? dunno) then I stopped bothering after a week. It felt like I was trying to do work haha. Ironically, I never have to worry about this with BW. The skill ceiling is so high that so long as I played a great solid and fun game against a friend, it's all good.
While I never dabbled much in UMS (I really only played FMP and some 3v5c/4v4c in BW), I can see how that had an effect on the SCII scene. Same with lack of chat channels and the ladder being an isolating experience. After the infestor/BL period, HoTS came out and it felt a bit fresh at first with Bogus dominating everyone but after WCS (or was it blizzcon?) finals against Shy, the novelty peeled away and revealed the same game again. I tried playing some games but played what, 50 in HoTS before I quit for good. Whenever I tried to play a quick game to see if my passion may come back, I just asked myself why I'm torturing myself haha.
LoTV seemed to have taken things into an even worse direction. The idea of forced expanding is frankly quite stupid and doing it BW's way is the much better option. Heck, TL even went to the trouble of explaining how mining etc... can work and how overhauling the economy now is a good option but it got ignored. I enjoyed SCII when it was first released but I can't even watch the game anymore and haven't since Jaedong's ASUS RoG win and the 2014 KT/SKT PL finals. For lack of a better word, the game might as well be dead to me. This doesn't even get into the anti-micro crap that they threw in. Fungal growth rooting you or forcefield blocking retreats or what about concussive shells? Then you had charge which was stupid because with the AI, it was incredibly taxing to face chargelot/archon with MMM. For a casual player, that stuff and others are incredibly frustrating to play against. Blizzard should've just made units that were fun to play overall and buffs counters while trying their best to avoid hard counters. Of course, the double expansions also made people mad. Deciding from the start that you had 3 parts to a game and had to get them all was a terrible move imo. They should've had a different approach because to me, it looked like a clear cashgrab.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
there's been cases (unfortunately can't point to the game) where actually microing during an SCII battle in the past has lost you the engagement because the AI is efficient enough that it'll do a concave and other stuff on its own. I've also had this happen to me plenty of times, really frustrating to lose a battle because you tried to micro lol. Agree, babysitting an army isn't exactly fun and I wouldn't consider it micro either but to each his own.
On August 02 2017 01:07 The_Red_Viper wrote: They require more "micro" or "babysit" because efficiency in sc2 is more important than in bw.
How do you arrive at this conclusion? I don't really care that this is your opinion, I just find it funny that you said this in the same breath as calling people out for making baseless claims. And this seems pretty baseless.
In BW, the player with the best mechanics wins a lot of the time. Mechanics are super important in BW. So I don't see any supporting argument behind either one of your claims that SC2 requires more micro and requires more efficiency. It's all your opinion.
I actually simply follow things you already take as granted. If you lose after that one big engagement (few ones) that probably means that it's really important to be efficient with it. You want to win that fight. If we agree that there are big spells which can do a lot of damage fast then that also means that you have to babysit your army more, because it would be game over to not do so. You call it volatility, i say it at the same time makes the actual micro more important. You call it babysitting, but essentially it is the same. Ofc i am not writing a thesis about all of this, but comparing this to him doing oneliners about disruptors is quite the stretch.
On August 02 2017 01:19 BigFan wrote: A lot of what I would post has already been stated. For me, I thought WoL was a dynamic game at first but after playing it enough times, I got sick of the Colossi in TvP and of how things overall always progressed in a similar direction. I watched a lot of the pro scene (or what I could) and streams but even then, eventually I just got really bored of the game. When I tried to get to masters and be serious, I made it to platinum, played a diamond (or two? dunno) then I stopped bothering after a week. It felt like I was trying to do work haha. Ironically, I never have to worry about this with BW. The skill ceiling is so high that so long as I played a great solid and fun game against a friend, it's all good.
While I never dabbled much in UMS (I really only played FMP and some 3v5c/4v4c in BW), I can see how that had an effect on the SCII scene. Same with lack of chat channels and the ladder being an isolating experience. After the infestor/BL period, HoTS came out and it felt a bit fresh at first with Bogus dominating everyone but after WCS (or was it blizzcon?) finals against Shy, the novelty peeled away and revealed the same game again. I tried playing some games but played what, 50 in HoTS before I quit for good. Whenever I tried to play a quick game to see if my passion may come back, I just asked myself why I'm torturing myself haha.
LoTV seemed to have taken things into an even worse direction. The idea of forced expanding is frankly quite stupid and doing it BW's way is the much better option. Heck, TL even went to the trouble of explaining how mining etc... can work and how overhauling the economy now is a good option but it got ignored. I enjoyed SCII when it was first released but I can't even watch the game anymore and haven't since Jaedong's ASUS RoG win and the 2014 KT/SKT PL finals. For lack of a better word, the game might as well be dead to me. This doesn't even get into the anti-micro crap that they threw in. Fungal growth rooting you or forcefield blocking retreats or what about concussive shells? Then you had charge which was stupid because with the AI, it was incredibly taxing to face chargelot/archon with MMM. For a casual player, that stuff and others are incredibly frustrating to play against. Blizzard should've just made units that were fun to play overall and buffs counters while trying their best to avoid hard counters. Of course, the double expansions also made people mad. Deciding from the start that you had 3 parts to a game and had to get them all was a terrible move imo. They should've had a different approach because to me, it looked like a clear cashgrab.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
there's been cases (unfortunately can't point to the game) where actually microing during an SCII battle in the past has lost you the engagement because the AI is efficient enough that it'll do a concave and other stuff on its own. I've also had this happen to me plenty of times, really frustrating to lose a battle because you tried to micro lol. Agree, babysitting an army isn't exactly fun and I wouldn't consider it micro either but to each his own.
And if i micro my hydras in bw stupidly i am better off not microign them at all as well. Don't see your point tbh. Again, i understand that you might not find it fun, i actually prefer to run my hydras out of storms and snipe hts when the opportunity arises as well, but saying it isn't micro seems absurd. You are actively controlling your units, that's micro.
Pretty much this. I never really understood why people blame wcs system, battle.net 2.0, custom games or game difficulty. SC2 is simply not fun and rewarding. Single player campaign is ok. But multiplayer is biggest failure. I believe DK still hasn't got grasp what people really want. I still check TL from time to time, and what I see is 'X' seems strong, we need to nerf. 'Y' seems weak but we wait and see. Whereas he should be fixing fundamental issues like 'Terrible Terrible damage' syndrome and introducing 'soft counter' mechanics to reward micro, tactics and such.
You strike a good point here, but you're contradicting yourself a bit with the jab at DK. I'm not defending the guy, he has definitely his share of shit on the game's fate. BUT - speaking of multiplayer shortcomings, terrible terrible damage and softcounters - Dayvie Kim is not at fault here. Dustin Browder is.
I sometimes feel bad for Kim for receiving all the flak, because the fact is you can balance something with a faulty base all the way you want and there will still be some spot, which is under less pressure, then another. The most common thing I hear when talking about Starcraft 2 decline was that "SC2 was imbalanced for too long". I disagree. It wasn't just imbalance it was pretty much a design fault: for example the whole flashy Warpgate thingy people were so hyped about turn the race upside down pretty much (and many sc veterans were vocal about what it will do even back then).
I was pretty flabbergasted back in 2008 or so when people were cheering at the announcement of Dustin Browder joining Team Two as Lead Game Developer, noting his "great success" with Red Alert 2. I've played the game, it's not bad, but it suffers from the same problem as sc2 - battles are over in a blink and that creates hardcounters with pretty much no way out. I think that the reason people were happy about that back then had a lot to do with the fact that previous C&C, Tiberian Sun, suffered from the exact opposite problem. All units were bullet sponges even the lowliest infantries unless exposed to a flamethrower. In the end I really don't think Dustin Browder was the right man for the job. And come to think about it neither was Christ Metzen on the storyline lol.
TLDR: Kim's work was only balancing: that is fiddle around with the numbers here and there, not to just take the whole structure by fire. That was Dbro's work..
Tiberian Sun is one of my favourite games of all time. I loved the slower pacing and the atmosphere, and that units felt solid and powerful. It was a very good RTS for just chilling out. Then Red Alert 2 came and I never understood why everyone seemed to like it. Everything felt like it was made out of glass in that game.
Somehow Dustin Browder's footprint is very easy to 'feel' because what SC2 and RA2 have in common is that in their predecessors, units felt solid and believable, while the units of both RA2 and SC2 feel way too fragile, like everything is made out of glass.
On August 01 2017 14:49 Ancestral wrote: I don't think Chris Metzen killed SC2, but God, what was he thinking... (Or what has he ever been thinking)
Really, why is completely retconning/ignoring his own past stories in a given franchise his hole shtick? It's like "remember that epic shit that happened in the last game/before the expansion? Yeah, none of that matters. We're going to have the same characters but on some totally different shit."
The whole story arc of StarCraft is basically what I'd imagine a StarCraft fanfic by a 13 year old would be based just on having seen the multiplayer. It's an awful mess.
The most coherent narrative is vanilla SC, which is the only one where he isn't the sole writer.
This is so true. Especially the fanfic part. When I was a kid I actually made a custom campaign that was about de-infesting Kerrigan and ressurecting Fenix. Turns out I wasn't that far off from what they actually did.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
Call it "babysit" or "micro", it's essentially the same. As i said before, it's fine if you don't like that but it's still micro. They require more "micro" or "babysit" because efficiency in sc2 is more important than in bw. I mean just watching Jaedong play ZvP, he sometimes doesn't give a damn that his hydras are in a storm because he knows he can win through sheer macro advantage. He could decide otherwise and focus more on micro and thus macro a bit worse. I get that this decision has value. But at the same time it means that "microing" or "babysitting" is less important. I am just trying to give a different perspective here, i don't care about "which game is better objectively" because nobody can make sucha claim to begin with. I like both games for different reasons, both are imperfect.
In which world babysit is the same than micro? sorry but that is a huge false statement.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
Call it "babysit" or "micro", it's essentially the same. As i said before, it's fine if you don't like that but it's still micro. They require more "micro" or "babysit" because efficiency in sc2 is more important than in bw. I mean just watching Jaedong play ZvP, he sometimes doesn't give a damn that his hydras are in a storm because he knows he can win through sheer macro advantage. He could decide otherwise and focus more on micro and thus macro a bit worse. I get that this decision has value. But at the same time it means that "microing" or "babysitting" is less important. I am just trying to give a different perspective here, i don't care about "which game is better objectively" because nobody can make sucha claim to begin with. I like both games for different reasons, both are imperfect.
In which world babysit is the same than micro? sorry but that is a huge false statement.
Yeah it does seem a bit over engineered, specially considering how many players who were great at different expansion then completely fail at other ones.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years.
i think blizzard was kind of stuck in a lose-lose situation. bw got a lot of things right purely by chance. so for sc2 they had 2 options: they could either replicate all the units exactly and get criticized by the game reviewers and casual players for lack of innovation, or they could try to add new units and features and run the risk of upsetting bw's delicate balance and unit interactions.
The whole point of this thread is that there is a third option. Nothing about the way SC2 turned out suggests they were even remotely aware of or even cared to find out what made BW work. There was no respect for or curiosity towards all the things BW got right by chance. They kind of just arrogantly assumed they could wing it. Hell, the marauder was added after Mike Morhaime had trouble dealing with zealots in early in-house testing. That says quite a bit about the lack of a cohesive vision.
Not that I think the development of BW was any more sophisticated, but they should have realized BW's success was mostly due to luck. That presents a unique opportunity to study and take heed of BW's winning formula that was utterly squandered.
SC2 could have been good had it resembled an actual sequel and not an arrogant usurper with no respect for its heritage.
This is one of the truest things I have ever read.
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
Call it "babysit" or "micro", it's essentially the same. As i said before, it's fine if you don't like that but it's still micro. They require more "micro" or "babysit" because efficiency in sc2 is more important than in bw. I mean just watching Jaedong play ZvP, he sometimes doesn't give a damn that his hydras are in a storm because he knows he can win through sheer macro advantage. He could decide otherwise and focus more on micro and thus macro a bit worse. I get that this decision has value. But at the same time it means that "microing" or "babysitting" is less important. I am just trying to give a different perspective here, i don't care about "which game is better objectively" because nobody can make sucha claim to begin with. I like both games for different reasons, both are imperfect.
In which world babysit is the same than micro? sorry but that is a huge false statement.
Can you explain why you think that is
Micro is the way that you control your units to make them more efficient at fighting. Things like splitting marines vs lurkers or getting 2 zealots to splat 8 lings before going down.
What you're describing as "micro" is just another facet of player attention/multitasking. And a tedious one at that.
I don't think you can make that distinction that easily. Looking at my army and set it up the right way for the fight surely has elements of what you just described. I make sure my vikings come from the right angle before the fight starts so they won't die as easily to blinks of the enemy, etc. I presplit my marines because i am aware there will be a fight in a few seconds. You say it is simply "attention", but that seems reductive because it's obvious that every single micro interaction requires attention.
It's similar to mobas actually, you focus on your unit all the time, "micro" it 24/7.
On August 02 2017 01:37 The_Red_Viper wrote: I actually simply follow things you already take as granted. If you lose after that one big engagement (few ones) that probably means that it's really important to be efficient with it. You want to win that fight. If we agree that there are big spells which can do a lot of damage fast then that also means that you have to babysit your army more, because it would be game over to not do so. You call it volatility, i say it at the same time makes the actual micro more important. You call it babysitting, but essentially it is the same. Ofc i am not writing a thesis about all of this, but comparing this to him doing oneliners about disruptors is quite the stretch.
On August 02 2017 01:19 BigFan wrote: A lot of what I would post has already been stated. For me, I thought WoL was a dynamic game at first but after playing it enough times, I got sick of the Colossi in TvP and of how things overall always progressed in a similar direction. I watched a lot of the pro scene (or what I could) and streams but even then, eventually I just got really bored of the game. When I tried to get to masters and be serious, I made it to platinum, played a diamond (or two? dunno) then I stopped bothering after a week. It felt like I was trying to do work haha. Ironically, I never have to worry about this with BW. The skill ceiling is so high that so long as I played a great solid and fun game against a friend, it's all good.
While I never dabbled much in UMS (I really only played FMP and some 3v5c/4v4c in BW), I can see how that had an effect on the SCII scene. Same with lack of chat channels and the ladder being an isolating experience. After the infestor/BL period, HoTS came out and it felt a bit fresh at first with Bogus dominating everyone but after WCS (or was it blizzcon?) finals against Shy, the novelty peeled away and revealed the same game again. I tried playing some games but played what, 50 in HoTS before I quit for good. Whenever I tried to play a quick game to see if my passion may come back, I just asked myself why I'm torturing myself haha.
LoTV seemed to have taken things into an even worse direction. The idea of forced expanding is frankly quite stupid and doing it BW's way is the much better option. Heck, TL even went to the trouble of explaining how mining etc... can work and how overhauling the economy now is a good option but it got ignored. I enjoyed SCII when it was first released but I can't even watch the game anymore and haven't since Jaedong's ASUS RoG win and the 2014 KT/SKT PL finals. For lack of a better word, the game might as well be dead to me. This doesn't even get into the anti-micro crap that they threw in. Fungal growth rooting you or forcefield blocking retreats or what about concussive shells? Then you had charge which was stupid because with the AI, it was incredibly taxing to face chargelot/archon with MMM. For a casual player, that stuff and others are incredibly frustrating to play against. Blizzard should've just made units that were fun to play overall and buffs counters while trying their best to avoid hard counters. Of course, the double expansions also made people mad. Deciding from the start that you had 3 parts to a game and had to get them all was a terrible move imo. They should've had a different approach because to me, it looked like a clear cashgrab.
On August 02 2017 00:58 Jae Zedong wrote:
On August 02 2017 00:47 The_Red_Viper wrote: That's not how it works, obviously you have to reason your way to the conclusion that it is "extreme volatility".
You are basically cherrypicking a lot, i could also say "damn that reaver drop in my mineral lines proves that bw is extremely volatile!!". That would be absurd though. sc2 is "more volatile" as in it's way more important to actually look at your army a lot and micro it. That's interesting right, it's more important to micro it.
I think the word you're looking for is babysit.
Kind of rich to call people out for making baseless claims while out of the blue claiming that SC2 armies require more micro. When it could just as well be argued that it takes a whole lot more micro to control a BW army with its janky pathing and small control groups.
Having to babysit your blob so it doesn't misstep into ouch does not necessarily equal micro.
there's been cases (unfortunately can't point to the game) where actually microing during an SCII battle in the past has lost you the engagement because the AI is efficient enough that it'll do a concave and other stuff on its own. I've also had this happen to me plenty of times, really frustrating to lose a battle because you tried to micro lol. Agree, babysitting an army isn't exactly fun and I wouldn't consider it micro either but to each his own.
And if i micro my hydras in bw stupidly i am better off not microign them at all as well. Don't see your point tbh. Again, i understand that you might not find it fun, i actually prefer to run my hydras out of storms and snipe hts when the opportunity arises as well, but saying it isn't micro seems absurd. You are actively controlling your units, that's micro.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. Also, you should always micro your hydras unless the benefit of a macro cycle is more important than the hydras but even then, hydras won't go splat all of a sudden if you take your eyes of them to make some units.
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: I agree Blizzard sometimes patched too soon in order to get the balance right and yes, some mechanics always feel out of place.
However I am not sure if the proposition that SC2 died is correct. BW had a very good run in just one country, while SC2 had a run on many countries. Now at the advent of a remastered BW, we might ask why BW is still sought after while the interest in SC2 is declining. But how large is the overall interest in BW?
SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
I watched the infamous MSL finals via the live stream where there was power outage in the Jaedong vs Flash match. That level of incompetence would be not acceptable today.
What choice did Blizzard have? Not making SC2? I think that the announcement of SC2 rekindled the interest for SC1.
Making SC2 like BW just with a graphic update? That means to make a game which already exists.
Catering only to existing fans seems hardly like a wise business decision. Blizzard tried to bring new players (and viewers) in and succeeded at that for years. There still is a following.
I go by how much fun they were, though.
I played both games. I had much, much, much more fun on BW than I did on SC2.
Even from SC2 beta, the problems were apparent, and Blizzard did not do anything about them. Their design was intentional.
SC2 was designed as an eSports game, not as a "fun" game. And that's where they went wrong. A solid game can become an eSports game, and designing it as an eSport is usually detrimental.
Look at what happened to other companies that tried to design a game as an eSport before being a "fun" game, such as GW2 and their structured PvP system.
It inevitably leads to bad game design. Games are intended to be fun, competitive games are designed to be fun and competitive. If you try to make it JUST competitive without the fun... That's not really a "game" anymore.
Especially when we're talking about a sequel. BW was not designed as an eSport. BW was designed to be fun and strategic. BW became an eSport. They were not true to the series. SC2 made it as an eSport with more exposure than BW, but it never surpassed the game BW was.
I disagree and think Blizzard were not only slow with patching issues but targeted the wrong issues.
The Queen buff in the Patch 1.4.3 Balance Update is a prime example of this. Nobody asked for a Queen buff, TvZ and PvZ were in a good spot balance wise and Blizzard proposed giving Queens 50 Energy, which was enough for each Queen to lay down two creep tumours on spawn. When this was shot down, Blizzard instead decided to buff their ground attack range from 3 to 5, allowing them to outrange Hellions, match the attack range of Reapers and hold pretty much any early game harassment with ease.
Thus, the patchzerg era was born and we saw Zerg players that otherwise would never have achieved results in a professional environment like Jonnyrecco, Ziktomini and Xlord suddenly dominate tournaments. In fact, if it weren't for Mvp's TvZ mech build and Parting's PvZ Sentry/Immortal all-in, we probably would have seen outright Zerg dominance in Korea as well as the West.
The buff was catastrophic to the balance of the game, because it allowed Zerg to 14 min no rush their way to a maxed out Corruptor/Brood Lord/Infestor tier 3 army. Queens and slowlings alone could basically hold things like Reaper harass, 4 Gate, Reactor Hellion expands, etc. The only thing they couldn't hold was a Sentry/Immortal all in which hit at the 10 minute mark.
On August 01 2017 22:57 opisska wrote: @Jealous: It seems to me that more than a half of your problems with SC2 are quite silly. Why would you care that something is "shoved down your throat", why would you care so much about how something is called and categorized? I really don't want to argue about what should you like or dislike in the game, but that's not really even what you talk about most in your post ... maybe if you just tried to ignore the marketing for a bit, you'd realize that there isn't that much of a problem after all?
I gave you a long list of reasonable and realistic in-game expectations, then said that the expectations were not met. How is that silly, and/or how do the few other reasons I listed constitute themselves as "more than half" and silly?
As cerberus said, your statement of "why would you care if something is shoved down your throat" is almost comical in how stupid it sounds. BW was forced out, SC2 was forced in. "Ignoring the marketing" was impossible. This was the problem, so you can't say "isn't that much of a problem after all." Now that Brood War is getting more high level competition, more incentives for growth, more marketing, the return of top tier players who have abandoned SC2, more viewers, more money, etc. yea, it is less of a problem. That was not the case for many years. Cerberus and Prometheus did a good job explaining all of this more fully, so I won't expound further upon this.
"I really don't want to argue about what should you like or dislike in the game," okay, but you asked what my expectations were so...
On August 01 2017 23:58 opisska wrote: Your life doesn't have to be decided by marketing. Hell the BW scene is a perfect example of that, with private servers and grassroots tournaments after Blizzard abandoned the game. Why do you care so much for big daddy Blizz acceptance? I think what BW had after SC2 was still pretty cool and the worst aspect of the scene has been the constant bitching about SC2.
If SC3 comes out and I don't like, I will derive inspiration for what to do next from what BW did, except for the hate.
Blizzard was actively trying to kill BW when SC2 was about to be released. They are directly responsible for the decline of the game and the end of the pro scene. You don't seem to be acknowledging this history. You didn't answer how you would feel if SC3 came out AND Blizzard shut down the SC2 pro scene and tried everything they could to stop people playing the game you love.
Many people will express their hatred for SC2 yet don't actually hate the game. What they really hate is Blizzard and how they caused the death of BW. Although it is less accurate to say "i hate sc2", it is often expressed due to convenience or anger. This has understandably caused many SC2 fans to wonder why so many BW fans passionately claim to hate SC2.
Before SC2 was released, one of my favorite things to do was to follow the pro BW scene. I was crushed when there were no more leagues to watch my favorite players. You ever run into a crazy sports fan that dedicates their entire lives around for instance, american football? Can you imagine how these people would react if the NFL was shut down so that a new, different game could be played instead? How angry do you think these football fans would be?
I'm not trying to defend SC2 bashing. At this point I feel like it's both unproductive and misdirected. I'm just trying to help some people understand why SC2 evokes so much anger and emotion from so many BW lovers. For people like me, it's not elitism, nostalgia, or anything about SC2 itself that is the reason that the thought of SC2 instantly creates negative feelings and emotions. It is how Blizzard used SC2 to actively and intentionally destroy my favorite game of all time.
Simple, accessible fun is just going to be preferred by most.
I think anyone suggesting that SC2 was too easy, or too mechanically simplified compared to BW to gain an audience are out of touch with the reality of the average gamer's interests.
On August 02 2017 08:12 Autumn22 wrote: MOBAs were probably the most damaging thing.
Look at DotA's effect on WC3.
Simple, accessible fun is just going to be preferred by most.
I think anyone suggesting that SC2 was too easy, or too mechanically simplified compared to BW to gain an audience are out of touch with the reality of the average gamer's interests.
Edit: also, this thread is in Brood War?
I think the thread is in the Brood War section because its 'target audience' is the people who populated TL back when it was a pure BW forum.
