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On October 01 2007 13:09 Aphelion wrote:
1esu, I really feel that you not having played SC1 much recently hurts you in your analysis. Why do you think the TL.netters were raping at Blizzcon with almost ridiculous strats? You do know they went undefeated, right? And that was with MBS (which from the accounts, really helped them much more than their opponents the way they were abusing super-greedy strategies.)
First off, as I have said before and just said in my last post, Blizzcon doesn't count, since that build didn't even have ZERG as a playable race, much less the unannounced features I'm talking about. If you wouldn't judge the SC as a game on the SC alpha, don't judge SC2 on the Blizzcon SC2 build.
Secondly, I think it was the abuse of super-greedy strategies, which I take to mean stuff like taking multiple expansions in quick succession to max as fast as possible, that allowed them to rape their competition more than MBS. If you double expand in SC and your opponent doesn't take advantage of it by harrassing you, you're going to