On August 02 2017 08:12 Autumn22 wrote: MOBAs were probably the most damaging thing.
Look at DotA's effect on WC3.
Simple, accessible fun is just going to be preferred by most.
I think anyone suggesting that SC2 was too easy, or too mechanically simplified compared to BW to gain an audience are out of touch with the reality of the average gamer's interests.
Edit: also, this thread is in Brood War?
MOBAs, F2P, Games as a service, cheap games, are all factors when it comes to capturing the eyes of the casual player. Back in the day, you would get every hour you can get out of a game, but now games and patches are incredibly abundant, lots of options to scratch all kinds of itches. That's kinda why even if they didnt fuck up the Arcade with the editor/lobby, we'd probably ultimately not be impressed by it like we were BW/WC3.
Just my opinion on SC2 and BW... and this applies to almost every esport game out there... I believe games should grow into esport games, not be born into them. You should never take a game and force promote it from birth to become something great without first letting the community grow a competitive scene around it first. You have to let the players find the imbalances, and you have to fix them correctly, and then when it has gone through many years of growth and assistance, then promote it into the esport scene. This is why LoL pisses me off so much, it surprised me that minecraft wasn't right next to league as an "esport" game. I think it was really dumb how the "pro scene" first started, it felt like everyone was jumping on board to milk money from it and I personally feel that was what ruined it. Lets charge people to watch starcraft, promote selling replays for profit, and over hyping a pro-scene for a game that was not yet ready for the competitive scene.
On August 02 2017 12:17 DanceSC wrote: Just my opinion on SC2 and BW... and this applies to almost every esport game out there... I believe games should grow into esport games, not be born into them. You should never take a game and force promote it from birth to become something great without first letting the community grow a competitive scene around it first. You have to let the players find the imbalances, and you have to fix them correctly, and then when it has gone through many years of growth and assistance, then promote it into the esport scene. This is why LoL pisses me off so much, it surprised me that minecraft wasn't right next to league as an "esport" game. I think it was really dumb how the "pro scene" first started, it felt like everyone was jumping on board to milk money from it and I personally feel that was what ruined it. Lets charge people to watch starcraft, promote selling replays for profit, and over hyping a pro-scene for a game that was not yet ready for the competitive scene.
this right here is what i have been preaching to my friends and everyone i know every multiplayer game out there now everyone is going THIS NEEDS TO BE AN ESPORT and do everything to make it happen instead of letting it grow and test the waters to see if it possible.
That is what to me made sc2 fade away from my interest of watching and playing was after 2014 everything just seemed forced and not normal all the patches and tournaments felt like WE HAVE TO DO THIS TO SAVE THE ESPORT and the community and personalities felt the same way to me were everything was just forced and kinda hear it in their voices were two very good players faced each other and gave us a good match the commentators be like THIS IS A RIVALRY NOW LOOK HOW MUCH THEY DISLIKE EACH OTHER when in reality it really wasn't that heated between the two. compared to flash and parting where every time parting beat flash he showboat and you could see flash was annoyed by it. The story lines were all forced as well and it just turned into this mentality where everyone is trying to force all this to be like SEE SEE sc2 IS NOT DEAD (not saying it is) at any given moment to try to prove something.
as the game sc2 and bw i liked playing them equally each game has it flaws some bigger than others *cough cough broodlord infestor cough cough and pluses and i have great memories playing and watching the esports and i cant really pick one over the other since they have both been part of my life for so long.
On August 02 2017 08:12 Autumn22 wrote: MOBAs were probably the most damaging thing.
Look at DotA's effect on WC3.
Simple, accessible fun is just going to be preferred by most.
I think anyone suggesting that SC2 was too easy, or too mechanically simplified compared to BW to gain an audience are out of touch with the reality of the average gamer's interests.
Edit: also, this thread is in Brood War?
DOTA didn't do anything bad to War3. They coexisted nicely for a bit. War3 died because the game is imbalanced and sucks. Blizzard NEVER patched the things that killed it. It's a broken game that was neglected. It's miraculous that people still had faith in Blizzard after leaving that game in such a shit state
I think its simple, SC1 was natural born masterpiece, SC2 was fabricated hit. Everything in SC2 has artifical feel and no soul. So it goes like this Natural > Artifical
On August 02 2017 08:12 Autumn22 wrote: MOBAs were probably the most damaging thing.
Look at DotA's effect on WC3.
Simple, accessible fun is just going to be preferred by most.
I think anyone suggesting that SC2 was too easy, or too mechanically simplified compared to BW to gain an audience are out of touch with the reality of the average gamer's interests.
Edit: also, this thread is in Brood War?
DOTA didn't do anything bad to War3. They coexisted nicely for a bit. War3 died because the game is imbalanced and sucks. Blizzard NEVER patched the things that killed it. It's a broken game that was neglected. It's miraculous that people still had faith in Blizzard after leaving that game in such a shit state
There's nearly twice as much to balance, and each change affects 1.5 times as many non-mirrors.
And the scene lasted a long time while "broken." It is in fact imbalanced, but that's obviously not the only thing that matters. Plus Blizz has talked about patching it (remaster?).
I dont know, when you departed Warcraft 3 ShrieK, but I assume it was during the Undead vs. Orc era?
I dont think any videogame can be perfectly balanced, even though that is a different discussion. But Warcraft 3 is at this moment, probably as close to balance, as it can be. Even when the game did not gain any patches, Undead players are now better armed than ever before - main thanks to one player that showed the way.
@Jealous: please go back to your post and check the 7-point list of reasons why are you so salty about SC2. Most of them boil to "people I don't like say things I don't like on the internet". The points about the wrong kind of kids infesting the "starcraft" brand is particularly absurd. Also, if you want to resort to such terms, I would like to note that to me, the statement about anything being "forced down your throat" sounds stupid too. Did Blizzard come to your house and physically restrain you from playing BW and force you to buy SC2? I don't think so. Are you really such a sheep that the your life is decided by marketing? Do you have an iPhone, too?
Anyway, I think it was pretty stupid from Blizzard to force SC2 in Korea into PL the way they did, but how much do we actually know about what would have happened otherwise? Are you even sure that PL would continue wiuth BW without Blizzard's interference? From what I have heard, the sponsors were getting quite reluctant already before SC2 came out. Sure, if SC2 was to your liking, it could have really helped rebuild the scene, but was it actually worse than status quo?
On August 02 2017 19:12 opisska wrote: @Jealous: please go back to your post and check the 7-point list of reasons why are you so salty about SC2. Most of them boil to "people I don't like say things I don't like on the internet". The points about the wrong kind of kids infesting the "starcraft" brand is particularly absurd. Also, if you want to resort to such terms, I would like to note that to me, the statement about anything being "forced down your throat" sounds stupid too. Did Blizzard come to your house and physically restrain you from playing BW and force you to buy SC2? I don't think so. Are you really such a sheep that the your life is decided by marketing? Do you have an iPhone, too?
Anyway, I think it was pretty stupid from Blizzard to force SC2 in Korea into PL the way they did, but how much do we actually know about what would have happened otherwise? Are you even sure that PL would continue wiuth BW without Blizzard's interference? From what I have heard, the sponsors were getting quite reluctant already before SC2 came out. Sure, if SC2 was to your liking, it could have really helped rebuild the scene, but was it actually worse than status quo?
You're being disingenuous. It took until 2017 for Blizzard to make a BW client that runs well on modern OSs. And that is only a small part.
So yes, the fact that Blizzard abandoned and actually intentionally undermined BW matters to BW players.
Of course, that is not properly an argument that SC2 is bad, but SC2 is the ultimate cause of that issue.
On August 02 2017 12:17 DanceSC wrote: Just my opinion on SC2 and BW... and this applies to almost every esport game out there... I believe games should grow into esport games, not be born into them. You should never take a game and force promote it from birth to become something great without first letting the community grow a competitive scene around it first. You have to let the players find the imbalances, and you have to fix them correctly, and then when it has gone through many years of growth and assistance, then promote it into the esport scene. This is why LoL pisses me off so much, it surprised me that minecraft wasn't right next to league as an "esport" game. I think it was really dumb how the "pro scene" first started, it felt like everyone was jumping on board to milk money from it and I personally feel that was what ruined it. Lets charge people to watch starcraft, promote selling replays for profit, and over hyping a pro-scene for a game that was not yet ready for the competitive scene.
this right here is what i have been preaching to my friends and everyone i know every multiplayer game out there now everyone is going THIS NEEDS TO BE AN ESPORT and do everything to make it happen instead of letting it grow and test the waters to see if it possible.
That is what to me made sc2 fade away from my interest of watching and playing was after 2014 everything just seemed forced and not normal all the patches and tournaments felt like WE HAVE TO DO THIS TO SAVE THE ESPORT and the community and personalities felt the same way to me were everything was just forced and kinda hear it in their voices were two very good players faced each other and gave us a good match the commentators be like THIS IS A RIVALRY NOW LOOK HOW MUCH THEY DISLIKE EACH OTHER when in reality it really wasn't that heated between the two. compared to flash and parting where every time parting beat flash he showboat and you could see flash was annoyed by it. The story lines were all forced as well and it just turned into this mentality where everyone is trying to force all this to be like SEE SEE sc2 IS NOT DEAD (not saying it is) at any given moment to try to prove something.
as the game sc2 and bw i liked playing them equally each game has it flaws some bigger than others *cough cough broodlord infestor cough cough and pluses and i have great memories playing and watching the esports and i cant really pick one over the other since they have both been part of my life for so long.
I disagree, LoL was designed to be an e-sport ,more casual at first during beta yes, but it was designed around matchmaking, and the goal was clearly to have an esport scene.
Is it possible that RTS as a genre was losing traction/interest because of the spread of internet? My thought is that an RTS starts out shrouded in mystery and the fun part is getting better, inventing build orders etc.
With buildorders/tutorials all available, it just becomes a game of who read which build order. SC2 is a game where its easy to execute a build order. Along with bad balancing the mystery left the game. Thoughts?
@Osteriet sure that's probably a factor. I remember some ppl said they liked the era where there were no replays for this reason, people played more creatively. Imo this isn't a fatality if a game is developped that has very vast possibilities from the very early game, enhanced creativity. Imagine that from the very first decisions you make, for each there are already over 10 viable decisions and variations, and as the game goes on there are many variations that you can do based on what you did early and your opponent. I think that's possible, the game of go has something like this. It just takes some next level balancing and designing.
@ProMe: Yes i agree. I stopped SC2 pretty fast after queenbuff as they, in my opinion, balanced in a way that forced creativity out of the game. I want to play a creative game and you cant do that when some guy just go his 2base all-in that he found on a forum, cause hes gonna win 9/10.
A game like you mention would be epic, but difficult to make, since you either have to balance a lot or make bland units.
On August 02 2017 21:46 ProMeTheus112 wrote: @Osteriet sure that's probably a factor. I remember some ppl said they liked the era where there were no replays for this reason, people played more creatively. Imo this isn't a fatality if a game is developped that has very vast possibilities from the very early game, enhanced creativity. Imagine that from the very first decisions you make, for each there are already over 10 viable decisions and variations, and as the game goes on there are many variations that you can do based on what you did early and your opponent. I think that's possible, the game of go has something like this. It just takes some next level balancing and designing.
I remmember that times before replays and that was a times of neverending rushes, The Hunters 3v3 with hydralisk-marines, blind drops on mineral lines, MnM's against protoss, sauron zegs, shity micro, shity macro, shity tactics, carrier deathballs, cruiser deathballs and cheese strats that was never ever saw after that.
On August 02 2017 21:46 ProMeTheus112 wrote: @Osteriet sure that's probably a factor. I remember some ppl said they liked the era where there were no replays for this reason, people played more creatively. Imo this isn't a fatality if a game is developped that has very vast possibilities from the very early game, enhanced creativity. Imagine that from the very first decisions you make, for each there are already over 10 viable decisions and variations, and as the game goes on there are many variations that you can do based on what you did early and your opponent. I think that's possible, the game of go has something like this. It just takes some next level balancing and designing.
I remmember that times before replays and that was a times of neverending rushes, The Hunters 3v3 with hydralisk-marines, blind drops on mineral lines, MnM's against protoss, sauron zegs, shity micro, shity macro, shity tactics, carrier deathballs, cruiser deathballs and cheese strats that was never ever saw after that.
Sounds like a wonderful time to me actually I like that kind of crazyness.
On August 02 2017 19:12 opisska wrote: @Jealous: please go back to your post and check the 7-point list of reasons why are you so salty about SC2. Most of them boil to "people I don't like say things I don't like on the internet". The points about the wrong kind of kids infesting the "starcraft" brand is particularly absurd. Also, if you want to resort to such terms, I would like to note that to me, the statement about anything being "forced down your throat" sounds stupid too. Did Blizzard come to your house and physically restrain you from playing BW and force you to buy SC2? I don't think so. Are you really such a sheep that the your life is decided by marketing? Do you have an iPhone, too?
Anyway, I think it was pretty stupid from Blizzard to force SC2 in Korea into PL the way they did, but how much do we actually know about what would have happened otherwise? Are you even sure that PL would continue wiuth BW without Blizzard's interference? From what I have heard, the sponsors were getting quite reluctant already before SC2 came out. Sure, if SC2 was to your liking, it could have really helped rebuild the scene, but was it actually worse than status quo?
The above are the links to the first ProLeague that had its schedule begin after the match-fixing scandals began, Blizzard engaging in a lawsuit against both Ongamenet, and MBC Game for broadcasting Brood War without their consent. If you can read Korean, you will see that it was the most watched show on cable-network television at the time. 21% of all teenage boys watching television at the time was watching Brood War.
SPOTV hosted Starcraft 2 content after Ongamenet abandoned Starcraft 2 altogether for League of Legends (after the terrible ratings that the first Starcraft 2 OGN StarLeague had, in contrast to the last ever OGN StarLeague for Brood War having a great viewership). It's true that SPOTV never enjoyed the success Ongamenet had as a cable-network television station, but they have managed to hit the number one spot with other e-Sports titles. The first article is about how the League of Legends allowed it to hit the number one spot amongst cable-network television stations at the time for the target audience.
Because there wasn't any articles to be found about the Starcraft 2 ratings, I had to manually search for the dates of the ProLeague finals for Starcraft 2, and SPOTV was no where to be found in the top ten cable-network television stations, nevermind the number one spot.
The second article is about how SSL hit the number one spot for its target audience. That's right, a match between two Brood War players five years after the professional scene got shut down managed what any Starcraft 2 tournament failed to do with the Korean audience as far as I know. Can you help me find any articles or statistics about Starcraft 2 tournaments allowing SPOTV to have great viewership? It took me a minute or so to find the figures for League of Legends and Brood War, but I can't seem to find any articles about the great viewership Starcraft 2 had in Korea despite searching for it again and again.
Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
If you want to defend your game, do it without smearing your ignorance and carefree attitude about the demise of the professional Brood War scene. It is the least you can do in a Brood War forum. At least your game of choice has the option of fading away into obscurity.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
I'm tired of repeating the same old story over and over again.
The nature of what exactly happened between KeSPA and Blizzard is clouded by NDAs. We can draw conclusions from the circumstances at the time, and their official statements. I've made up my mind years ago, and after you read my post, you can make yours.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
I'm tired of repeating the same old story over and over again.
The nature of what exactly happened between KeSPA and Blizzard is clouded by NDAs. We can draw conclusions from the circumstances at the time, and their official statements. I've made up my mind years ago, and after you read my post, you can make yours.
Ah of course I should've already read your previous post buried on page 13 of a previous thread about matchmaking instead of asking about it... Well now I have and like you seem to admit it's still conjecture even if you stated it like it's a known fact...
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
I'm tired of repeating the same old story over and over again.
The nature of what exactly happened between KeSPA and Blizzard is clouded by NDAs. We can draw conclusions from the circumstances at the time, and their official statements. I've made up my mind years ago, and after you read my post, you can make yours.
Ah of course I should've already read your previous post buried on page 13 of a previous thread instead of asking about it... Well now I have and like you seem to admit it's still conjecture even if you stated it like it's a known fact...
Everything in this life is a conjecture. There is nothing in this world that is a known fact, and your perception of reality does not actually match with how things really are. If you believe Blizzard to be a complete non-factor from KeSPA's sudden change of stance within a space of a year, then that is reality as you perceive it. Nothing can change that, not even the disclosure of those NDAs.
I guess you think it's wrong to say sAviOr lost games for money like it is a fact, because there was no actual legal proof of him fixing his own matches, although there are VODs of sAviOr losing an extremely one sided game by "accidently" attacking his own units.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
I'm tired of repeating the same old story over and over again.
The nature of what exactly happened between KeSPA and Blizzard is clouded by NDAs. We can draw conclusions from the circumstances at the time, and their official statements. I've made up my mind years ago, and after you read my post, you can make yours.
Ah of course I should've already read your previous post buried on page 13 of a previous thread instead of asking about it... Well now I have and like you seem to admit it's still conjecture even if you stated it like it's a known fact...
Everything in this life is a conjecture. There is nothing in this world that is a known fact, and your perception of reality does not actually match with how things really are. If you believe Blizzard to be a complete non-factor from KeSPA's sudden change of stance within a space of a year, then that is reality as you perceive it. Nothing can change that, not even the disclosure of those NDAs.
Fact that more Koreans like Brood War over StarCraft II is not a conjecture though, isn't it. Same with Sudden Attack over Brood War if I'm not mistaken
On August 02 2017 19:12 opisska wrote: @Jealous: please go back to your post and check the 7-point list of reasons why are you so salty about SC2. Most of them boil to "people I don't like say things I don't like on the internet". The points about the wrong kind of kids infesting the "starcraft" brand is particularly absurd. Also, if you want to resort to such terms, I would like to note that to me, the statement about anything being "forced down your throat" sounds stupid too. Did Blizzard come to your house and physically restrain you from playing BW and force you to buy SC2? I don't think so. Are you really such a sheep that the your life is decided by marketing? Do you have an iPhone, too?
Anyway, I think it was pretty stupid from Blizzard to force SC2 in Korea into PL the way they did, but how much do we actually know about what would have happened otherwise? Are you even sure that PL would continue wiuth BW without Blizzard's interference? From what I have heard, the sponsors were getting quite reluctant already before SC2 came out. Sure, if SC2 was to your liking, it could have really helped rebuild the scene, but was it actually worse than status quo?
Again, the 7 point summary had a point 3, which was:
3. It failed to live up to my expectations.
Which included all of the things I listed in the first paragraph, which included many more reasons why I didn't like SC2 itself. The remaining 7 points in the list were mostly about how it affected the community, and BW's availability in the public sphere. So saying that it brought the wrong kinds of people makes a lot of sense in that context. I even pointed out that the fault is not entirely in them or SC2, but in me: " It brought with itself a surge of new users I couldn't relate with." That's an "I" statement. So, given the fact that you asked us for our honest reasoning, I think I was more than open about it. I was mostly referring to the first wave of hypebeasts who diluted a once tightly-knit community that had a different feel to it, different posting standards, and made TL go full corporate, trying to ride the wave of SC2's popularity (and doing so quite well, to be honest). It was like your old boy's club who liked to get together for cigars and scotch at a club being forced to espouse an army of 18-year-old ravers in the same venue. Many of the forum veterans moved into quiet circles where these people cannot be found, and have since not reappeared on the main TL forums. These were people who contributed, who were part of the active community, who had the same feelings as I did and as a result abandoned the open forums. Now that the hype surrounding SC2 has cooled off tremendously, it has also filtered out a lot of the immature and idiotic people who got banned, lost interest, or never really cared in the first place.
Anyway, saying my reasons are stupid just means you don't understand/empathize with them, or don't know the backstory as Letmelose pointed out, because these things aren't imagined to me. I was actually here when these things happened, whereas I don't think you were, which I thought was the entire point of you asking that question in the first place.
On August 02 2017 21:46 ProMeTheus112 wrote: @Osteriet sure that's probably a factor. I remember some ppl said they liked the era where there were no replays for this reason, people played more creatively. Imo this isn't a fatality if a game is developped that has very vast possibilities from the very early game, enhanced creativity. Imagine that from the very first decisions you make, for each there are already over 10 viable decisions and variations, and as the game goes on there are many variations that you can do based on what you did early and your opponent. I think that's possible, the game of go has something like this. It just takes some next level balancing and designing.
I remmember that times before replays and that was a times of neverending rushes, The Hunters 3v3 with hydralisk-marines, blind drops on mineral lines, MnM's against protoss, sauron zegs, shity micro, shity macro, shity tactics, carrier deathballs, cruiser deathballs and cheese strats that was never ever saw after that.
This is exactly what i want in a RTS! Full blown chaos with improvisation and adaptation. So long story short, SC2 was just flat out the wrong game for me.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
@Letmelose: is there anyway where we can recover the interview with Blizzard employees saying that it is now time to switch to SC2 in the Tving OSL?
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
@Letmelose: is there anyway where we can recover the interview with Blizzard employees saying that it is now time to switch to SC2 in the Tving OSL?
I remember very vividly those statements.
The VODs on YouTube have cut those interviews out, and I have found no other videos online after searching one night not too long ago.
On August 03 2017 04:48 Jealous wrote: The VODs on YouTube have cut those interviews out, and I have found no other videos online after searching one night not too long ago.
That's unfortunate. I never saw those interviews, would be nice to see.
On August 03 2017 04:52 The_Red_Viper wrote: So is this a case of the mandela effect or not :thinking: (i actually do not know btw)
Would definitely fit the narrative some posters in this thread are pushing! Unfortunately for them, in the live report thread, there are plenty of people's reactions to the travesty that was that PR stunt, so no collective false memories here.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
@Letmelose: is there anyway where we can recover the interview with Blizzard employees saying that it is now time to switch to SC2 in the Tving OSL?
I remember very vividly those statements.
I watched that OSL, saw the interview and thought it was very poor taste like everyone else... . Not sure why you think it's all that relevant.
The answer to you initial question is: No. There is no "real" proof, if you have read all of Letmelose's posts and are still having doubts about what happened.
I am out of here, but I just want to make some final points.
I firmly believe there were 2 main reasons why SC2 is not bigger than it is today, and that the 2 expansions were moderately successful: 1: Outdated genre. 2: Outdated businessmodel.
Minor issues about unit design etc, would make a very little difference to the big picture IMO. I would also like to add that for being an RTS released in 2010, the game did and does exceptionally well. Also, gamerkids born in the 2000s are not stupid, they are just different, and play minecraft on their Ipads.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
@Letmelose: is there anyway where we can recover the interview with Blizzard employees saying that it is now time to switch to SC2 in the Tving OSL?
I remember very vividly those statements.
I watched that OSL, saw the interview and thought it was very poor taste like everyone else... . Not sure why you think it's all that relevant.
After going against Blizzard in a costly legal battle, the consequence of which was MBC Game shutting down mid-way through would have been the last ever MSL, KeSPA, who had released official statements with their intentions to "grow Brood War" and wanting Blizzard's help in that, instead of hefty fees for intellectual rights, suddenly released a new statement that "Starcraft 2 is the future of Korean e-Sports", just after they had come to an agreement with Blizzard about how they would settle their legal disputes.
Mike Morhaime, the co-founder of Blizzard, appears on television to inform us that "Starcraft 2 is the future", while Korean commentators were literally crying broadcasting their last ever Brood War tournament. Ongamenet, the last stronghold for Brood War on television, the guys who defied the world trend to hold on to their most prized tournament, had invited a Blizzard representative to tell us on their behalf that Ongamenet too had independently arrived to the conclusion that Starcraft 2 was the future.
If that is the reality of the situation in your eyes until Blizzard literally admits their part in the demise of Brood War, then there's nothing changing that.
Just like nobody can say sAviOr lost games for money, because the Korean legal system failed to prove that, and sAviOr denied all charges. All we know is that sAviOr was a great player during practice, but had incredibly poor performances in numerous televised games, one of which had sAviOr attacking his own units whenever it looked like he would secure his incredible lead multiple times throughout the game. We still don't know for a fact whether he did that for money though, and I saw those games live, and thought it was in poor taste like everyone else... . Not sure why people think it's all that relevant.
The main reasons SC2 never stood a chance had little to do with outside factors. A lot of what was posted here were consequences. But they had roots. Cause and effect...
BW was a coincidence, the way it worked out so great. But the foundation of why BW became this good of a game was because of a lot of random factors. That said, the bulk of that foundation can be attributed to one designer working on the game. Only one, but he happened to be one of the best, if not the best, brilliant game design minds: Rob Pardo. He had another very smart guy in Allen Adham to bounce ideas off of, forming a duo of balance designers - unheard of at that time. And though they would never imagine how far BW would go, they built an incredibly smart, solid base for it to happen. They built something revolutionary.
SC2 had two people in charge of average intelligence, little relevant experience and none of that brilliance. Both happened to be headstrong and completely ignorant of BW's success. They skimmed through BW, took some simple notions from it, but never figured out the game well enough to understand what made it appealing and great in the first place.
The first one, Dustin Browder, was a game design veteran who worked on multiple strategy games. Unfortunately, that was a big part of the problem, because he didn't understand the true differences between C&C and StarCraft. And there is a huge, fundamental difference: one franchise is much less detailed, more chaotic, strategic and volatile, the other is significantly more complex, more mechanics based and features micro and macro as its main features. And being an experienced game designer made him arrogant and blind to what was needed in order to make a sequel to BW truly deliver. What he did eventually concede was that he didn't get the game he was in charge of on a competitive level, and being that intricate balance wasn't really part of C&C, he hired balance designers.
And that's where David Kim came in, coming from Dawn of War with little game design experience, but with some basic BW background. Being the only guy at Blizzard who knew BW at even a basic competitive level, he quickly rose up and became the sole expert. But both of them combined knew less about competitive BW than just about any good player in the community. They knew nothing about how maps balanced BW, what stages of mapmaking the game went through over the 12 years of its life up to that point. They didn't understand what made a good map, what made a bad map. What made a good unit interaction, what made a bad unit interaction. They didn't get that Zerg needed a unit that would give them even a little board control in order to allow for actual strategy. They didn't get that Protoss units were supposed to be strong enough to work on their own, not to rely solely on Force Fields, one of many spells and units that were volatile and backed game design into a corner. I could write a book about this specifically, so I'll stop at that. They didn't get what BW micro truly worked like (muta micro, marine micro, vulture micro, corsair micro, goon micro, etc.) and every unit that was introduced was a cheap substitute that would control nothing like what BW microed like. They were also strongly against adding useful and necessary BW units like a Lurker or a Defiler, because they believed their designs were straight up superior and it was beneath them to simply settle, if they could do it better. So we got a hundred awful incarnations of the Infestor and Swarm Host instead... That stubbornness, inability and ignorance was the downfall of SC2 development.
Ultimately, SC2 was more similar to a C&C game than BW in terms of unit types and control. And there is a reason why C&C never really worked as competitive multiplayer games. And the two people making just about all important decisions were both incompetent and arrogant. They deemed smart and experienced members of the community to be idiots. They saw community mapmakers as amateurish morons who never made a decent map in their lives, even when anyone with understanding of SC could see that just about any recognized community map was better than the crap they kept releasing. The abovementioned shitty unit control was something that could be easily fixed, there were people in the community who made these units micro better just by adjusting some numbers in the editor, but they were ignored. Partially, because Browder and Kim didn't understand what they even meant and why it was important, partially, because they wouldn't admit a mistake. They believed in their ability so strongly that they ignored just about anything the community said or did for the first 3 years.
And the only reason why they eventually opened up was due to PR issues, not because they suddenly saw light. When the community finally had enough and started bombarding Blizzard execs with direct complaints in 2012-13, people like Mike Morhaime finally realized something was wrong and that things needed adjusting, as maintaining a good PR image is very important to Blizzard, because that's what generates a lot of hype for their games.
What didn't change was that at that point David Kim was still mostly in charge while Dustin Browder went to lead Heroes of the Storm. And Kim was still years behind community leaders in terms of understanding SC on all fronts. He'd finally take the time to at least acknowledge that the community existed, somewhat understand some complaints against the game and agree to adjust things people knew were broken on day 1. But at that point there were 3 years and a ton of issues to catch up to and it went on and on, always ten steps behind, coupled with the fact that he wasn't capable of solving these problems properly anyway. Watch the BlizzCon panels the first few years, read their website updates, look at all these proposed and implemented design and balance changes, it was so terribly misguided and clueless. And what's worse, he'd never stop tinkering with the game, even if he was doing it a disservice, because he needed to appear to his bosses like he was hard at work and to continue to convince them to keep him working on the project he had a great deal of control of. Why go work on something else where his shortcomings could surface, when he was left to his own devices for years, getting money and spotlight, because no one else with influence at Blizzard got the game at all and he was seen as the expert? He was a loose equivalent to Barney Stinson, if you know what I mean. And as no one could truly understand the true results of that work, A for effort is what he got for years.
Let's also not forget that Blizzard didn't understand one bit the potential SC2 carried as an eSports title that would bring WC3 and BW players together during the times where eSports was itching for a great, modern game to propel it and RTS fans waited for 8 years for a new competitive game to sink their teeth in. They were too busy managing WoW, putting no people to work on SC2 outside the small dev team. There were no people anywhere working solely on SC2, no plans of any kind. It was so clearly visible that they didn't give a damn. If SC2 got any interest, it was only out of necessity for important milestones like BlizzCon or an expansion. They just left SC2 eSports be for years, only meddling with tournament licenses which was a pain in the ass for organizers and added 0 value. And when Riot and Valve aggressively pursued eSports for their games, they sat on their asses. Eventually, WCS was conceived, but it was still a minor project only a few people worked on. It lacked developer support (there was nothing eSports-related in the game), it lacked the appeal and professionalism the LCS and International had, and it continued like that. Those who say SC2 wasn't going to work due to being a 1v1 game have short memories or didn't experience the 2010-12 frenzy. Before SC2 ESL was mainly an online ladder provider with little real success and while IEM already existed, it got nowhere near the level of interest and growth it got from SC2. DH was mainly a LAN, SC2 propelled their tournaments and broadcasts. A lot of big offline events happened because of SC2, organizations rose and fell. The quality of broadcasts was nothing like what evolved under SC2. The success of several organizations stemmed from SC2. Being a commentator or a host wasn't a viable job before SC2. It was the base of what we have now. Sure, LoL and Dota2 carried it forward, but in my opinion mainly because their respective companies handled it better and invested in it, while Blizzard didn't. SC2 got left behind.
Really, in this day and age of gaming, the way it was handled SC2 never stood a chance to deliver on its potential. It wasn't considered a project worth backing and pursuing at Blizzard and Blizzard wasn't equipped to support the game. It was a cinderella to WoW. There was no understanding of SC and no interest in hiring people who gave a damn. It's kind of like a 200M budget movie getting a great director, star cast and personnel, a ton of marketing and support, while a lower budget movie won't even be played in the cinemas. It was full neglect, incompetence and inability to understand the potential.
^ As much as that makes a great story, that's all it really seems like. A story you wove with little to no evidence and a lot of biased conjecture. I don't know that much about the design process of SC2 besides what was proposed for each expansion and some of the more major drama/stagnant periods, so I understand that some of that is partially true but when you start making inferences about the intelligence of various people I almost lol'd.
Yeah I have a very mixed feelings about that post. The intelligence remarks were pretty dumb. Also the two guys "in charge". Just because they were the ones interacting doesn't mean there weren't other behind the curtain. That DBro because he was the only one who could understand the game at competitive level... umm I doubt that. Ultimately though the whole idea of the "balance designer" is funny to me, at least in the sense of an RTS. Fiddling around with knobs is worthless if you have a bad base. Lead designer should be the one doing balance since he is also the one to remake something from the ground up if it doesn't fill the scheme. Why Dbro relegated that to something else, shows pretty much again that he wasn't the right man up there. The rest of the post... well I can actually put my stamp over that. Especially at the fact that it was a cinderella to WoW. Pretty much the reason SC2 as a project was even conceived, I believe, was purely because of esports and the licensing fees tied to them, as a means of long term income, similar to WoW subscriptions, or later microtransactions from their newer games. When the esports failed to "deliver" as the scene was dragged by LoL and Dota, SC2 was slowly becoming a bastard child. I could feel that at the LoTV release... there was not even half as much hype surrounding it as it used to be for Heart of the swarm. The campaign felt like it completely gave up on all the side stories and just rushed to finish the main one with the simple good and evil bullshit.
Tiberian Sun is one of my favourite games of all time. I loved the slower pacing and the atmosphere, and that units felt solid and powerful. It was a very good RTS for just chilling out. Then Red Alert 2 came and I never understood why everyone seemed to like it. Everything felt like it was made out of glass in that game.
Somehow Dustin Browder's footprint is very easy to 'feel' because what SC2 and RA2 have in common is that in their predecessors, units felt solid and believable, while the units of both RA2 and SC2 feel way too fragile, like everything is made out of glass.
I'm with you on the atmosphere. That was awesome. I somehow still keep in my mind the memory of one particular level, which I believe was from the expansion, where you had a mutant and two robot artilleries and went after tacitus or how the thing was called. The level was all green and blue and orange from the glowing tiberian fields and the graphics details were just a joy. I have to say though, the game was pretty bad otherwise It seemed to me like Westwood didn't acknowledge a single problem of the original C&C. Especially in terms of unit AI - really... in 2000 after Total Annihilation, AoC and Starcraft that was inexcusable. Not being able to assign a second harvester a command to unload at refinery or combat unit to get repaired at the pod, just because you previously assigned another unit to do so and until it actually arrives there and unloads/gets repaired you won't be able to do it, is ridiculous. I'm not even mentioning the flying units that couldn't go to a fog of war, that was really lul from me back then. Also returning to harvesters: the game had probably the worse economy pacing of any RTS I ever played. I mean C&C original had incredibly slow harvesters that pretty much required you to sit on your ass doing nothing for a minute until it returned back. Tiberian Sun had them even slower. Pretty dumb, considering fucking Dune 2 had carryals which remedied this problem so elegantly. Not to mention Dune 2000 which also had the working repair pads and refineries with no queue problems. That is my favorite game from WW.
On August 02 2017 22:45 Letmelose wrote: Just because you have zero information about the Korean e-Sports scene doesn't allow you to freely make assumptions about Brood War, and how replaceable it was. Yes, professional Brood War was on the decline in Korea, and the prime time slots would have been taken away by League of Legends anyhow, but without the legal disputes and the heavy pressure Blizzard forced onto the Korean e-Sports scene to switch to Starcraft 2 against their will, I think it is a likely possibility that professional Brood War would have at least done better than the pitiful domestic scene that Starcraft 2 had in Korea.
I'm definitely not disputing that in terms of size of audience SC2 failed hard in Korea and Blizzard obviously did some things that hurt BW. I'm just curious about this claim that I see sometimes: is there some kind of real proof that the SC2 transition was somehow forced by Blizzard or is it just conjecture? I've understood the legal dispute to have been settled for quite a while at that point so that doesn't seem to be it.
@Letmelose: is there anyway where we can recover the interview with Blizzard employees saying that it is now time to switch to SC2 in the Tving OSL?
I remember very vividly those statements.
I watched that OSL, saw the interview and thought it was very poor taste like everyone else... . Not sure why you think it's all that relevant.
After going against Blizzard in a costly legal battle, the consequence of which was MBC Game shutting down mid-way through would have been the last ever MSL, KeSPA, who had released official statements with their intentions to "grow Brood War" and wanting Blizzard's help in that, instead of hefty fees for intellectual rights, suddenly released a new statement that "Starcraft 2 is the future of Korean e-Sports", just after they had come to an agreement with Blizzard about how they would settle their legal disputes.
Mike Morhaime, the co-founder of Blizzard, appears on television to inform us that "Starcraft 2 is the future", while Korean commentators were literally crying broadcasting their last ever Brood War tournament. Ongamenet, the last stronghold for Brood War on television, the guys who defied the world trend to hold on to their most prized tournament, had invited a Blizzard representative to tell us on their behalf that Ongamenet too had independently arrived to the conclusion that Starcraft 2 was the future.
If that is the reality of the situation in your eyes until Blizzard literally admits their part in the demise of Brood War, then there's nothing changing that.
Just like nobody can say sAviOr lost games for money, because the Korean legal system failed to prove that, and sAviOr denied all charges. All we know is that sAviOr was a great player during practice, but had incredibly poor performances in numerous televised games, one of which had sAviOr attacking his own units whenever it looked like he would secure his incredible lead multiple times throughout the game. We still don't know for a fact whether he did that for money though, and I saw those games live, and thought it was in poor taste like everyone else... . Not sure why people think it's all that relevant.
Thank you for that excellent summary. Sick of people misrepresenting this shit.
In brood war the most valuable resource was time. It was impossible to do everything. SC2 had to add artificial things to do in order to compensate for the addition time players had. Those didn't add to the game play because they were simply repetitive time sinks. That ruins the fun of a game. Also sc2 , even with its flashy graphics missed the beauty of bws simple graphics. It was easy to see, even at first glance exactly what was going on. There was no wall of lasers blocking your view. Also the way units respond in broodwar, despite being less realistic or "smooth" is actually a lot more fun.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
On August 03 2017 13:00 Jealous wrote: ^ As much as that makes a great story, that's all it really seems like. A story you wove with little to no evidence and a lot of biased conjecture. I don't know that much about the design process of SC2 besides what was proposed for each expansion and some of the more major drama/stagnant periods, so I understand that some of that is partially true but when you start making inferences about the intelligence of various people I almost lol'd.
Well, i know that sometimes post sc2 release, in an interview one of the blizz staff said that they didnt know what made a good RTS game, "wish we knew", dont remember who it was. We also know that when they did their "PR" community feedback, david kim have said that he doesnt understand why force field remove micro. Or maybe he answered that in an Q/A thingy.
If we look at how they implement stuff into sc2, such as reaper grenades. It shows me atleast they they really have no clue about RTS games. So the post has some merit atleast imo.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Without blizzard funding, SC2 prizepool would be similar to that. 99% of SC2 funding comes from blizzard. 100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans. Also you forget that even the least popular streamer has a high income from streaming.
What is more driven by passion? BW is the only game in the world which can do that.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Without blizzard funding, SC2 prizepool would be similar to that. 99% of SC2 funding comes from blizzard. 100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans. Also you forget that even the least popular streamer has a high income from streaming.
What is more driven by passion? BW is the only game in the world which can do that.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
So you mean streamers cannot attend tournament? Then what is ASL? So why ASL's sponsor invest so little money in it? And why no other third party entities invest more money to create more tournament?
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
So you mean streamers cannot attend tournament? Then what is ASL?
They meant that they aren't professionals in the sense that they have a salary, personal sponsors, managers, teams... but of course they are at least partly funding their continued existence by playing the game, mostly from stream donations, but that is completely different from what "professional" used to mean back in 2010
On August 03 2017 17:42 tub74557 wrote: And don't you know revenue =/= investment value? The investment in soccer world cup is around $200 billion, which means judging by investment, soccer is the most loved sports in the world.
What are you trying to prove? Football (or soccer, if you will) is well-known to be the biggest sport in every category.
Some superrich Chinese guy throwing 5 million dollars on one event for a wide array of different games, and SC2 happens to get some money as well? That clearly is the rule more than an exception....
Edit: after some math: In Feb 2017 BW streamers made around 342,000,000 Korean Won, which is more than $300,000 USD. This is only balloons from afreeca, which does not include YouTube or other sources of revenue. This is also only the top 15 streamers, I don't think the remaining streamers make as much. I wonder what it is now?
On August 03 2017 18:00 JungleTerrain wrote: You guys realize that BW streamers make a ton of money every month right? Adding them all together I'm sure it's over $100k a month.
Edit: after some math: In Feb 2017 BW streamers made around 342,000,000 Korean Won, which is more than $300,000 USD. This is only balloons from afreeca, which does not include YouTube or other sources of revenue. This is also only the top 15 streamers, I don't think the remaining streamers make as much. I wonder what it is now?
Yes, this is what the "Bw omg passion" people are trying to say. And it is impressive that they can seemingly make a good living on streaming.
However this makes these players into what other communities would call full-time streamers rather than professional players, since the work load is so focused on entertaining rather than actually improving.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
So you mean streamers cannot attend tournament? Then what is ASL? So why ASL's sponsor invest so little money in it? And why no other third party entities invest more money to create more tournament?
If you equate passion with how much large companies invest in the overall business I guess the "passion" of footballing fans must have increased by over ten times compares to the last World Cup, not because more people watched it, cherished what they saw, but because this World Cup is going cost more money.
You can throw around the those large numbers all you want. In the end Brood War players are making a nice living, being loved and being watched by thousands of fans. You seem to be more concerned whether it is a sound business model for the investors. Are you concerned that not enough people are harvesting more money off the talents of our heroes, or are you boasting the fact that it easy easier for Starcraft 2 to strike a partnership deal with Blizzard when using their games to host a tournament?
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
So you mean streamers cannot attend tournament? Then what is ASL? So why ASL's sponsor invest so little money in it? And why no other third party entities invest more money to create more tournament?
If you equate passion with how much large companies invest in the overall business I guess the "passion" of footballing fans must have increased by over ten times compares to the last World Cup, not because more people watched it, cherished what they saw, but because this World Cup is going cost more money.
You can throw around the those large numbers all you want. In the end Brood War players are making a nice living, being loved and being watched by thousands of fans. You seem to be more concerned whether it is a sound business model for the investors. Are you concerned that not enough people are harvesting more money off the talents of our heroes, or are you boasting the fact that it easy easier for Starcraft 2 to strike a partnership deal with Blizzard when using their games to host a tournament?
I'm saying in my opinion, if people have passion in a game, they would invest more money in it to create more tournaments. Like our Chinese people love Warcraft 3, so there are 51 events of $550k prize from 2016 to today. No partnership and no prize support from Blizzard. Isn't that really hard to understand?
On August 03 2017 16:27 duke91 wrote:100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans.
Don't really want to get into this pissing match but I highly doubt this is true. I'd be very surprised if Blizzard isn't supporting ASL.
Blizzard has never supported ASL. It might change since they are releasing remastered, but Blizzard has never supported any broodwar tournaments before. Mostly they ignored Korea, then tried convert BW tournaments to SC2 once SC2 was released.
On August 03 2017 16:27 duke91 wrote:100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans.
Don't really want to get into this pissing match but I highly doubt this is true. I'd be very surprised if Blizzard isn't supporting ASL.
Blizzard has never supported ASL. It might change since they are releasing remastered, but Blizzard has never supported any broodwar tournaments before. Mostly they ignored Korea, then tried convert BW tournaments to SC2 once SC2 was released.
On August 01 2017 02:22 gumballdead wrote: The reason why SC2 failed is simple: its not as fun of a game to play as BW. It is not fun to build up for 10 minutes and get your whole army crushed because you looked away for two seconds. Brood War was much more mechanically challenging but battles lasted longer and you had a a plethora of UMS games to play if you didn't want to melee. Arcade wasn't added for 2 years and melee in SC2 is just the same cookie cutter builds every game. Don't even get me started on LotV's loss of early game tactics, there was a whole article written here about the lack of strategic depth in SC2.
Blizzard has failed to address damage over and over again, instead they added units like widow mines to the game.
Another HIGHLY competitive 1v1 game that's very difficult is Street Fighter. If you make a mistake and your opponent punishes you with a Critical Art there is always a chance to come back with smart play, because you get V-Trigger or Bar built up. In SC2 you eat the ultra and then immediately lose the game.. It is unforgiving and not fun, no wonder its a dead game.
As I said in the other post, SC2 is more successful than BW in the west. You're literally saying a game is dead, because it isn't like a game that is twice as dead.
I guess BW elitists forget they don't live in Korea
We're not living in an alternative reality where Korea doesn't exist. Professional Brood War may be dead because Blizzard killed it, but Brood War as a game is in no way shape or form twice as dead as Starcraft 2 in the current climate, one nation's passion for the game prevents that from being a true statement. The love Korea has for Brood War has allowed the scene to prosper without any support from Blizzard, and has in fact convinced Blizzard to take an active involvement with all the business about the remastered version of Brood War.
From a quick search, it seems that in the year of 2017, the only Starcraft 2 tournament that had over 50,000 peak concurrent viewership on Twitch was the semi-finals and finals for IEM.
Just a month or so earlier to IEM, the semi-finals of the ASL had over 200,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV (Korea's streaming platform of choice) alone, and had over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
The most recent Brood War show-matches that happened a couple of days ago had around 90,000 peak concurrent viewership on NAVER, around 100,000 peak concurrent viewership on AfreecaTV, and had well over 300,000 peak concurrent viewership if you include all streaming platforms around the world.
Just as it annoys you when people here spread misinformation about your game of choice, it annoys me when people like you spread misinformation about my game of choice. Go defend your game, but be accurate with your statements if you want to drag Brood War down in this shitfest of a thread.
$134k prize pool, seriously? Or you are saying Koreans are so cheap and mean, thus they don't want to invest their money in their "passion" game?
Which part of professional Brood War being dead did you not get? There are no professional Brood War players anymore. Only streamers. If you are interested in the revenue of these streamers, please be my guest and find out for yourself exactly how cheap Koreans are.
By your logic United States of America must be more passionate about their sports than the rest of the world combined. I personally think football (soccer) is the most loved sports in the world, but I guess you don't see any value in passion from those who you regard to be cheap. What a way to view the world. Good luck with that.
So you mean streamers cannot attend tournament? Then what is ASL? So why ASL's sponsor invest so little money in it? And why no other third party entities invest more money to create more tournament?
If you equate passion with how much large companies invest in the overall business I guess the "passion" of footballing fans must have increased by over ten times compares to the last World Cup, not because more people watched it, cherished what they saw, but because this World Cup is going cost more money.
You can throw around the those large numbers all you want. In the end Brood War players are making a nice living, being loved and being watched by thousands of fans. You seem to be more concerned whether it is a sound business model for the investors. Are you concerned that not enough people are harvesting more money off the talents of our heroes, or are you boasting the fact that it easy easier for Starcraft 2 to strike a partnership deal with Blizzard when using their games to host a tournament?
I'm saying in my opinion, if people have passion in a game, they would invest more money in it to create more tournaments. Like our Chinese people love Warcraft 3, so there are 51 events of $550k prize from 2016 to today. No partnership and no prize support from Blizzard. Isn't that really hard to understand?
China has the largest online gaming population in the world, and is probably in posession of the largest market in terms of e-Sports consumers. What are you stating apart from the fact that China doesn't host Brood War tournaments to the scale of other e-Sports titles?
I guess by your criteria Qatar is more passionate for football than Brazil by a country mile. More investment equals more passion, right?
On August 01 2017 09:26 [F_]aths wrote: SC2 did some things wrong in my opinion, for example Protoss building shapes are no longer that unique than in SC1. And the deathball issue is present in both casual and pro games. But I think the memory of BW is much better than it actual was.
Nope, it's actually as good to watch as I remmembered.
On August 03 2017 16:27 duke91 wrote:100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans.
Don't really want to get into this pissing match but I highly doubt this is true. I'd be very surprised if Blizzard isn't supporting ASL.
Blizzard has never supported ASL. It might change since they are releasing remastered, but Blizzard has never supported any broodwar tournaments before. Mostly they ignored Korea, then tried convert BW tournaments to SC2 once SC2 was released.
How do you know this?
I don't understand why you think Blizzard has ever funded a BW tournament.
Your standard of evidence required is backwards. There nothing to presuppose that they have, and everything to that they never had. I can't prove they they haven't, other than that Blizzard would be excercising unusual restraint in not slapping their logo all over ASL, that they had no marketing investment whatsoever over in any BW tournament. Maybe they are doing some secretive offshore money channelling into ASL. I don't know. I might as well turn the question round to you. Why do you think Blizzard is funding ASL? Do you have access to Blizzard and ASL accounts?
On August 03 2017 20:42 Dangermousecatdog wrote: I don't understand why you think Blizzard has ever funded a BW tournament.
Your standard of evidence required is backwards. There nothing to presuppose that they have, and everything to that they never had. I can't prove they they haven't, other than that Blizzard would be excercising unusual restraint in not slapping their logo all over ASL, that they had no marketing investment whatsoever over in any BW tournament. Maybe they are doing some secretive offshore money channelling into ASL. I don't know. I might as well turn the question round to you. Why do you think Blizzard is funding ASL? Do you have access to Blizzard and ASL accounts?
I wasn't demanding proof, just asking you what you're going by since you were making statements that made it seem like you have absolute certainty they never have. Blizzard branding is present at ASL (so they kinda have slapped their logo in there...) and they have advertised ASL on their websites and Battle.net. They clearly support the SC2 tournament by Afreeca. They have in more recent times started valuing the interest Koreans still show for BW as is evident by what they've done with SC Remastered.
Those things are mostly what has made me think it's likely they'd be supporting ASL but I'm not saying that's a fact. You can easily be less optimistic and say it's merely possible but I don't know if it's reasonable to say there's no chance in hell.
On August 03 2017 13:00 Jealous wrote: ^ As much as that makes a great story, that's all it really seems like. A story you wove with little to no evidence and a lot of biased conjecture. I don't know that much about the design process of SC2 besides what was proposed for each expansion and some of the more major drama/stagnant periods, so I understand that some of that is partially true but when you start making inferences about the intelligence of various people I almost lol'd.
I don't doubt it's controversial. You can lol all you want, but to lead an incredibly complex game like SC, you need to be very smart. You can't just be someone who, for example, looks at a unit like Swarm Host and says 'this is cool, zerg will have a unit they can siege with and it's very zergy, because it makes a lot of little zergs'. There is a long thought process that needs to happen for a game like SC that wasn't a part of C&C or DoW, there needs to be an understanding of how a meta develops, how top players will use the unit, as it should be obvious to you that they will look for an edge. But then, as you said, you don't know much about SC2 development and history, so the detail in my post isn't something you can appreciate.
On August 03 2017 13:53 Arrinao wrote: Yeah I have a very mixed feelings about that post. The intelligence remarks were pretty dumb. Also the two guys "in charge". Just because they were the ones interacting doesn't mean there weren't other behind the curtain. That DBro because he was the only one who could understand the game at competitive level... umm I doubt that. Ultimately though the whole idea of the "balance designer" is funny to me, at least in the sense of an RTS. Fiddling around with knobs is worthless if you have a bad base. Lead designer should be the one doing balance since he is also the one to remake something from the ground up if it doesn't fill the scheme. Why Dbro relegated that to something else, shows pretty much again that he wasn't the right man up there. The rest of the post... well I can actually put my stamp over that. Especially at the fact that it was a cinderella to WoW. Pretty much the reason SC2 as a project was even conceived, I believe, was purely because of esports and the licensing fees tied to them, as a means of long term income, similar to WoW subscriptions, or later microtransactions from their newer games. When the esports failed to "deliver" as the scene was dragged by LoL and Dota, SC2 was slowly becoming a bastard child. I could feel that at the LoTV release... there was not even half as much hype surrounding it as it used to be for Heart of the swarm. The campaign felt like it completely gave up on all the side stories and just rushed to finish the main one with the simple good and evil bullshit.
There is no separating reasons for why the developers weren't capable of making any sound decisions from what their ability and character traits were. Especially when you have this contrast with a brilliant man that is Rob Pardo (who, btw. also lead design on WC3 and WoW). I find it funny how quickly you choose to believe instead that there was this great team of designers that were nowhere to be seen. Let me expand on that for you. There were actually three multiplayer designers on SC2. The third of them was Matthew Cooper, who came to Blizzard together with David Kim from Dawn of War. You'd remember him from the early Battle Reports? Unfortunately, his impact was negligible, so they quickly moved him to work on Heroes of the Storm. You can look at the credits if you want. There were a total of 12 of at least partial designers on the game (some of them were technical designers, you can look up google on what that job is), but the majority of them worked on the campaign, while the rest worked on systems. If you watch the BlizzCon panels, you'll see most of them and you can listen to what their role was and what they focused on. I don't doubt they occasionally threw in some ideas for units, often meant for the campaign, but they were neither the ones who did multiplayer design nor made any decisions pertaining to it, of that I'm quite sure. All decision making and the bulk of design for multiplayer were Browder and Kim. Please note, that while David Kim was hired as a balance designer, it was never his true role. He was a full designer on the game, that much is also obvious from his interviews and panels.
As for why SC2 was conceived: I think it came from the right place. Wanting to make another great RTS, after that team was done with WC3, SC2 was the logical next step. It would sell, it wouldn't require any additional resources the way WoW did. I think that was the thought process since the beginning, so they never revised it. They never got that Korea wasn't the only place where eSports existed and could exist. And they didn't care to find out and update their thinking either way. The approach was "we make the game, let the players do with it what they like. If they make big tournaments, cool, we'll go, do some good PR there, have a fun weekend, stop at that." I mean, that's what they even said publicly all the time.
On August 03 2017 20:42 Dangermousecatdog wrote: I don't understand why you think Blizzard has ever funded a BW tournament.
Your standard of evidence required is backwards. There nothing to presuppose that they have, and everything to that they never had. I can't prove they they haven't, other than that Blizzard would be excercising unusual restraint in not slapping their logo all over ASL, that they had no marketing investment whatsoever over in any BW tournament. Maybe they are doing some secretive offshore money channelling into ASL. I don't know. I might as well turn the question round to you. Why do you think Blizzard is funding ASL? Do you have access to Blizzard and ASL accounts?
I wasn't demanding proof, just asking you what you're going by since you were making statements that made it seem like you have absolute certainty they never have. Blizzard branding is present at ASL (so they kinda have slapped their logo in there...) and they have advertised ASL on their websites and Battle.net. They clearly support the SC2 tournament by Afreeca. They have in more recent times started valuing the interest Koreans still show for BW as is evident by what they've done with SC Remastered.
Those things are mostly what has made me think it's likely they'd be supporting ASL but I'm not saying that's a fact. You can easily be less optimistic and say it's merely possible but I don't know if it's reasonable to say there's no chance in hell.
I've never seen Blizzard marketing in any season of ASL. I do tend to not watch the adverts in the videos. Never once saw a Blizzard logo there. I don't visit their websites, but there have been over 15 years of BW tournaments. Never saw any blizzard funding there either. Are they funding ASL4? I don't know, and nor do you. So why are you telling us that you think Blizzard is funding BW tournaments when there is nothing to suggest that they have ever done so? They might fund a bw remastered tournament sometime in the future seeing as they are releasing a remastered version of bw, but at this point you are just superimposing your own version of reality over the past.
Can I be absolutely certain that Blizzard has never funded BW tournaments? Of course I can never be certain. It's the obvious inference from observation, without access to accounting records from Blizzard. For all I know Blizzard could have been secretly funnelling money through secretive means, but that is a level of certainty required of me far higher than of your suppositions from no grounds at all.
LUL C'mon, some of guys here are blind. Blizz never ever supported any BW tournaments, post KeSPA scene left without anything after SC2 hit. All money comes from Afreeca (donations got big part) and sponsors, it's them who revived scene. Sonic tried to revive starleague as well before got bankrupt. All other minor offline and online leagues were held by support of fans who donated.
Maybe only now Blizzard will start supporting SC:R.
On August 03 2017 11:38 JohnSmithII wrote: The main reasons SC2 never stood a chance had little to do with outside factors. A lot of what was posted here were consequences. But they had roots. Cause and effect...
yes let's talk cause and effect.
outside factors always impact any video game's success. it always has to do with outside factors. game playing is done in one's spare time with spare money. you need a good economy otherwise the children are working from the time they are 14. while the adults are working non-stop. i got my 1st job at 14.
in 1965 South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Had the economy stayed that way there'd be no RTS game play in South Korea. Brood War owes part of its success in South Korea to an economic boom that occurred in the late 60s, 70s, and 80s.
if the Russian economy were in the same state it was in the early 90s video games would be nothing in Russia.
state of technology is also a huge outside factor in teh success of any video game. the state of technology changed drastically during the RTS genre's history. ignoring the state of technology is to ignore the mindset of the prototypical video game consumer because that consumer sees the game through the lens of the current tech state.
outside factors are fundamental to the success of any video game because it's source of revenue is disposable income.
how much is SCR selling for again? is it $150? oh, its $15. it'll be interesting to see if this is enough to give the RTS genre another billion dollar franchise. Clash of Clans developer Supercell pulled in over 1 billion in 2016.
Clash of Clans eroded a lot of demand from RTS games. remember the 1990s when RTS was growing by leaps and bounds?
Welp, this looks a lot like ur typical 90s RTS game except you can play it any time.. any where. and you don't have to practice your micro 7 days a week to "keep ur skills up"... it has all the fun parts the general consumer loved about 90s RTS games without the frustration of hitting the "s" key instead of the "a" key.
The changing state of technology not only wrecked SC2, but the entire RTS genre.
i suspect the next major entry in the SC franchise will not require a PC/Mac. Hell, David Kim and Dustin Browder could be working on it as i type this. Does anyone think the SC franchise's next major offering will be PC/Mac only?
On August 03 2017 22:52 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Never once saw a Blizzard logo there.
What? there are plenty of Blizzard logos in the ASL.
There are? Like I said I mostly watch the videos, so I choose to watch the games being played. If I watch it live, I generally alt tab and leave sound on and do something else till the game starts. I saw some of those funny korean adverts though. I always see afreeca logos and some other korean logos, even though I have no idea what those other companies do. Never saw a blizzard advert or logo, but if they are there, then I stand corrected and they are there. Just compare with other Blizzard tournaments. Heroes of the storm, SC2, overwatch. Blizzard is everywhere there. Their adverts, their marketing. What is in BW? But, in the end, I am being asked to prove a negative. How exactly, am I suppose to prove that Blizzard does not fund ASL? None of us has access to their records, and observation indicates that Blizzard has never funded BW tournaments. Where does this baseless claim that blizzard has funded ASL come from?
On August 03 2017 23:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote: how much is SCR selling for again? is it $150? oh, its $15. it'll be interesting to see if this is enough to give the RTS genre another billion dollar franchise. Clash of Clans developer Supercell pulled in over 1 billion in 2016.
Clash of Clans eroded a lot of demand from RTS games. remember the 1990s when RTS was growing by leaps and bounds?
Welp, this looks a lot like ur typical 90s RTS game except you can play it any time.. any where. and you don't have to practice your micro 7 days a week to "keep ur skills up"... it has all the fun parts the general consumer loved about 90s RTS games without the frustration of hitting the "s" key instead of the "a" key.
The changing state of technology not only wrecked SC2, but the entire RTS genre.
i suspect the next major entry in the SC franchise will not require a PC/Mac. Hell, David Kim and Dustin Browder could be working on it as i type this. Does anyone think the SC franchise's next major offering will be PC/Mac only?
Clash of Clans was not even released until the damage had been done to SC2, and it was not live PvP at all.
You can't really compare a skill based PC RTS, to a mobile city builder that is not skilled based with tiered progression that rewards playing consistently over months that happens to have an RTS-style battle mode, that is not PvP nor do you even control the units.
You act like people weren't upset with the design of SC2 since the very beginning of SC2 WoL beta....
We can name dozens of mobile games that generated more money than most PC games. That does not mean they were well designed. Rather the selection was quite low at a time. Even now, mobile games are still working to get up to PC quality.
Even Supercell's other more recent game release (Clash Royale) is far better designed than Clash of Clans was, and they are still working on trying to get it up to PC quality. But considering that it has live PvP when almost no other mobile game offers live PvP (your playing vs a replay in most of them) it's better than the rest.
Completely ridiculous that you bring that up as an example to compare to SC2. Completely different style of game, and the battle mode in CoC is not the primary aspect of the game, as it is in SC.
it's irrelevant except for who doesn't have access to pc gaming, the technology is inferior to PC obviously except for "on the go" so I guess you could say CoC takes some away from the portable console market but from PC, nah I mean there has always been portable gaming a lot, lol these phone games they make money they can be interesting but its more like an extra thing, most people who would play games on fixed supports too well they do anyway cause its not like mobile gaming with limited controls can give you all you may want. I think people who play only on mobile games are mostly the same people that you would hardly see play any video games at all before. So its a significant new demographic, but not one that takes away from the potential PC RTS demographic, I don't think so. I mean, everything affects everything else so maybe a very small portion, still don't see it as relevant. But whatever, it's unlikely to be #1 factor anyway lol
On August 04 2017 02:37 ProMeTheus112 wrote: it's irrelevant except for who doesn't have access to pc gaming, the technology is inferior to PC obviously except for "on the go" so I guess you could say CoC takes some away from the portable console market but from PC, nah I mean there has always been portable gaming a lot, lol these smartphone games they make money they can be interesting but its more like an extra thing, most people who would play games on fixed supports too well they do anyway cause its not like mobile gaming with limited controls can give you all you may want. I think people who play only on mobile games are mostly the same people that you would hardly see play any video games at all before. So its a significant new demographic, but not one that takes away from the potential PC RTS demographic, I don't think so. I mean, everything affects everything else so maybe a very small portion, still don't see it as relevant. But whatever, it's unlikely to be #1 factor anyway lol
Even that is giving it too much credit imo lol.
I've played CoC and it's a completely different game. It's a typical grindy phone game. Most of the "progression" is out of game. It's built to be semi social. The "battles" are not the main attraction, nor the reason people play.
Plain and simple, any RTS gamer is NOT going to be entertained by CoC. I've never met a single person who was a PC RTS fan that enjoyed CoC. Furthermore, every CoC player I knew played it simply because of co workers or something along those lines. It is in no way comparable, or a replacement, for PC RTS games.
All you actually do is choose where on the outskirts to spawn ur units, and they auto path from there. You do not control them at all. Absolutely no RTS fan is going to find entertainment in that. It's not actually real time controls, and has minimal strategy.
Why do people play? Same reason they play any phone game, semi-social progression. Others in your clan donate units to you, you donate to others. After starting tiers it takes days-weeks to make your units stronger. It's a time-grind. Play longer, donate and upgrade when coolsodwns are over, and be stronger than others.
You can pay to speed this up. Top players had to pay to get ahead of everyone else. New players can pay to get ahead faster. This is why the games make so much money.
This is absolutely not comparable to anything about SC2. Completely different player base.
FYI, this Jimmy guy always argues in favor of the most ridiculous stuff anyone could come up with, like this browser game being the best RTS ever made. Most of his posts are like that. Why are people still arguing with this guy?
as much as i have argued with jimmy before i don't think he's being a contrarian.. he's right in that as the gaming market develops, customers don't have to make as many concessions to get the gaming experience that they want. so while clash of clan players might have played evolvers or lurker TD in 1998 to get their casual strategic fix, now there are alternatives that better suit their needs, relegating the current bw UMS scene to a weaker state compared to 1998. likewise, LoL ate away a lot of amateur and non-competitive melee players in broodwar when it released because it gave that social competitive fix without the mechanical requirements. however, i think that both SC2 and broodwar nowadays cater to a much more "mature" audience in that the audience has been along for a long ass time and knows what they're getting when they're playing a competitive traditional rts, so they're less likely to be swayed by games offering other things like CoC or mobas.
On August 03 2017 23:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote: how much is SCR selling for again? is it $150? oh, its $15. it'll be interesting to see if this is enough to give the RTS genre another billion dollar franchise. Clash of Clans developer Supercell pulled in over 1 billion in 2016.
Clash of Clans eroded a lot of demand from RTS games. remember the 1990s when RTS was growing by leaps and bounds?
Welp, this looks a lot like ur typical 90s RTS game except you can play it any time.. any where. and you don't have to practice your micro 7 days a week to "keep ur skills up"... it has all the fun parts the general consumer loved about 90s RTS games without the frustration of hitting the "s" key instead of the "a" key.
The changing state of technology not only wrecked SC2, but the entire RTS genre.
i suspect the next major entry in the SC franchise will not require a PC/Mac. Hell, David Kim and Dustin Browder could be working on it as i type this. Does anyone think the SC franchise's next major offering will be PC/Mac only?
Clash of Clans was not even released until the damage had been done to SC2, and it was not live PvP at all.
You can't really compare a skill based PC RTS, to a mobile city builder that is not skilled based with tiered progression that rewards playing consistently over months that happens to have an RTS-style battle mode, that is not PvP nor do you even control the units.
You act like people weren't upset with the design of SC2 since the very beginning of SC2 WoL beta....
We can name dozens of mobile games that generated more money than most PC games. That does not mean they were well designed. Rather the selection was quite low at a time. Even now, mobile games are still working to get up to PC quality.
Even Supercell's other more recent game release (Clash Royale) is far better designed than Clash of Clans was, and they are still working on trying to get it up to PC quality. But considering that it has live PvP when almost no other mobile game offers live PvP (your playing vs a replay in most of them) it's better than the rest.
Completely ridiculous that you bring that up as an example to compare to SC2. Completely different style of game, and the battle mode in CoC is not the primary aspect of the game, as it is in SC.
How I did not thought about this myself. You are so smart. Ofcourse mobile pseudo RTS is ruining good old fashioned RTS. What do they come up next - mass building selection mobile?
On August 03 2017 16:27 duke91 wrote:100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans.
Don't really want to get into this pissing match but I highly doubt this is true. I'd be very surprised if Blizzard isn't supporting ASL.
Blizzard has never supported ASL. It might change since they are releasing remastered, but Blizzard has never supported any broodwar tournaments before. Mostly they ignored Korea, then tried convert BW tournaments to SC2 once SC2 was released.
How do you know this?
Better you say how you claim the contrary, it is such a bs answer from you, instead provide some proofs of Blizz sponsoring any ASL until date, you got nothing, so dont ask for something that you need to provide.
About JJ I already gave you all the advise of ignore him, this guy just writes extended paragraphs based in what he reads in any internet page, and that he can accomodate to his "opinion", and post in TL like those are the facts.
On August 03 2017 16:27 duke91 wrote:100% of BW funding comes from sponsors or fans.
Don't really want to get into this pissing match but I highly doubt this is true. I'd be very surprised if Blizzard isn't supporting ASL.
Blizzard has never supported ASL. It might change since they are releasing remastered, but Blizzard has never supported any broodwar tournaments before. Mostly they ignored Korea, then tried convert BW tournaments to SC2 once SC2 was released.
How do you know this?
Better you say how you claim the contrary, it is such a bs answer from you, instead provide some proofs of Blizz sponsoring any ASL until date, you got nothing, so dont ask for something that you need to provide.
I don't know what more is there to say. I already told every bit of infomation that makes me think it's likely and never said I have any actual proof. I'll add that one more thing I've observed is that ASL ad breaks have featured Blizzard ads as well.
I was just curious to know what made him so certain they're not. He used language that did make it seem like he'd have some kind of proof for it...
Look, it's just my opinion and I asked because I was willing to change it if there was something I had overlooked. You're acting like I'm forcing you to think the same or something.
When some of the best and most well-paid players quit your game, leaving behind their teams, salaries, sponsorships, international exposure, etc. to make much less money streaming another game in their bedroom and occasionally participating in comparatively small tournaments...it doesn't make you think there's something wrong with your game? It's as simple as this: SC2 is fine on it's own as a casual game, but as a top-down forced esport it's pathetic and unnecessary.
I feel a lot of the downturn is that SC2 has a relatively repetitive monotonous beginning to every match. It took like ten minutes for any semblence of a match to be care worthy. That is why there was so much excitement in rushes and cheese strats early on, because it was different from the normal boring start.
There also was not a ton of parity early on, nor now. We know for the most part a Korean is going to win 9/10 times versus a foreigner.
These in combination relatively lead to a bored fanbase which eroded its support.
Compare it to LoL where from the very onset a game defining kill or engagement could possibly happen every single game. Starcraft is just too slow and predictable early on to a large extent.
On August 08 2017 13:52 Corrik wrote: I feel a lot of the downturn is that SC2 has a relatively repetitive monotonous beginning to every match. It took like ten minutes for any semblence of a match to be care worthy. That is why there was so much excitement in rushes and cheese strats early on, because it was different from the normal boring start.
There also was not a ton of parity early on, nor now. We know for the most part a Korean is going to win 9/10 times versus a foreigner.
These in combination relatively lead to a bored fanbase which eroded its support.
Compare it to LoL where from the very onset a game defining kill or engagement could possibly happen every single game. Starcraft is just too slow and predictable early on to a large extent.
I don't think cheese stopped being exciting, the prospect of not knowing whether the game would be over in 10 minutes or go on for an hour would always keep you on the edge of your seat. At certain points it seemed like the dev team was trying to remove it, sadly.
I do agree the slow start wasn't ideal and they did address it in LotV but that was too late if it was a factor.
To me Blizzard's handling of the WCS turned out to be complete failure and I'm sure it actively worked against people staying interested in the pro scene. First they undermined the most prestigious tournament by splitting the players between three regions when Koreans were free to play in Europe or Korea. Then they implemented the region lock far too late, way after the foreign stars people had been interested in had faded. Had they done the region lock right away there might have still been a chance that the audience interested in following the foreign scene would have stayed interested and the audience could have even grown. They way they did it first catered to nobody, it only served to make the fans of the Korean scene less interested, first with scattering the talent across regions and then causing mass retirement. From that point it was all downhill...
Everyone and their grandmothers have opinions as to why SC2 did what it did. I read the first few pages and rolled my eyes. We can make long lists of what we like and dislike all day and it won't change anything.
We see the same silly mistakes all the time. Anyway, next time Blizzard should just stay out of it and let the community decide the direction rather than trying to keep trying to patch the game every other day or trying to dictate which players play where. The Riot model just isn't going to fly in a game of 1v1.
I tend to like watching players who can do shit I could never pull off in a million years. It's no different than professional sports and what do you know. The 2024 Olympic Games are pushing to have esports there. Good times.
Claiming that outside factors do not contribute to the success of a game is beyond ridiculous. If it had not been for south koreas economic situation there is a good chance that Starcraft vanilla and BW would have been just another RTS in a long line of RTS releases, without any special notion to it. This would have been a shame obviously. There were alot of outside factors going for sc2 though but also alot going against it. I cannot really estimate how each of these factors contributed to the success/decline. All I can say with certainty that it is not ONE single reason why the game did not do as well as some people hope it would. It is a combination of alot of factors, be it outside or within the game itself.
I would say that the biggest issue was that Blizzard kept patching the game after the initial x months. It's much like how they balanced the game around maps like Steppes of War lol. If they just left the mapmakers and only changed things that must be absolutely changed, the game would've been in a much better position. Ideas that were somewhat cool got nerfed. VRs had potential, got nerfed into a one press charge button as far as I remember. A hero unit like the mothership also doesn't really belong in the starcraft universe (maybe its in the lore, dunno but shouldn't be in the game).
I think the game should've also changed some of the design choices. Make it so that you can only use mbs and put the same structures in the same control group. Make it so that only 24-36 units can be added to a control group. Add defenders' advantage to make it so that high ground actually has a meaning besides just being there for aesthetics etc... There was just so much hype when the game first released but Blizzard failed to meet the expectations and in turn, the game popularity plummeted towards the end of WoL. It rebounded a bit in HoTS but kept decreasing after the early period because the units just didn't cut it. Then in LOTV, they removed the early game and forced you to have to expand due to decreasing mineral count in your main so that made things worse imo. Oh well.
On August 09 2017 12:06 reincremate wrote: Why do people care so much about seeing non-Koreans succeed? Why does it matter what nationality a player is?
This is something I don't get either. I mean it's fun to root for foreigners, but ultimately I want to see the best of the best regardless of their nationality. All the concern about how we must get non-Koreans to compete with the Koreans seems to me like a lack of interest in the actual game.
Can we stop pretending that BW's long time "success" and SC2's dwindling have anything to do with each other? BW kept a dwindling core group in exactly one country, Sc2 had overall good sales, but eventually declined like pretty much every non-teambased game nowadays.
Also Sc2 was a hybrid of more casual elements while trying to keep the mechanical requirements to cater the old core group. In the end it wasn't casual enough to keep the more casual players and not hardcore enough to satisfy the BW community.
In that way the lack of custom mode/arcade did play a role, but there are a shitload of fairly high quality low cost minigames out there, why would you play a shitty fanmade TD for extended periods of time in Sc2 when you can play a good one for 5 bucks by a good indie studio? Many of the successful old maps became full games, fun maps aren't the life extender they were back in 98 or in 2002.
Add to that that if BW was to come out today under a different name, it would sell as well as rotten tomatoes. Sc2 was destined to die eventually even if it was less restricting.
I also don't agree at all that Blizz trying to rebalance the game harmed it. Popularity in the end of WoL didnt plummet because the game was hard to grasp, but because it was stale, if anything the expansions and balance patches kept it alive. The engine isn't really made to "come up with creative solutions".
On August 09 2017 12:06 reincremate wrote: Why do people care so much about seeing non-Koreans succeed? Why does it matter what nationality a player is?
For identification purposes. It's easier to root for somebody who has some similarities with you. Add to that that Koreans come from a completely different ethnic group and that people who don't deal with a lot of Asians have difficulties to keep them apart, as well as that their culture and age gives them a tendency to be overly timid in interviews and it's hard to associate with a person who doesn't present any character traits nor major visual identification marks and is unwilling to share personal stories.
It's one of the reasons MC was a fan favorite, because he actually stood out all the time.
On August 09 2017 12:06 reincremate wrote: Why do people care so much about seeing non-Koreans succeed? Why does it matter what nationality a player is?
For identification purposes. It's easier to root for somebody who has some similarities with you. Add to that that Koreans come from a completely different ethnic group and that people who don't deal with a lot of Asians have difficulties to keep them apart, as well as that their culture and age gives them a tendency to be overly timid in interviews and it's hard to associate with a person who doesn't present any character traits nor major visual identification marks and is unwilling to share personal stories.
It's one of the reasons MC was a fan favorite, because he actually stood out all the time.
That's pretty much what I had guessed, although I don't like to assume too much. It seems really dumb to me though, especially considering how much some/most of us on TL enjoyed watching/reading about the BW pros during the KeSPA era (almost all of whom were Korean), sometimes unabashedly entering creepy territory (see Nada's body thread).
It was cool to see players like Idra and Nony try to make it as BW progamers in Korea, seeing as how they had the narrative of getting to that level without the gaming culture, infrastructure, environment, etc. of Korea, but the fact that the scene was 99.9% Korean didn't detract from the quality of the game as an esport. SC2 as an esport just looks shallow and superficial in comparison.
On August 08 2017 13:52 Corrik wrote: I feel a lot of the downturn is that SC2 has a relatively repetitive monotonous beginning to every match. It took like ten minutes for any semblence of a match to be care worthy. That is why there was so much excitement in rushes and cheese strats early on, because it was different from the normal boring start.
There also was not a ton of parity early on, nor now. We know for the most part a Korean is going to win 9/10 times versus a foreigner.
These in combination relatively lead to a bored fanbase which eroded its support.
Compare it to LoL where from the very onset a game defining kill or engagement could possibly happen every single game. Starcraft is just too slow and predictable early on to a large extent.
I don't think cheese stopped being exciting, the prospect of not knowing whether the game would be over in 10 minutes or go on for an hour would always keep you on the edge of your seat. At certain points it seemed like the dev team was trying to remove it, sadly.
I do agree the slow start wasn't ideal and they did address it in LotV but that was too late if it was a factor.
To me Blizzard's handling of the WCS turned out to be complete failure and I'm sure it actively worked against people staying interested in the pro scene. First they undermined the most prestigious tournament by splitting the players between three regions when Koreans were free to play in Europe or Korea. Then they implemented the region lock far too late, way after the foreign stars people had been interested in had faded. Had they done the region lock right away there might have still been a chance that the audience interested in following the foreign scene would have stayed interested and the audience could have even grown. They way they did it first catered to nobody, it only served to make the fans of the Korean scene less interested, first with scattering the talent across regions and then causing mass retirement. From that point it was all downhill...
For me outside of early cheese in SC2 its 90% afk till max then fighting and someone losing in a lopsided fashion and the game ending. Not fun to watch
On August 09 2017 14:00 Archeon wrote: Can we stop pretending that BW's long time "success" and SC2's dwindling have anything to do with each other? BW kept a dwindling core group in exactly one country, Sc2 had overall good sales, but eventually declined like pretty much every non-teambased game nowadays.
Why are SC2 people always so concerned with deflecting blame onto anything and anyone but themselves? Why can it never have anything to do with SC2 itself? The other day I saw TB blaming "BW elitism" for how poorly the SC2 community treated its own caster Husky. How about you take responsibility for your own game/community every once in a goddamn while?
Add to that that if BW was to come out today under a different name, it would sell as well as rotten tomatoes.
Please. If Chess came out today it wouldn't "sell" well either (why are you so concerned with sales numbers anyway, is this the accounting olympics?), but it would undoubtedly gain a dedicated following of people who appreciate the genius of it. A following that wouldn't be fickle and switch to Checkers the instant it's released because there's an actual timeless quality to the game.
In 10 years time there's a very good chance SC:R will far outstrip SC2's popularity in every category, even in your beloved west. Because by then SC2 would have none of the plastic corporate artificial hype left. It would finally have to fend for its own without its sugar daddy Blizzard. All that would remain are mediocre graphics and dubious gameplay.
Sc2 was destined to die eventually even if it was less restricting.
Stop.
I also don't agree at all that Blizz trying to rebalance the game harmed it. Popularity in the end of WoL didnt plummet because the game was hard to grasp, but because it was stale, if anything the expansions and balance patches kept it alive.
Again, you have this erroneous perception that a game needs to change just for the sake of change so that the players won't get bored. Guess what? If a game is good enough it doesn't need to be put in an endless update carousel of bells and whistles. If it needs that to keep players interested, it's not a good game.
For identification purposes. It's easier to root for somebody who has some similarities with you. Add to that that Koreans come from a completely different ethnic group and that people who don't deal with a lot of Asians have difficulties to keep them apart
How about you at least try to put your jingoism aside and gain a better understanding of Korean society? Us BW enthusiasts never had a problem with that; I'm sure you can manage too.
Personally I dislike most major Starcraft personalities from my own country as they give off smug douchey vibes, but I am forever thankful to the Korean BW scene for providing me and many others glimpses of another culture that would otherwise be unknown to us.
Deathballs and lack of social/chat channels, among other things. When SC2 was under development, me and many others where worried over what we saw and voiced our concern over these issues among others. In the end Blizz didn't listen to any of this and constructed a game that was quite good but not at all what it could have been.
SC2 is just such a lonely experience, while BW in it's prime was a very social thing. Hanging out in the chat channels, obbing games, clan recruitments and clan wars all the time, it was great.
On August 09 2017 14:00 Archeon wrote: Can we stop pretending that BW's long time "success" and SC2's dwindling have anything to do with each other? BW kept a dwindling core group in exactly one country, Sc2 had overall good sales, but eventually declined like pretty much every non-teambased game nowadays.
Why are SC2 people always so concerned with deflecting blame onto anything and anyone but themselves? Why can it never have anything to do with SC2 itself? The other day I saw TB blaming "BW elitism" for how poorly the SC2 community treated its own caster Husky. How about you take responsibility for your own game/community every once in a goddamn while?
why are you so concerned with blaming sc2 as some sort of unique failure, when it's had a normal to above-average life cycle for a multiplayer game? bw is the outlier here, it's had an unusually long lifespan, partly due to luck and partly because it's an unusually good competitive game.
Following BW introduced me to contemporary Korean culture at least as much as my Korean friends did (and more so than my Korean Canadian friends did lol).
"Hey that dude has the same skin color as me! Better root for him!" is a dumb idea
On August 09 2017 14:00 Archeon wrote: Can we stop pretending that BW's long time "success" and SC2's dwindling have anything to do with each other? BW kept a dwindling core group in exactly one country, Sc2 had overall good sales, but eventually declined like pretty much every non-teambased game nowadays.
Why are SC2 people always so concerned with deflecting blame onto anything and anyone but themselves? Why can it never have anything to do with SC2 itself? The other day I saw TB blaming "BW elitism" for how poorly the SC2 community treated its own caster Husky. How about you take responsibility for your own game/community every once in a goddamn while?
why are you so concerned with blaming sc2 as some sort of unique failure, when it's had a normal to above-average life cycle for a multiplayer game? bw is the outlier here, it's had an unusually long lifespan, partly due to luck and partly because it's an unusually good competitive game.
Its just because of South Korea, when Korea developed youth culture was able to develop alongside video games and at the time the video game of choice happened to be Starcraft. Therefore video games became part of youth culture.
If there was no Korean Starcraft scene the game would have been dead in 2002.
Even though I don't really enjoying\playing sc2 lately, saying that sc2 was wrecked means not being honest. The game still has an healty playerbase, there are lots of tournaments for both koreans and foreigners,patch are being made, new commanders are released and the coop itself attracted lots of casuals. You did not like sc2 and it's fine, but the game is not as bad you are describing it.
On August 09 2017 19:31 raff100 wrote: Even though I don't really enjoying\playing sc2 lately, saying that sc2 was wrecked means not being honest. The game still has an healty playerbase, there are lots of tournaments for both koreans and foreigners,patch are being made, new commanders are released and the coop itself attracted lots of casuals. You did not like sc2 and it's fine, but the game is not as bad you are describing it.
In this moment, the game has less viewers on twitch than GTA V, RuneScape, PAth of Exile, Rainbow Six and many many others. 15th in general games.
ya, and Warcraft3, C&C4, AoE3, and Company of Heroes 2 have how many viewers now? if you believe Destiny's viewer count i've got some viewbots for sale... real cheap. go to any Destiny channel's chat for a good laugh.
the entire genre has been marginalized by improving tech providing increased consumer choice; this has happened with many other genres throughout the 40 year history of video games. same shit, different decade.
On August 09 2017 21:16 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ya, and Warcraft3, C&C4, AoE3, and Company of Heroes 2 have how many viewers now? if you believe Destiny's viewer count i've got some viewbots for sale... real cheap. go to any Destiny channel's chat for a good laugh.
the entire genre has been marginalized by improving tech providing increased consumer choice; this has happened with many other genres throughout the 40 year history of video games. same shit, different decade.
On August 09 2017 22:22 ProMeTheus112 wrote: same flawed logic, same false conclusions
what we have here is several RTS hard core evangelists who can't see the forest through the trees.
no one has explained how games within in genre can get better and have less long term popularity. which has happened lots and lots of times. automatically assuming game quality guarantees long term popularity is the most flawed thing in this thread.
Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand. viewership declined because the game became boring as shit to watch. No this isn't me hating on the game, i've loved starcraft 1 and 2 since they both came out. I won't even play sc2 anymore because of the direction it went in. I play bw from time to time just for nostalgia.
On August 09 2017 22:51 ReachTheSky wrote: Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand.
Beta for WoL was also plagued with 1 base builds, retarded shit such as the 7RR, 3 immortal pushes outright killing zergs, voidrays having 9?maybe 10 range? but WoL in general was not that bad.
It took them a couple of expansions to make Hydralisks not complete dogshit. And lets not forget when Colossi did what was it 48? damage a swipe
On August 09 2017 22:51 ReachTheSky wrote: Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand.
Beta for WoL was also plagued with 1 base builds, retarded shit such as the 7RR, 3 immortal pushes outright killing zergs, voidrays having 9?maybe 10 range? but WoL in general was not that bad.
It took them a couple of expansions to make Hydralisks not complete dogshit. And lets not forget when Colossi did what was it 48? damage a swipe
point is, the game isn't action packed. It's more like sim city/civ 5 combined. No wonder viewership declined. What attracted people early on was the action, it kept viewers on the edge of their seat excited to see what would happen next. Instead, viewers have to listen to terrible filler from casters waiting for action.
One intersting thing about this topic being in BW forum is seeing how the majority of the old school BW fans believes that the things they liked on BW would help SC2's success. I think it's flawed logic. Chat channels, UMS games etc. were undoubtedly a great thing in the BW age, but they really don't mean that much nowadays, because there are just so many alternatives now. I know it's hard to realize own biases. A BW fan sees that he and all his buddies like those things, so it has to be great, right? But the BW community is pretty small despite all these things existing in BW, in particular the non-korean part of it. If SC2 was to the liking of you guys, would it really change anything? It seems to me that you are trying to answer the question: "why isn't SC2 popular among BW fans", which is howevet irrelevant anywhere outside korea.
I have already said that I don't consider SC2 "wrecked", but it's true that it could probably have done better in terms of popularity numbers if it had been managed differently by Blizzard. But I am quite sure that it would have done worse if Blizzard listened to you lot. Yeah, you'd have liked it more, but you simply aren't the majir demographic for the market anymore.
Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
What I don't get about people whining/discussing sc2 is that it seems that 1/2 say there's too much community input and there's the other half that says blizz didn't listen enough.
On August 09 2017 23:40 c3rberUs wrote: What I don't get about people whining/discussing sc2 is that it seems that 1/2 say there's too much community input and there's the other half that says blizz didn't listen enough.
blizzard listened too much to the old guard and the game became sim city/civ 5.
On August 09 2017 22:51 ReachTheSky wrote: Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand. viewership declined because the game became boring as shit to watch. No this isn't me hating on the game, i've loved starcraft 1 and 2 since they both came out. I won't even play sc2 anymore because of the direction it went in. I play bw from time to time just for nostalgia.
Bro you fucking nailed it ! I honestly played LOTV just for the campaign , I personally can not stand player multiplayer at all , so I just play DOW 3 and Wc3 for some serious 1v1 action , I played around 5000 games in WOL (by no means am I pro , Im a shit player , this is my personal view), I was having the time of my fucking life , loved that shit ! then one day maps became bigger (i still dread the day taldarim altar was introduced) , rushes and micro heavy strategies were nerfed to hell....bl/infestor came along , HOTS was exciting for a while ..... then one day I reinstalled Wc3 and never looked back.
Not saying Sc2 is a shit game or that sc2 is on trouble currently , hell to the fuck no it aint and no objective person can make that argument , it just doesn't appeal to me the way WOL did , and this is my personal subjective view , I like action packed games full of rushes , cheese and micro , with the occasional macro option if I wanna do that, and games that also allows other people to bring in their favorite play styles....that was WOL for me , currently I play DOW 3 and that game still has a looooooooong way to go before even seeing let alone reaching sc2 feet in terms of everything honestly, but as a consumer I'm having fun , and that is what matters to me , im sure this is the case for many others.....and Blizzard failed to see that.
On August 09 2017 12:38 StarStruck wrote: Everyone and their grandmothers have opinions as to why SC2 did what it did. I read the first few pages and rolled my eyes. We can make long lists of what we like and dislike all day and it won't change anything.
We see the same silly mistakes all the time. Anyway, next time Blizzard should just stay out of it and let the community decide the direction rather than trying to keep trying to patch the game every other day or trying to dictate which players play where. The Riot model just isn't going to fly in a game of 1v1.
I tend to like watching players who can do shit I could never pull off in a million years. It's no different than professional sports and what do you know. The 2024 Olympic Games are pushing to have esports there. Good times.
I think it's the opposite. Feedback is good to determine if your reaching your desired goals, but much of the problem with their direction since LotV release, is they don't have long-term goals laid out. They have been asking for assistance deciding the direction of every-damn-thing they do.
They had no vision of where they were bringing the game. Which only supports as evidence to those who say the changes were band-aids to solve problems.
People would have been much more open to changes if the issues were simply "growing pains" but they had a destination for SC2 in mind that the community could get behind.
But all they really did was promise "big things" in the future, and this was consistently misleading. Such as their promises to look at MM removal again back in beta. Such as looking at the economy system again sometime after LotV release. Such as the big promised "design update" last year that ended up being nothing but a glorified balance patch.
The last time they showed any vision was in the LotV beta. Then they reverted everything they achieved in that vision, except the 12 worker start. 12 worker start supported the mechanics introduced in beta, but when they introduced 12 worker start to a HotS style SC2, combine that with "creative maps" rather than "standard maps", and don't give the game enough balance time between major changes in beta & release.... it was just a nightmare.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
There is no "one reason" for anything. "better product" in what way? Some people would have loved it if sc2 would be more hardcore à la broodwar, others would have liked it more if macro was completely automatic. Others really like sc2 as it is now. So what does better product even mean? The most amount of sales? The highest playerbase in esports? You liking the game more? Out of all the big esport games right now dota is the most "hardcore". Let that sink in for a moment. (also this isn't a bash towards the game, i think it's actually quite amazing) Sc2 being more of a social game, what do you mean with that? Different chat channels and custom game scene? That wouldn't be enough by any means (most likely). The custom game scene in broodwar and warcraft 3 were popular because there were less alternatives back in the day. Right now you simply play an actual multiplayer game which is way better than the shitty custom map. I am not saying there cannot be small scenes (there even are right now with sc2's custom map system), but it's basically irrelevant in the big picture in the year 2017.
Refusal to implement necessary balance and design changes in a timely manner
Refusal to completely step away from map making and give the reigns 100% to the community (who always creates far superior maps compared to blizzard)
Refusal to dedicate more resources to making arcade better, sleeker, and more accessible back in the day when the population was more higher so in lay mans terms, when it mattered.
And the biggest reason SC2 got wrecked..
Mobas are generally free, team based, and with the exception of Dota2, much easier and more forgiving to play.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
I think you greatly overestimate how important a social aspect is in a game. Not a single gamer is sitting there saying a social aspect of a computer game is the deciding factor. Not a single gamer is thinking "well, i like this game, but it's just not social enough!, i think i'll play something else". seriously. Social aspects of computer/console games will never be the deciding factor, why? Because if a gamer valued social aspects over gameplay, they'd be out and about and not behind a computer playing a game. It's like basic logic. Dota/lol/cs are more popular because they are just flat out better games. That's all their is to it. They have design teams that actually care and have a vision. The company that put the game out actually cares about the success of it. Blizzard got our money and tried to do as little as possible to keep us happy. They did a poor job in my opinion and hopefully they've learned a lesson that they can apply to their future games.
On August 09 2017 22:51 ReachTheSky wrote: Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand. viewership declined because the game became boring as shit to watch. No this isn't me hating on the game, i've loved starcraft 1 and 2 since they both came out. I won't even play sc2 anymore because of the direction it went in. I play bw from time to time just for nostalgia.
Bro you fucking nailed it ! I honestly played LOTV just for the campaign , I personally can not stand player multiplayer at all , so I just play DOW 3 and Wc3 for some serious 1v1 action , I played around 5000 games in WOL (by no means am I pro , Im a shit player , this is my personal view), I was having the time of my fucking life , loved that shit ! then one day maps became bigger (i still dread the day taldarim altar was introduced) , rushes and micro heavy strategies were nerfed to hell....bl/infestor came along , HOTS was exciting for a while ..... then one day I reinstalled Wc3 and never looked back.
Not saying Sc2 is a shit game or that sc2 is on trouble currently , hell to the fuck no it aint and no objective person can make that argument , it just doesn't appeal to me the way WOL did , and this is my personal subjective view , I like action packed games full of rushes , cheese and micro , with the occasional macro option if I wanna do that, and games that also allows other people to bring in their favorite play styles....that was WOL for me , currently I play DOW 3 and that game still has a looooooooong way to go before even seeing let alone reaching sc2 feet in terms of everything honestly, but as a consumer I'm having fun , and that is what matters to me , im sure this is the case for many others.....and Blizzard failed to see that.
Hell yeah dude. Intense action. INTERACTIVE GAMES. The reason dota/cd/lol are successful is because you interact with your opponent almost always/on a frequent basis. This whole lets macro up shit has to go. It's not interactive. It's not fun to watch. It's boring. It literally makes casts boring to watch as i have to listen terrible jokes from incontrol or crappy filler/banter from all the casters.
Who is it that pushed blizzard's balance team into making sc2, a completely different game from broodwar, into a macro oriented game? The old guard. All the old US pros and some of the EU pros. It's like they couldn't let go of broodwar even though sc2 was a different game but they had to push for it just so they could play what they like. Their influence has turned sc2 into what it is today. It's unfortunate. I miss the old days in 2010/2011 playing in the beta/wol as an aspirational pro gamer trying to make it. I was lucky enough to be on a great team with a lot of great people. Even had the opportunity to attend an MLG and fly out for the green forest lan in california back in the day. Unfortunately the old guard folks were so stuck up/elitist/assholes and had no idea about the concept of "community". I believe a huge part of of sc2's downfall had to do with this.
Blizzard really should be careful who they let influence their design/balance teams.
All I know is that sc2 was at it's biggest when aggression/interactive gameplay was the norm. It was fun to watch AND fun to play. Watching someone execute an aggressive rush/strategy was inspirational and rewarding. It felt good, it looked good and it made me want to play the game more and more. It inspired me to want to be a pro gamer.
Can we stop pretending that BW's long time "success" and SC2's dwindling have anything to do with each other? BW kept a dwindling core group in exactly one country, Sc2 had overall good sales, but eventually declined like pretty much every non-teambased game nowadays.
Why are SC2 people always so concerned with deflecting blame onto anything and anyone but themselves? Why can it never have anything to do with SC2 itself? The other day I saw TB blaming "BW elitism" for how poorly the SC2 community treated its own caster Husky. How about you take responsibility for your own game/community every once in a goddamn while?
Add to that that if BW was to come out today under a different name, it would sell as well as rotten tomatoes.
Please. If Chess came out today it wouldn't "sell" well either (why are you so concerned with sales numbers anyway, is this the accounting olympics?), but it would undoubtedly gain a dedicated following of people who appreciate the genius of it. A following that wouldn't be fickle and switch to Checkers the instant it's released because there's an actual timeless quality to the game.
In 10 years time there's a very good chance SC:R will far outstrip SC2's popularity in every category, even in your beloved west. Because by then SC2 would have none of the plastic corporate artificial hype left. It would finally have to fend for its own without its sugar daddy Blizzard. All that would remain are mediocre graphics and dubious gameplay.
Sc2 was destined to die eventually even if it was less restricting.
Stop.
I also don't agree at all that Blizz trying to rebalance the game harmed it. Popularity in the end of WoL didnt plummet because the game was hard to grasp, but because it was stale, if anything the expansions and balance patches kept it alive.
Again, you have this erroneous perception that a game needs to change just for the sake of change so that the players won't get bored. Guess what? If a game is good enough it doesn't need to be put in an endless update carousel of bells and whistles. If it needs that to keep players interested, it's not a good game.
For identification purposes. It's easier to root for somebody who has some similarities with you. Add to that that Koreans come from a completely different ethnic group and that people who don't deal with a lot of Asians have difficulties to keep them apart
How about you at least try to put your jingoism aside and gain a better understanding of Korean society? Us BW enthusiasts never had a problem with that; I'm sure you can manage too.
Personally I dislike most major Starcraft personalities from my own country as they give off smug douchey vibes, but I am forever thankful to the Korean BW scene for providing me and many others glimpses of another culture that would otherwise be unknown to us.
In general: you are making a lot of assumptions. I have a large interest in the South Korean culture, I know a lot of their history and enjoy a lot of their tales. I read way too many webtoons and manwhas. I don't think western culture is superior to the culture of other industrialized countries like Japan and SK, I don't give a shit about ethnics and like to think that people are generally fairly similar all around the globe. I don't have a problem recognizing Jaedong, Taeja, Nada or Flash. Nor do I have one recognizing RotK or Burning from China f.e.. I don't give a shit about nations. I was very hyped for Sc2 and still think it did a lot for esports, but I haven't watched on a regular basis for years now and think that the game has some constraints that made it worse than it could have been. Just to get that out of the way.
On specifics: @chances for Sc2: Please name one RTS within the last 15 years that still has a large and living playerbase. Hell WC3 is dead and for many people outside of the BW community that's the best RTS ever made.
@Sales: For a game to survive it needs a steady playerbase, that's what being alive means for a game. Who cares if a game has 1000 monthly players.
@chess: Ridiculous comparison. Board games and their community is at large unchanged for millenias. Ofc there are some more complex ones nowadays, but they aren't selling better than old classics. Compared to games like BW Chess is very easy to pick up and doesn't intentionally make it hard for you every way possible.
RTS however have changed a lot since 1998. Try releasing an RTS nowadays that doesn't have waypoints, doesn't have formations, has terrible pathing and weird unit movements like fully stacking flying units. "...undoubtedly gain a dedicated following of people who appreciate the genius of it" yeah maybe five people of the hundred that play through the campaign. Wait for the 90% bad steam reviews that say that you need 20apm per base to keep your eco running and that the controls are worse than wc3 and check how the monthly playerbase would dwindle to nothing before a meta even builds.
I've played through the sc1 campaign and watched some pro matches. I like the game, I'm not trying to say it's bad. But in 1998 games were shit in terms of usability, nowadays people don't have to have the patience anymore because there are alternatives that you can still play hardcore without having to send every single worker to work.
@Sc2 people: Not sure where that came from, I don't blame anyone for anything. Only saying that some mechanics are in the game because Blizz made Sc2 and not a new RTS series.
@patches/change: I'm fairly sure that the reason BW is still somewhat alive is because it changed a lot over time. They also patched a lot in the first years. But because people got better the meta evolved multiple times. That doesn't happen with most games and it's not something you can plan.
@ethnics: I wasn't a big fan of westerners for the most part, because they were flat out worse than the top of Korea pretty much throughout the entire lifetime of Sc2. But what I described should be obvious. There's a reason soccer fans are often rooting for their hometown.
The fact that the old guard(Players AND Casters) developed a culture for shaming players publicly on personal streams/event streams and in game for not playing the way they want them to(macro games). This type of behavior actually alienates people.
On August 10 2017 03:18 Archeon wrote: @patches/change: I'm fairly sure that the reason BW is still somewhat alive is because it changed a lot over time. They also patched a lot in the first years. But because people got better the meta evolved multiple times. That doesn't happen with most games and it's not something you can plan.
yeah man, all those balance patches we had in the first years of brood war just look at this massive list of balance patches i'm glad the eternal balance patching is finally over http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Patches_1.01-1.07
On August 10 2017 03:39 ReachTheSky wrote: Oh one more thing that shrunk sc2
The fact that the old guard(Players AND Casters) developed a culture for shaming players publicly on personal streams/event streams and in game for not playing the way they want them to(macro games). This type of behavior actually alienates people.
this is the #1 reason IMO that SC2 had issues. When two of the most popular players/casters of 2010-2012 make a whole show dedicated to bashing one specific race ("Overpowered"), not because the race was winning everything (cause it wasnt) but solely because they felt their race was not strong enough (despite FD/Nestea being the first "gods" of SC2).. that swayed a WHOLE lot of new players opinions and shaped their outlook for the next 4-5 years. That instantly divided the community and made everyone argue in streams. Even to this day, when someone as strong as Neeb wins any game at all, you have a whole chat complaining about it, that shouldnt be happening to arguably the best foreigner since Stephano's prime.
I also will agree with ReachTheSky's mention of how every player who tried to do anything at all instead of taking 2 expos right off the start was labelled as "all-in".. thanks again to the two vocal players above. The whole point of playing vs zerg in 2011-2013 was to make sure they couldnt get their macro perfect.. Yet if you did any kind of harassing or anything to throw them off that perfect macro before 20 minutes, you were a cheeser all-in-er. Too many people take the opinions of casters as fact, when in reality its just their opinion of how the game CAN be played, but not the ONLY way the game can be played.
It'd be the same as if Dota casters at TI7 would say "Antimage is the only hero that takes skill, if you pick sven or spectre, you are a cheeser".. That would be horrible for the upcoming months of pubs. But thats exactly what happened in SC2 for years.
The community will never recover in SC2 from the racial divide.
On August 10 2017 03:39 ReachTheSky wrote: Oh one more thing that shrunk sc2
The fact that the old guard(Players AND Casters) developed a culture for shaming players publicly on personal streams/event streams and in game for not playing the way they want them to(macro games). This type of behavior actually alienates people.
this is the #1 reason IMO that SC2 had issues. When two of the most popular players/casters of 2010-2012 make a whole show dedicated to bashing one specific race ("Overpowered"), not because the race was winning everything (cause it wasnt) but solely because they felt their race was not strong enough (despite FD/Nestea being the first "gods" of SC2).. that swayed a WHOLE lot of new players opinions and shaped their outlook for the next 4-5 years. That instantly divided the community and made everyone argue in streams. Even to this day, when someone as strong as Neeb wins any game at all, you have a whole chat complaining about it, that shouldnt be happening to arguably the best foreigner since Stephano's prime.
I also will agree with ReachTheSky's mention of how every player who tried to do anything at all instead of taking 2 expos right off the start was labelled as "all-in".. thanks again to the two vocal players above. The whole point of playing vs zerg in 2011-2013 was to make sure they couldnt get their macro perfect.. Yet if you did any kind of harassing or anything to throw them off that perfect macro before 20 minutes, you were a cheeser all-in-er. Too many people take the opinions of casters as fact, when in reality its just their opinion of how the game CAN be played, but not the ONLY way the game can be played.
It'd be the same as if Dota casters at TI7 would say "Antimage is the only hero that takes skill, if you pick sven or spectre, you are a cheeser".. That would be horrible for the upcoming months of pubs. But thats exactly what happened in SC2 for years.
The community will never recover in SC2 from the racial divide.
It wasn't just due to their show. This type of culture was preached by the likes of everyone from the old guard, and yes, i mean everyone. All the casters and players. I was on Quantic Gaming up until the Naniwa acquisiton and the behind the scenes shit was retarded. I'd get shamed by my peers and other players on ladder and major figures for not playing a macro style. I'm a vindictive prick so in return, i trashed the hell outta these guys on forums/streams/public outlets any time I had the chance, they deserved to be shamed, not me.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
I think you greatly overestimate how important a social aspect is in a game. Not a single gamer is sitting there saying a social aspect of a computer game is the deciding factor. Not a single gamer is thinking "well, i like this game, but it's just not social enough!, i think i'll play something else". seriously. Social aspects of computer/console games will never be the deciding factor, why? Because if a gamer valued social aspects over gameplay, they'd be out and about and not behind a computer playing a game. It's like basic logic. Dota/lol/cs are more popular because they are just flat out better games. That's all their is to it. They have design teams that actually care and have a vision. The company that put the game out actually cares about the success of it. Blizzard got our money and tried to do as little as possible to keep us happy. They did a poor job in my opinion and hopefully they've learned a lesson that they can apply to their future games.
so you think these games would be as popular if they were single player games?
The community and interface of SC2 wasn't as good at fostering growth as other RTS games I have played in the past were. Elitism, closed-mindedness to certain strategies, a lot of big egos... Even the pros were mostly insufferable personalities in my opinion.
Blizzard finally came around and gave people what they wanted with regards to balance, but it was too late. But so long without guilds, so long without in-game tournament support, etc... There was no excuse for this. WC3 had it for years and years. They know how to do it, they've done it before. They literally were just lazy with SC2 on things that matter.
On August 09 2017 23:40 c3rberUs wrote: What I don't get about people whining/discussing sc2 is that it seems that 1/2 say there's too much community input and there's the other half that says blizz didn't listen enough.
I feel a lot of it has to do with the way how SC2 engagements work. Due to the ball pathing, any extra units or unit stats are getting almost fully utilized in engagements regardless of the player skills. Meanwhile the tight unit groups, warp gates, highly mobile core armies and all that negated a lot of the balancing maps could do.
The result is a game that's very difficult to control balance wise. On one hand Blizzard needs to constantly interfere with the balance because the players simply have very limited tools to overcome many timings, compositions and such. Then again for similar reasons any changes Blizzard make are going to feel very dramatic for the players, controlling the ways they can approach the game. This lead to constant conflict of whether blizzard should interfere or hope the meta to sort itself.
Looking at it afterwards, I think Blizzard needed first to sort out their own idea of the game. Then, once the basic mechanics functioned around those ideas, they could utilize the community feedback in much more controlled, stable and productive way.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
I think you greatly overestimate how important a social aspect is in a game. Not a single gamer is sitting there saying a social aspect of a computer game is the deciding factor. Not a single gamer is thinking "well, i like this game, but it's just not social enough!, i think i'll play something else". seriously. Social aspects of computer/console games will never be the deciding factor, why? Because if a gamer valued social aspects over gameplay, they'd be out and about and not behind a computer playing a game. It's like basic logic. Dota/lol/cs are more popular because they are just flat out better games. That's all their is to it. They have design teams that actually care and have a vision. The company that put the game out actually cares about the success of it. Blizzard got our money and tried to do as little as possible to keep us happy. They did a poor job in my opinion and hopefully they've learned a lesson that they can apply to their future games.
so you think these games would be as popular if they were single player games?
That's not what I said or think and you are going to the extreme. You could remove the ability to talk to your opponents at all and if the game is good, people will play it. Games are primarily about gameplay, not social aspects. If social aspects were the most important thing to gamers, they wouldn't be gamers, they'd be somewheres in the outside world doing something other than sitting behind a computer.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
I think you greatly overestimate how important a social aspect is in a game. Not a single gamer is sitting there saying a social aspect of a computer game is the deciding factor. Not a single gamer is thinking "well, i like this game, but it's just not social enough!, i think i'll play something else". seriously. Social aspects of computer/console games will never be the deciding factor, why? Because if a gamer valued social aspects over gameplay, they'd be out and about and not behind a computer playing a game. It's like basic logic. Dota/lol/cs are more popular because they are just flat out better games. That's all their is to it. They have design teams that actually care and have a vision. The company that put the game out actually cares about the success of it. Blizzard got our money and tried to do as little as possible to keep us happy. They did a poor job in my opinion and hopefully they've learned a lesson that they can apply to their future games.
so you think these games would be as popular if they were single player games?
That's not what I said or think and you are going to the extreme. You could remove the ability to talk to your opponents at all and if the game is good, people will play it. Games are primarily about gameplay, not social aspects. If social aspects were the most important thing to gamers, they wouldn't be gamers, they'd be somewheres in the outside world doing something other than sitting behind a computer.
Ya, looking at SC2 in 2017, I wish there was a function to not have any chat in games, I think that might make me come back to the game (being a Protoss player, I know every win I get will be met with "omg you cheat" just like it did when I last played in 2013, sadly even at GM level with people like Avilo and Nathanias running aound..) and I find it worked really good in Heroes - not having the opposite team talking made it more enjoyable. Dota has it too now, but unfortunately most of dota's issues comes from your own team, so muting them is an issue (as communication is key) but I still win more games with my whole team muted than not. Muting players is the only way to really distance yourself from the toxicity in gaming these days, because lets face it, everyone eventually gets sick of being badmouthed (especially as a high masters/above Protoss in SC2) and it hurts your overall gaming experience.
Hell, I'd give a serious try at Smash bros offline tournaments if I wasn't so used to the manner at RTS tournaments (cause lets face it, normally people are quite nice in real life RTS tournies) but the Smash scene is based on "popping off" and shit talking your opponents, again heavily influenced by their top caster and his comments in the scene. Its a whole different world that play fighting games. I dunno if I could handle the bad mannered-ness in real life without starting a fight.
@ReachTheSky I honestly think you're way off base here. Perhaps those "elitist" old guard players knew something you didn't? For example, that a macro game doesn't just appear out of thin air at the high level, it comes from a system of information gathering and consequent decision making? Or the fact that people didn't mind the fact that many games in BW started with relatively fast expansions, or perhaps the fact that BW in its infancy was also cheesy because people were still figuring the game out and were bad at it so cheeses were more effective, and thus Macro games were a result of people improving?
To have the nerve to shit on a small subset of the SC2 population, who if I am understanding you correctly are community figures with a lot more history and many more contributions to the scene than you, is really childish and frames your whole opinion with a petulant air.
On August 10 2017 03:39 ReachTheSky wrote: Oh one more thing that shrunk sc2
The fact that the old guard(Players AND Casters) developed a culture for shaming players publicly on personal streams/event streams and in game for not playing the way they want them to(macro games). This type of behavior actually alienates people.
this is the #1 reason IMO that SC2 had issues. When two of the most popular players/casters of 2010-2012 make a whole show dedicated to bashing one specific race ("Overpowered"), not because the race was winning everything (cause it wasnt) but solely because they felt their race was not strong enough (despite FD/Nestea being the first "gods" of SC2).. that swayed a WHOLE lot of new players opinions and shaped their outlook for the next 4-5 years. That instantly divided the community and made everyone argue in streams. Even to this day, when someone as strong as Neeb wins any game at all, you have a whole chat complaining about it, that shouldnt be happening to arguably the best foreigner since Stephano's prime.
I also will agree with ReachTheSky's mention of how every player who tried to do anything at all instead of taking 2 expos right off the start was labelled as "all-in".. thanks again to the two vocal players above. The whole point of playing vs zerg in 2011-2013 was to make sure they couldnt get their macro perfect.. Yet if you did any kind of harassing or anything to throw them off that perfect macro before 20 minutes, you were a cheeser all-in-er. Too many people take the opinions of casters as fact, when in reality its just their opinion of how the game CAN be played, but not the ONLY way the game can be played.
It'd be the same as if Dota casters at TI7 would say "Antimage is the only hero that takes skill, if you pick sven or spectre, you are a cheeser".. That would be horrible for the upcoming months of pubs. But thats exactly what happened in SC2 for years.
The community will never recover in SC2 from the racial divide.
It wasn't just due to their show. This type of culture was preached by the likes of everyone from the old guard, and yes, i mean everyone. All the casters and players. I was on Quantic Gaming up until the Naniwa acquisiton and the behind the scenes shit was retarded. I'd get shamed by my peers and other players on ladder and major figures for not playing a macro style. I'm a vindictive prick so in return, i trashed the hell outta these guys on forums/streams/public outlets any time I had the chance, they deserved to be shamed, not me.
Who are these 'old guard' that only wanted macro games? Because I remember a lot of threads from the WoL days where people on TL complained about the micro not being engaging, and that SC2 was primarily about macro and they didn't enjoy it because of that. I remember a SC2 fan defending the game against BW players because the SC2 player only liked macro and wanted SC2 to be only about that while BW players wanted more micro.
Yeah, if you didn't play a macro game, you were pretty much labelled as "afraid to play a real game".
Well, just tell these "macro zealots" that they need to *earn* a macro game with you by showing that none of your cheese/aggression/timings can defeat them.
I just spent a lot of time reading old threads about SC2.
I reminded me of the optimism and the "It's a new game, it'll get figured out and we'll see awesome micro and plays" kind of mindset that was around in the beta and right after launch. I was one of those optimists back then.
www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
www.teamliquid.net I think this thread disproves that there was an "old guard" with this all-permeating attitude of "Only macro games are acceptible or you are scum!!!!!". Seems like most people even back then were fine with even pure cheese strats because they make the game exciting.
That poll asked if cheese was *bm*, but the general sentiment I gathered was that if you wanted to really *match up your skill* you needed to *get into the macro phase* with the other player. In my opinion, this stifled pride and motivation towards developing a cheesy bag of tricks that could not be ousted.
"Oh, cool, he's just using cheese though. No skill."
Just look at the comments, "guy who uses it 24/7 on ladder is pretty sad", "as long ppl don't base their whole play on it..". Seriously, hilarious stuff.
Whining doesn't win wars. If you have a strong bag of cheese plays, even if you have nothing else, more power to you my man.
On August 10 2017 08:42 KungKras wrote: www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
meh this post is really vague. Saying that sc2 consists only of a-move is objectively wrong. Seems to me like just another kind of shitpost. I am guessing it is just another jab at unlimited selection. Do people really believe if you implement a unit selection limit in the game that sc2 will become so much more enjoyable and better? I stopped playing sc2 for many reasons but the unlimited selection was not one of them. I can guarantee you if tomorrow a patch hits that you can only select 12 units in sc2, it would be even more dead and BW players would still refuse to give it a try. At this rate you can argue that custom hotkeys wrecked sc2 lul. This entire thing of trying to make sc2 more like BW is what brought us macro mechanics like (mules, chronoboost, inject) in the first place, which in my opinion ultimately only harmed the game flow tremendously since the release of the game.
yeah, even at that time that post was garbage ^^. Anyone trying to argue that Collossi are cooler than reavers needs to show me the micro potential of a collossus compared to a reaver.
On August 09 2017 23:38 ROOTFayth wrote: Seems like a flawed argument, you're saying since there are alternatives they shouldn't try to make a better product? The reason Dota, LoL and CS are so popular is because it's much more of a social game which is what we were advocating for SC2, they failed us
the actual game is whatever, some like it, some don't, I personally think WoL was better than the expansions but I think the lonely experience of SC2 is what was its biggest downfall
I think you greatly overestimate how important a social aspect is in a game. Not a single gamer is sitting there saying a social aspect of a computer game is the deciding factor. Not a single gamer is thinking "well, i like this game, but it's just not social enough!, i think i'll play something else". seriously. Social aspects of computer/console games will never be the deciding factor, why? Because if a gamer valued social aspects over gameplay, they'd be out and about and not behind a computer playing a game. It's like basic logic. Dota/lol/cs are more popular because they are just flat out better games. That's all their is to it. They have design teams that actually care and have a vision. The company that put the game out actually cares about the success of it. Blizzard got our money and tried to do as little as possible to keep us happy. They did a poor job in my opinion and hopefully they've learned a lesson that they can apply to their future games.
so you think these games would be as popular if they were single player games?
That's not what I said or think and you are going to the extreme. You could remove the ability to talk to your opponents at all and if the game is good, people will play it. Games are primarily about gameplay, not social aspects. If social aspects were the most important thing to gamers, they wouldn't be gamers, they'd be somewheres in the outside world doing something other than sitting behind a computer.
Ya, looking at SC2 in 2017, I wish there was a function to not have any chat in games, I think that might make me come back to the game (being a Protoss player, I know every win I get will be met with "omg you cheat" just like it did when I last played in 2013, sadly even at GM level with people like Avilo and Nathanias running aound..) and I find it worked really good in Heroes - not having the opposite team talking made it more enjoyable. Dota has it too now, but unfortunately most of dota's issues comes from your own team, so muting them is an issue (as communication is key) but I still win more games with my whole team muted than not. Muting players is the only way to really distance yourself from the toxicity in gaming these days, because lets face it, everyone eventually gets sick of being badmouthed (especially as a high masters/above Protoss in SC2) and it hurts your overall gaming experience.
Hell, I'd give a serious try at Smash bros offline tournaments if I wasn't so used to the manner at RTS tournaments (cause lets face it, normally people are quite nice in real life RTS tournies) but the Smash scene is based on "popping off" and shit talking your opponents, again heavily influenced by their top caster and his comments in the scene. Its a whole different world that play fighting games. I dunno if I could handle the bad mannered-ness in real life without starting a fight.
being badmouthed is the most fun part about competing online rofl
LOL this is the most hilariously delusional view yet: there are people who play my game who complain about my game in a different way from how I complain about my game. They must be from the other game! These old guard other game people are ruining my game!
On August 10 2017 08:42 KungKras wrote: www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
meh this post is really vague. Saying that sc2 consists only of a-move is objectively wrong. Seems to me like just another kind of shitpost. I am guessing it is just another jab at unlimited selection. Do people really believe if you implement a unit selection limit in the game that sc2 will become so much more enjoyable and better? I stopped playing sc2 for many reasons but the unlimited selection was not one of them. I can guarantee you if tomorrow a patch hits that you can only select 12 units in sc2, it would be even more dead and BW players would still refuse to give it a try. At this rate you can argue that custom hotkeys wrecked sc2 lul. This entire thing of trying to make sc2 more like BW is what brought us macro mechanics like (mules, chronoboost, inject) in the first place, which in my opinion ultimately only harmed the game flow tremendously since the release of the game.
yeah, even at that time that post was garbage ^^. Anyone trying to argue that Collossi are cooler than reavers needs to show me the micro potential of a collossus compared to a reaver.
I've yet to see any strategic battles/engagements. I've seen no use of flanking/trapping maneuvers and I've seen no use/benefit of map control. I've seen some micro, especially in early game situations with small groups of units fighting it out, but nothing compared to what we saw in BW, especially in mid/late game scenarios.
How the fuck is this vague? Arent you the vague here saying that unlimited unit selection has nothing to do with it?
The pathetic part here is the responses. The responses consist of closing the eyes, not looking at what they see, finding excuses. Instead of being optimistic like they were they should have been more criticized about the experience THEY WERE HAVING.
On August 10 2017 07:20 Jealous wrote: @ReachTheSky I honestly think you're way off base here. Perhaps those "elitist" old guard players knew something you didn't? For example, that a macro game doesn't just appear out of thin air at the high level, it comes from a system of information gathering and consequent decision making? Or the fact that people didn't mind the fact that many games in BW started with relatively fast expansions, or perhaps the fact that BW in its infancy was also cheesy because people were still figuring the game out and were bad at it so cheeses were more effective, and thus Macro games were a result of people improving?
To have the nerve to shit on a small subset of the SC2 population, who if I am understanding you correctly are community figures with a lot more history and many more contributions to the scene than you, is really childish and frames your whole opinion with a petulant air.
Who are you what is your history with sc2? It sounds like you are just piecing together theory hoping to sound logical.
What I said is literally all legitimate feedback. Real experiences that happened. Real things i've watched over and over. On event streams, personal streams, IN PERSON AT MLG etc etc
The old guard - All of the old us bw pros as i've stated.
No one is shitting on anyone, i'm calling it for what it is. They fucked up interacting with the rest of the community and tried to shame people who didn't want to go along with what they wanted.
It doesn't matter what someone's contributions are, that doesn't give someone the right to operate that way. It's toxic behavior.
On August 10 2017 08:42 KungKras wrote: I just spent a lot of time reading old threads about SC2.
I reminded me of the optimism and the "It's a new game, it'll get figured out and we'll see awesome micro and plays" kind of mindset that was around in the beta and right after launch. I was one of those optimists back then.
www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
www.teamliquid.net I think this thread disproves that there was an "old guard" with this all-permeating attitude of "Only macro games are acceptible or you are scum!!!!!". Seems like most people even back then were fine with even pure cheese strats because they make the game exciting.
Going through the time capsule of this period was really interesting with both happy and sad moments.
The thread you linked with the survey about cheesing proves nothing. You can't even see who voted.
Every single thing i've said is legitimate feedback. Things that turned me and many others away from wanting to be apart of the sc2 community/playing the game.
One more thing that created a divide in the community.
Invitationals.
So many players kept getting free rides into tournaments based early performances. Had there been open enrollment into all the tournaments, the community would have felt included and apart of something. In addition, you would have seen many more up and coming players/new blood. Everyone would have had to earn their keep. no free rides. Instead this allowed a small group of individuals to always be labeled as pro gamers and protect their status while minimizing opportunities for new comers.
On August 10 2017 05:28 Aberu wrote: The community and interface of SC2 wasn't as good at fostering growth as other RTS games I have played in the past were. Elitism, closed-mindedness to certain strategies, a lot of big egos... Even the pros were mostly insufferable personalities in my opinion.
Blizzard finally came around and gave people what they wanted with regards to balance, but it was too late. But so long without guilds, so long without in-game tournament support, etc... There was no excuse for this. WC3 had it for years and years. They know how to do it, they've done it before. They literally were just lazy with SC2 on things that matter.
Guilds are way overrated outside of MMOs. I don't forsee Remastered falling on its flat because of the lack of automated tournaments/clan features. I don't think there's a correlation of the more popular games out now, and clans/automated tournaments. Hell, most popular games do completely fine without chatrooms. I think other stuff mentioned in this thread are more notable.
I haven't read the majority of the thread, I was just pulled browsing the sidebar and figured I'd chip my two cents. I just want to say that SC2 was/is an amazing RTS phenomenon globally and before SC2, I didn't see TeamLiquid Logos on headphone boxes in Gamestop. I know that has a lot to do with LoL, but SC2 has a major part in that history too. For SC2 to do as well as it has done and continues to do is almost beyond belief. It pretty much single handedly shouldered the burden of bringing the RTS genre into this decade. I was as upset as any 2010 BW fanatic to see BW go away, but I have a huge amount of respect for the game, the community behind it, and the players of it.
TL:DR, SC2 didn't get wrecked, because the only thing you can really compare it to is itself and BW.
On August 09 2017 22:51 ReachTheSky wrote: Sc2 was great early on. Why? Because it was always action early game. 1-3 units pushes in tvp. it made the game action packed. You guys turned it into a boring god damn game to watch where nothing happens for the first several minutes because any race can just safely expand due to all the balance changes. Bring back the early rushes. Make the game action packed. Buff sentry attack damage again and bring back the early zealot/sentry gateway aggro openings from the beta. The old guard was probably the most negative influence on this game pushing it into what I like to refer it as "sim city". You build up for 10 minutes and the game is decided in 2 battles. It's fucking stupid. You should have to fight for your life to expand. viewership declined because the game became boring as shit to watch. No this isn't me hating on the game, i've loved starcraft 1 and 2 since they both came out. I won't even play sc2 anymore because of the direction it went in. I play bw from time to time just for nostalgia.
This is the most confusing post I have read for a long time. With half of this I can completely agree (whining and balance beeing bad for developement), but with other half I completely disagree (SC2 beeing good to watch in early days. On contrary, I find SC2 in it's infacy extremely boring to watch and that was why I was mad when all that Blizz/Kespa debate started).
I think in one thing you are absolutely right. Guys who whine becouse of cheese tactics are the worst, and its not only in SC2, but in BW or CoH too. And the constant balance patching may harm the game in the long run.
On August 10 2017 14:10 ReachTheSky wrote: One more thing that created a divide in the community.
Invitationals.
So many players kept getting free rides into tournaments based early performances. Had there been open enrollment into all the tournaments, the community would have felt included and apart of something. In addition, you would have seen many more up and coming players/new blood. Everyone would have had to earn their keep. no free rides. Instead this allowed a small group of individuals to always be labeled as pro gamers and protect their status while minimizing opportunities for new comers.
There are very few players that I felt were undeserving of these free rides. Making everything an open tournament also brings in the flaw of not being able to build up storylines around popular players in case they either underperform or are outclassed by new talent.
On August 10 2017 16:55 Jumperer wrote: They tried to make it so that everything was fair and balance which makes for a boring game. it's why overwatch is also dying.
Overwatch? Dying? PAHAHAHAHAHA!
Overwatch is far from dead. Much like Call of Duty and League of Legends it's a huge cash cow that every multi-game tournament organiser wants to include in their lineup because it's big money, sells well and brings in large audiences. To be honest Jeff Kaplan has also been doing a phenomenal job with balancing the game and bringing in new content, aside from a few hiccups like nerfing Roadhog to uselessness quite recently.
On August 10 2017 14:10 ReachTheSky wrote: One more thing that created a divide in the community.
Invitationals.
So many players kept getting free rides into tournaments based early performances. Had there been open enrollment into all the tournaments, the community would have felt included and apart of something. In addition, you would have seen many more up and coming players/new blood. Everyone would have had to earn their keep. no free rides. Instead this allowed a small group of individuals to always be labeled as pro gamers and protect their status while minimizing opportunities for new comers.
There are very few players that I felt were undeserving of these free rides. Making everything an open tournament also brings in the flaw of not being able to build up storylines around popular players in case they either underperform or are outclassed by new talent.
It actually provides more opportunity for storylines instead of the same shit over and over. If someone gets outclassed by new talent, that's a new story line. What you said just only protects the status of those players while not giving others the opportunity to compete/build their own story line.
I think one main reason that wrecked sc2 is that it got fragmented into expansions. Dividing the single player campaign and the story is ok. Dividing the multiplayer was a total bullshit. Because they always had to cut out some units that hurted the races, the gameplay and the balance. And the whole game is a patch fest, because with every new expansion they just started a never ending patch spree. After a few years of patches where the game finally got into a more or less balanced state, a new expansion always came out literally resetting the whole process, and it had to be restarted again and again. Sometimes i imagine if we had lurkers, disruptors, adepts, cyclones, hellbats, vipers etc. from the very beginning in what shape this game could have been. I am 100% certain much better, than the current shape of the game.
On August 10 2017 16:55 Jumperer wrote: They tried to make it so that everything was fair and balance which makes for a boring game. it's why overwatch is also dying.
Wot? I am doing this now on my phone so forgive my presentation. + Show Spoiler +
Overwatch is currently number 2 in pc bangs in korea, after league of legends. Brood War is number 6. With about 1/5th of overwatchs popularity. On twitch without any event going on it is stable on 8th place. Tell me in what fantasy world do you live in to call this game "dying" without declaring Brood War dead in the same sentence. Overwatch is doing fine in every way atm so please explain how you get the idea that the game is dying.
And trying to undermine jeff kaplans balancing work in this game is just a fucking insult. He has done an amazing job so far and also keeps the community informed by regular updates through vlogs. It is quite the strong contrast on how much they praise kaplan on reddit compared to how much people hate dkim and dbrowder.
My guess is that you dont even know who this is and just wanted an opportunity to shit at another game like alot of BW circlejerkers nowadays. In fact, BW players would dream to achieve the numbers Overwatch has currently.
On August 10 2017 14:10 ReachTheSky wrote: One more thing that created a divide in the community.
Invitationals.
So many players kept getting free rides into tournaments based early performances. Had there been open enrollment into all the tournaments, the community would have felt included and apart of something. In addition, you would have seen many more up and coming players/new blood. Everyone would have had to earn their keep. no free rides. Instead this allowed a small group of individuals to always be labeled as pro gamers and protect their status while minimizing opportunities for new comers.
There are very few players that I felt were undeserving of these free rides. Making everything an open tournament also brings in the flaw of not being able to build up storylines around popular players in case they either underperform or are outclassed by new talent.
I despise your attitude. To you, directed stories are more important than good games and good players. A scene with open tournaments is self-regulating and creates stories on its own. Bad players have to go and new, better ones replace them and maybe those bad players get better and make a comeback later. Your own arguments contradict you. Giving out so many invitations also robs newcomers of their chance to play established players which just hurts overall.
On August 10 2017 14:10 ReachTheSky wrote: One more thing that created a divide in the community.
Invitationals.
So many players kept getting free rides into tournaments based early performances. Had there been open enrollment into all the tournaments, the community would have felt included and apart of something. In addition, you would have seen many more up and coming players/new blood. Everyone would have had to earn their keep. no free rides. Instead this allowed a small group of individuals to always be labeled as pro gamers and protect their status while minimizing opportunities for new comers.
There are very few players that I felt were undeserving of these free rides. Making everything an open tournament also brings in the flaw of not being able to build up storylines around popular players in case they either underperform or are outclassed by new talent.
I despise your attitude. To you, directed stories are more important than good games and good players. A scene with open tournaments is self-regulating and creates stories on its own. Bad players have to go and new, better ones replace them and maybe those bad players get better and make a comeback later. Your own arguments contradict you. Giving out so many invitations also robs newcomers of their chance to play established players which just hurts overall.
I wish there was a like button for this post. You get an upvote good sir.
On August 10 2017 08:42 KungKras wrote: I just spent a lot of time reading old threads about SC2.
I reminded me of the optimism and the "It's a new game, it'll get figured out and we'll see awesome micro and plays" kind of mindset that was around in the beta and right after launch. I was one of those optimists back then.
www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
www.teamliquid.net I think this thread disproves that there was an "old guard" with this all-permeating attitude of "Only macro games are acceptible or you are scum!!!!!". Seems like most people even back then were fine with even pure cheese strats because they make the game exciting.
Going through the time capsule of this period was really interesting with both happy and sad moments.
The thread you linked with the survey about cheesing proves nothing. You can't even see who voted.
Every single thing i've said is legitimate feedback. Things that turned me and many others away from wanting to be apart of the sc2 community/playing the game.
I re-read one of your earlier posts and saw that by "old guard" you mean the brood war progamers and teams switching to SC2. I missed that detail and thought you meant the entire BW community before, my bad. I reacted because what I remember is that in the bigger (not just progamers) BW community, cheese was something that pissed off a minority but was accepted by most as brining excietement and strategic diversity to the game.
If you spoke with progamers back then I'll take your word for it. I mean it makes sense because cheese makes it about just micro and those people with really good macro skills might get annoyed when a player tries to bypass one of their skills. So it's not surprising from a psychological standpoint if the pros frowned upon it. (even though it's super exciting to see cheese every now and then as a viever and removing it would hurt the experience). If they really did have an impact on the design of SC2 that's a shame and I guess the lesson to be learned is that it's important to listen to the viewers of the game as well as the pros.
On August 10 2017 08:42 KungKras wrote: I just spent a lot of time reading old threads about SC2.
I reminded me of the optimism and the "It's a new game, it'll get figured out and we'll see awesome micro and plays" kind of mindset that was around in the beta and right after launch. I was one of those optimists back then.
www.teamliquid.net This was during the beta and the guy still hit the nail on the head. Goes to show that some people (not me) did see the fundamental mechanical problems of SC2.
www.teamliquid.net I think this thread disproves that there was an "old guard" with this all-permeating attitude of "Only macro games are acceptible or you are scum!!!!!". Seems like most people even back then were fine with even pure cheese strats because they make the game exciting.
Going through the time capsule of this period was really interesting with both happy and sad moments.
The thread you linked with the survey about cheesing proves nothing. You can't even see who voted.
Every single thing i've said is legitimate feedback. Things that turned me and many others away from wanting to be apart of the sc2 community/playing the game.
I re-read one of your earlier posts and saw that by "old guard" you mean the brood war progamers and teams switching to SC2. I missed that detail and thought you meant the entire BW community before, my bad. I reacted because what I remember is that in the bigger (not just progamers) BW community, cheese was something that pissed off a minority but was accepted by most as brining excietement and strategic diversity to the game.
If you spoke with progamers back then I'll take your word for it. I mean it makes sense because cheese makes it about just micro and those people with really good macro skills might get annoyed when a player tries to bypass one of their skills. So it's not surprising from a psychological standpoint if the pros frowned upon it. (even though it's super exciting to see cheese every now and then as a viever and removing it would hurt the experience). If they really did have an impact on the design of SC2 that's a shame and I guess the lesson to be learned is that it's important to listen to the viewers of the game as well as the pros.
The MothershipCore with the Nexus overcharge was literally designed for: "stopping terran cheeses" to quote DB.
On August 10 2017 22:54 kajtarp wrote: I think one main reason that wrecked sc2 is that it got fragmented into expansions. Dividing the single player campaign and the story is ok. Dividing the multiplayer was a total bullshit. Because they always had to cut out some units that hurted the races, the gameplay and the balance. And the whole game is a patch fest, because with every new expansion they just started a never ending patch spree. After a few years of patches where the game finally got into a more or less balanced state, a new expansion always came out literally resetting the whole process, and it had to be restarted again and again. Sometimes i imagine if we had lurkers, disruptors, adepts, cyclones, hellbats, vipers etc. from the very beginning in what shape this game could have been. I am 100% certain much better, than the current shape of the game.
That's probably a good point, and goes into the idea that SC2 just had an archaic business model. Especially when you have so many alternatives for competitive multiplayer games nowadays.
I dont think it was "that bad" because the expansions were 2 years apart, compared to WC3/BW where the expansion was just 1 year apart. But that's me.
SC2 is not fragmented into expansions, the "expansions" are just big paid patches, the amount of people that play an old version of the game is not significant.
On August 11 2017 10:04 opisska wrote: SC2 is not fragmented into expansions, the "expansions" are just big paid patches, the amount of people that play an old version of the game is not significant.
No, but it could fragment the playerbase. "Oh I'm in the mood to play SC2....but I don't want to spend another 40 dollars for an expansion pack, I'll go playing something else instead".
I'm late to this party. But i think one of the biggest contributors is lack of high ground advantage. It was one of my complaints when SC2 was first released.
Without HGA. - Creates deathballs. - Players with the biggest army wins. Almost always. particularly with the way army damage stacks, (2 even armies will result in almost no survivors, but an army 10% larger will live with 50% of their army etc) - You can not split your army into two, as the other player will keep his army together, kill 1 army and then go kill the other. (there are other exceptions, ie , retreating with one army etc etc) - Creates a very linear gameplay towards making the biggest army. (death balls) - Death balls results in a lot of 'nothing' happening, and then 1 sudden clash and the game ends. (particularly bad in War3, where is creep killing and then 1 fight and game is over. Not quite as bad in SC2, where more skirmishes occur.)
With HGA. - A player can skip the largest army in exchange for a strategic decision. - I can now give up my army advantage, to do drops. To tech in different ways. To turtle if i so desire. Knowing that i am safe on my ramp against an army larger than my own. - Does not apply to just defensive play, but you can camp above their ramps, or in strategic locations on the map creating mild stale mates with armies that are mismatched. - I can now do drops. Or tech changes, or turtle by taking island bases knowing that i can hold a ramp. - Creates non-linear gameplay. - Allows a losing player to do epic comebacks.
All of this allows for interesting gameplay options, and viewability.
There have been so many games, where i am dead. Dead. and i barely hold the high ground and do an epic comeback. Both fun/memorable to play. And fun to watch when it happens. In sc2. They just steam roll over the top.
-- A few other things; - Unit stacking/movement, also adding to death balls. - Graphics prettiness/unit stacking makes it harder for new 'viewers'/'spectators' understanding what is going on. - Ladder System / Replays / more players, improved the skill much faster, making it harder for singular players becoming gods for long periods creating epic storylines /rivalries. (yes yes there still are some)
Now not all of these things are bad, a game without a decent match making system sucks and i would prefer it to have it rather than to go without. But there are pros and cons to everything.
alternative option - cut damage by 30% across all units (also healing effects) and slightly improve static defense options.
Wouldn't that just make heavily armored units OP? It can't be that simple. Static defensive structures, units, and anilities are already too strong according to some.
On August 11 2017 10:04 opisska wrote: SC2 is not fragmented into expansions, the "expansions" are just big paid patches, the amount of people that play an old version of the game is not significant.
Yes it was/is fragmented. Because races were castrated from the very beginning. So by fragmented, i don't mainly mean the playerbase, i mean the gameplay and the races. Everyone knew in WoL for example that Zergs are not what Zergs meant to be in the end. Only in the 2nd expansion did Blizzard add lurkers for example. Imagine if Jaedong had Lurkers and strong LotV like hydras in HotS... Same goes with other terran or toss units. If we had all the "this is how the final state of the game meant to be" units from the very beginning, especially during the most competetive years i'm certain we have a lot better game now.
Instead we start with WoL in 2010 July with castrated races, game is balanced around the castrated races. They release Heart of the Swarm in 2013 March. They add some new units and abilities for each race, but its still not what the final game is meant to be. But again, new units, new abilities balance process has to be started again from scratch. It again takes a year or more, to get the balance more or less right, but it is still not what the final state of Sc2 was meant to be.
Then Legacy of the Void is released at 2015 November. Again some new units, some new abilities, balancing has to be restarted again. And usual, they dont get it right. Literally every race has units the other races complain against. One year later, they release a new big patch to fix the game. Even tough LotV is what the game was meant to be in the end, after a year they have to release a patch, a huge patch, that again redifines units and abilities and races, its almost so big change like a seperate expansion. That was called patch 3.8.0 if i remember correctly, and was released around 2016 november. So Wings of Liberty was released in July 2010, and up until 2016 november people played SC2 that is not considered the final state.
Imagine we had that patch 3.8.0 or something similar in end of 2011 or beginning of 2012 instead of end of 2016. What would have been the difference? The most competitive years would have been played with the "final" game. Where most players,teams,sponsors and viewers were around, and many of the BW pros. Now both the competitive and the non competitive playerbase is shrinked. Sponsors are almost gone, teams are disbanded, only a few remains. And after 7 years of Wol release, the balance is still not right. And many of the retired pros never got the chance to play the final game on a big stage.
I also think the lackluster storylines deterred people from buying the next expansion. I for sure wasn't as hyped for the HotS campaign as much as I was for WoL, and I wasn't excited at all for LotV.
On August 11 2017 10:04 opisska wrote: SC2 is not fragmented into expansions, the "expansions" are just big paid patches, the amount of people that play an old version of the game is not significant.
Instead we start with WoL in 2010 July with castrated races, game is balanced around the castrated races. They release Heart of the Swarm in 2013 March. They add some new units and abilities for each race, but its still not what the final game is meant to be. But again, new units, new abilities balance process has to be started again from scratch. It again takes a year or more, to get the balance more or less right, but it is still not what the final state of Sc2 was meant to be.
I'm quite certain that they weren't "castrated". Blizzard didn't have some big vision about what the final versions of the races should be that they kept back and fed us little by little. Back when they were still considering even removing the carrier they thought they couldn't even just add stuff to what was already there but eventually decided it wouldn't be a problem. It just took them that long to iterate on the multiplayer... Of course if they could've had the freedom to make major changes and not wait until an expansion they might have done it faster.
because they didn't have a clear vision of what races play styles could be like when they made SC2, they were focusing on making cool individual units so that they could just add more "cool" individual units to justify expansion packs, dustin browder said it "we're not trying to do anything in terms of style for each race we're just trying to make sure that every single unit is really cool and have that potential for awe moments", in other words to deal terrible terrible damage in some situations dustin browder also admited that when he came at blizzard, he had no understanding of the difference in quality between blizzard games and C&C that he worked on. It appears he never actually grasped how starcraft works and was simply unable as well as possibly unwilling to design a sequel that had a comparable potential. It simply wasn't even the goal of the project. this is my honest perspective on the matter, DK only followed the logic that DB worked on and amplified it while erasing the stuff that got in the way, the other half of the marketing plan revolved around investment in esports and advertising / image building / capitalizing on the "starcraft" brand.
Remember when we wanted chat rooms and got Facebook integration? Remember how difficult Blizzard made life for PC Bangs? Remember how the competitive scene was a joke for the first 2 years, with GSL behind a paywall to boot?
On August 12 2017 08:14 VelRa_G wrote: Remember when we wanted chat rooms and got Facebook integration? Remember how difficult Blizzard made life for PC Bangs? Remember how the competitive scene was a joke for the first 2 years, with GSL behind a paywall to boot?
Or that infamous "Do people really want chat channels" interview.
On August 12 2017 08:14 VelRa_G wrote: Remember when we wanted chat rooms and got Facebook integration? Remember how difficult Blizzard made life for PC Bangs? Remember how the competitive scene was a joke for the first 2 years, with GSL behind a paywall to boot?
Or that infamous "Do people really want chat channels" interview.
Ah yes. I remember newcomers not understanding how great bnet 1 was and believing that blizzard had a "plan" regarding social features on bnet when in fact they were clueless. The entire sc2 community should thank the "old guard" because without them your battlenet 2 would still have no chat channels. Remember when there were no chat channels? Remember when you could only pm people? Remember when you could only pm people when they are in your friendslist? Remember when the only way to add a friend was via Email adress that is linked to your battle net account? Remember when you had to use an outside bnet2 chat program to give that E-mail adress to somebody? Remember when the only way to invite someone in a lobby was if they were in your friendslist? Remember how every added "friend" was able to see your full name? Remember when there was no Dnd mode when chat finally got implemented? (I guess every youtuber/streamer remembers)
Anyone arguing that Blizzard had a concrete "plan" when it comes to the social features of sc2/bnet2 or that they had a good reason to ditch the old system is delusional. The classic system is working better to this date.
In the SC2 section, YatagarasSC2 made an interesting adjusted comparison between the DPS of units in BW and SC2. We all knew SC2 units have a glass cannon problem, but this is the first attempt I've seen to quantify it by comparing it to BW:
"In Brood War, based on fastest speed, the biggest dps is Archon's 35 and Reaver's 39. For other races, Firebat's is 34 and Ultralisk's is 31. These units are either high-tier units that consume a large amount of resources, or units that have disadvantages in survivability, maneuverability, counter penalty. However, The game speed officially used in StarCraft II is 'Faster' that 1.4x speed, if substitute this to the DPS calculation of units, Thor's Ground DPS is over 68, Ultralisk's is over 57.38 and including splash damage 33% in it is 76.37. And Oracle and Liberator have a staggering dps of 24(vs Light +16.3) and 65.8 respectively even though they are low-tier ground-attack aircraft. If it is a like Command and Conquer's game methods that fastest gathering resources and fastest training units and fastest building structures, these over firepowers shouldn't be matter, but StarCraft is the game in which units have relatively low life, high attack damage, and are easy to kill, and the production war factories have a slow tempo and low efficiency. I have calculating DPS with SC2's Faster 1.4x speed, and reduced the DPS of most units so that they have the combat duration of appropriate tempo close to the Brood War."
On August 12 2017 13:43 Heyjoray wrote: God damn i cant wait for reality to kick you guys in the face. Its gonna be great
User was warned for this post
Dont worry, 90% people here only believe and want see healthy BW scene in Korea, and it can't be worse than in 2013 anyway. You will not get your sweet time, buddy.
On August 12 2017 08:14 VelRa_G wrote: Remember when we wanted chat rooms and got Facebook integration? Remember how difficult Blizzard made life for PC Bangs? Remember how the competitive scene was a joke for the first 2 years, with GSL behind a paywall to boot?
Or that infamous "Do people really want chat channels" interview.
Ah yes. I remember newcomers not understanding how great bnet 1 was and believing that blizzard had a "plan" regarding social features on bnet when in fact they were clueless. The entire sc2 community should thank the "old guard" because without them your battlenet 2 would still have no chat channels. Remember when there were no chat channels? Remember when you could only pm people? Remember when you could only pm people when they are in your friendslist? Remember when the only way to add a friend was via Email adress that is linked to your battle net account? Remember when you had to use an outside bnet2 chat program to give that E-mail adress to somebody? Remember when the only way to invite someone in a lobby was if they were in your friendslist? Remember how every added "friend" was able to see your full name? Remember when there was no Dnd mode when chat finally got implemented? (I guess every youtuber/streamer remembers)
Anyone arguing that Blizzard had a concrete "plan" when it comes to the social features of sc2/bnet2 or that they had a good reason to ditch the old system is delusional. The classic system is working better to this date.
Half those things are incredibly disingenuous and overexaggerated.
On August 14 2017 20:25 Jae Zedong wrote: In the SC2 section, YatagarasSC2 made an interesting adjusted comparison between the DPS of units in BW and SC2. We all knew SC2 units have a glass cannon problem, but this is the first attempt I've seen to quantify it by comparing it to BW:
"In Brood War, based on fastest speed, the biggest dps is Archon's 35 and Reaver's 39. For other races, Firebat's is 34 and Ultralisk's is 31. These units are either high-tier units that consume a large amount of resources, or units that have disadvantages in survivability, maneuverability, counter penalty. However, The game speed officially used in StarCraft II is 'Faster' that 1.4x speed, if substitute this to the DPS calculation of units, Thor's Ground DPS is over 68, Ultralisk's is over 57.38 and including splash damage 33% in it is 76.37. And Oracle and Liberator have a staggering dps of 24(vs Light +16.3) and 65.8 respectively even though they are low-tier ground-attack aircraft. If it is a like Command and Conquer's game methods that fastest gathering resources and fastest training units and fastest building structures, these over firepowers shouldn't be matter, but StarCraft is the game in which units have relatively low life, high attack damage, and are easy to kill, and the production war factories have a slow tempo and low efficiency. I have calculating DPS with SC2's Faster 1.4x speed, and reduced the DPS of most units so that they have the combat duration of appropriate tempo close to the Brood War."
+Damage modifiers hard counter design will do that to a game.
Functionally, there is no difference between a unit that does 35 (+35 Armored) and a unit that does 70 damage (-50% to Small). Therefore, I don't believe damage modifiers or "hard counters" are the root problem. There are tons of hard counters in BW.
It actually wouldn't surprise me if the design/balance team started with exact BW values for every unit in the game, then made adjustments based on how they behaved in the new engine. Unit responsiveness is much better in SC2 which increases the pace of the game. They probably increased damage to compensate (or in the cases where units like Zerglings could use the new engine to swarm more effectively, reduced it). Then, once the pace was established in WoL, all the new units in the expansions were balanced around the same expected effectiveness. That's what I would do if I were in their shoes. It's logical.
Sc2 did incredibly well. Look at other esports and only three surpassed the peak of Sc2. None of them were 1on1, which isn't what people want these days anyway. That is the part that ""wrecked"" Sc2.
On August 15 2017 03:52 Excalibur_Z wrote: Functionally, there is no difference between a unit that does 35 (+35 Armored) and a unit that does 70 damage (-50% to Small). Therefore, I don't believe damage modifiers or "hard counters" are the root problem. There are tons of hard counters in BW.
It actually wouldn't surprise me if the design/balance team started with exact BW values for every unit in the game, then made adjustments based on how they behaved in the new engine. Unit responsiveness is much better in SC2 which increases the pace of the game. They probably increased damage to compensate (or in the cases where units like Zerglings could use the new engine to swarm more effectively, reduced it). Then, once the pace was established in WoL, all the new units in the expansions were balanced around the same expected effectiveness. That's what I would do if I were in their shoes. It's logical.
They said that they first remade BW in the new engine and worked from there, if I recall correctly. Makes me wonder how they got so far away from it.
SC2's lack of longevity is largely attributable to environmental factors. However, part of the reason the game was not all that it could be is that it never really was Blizzard's #1 priority; part of that is environmental because RTS just doesn't bring in WoW or Diablo type cash. Any how, We've seen 4 guys be the final decision maker for multiplayer.. Pardo, Browder, Kim, and now a mystery man.
Pardo, Browder, and Kim all had bigger fish to fry within the company and left their responsibilities with the RTS team.
As Legionnaire said, deathballs are too common in sc2. Also, the game is expensive compared to BW. I've got WoL, HotS and LotV but consider their total cost, then compare it to how much BW costs, and even now how much SC: R costs. This surely limits player base. Finally, BW's era and SC2's era are different. The games faced different challenges.
On August 15 2017 03:52 Excalibur_Z wrote: Functionally, there is no difference between a unit that does 35 (+35 Armored) and a unit that does 70 damage (-50% to Small). Therefore, I don't believe damage modifiers or "hard counters" are the root problem. There are tons of hard counters in BW.
It actually wouldn't surprise me if the design/balance team started with exact BW values for every unit in the game, then made adjustments based on how they behaved in the new engine. Unit responsiveness is much better in SC2 which increases the pace of the game. They probably increased damage to compensate (or in the cases where units like Zerglings could use the new engine to swarm more effectively, reduced it). Then, once the pace was established in WoL, all the new units in the expansions were balanced around the same expected effectiveness. That's what I would do if I were in their shoes. It's logical.
You'd do far less damage with the former vs shields than the latter example.
Units hard countered eachother based on their design and their interaction, not because they did bonus damage vs whatever.
Also not every counter in BW was a hard counter. Some counters were soft counters and some were more like "this unit is a bit more effective against this one. Usually unit interactions could be more complex than just "unit B counters unit A"
Also I agree 100% about the deathballs. They killed watching the game for me.
Don't under-estimate the affect of all the units getting to the battle at the same time and being able to concentrate their firepower. Small skirmishes in SC2 tend to have the same pacing as in BW; I think the UI/AI improvements have more to do with big SC2 fights feeling "fast" than raw numbers.
Could be amusing to play a "dumb" mod of SC2 with 12 unit select and bad AI (dunno how you'd implement that :D) and see how it feels.
On August 15 2017 10:12 Waxangel wrote: Don't under-estimate the affect of all the units getting to the battle at the same time and being able to concentrate their firepower. Small skirmishes in SC2 tend to have the same pacing as in BW; I think the UI/AI improvements have more to do with big SC2 fights feeling "fast" than raw numbers.
Could be amusing to play a "dumb" mod of SC2 with 12 unit select and bad AI (dunno how you'd implement that :D) and see how it feels.
Starbow had (has?) different pathing similar to bw one. Didn't have 12 units per hotkey though.
Brood War: 13 years (1999-2012, revival pending) Starcraft 2: 7+ years (2010-2017) Dota 2: 6+ years (2011-2017) League of Legends: 5+ years (2012-2017)
Calling SC2 "wrecked" kind of glosses over it being one of the most popular, successful, and long-lasting eSports of all time. 2018's season will be it's 8th year of major big-money tournament events just for it (as opposed to, say, Smash Melee, which always had to share a stage), Will there be a WCS in 2024 so that it beats BW's initial run? Probably not. But it's got at least one more year left in what's been a pretty good run, and it's only "wrecked" in comparison to BW. I know that BW fans hate SC2 for killing KeSPA BW a year or two before LoL would've, but BW is ascendant and SC2 is in decline, so we can be a bit more clinical now.
As for why it declined, besides just time? A lot of people in this thread are saying "because it sucked compared to BW", but if you thought SC2 sucked, you didn't become a fan in the first place. So why the decline? I can think of a few reasons (insofar as they affect the foreign scene; no idea about Korea):
1. How many games got into slow stalematey mine-the-whole map games at the end of HotS that would go on for 40 minutes plus. It was the standard for months, and everyone got sick of it because those kind of games are only fun when they happen rarely. Legacy of the Void fixed a lot of problems, and Blizzard changed their approach to be more open with the community and use community maps and all the things the SC2 scene wanted, but the damage was done at that point, a large chunk of the fanbase had fallen off the wagon. Had Blizzard patched Swarm Hosts earlier, SC2 would be in a much better place today.
2. A loss of all the personalities. In early SC2, a lot of the best players acted in ways that made them stand out more, like MC or Idra (or Naniwa, who adopted Idra's position as Top Heel). They were replaced by KeSPA robots who were actively trying to be as bland as possible, so it was hard to root for any particular Korean unless they were the Best Korean, a title that changed hands every few months. Scarlett was the only player with a sense for flair. This also applies to playstyle. In early SC2, different players had very different ways of approaching the game. In later years, there was more of a Right Way, and innovation was less relevant. This meant SC2 was increasingly two generic Koreans having generic games, with real exciting and different games being relegated to a few players like Gumiho and SoS and that one time Scarlett switched to Protoss mid-series (god bless them).
3. The WCS system, which killed a lot of the big weekend tournaments that SC2 relied on more than anyone understood at the time. There were basically no open tournaments in the West after a while, so new foreigners couldn't get in as easily.
4. Life, who was arguably the best Zerg player in SC2, decided to copy builds from some great BW Zergs, like "run a matchfixing scandal and get arrested". Life, unlike Saviour, was a current top star at the time, so it was like if the BW matchfixing scandal was led by Jaedong.
5. Competition. League of Legends, Overwatch, Dota, Brood War....hell, you literally can't turn SC2 on without seeing Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone in the launcher, both of which are also pretty popular. There was even that one GSL for World of Tanks where Artosis made a herculean effort to try and convince us he liked the game before giving up and just shitting on it. The eSports fan had more choice than ever before. .
On August 15 2017 10:12 Waxangel wrote: Don't under-estimate the affect of all the units getting to the battle at the same time and being able to concentrate their firepower. Small skirmishes in SC2 tend to have the same pacing as in BW; I think the UI/AI improvements have more to do with big SC2 fights feeling "fast" than raw numbers.
Could be amusing to play a "dumb" mod of SC2 with 12 unit select and bad AI (dunno how you'd implement that :D) and see how it feels.
Starbow had (has?) different pathing similar to bw one. Didn't have 12 units per hotkey though.
On August 15 2017 03:56 MilkDud wrote: Sc2 was wrecked? I thought it did incredibly well, in a day where PC games usually don't last more than a few months.
nope, haven't you heard, the dictionary definition of "wrecked" is officially "has less twitch views than dota". ergo 99.9% of all pc games are dead on arrival, and therefore are horrible games and complete failures
Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
On August 15 2017 19:55 saddaromma wrote: Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
Exactly. It had almost infinite goodwill because of BW and got off to a huge start because of the brand recognition. I think it was the best selling PC game ever when it released.
With such an amazing start, a game with the same longevity potential as BW wouldn't have declined as fast as SC2 did. IMO it has to be the game itself that is to blame.
It didn't fail commercially otr critically, but it did not live up to the hype and expectations either. The expectation was for it do have a timeless design that gave it as much longevity as Brood War. At least that was my expectation. Which is why it failed in my eyes.
On August 15 2017 19:55 saddaromma wrote: Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
nah, within its time frame SC2 succeeded. the entire genre is sinking and in a lower tide all boats go down. so many garbage RTS games came out in the early to mid 90s and the genre grew by leaps and bounds. incredible games like CoH1, AoE2, and RA2 come out after that giant growth period and they did just ok. CoH1 didn't hit 0.5 million units sold until THQ sold it for $1.
On August 15 2017 21:11 Foxxan wrote: No micro. Big emphasize of hardcounter. Jim raynors call this a great design.
every RTS studio got together and they colluded to all make crap RTS games because every designer wanted to be unemployed and make no money. this is what killed the genre.
more seriously, many game genres that decline and/or move into a small niche... the games get better.. and paradoxically... the popularity wanes
sometimes, a similar thing happens with music genres.
"isn't it a pity... isn't it a shame... no one ever warned the boy... rock and roll is a vicious game".
On August 15 2017 19:55 saddaromma wrote: Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
nah, within its time frame SC2 succeeded. the entire genre is sinking and in a lower tide all boats go down. so many garbage RTS games came out in the early to mid 90s and the genre grew by leaps and bounds. incredible games like CoH1, AoE2, and RA2 come out after that giant growth period and they did just ok. CoH1 didn't hit 0.5 million units sold until THQ sold it for $1.
I think thats what you want to believe.
Here are some examples that contradict your idea: 1. Hearthstone. Online card games were out there for decades, but they never got popular until Hearthstone was made. Suddenly, there are lots of players and clones. Is this because genre is growing? I think not. Bunch of talented developers made a good game, then scene emerged.
2. Battle Royal. Arma3 had mods long ago. But the popularity kicked in only after Daybreak made a decent game.
3. CS GO. This one is actually prime example of what should happened to SC2. Remember how CS and 5x5 tactical shooters started dying after release of CS Source. The game wasn't really good, because mechanics were clunky and it didn't resemble what CS originally was. Then valve correctly identified the problem and got back to the roots and made original cs with better graphics - CS GO. At start it wasn't really popular but devs actually listened to community and improved the game, which sadly didn't happen to SC2.
SC2 did great. 2010-2013, SC2 was dominant and everyone in the gaming world knew of or followed the game and its tournaments.
Then started the era of team games. Nerds turned to easier-to-learn-games with less pressure on you as the sole player. Dota, LoL, Overwatch, Counter-strike, the era of team games had begun, and thus the popularity of RTS fell.
SC:R will see the same fate, but perhaps this time people won't blame Blizzard or the game itself. This is simply how the world works. The RTS-era is past. It's not dead by any means, neither SC2 nor Brood War, but its popularity will stay small. Korea has a slightly different popularity system, but the RTS popularity was severely damaged by LoL.
My whole point is... It doesn't matter what kind of RTS game you make. You can make the most amazing and brilliant RTS game and it still would not gain huge popularity. Unless you find a way to make it a good team game.
The same is true for the era of any competitive 1on1 game. Just look at the Quake games. Now, Quake Champions is gaining some popularity because of its release, but will soon fall as well.
SC2 did great, Brood War did great. No RTS (or competitive 1on1 game in general) will do great anymore. End of story.
many game genres that decline and/or move into a small niche... the games get better.. and paradoxically... the popularity wanes
You are right.
Having little to none control of your units is the way to go. When you fight each other, instead of relying on tactics and micro, you relie on which unit you made and how good you are at a-moving. Games has this little thing called unit control, so the player doesnt have to use its brain to much.
Building stuff and eating pizza at the same time is superior over things actually happening in the game. When I and You start a game, we dont want to use our brain to much, right? If we wanted that we would do math+balance our body at the same time. We are after all here to play games and what better way than to eat pizza and let a.i do the rest for 10min straight.
This evolution of the genre is remarkable. Its a shame the genre is after all DECLINING just as you have said for the last years. You are very correct about it, doesnt matter what kind of argument someone make against that, THE RTS GENRE IS DECLINING, look at the gameplay its a superb design right through.
I think thats what you want to believe.
Here are some examples that contradict your idea:
I dont think you can contradict facts. The rts games that are coming out are so bloody good that each time i dont know which to play and then i end up not playing any at all. That is one more big reason why the rts genre is declining, the gameplay isnt bad or anything, its the opposite really.
On August 15 2017 19:55 saddaromma wrote: Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
nah, within its time frame SC2 succeeded. the entire genre is sinking and in a lower tide all boats go down. so many garbage RTS games came out in the early to mid 90s and the genre grew by leaps and bounds. incredible games like CoH1, AoE2, and RA2 come out after that giant growth period and they did just ok. CoH1 didn't hit 0.5 million units sold until THQ sold it for $1.
I think thats what you want to believe.
Here are some examples that contradict your idea: 1. Hearthstone. Online card games were out there for decades, but they never got popular until Hearthstone was made. Suddenly, there are lots of players and clones. Is this because genre is growing? I think not. Bunch of talented developers made a good game, then scene emerged.
2. Battle Royal. Arma3 had mods long ago. But the popularity kicked in only after Daybreak made a decent game.
3. CS GO. This one is actually prime example of what should happened to SC2. Remember how CS and 5x5 tactical shooters started dying after release of CS Source. The game wasn't really good, because mechanics were clunky and it didn't resemble what CS originally was. Then valve correctly identified the problem and got back to the roots and made original cs with better graphics - CS GO. At start it wasn't really popular but devs actually listened to community and improved the game, which sadly didn't happen to SC2.
from 1982 to ~1996..the genre grew by leaps and bounds as the abilities of teh most powerful piece of tech in the household grew the ability to display giant army battles. the RTS games themselves were not very good... but watching your army slowly grow and then having 10000 units kill each other was such a buzz. you couldn't get that on your SNES or your Apple Newton or your Palm Pilot. only 1 place to go.. that giant desktop PC in your den.
by 2010, you can slowly painstakingly build your giant army and have 1000 units fight in a crescendo of epic action on your smartphone, tablet.. literally any where... literally anytime...this has watered down the demand drastically.
such is the state of tech today and this is why the feverish demand of early 90s PC RTS is no longer present and never will be again, ever.
it was fun while it lasted though.
i'll have to bail at this point... i've got a big Clash of Clans fight happening on my Galaxy Note 16..
On August 15 2017 19:55 saddaromma wrote: Well, 99.9% games didn't have investment and time dedicated to make A-tier competitive esports game. And, SC2 had a huge fanbase already when it was released. With so many resources it was destined to succeed, however, it didn't.
'Wrecked' might be a harsh term, but its close enough for me.
nah, within its time frame SC2 succeeded. the entire genre is sinking and in a lower tide all boats go down. so many garbage RTS games came out in the early to mid 90s and the genre grew by leaps and bounds. incredible games like CoH1, AoE2, and RA2 come out after that giant growth period and they did just ok. CoH1 didn't hit 0.5 million units sold until THQ sold it for $1.
I think thats what you want to believe.
Here are some examples that contradict your idea: 1. Hearthstone. Online card games were out there for decades, but they never got popular until Hearthstone was made. Suddenly, there are lots of players and clones. Is this because genre is growing? I think not. Bunch of talented developers made a good game, then scene emerged.
2. Battle Royal. Arma3 had mods long ago. But the popularity kicked in only after Daybreak made a decent game.
3. CS GO. This one is actually prime example of what should happened to SC2. Remember how CS and 5x5 tactical shooters started dying after release of CS Source. The game wasn't really good, because mechanics were clunky and it didn't resemble what CS originally was. Then valve correctly identified the problem and got back to the roots and made original cs with better graphics - CS GO. At start it wasn't really popular but devs actually listened to community and improved the game, which sadly didn't happen to SC2.
from 1982 to ~1996..the genre grew by leaps and bounds as the abilities of teh most powerful piece of tech in the household grew the ability to display giant army battles. the RTS games themselves were not very good... but watching your army slowly grow and then having 10000 units kill each other was such a buzz. you couldn't get that on your SNES or your Apple Newton or your Palm Pilot. only 1 place to go.. that giant desktop PC in your den.
by 2010, you can slowly painstakingly build your giant army and have 1000 units fight in a crescendo of epic action on your smartphone, tablet.. literally any where... literally anytime...this has watered down the demand drastically.
such is the state of tech today and this is why the feverish demand of early 90s PC RTS is no longer present and never will be again, ever.
it was fun while it lasted though.
i'll have to bail at this point... i've got a big Clash of Clans fight happening on my Galaxy Note 16..
While i think there is truth to that, mobas which are somewhat close or at least comparable to rts games show that there is still a market for these types of games on the pc. Mobas are successful because the direct control of the units is fun. Most rts games these days don't have this aspect, they lack direct control, uits are sluggish, etc. So i don't think that "rts games got better and better", at least not in the imo most important aspect. How fun is it to actually control your army/units, how much fun are the unit interactions. All these grey goos had extremely unfun unit control, how can that ever be successful? RTS needs to work on that aspect the most. The thing is that sc2 kinda nails this (for the most part), so it's obviously not everything which matters. The macro itself might be something modern players aren't really interested in, it's hard to find a formula for modern rts, but i think it's doable.
On August 15 2017 23:11 404AlphaSquad wrote: I cant believe this thread is still open. What if I made a thread "What wrecked BW?". It would be closed under an hour.
Because it's full of civilized discussion where people are giving their subjective experiences, and it has interesting posts to read. And the conversation has not been successfully derailed by anyone yet?
lol @crystal ball of jimmy, I think he just gets a kick trying to spell disaster for rts fans tbh, while just embracing it himself. But his story doesn't really work, because you'll hardly find a RTS fan who is truly interested in stuff like clash of clans to the point of dropping RTS forever. It's not like ppl don't have any time to discover more games and become interested in good RTS when they find one either^^ the mobas took some away from UMS users probably, still not quite all of them, just a portion. It's not like everybody wants to play the same UMS repeatedly and go competitive on it and face the moutains of knowledge barriers characteristic of most mobas. Its by and large a new demographic, not one that draws from RTS, after all it's not even the same genre. There are also tons more gamers today than before 2000.
I think the most powerful evidence against "RTS games are getting better while the market is shrinking" is the fact that we can point to a lot of genre defining classics from the early nineties and the 2000's.
It's true that the RTS genre got more standardized and incorporated more new technology and in general added more bells and whistles and made the interface a bit smoother. But it also got blander, and there weren't really any heavy hitters coming out.
From the golden age I can point to games like SC:BW, Total Anihilation, Warcraft 3, Age of Empires 2, Red Alert 1, Red Alert 2 (even though I hate that game and that people like it, and would rather place Tiberian Sun as a classic), C&C1, etc and people will have no problem acknowleging them as classics and genre-defining.
Now point to any games that came out after 2004 that are unanimously hailed as classic must-haves for RTS fans. If we got so much better at making them, where are the classics? Arguably SC2 and Supreme Commander? What else? Battle for Middle Earth 2? Warhammer Dawn of War? Age of Empires 3? Would anyone anywhere consider them classic must-haves in the genre?
How is the genre supposed to survive when no new classics were released and all we got were basic generic games?
From my experience of gaming, the only games that suffer from a contraction of a genre are the imitator games and not the flagship games in the franchise. 3D platformers have declined yet Super Mario Galaxy sold as much as Mario 64. 2D platformers have delined yet New Super Mario Bros sold similar numbers to the first AND vastly outsold Mario 3 and World.
EPT
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It seemed to me like Westwood didn't acknowledge a single problem of the original C&C. Especially in terms of unit AI - really... in 2000 after Total Annihilation, AoC and Starcraft that was inexcusable. Not being able to assign a second harvester a command to unload at refinery or combat unit to get repaired at the pod, just because you previously assigned another unit to do so and until it actually arrives there and unloads/gets repaired you won't be able to do it, is ridiculous. I'm not even mentioning the flying units that couldn't go to a fog of war, that was really lul from me back then. Also returning to harvesters: the game had probably the worse economy pacing of any RTS I ever played. I mean C&C original had incredibly slow harvesters that pretty much required you to sit on your ass doing nothing for a minute until it returned back. Tiberian Sun had them even slower. Pretty dumb, considering fucking Dune 2 had carryals which remedied this problem so elegantly. Not to mention Dune 2000 which also had the working repair pads and refineries with no queue problems. That is my favorite game from WW.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iwHWawI.jpg)
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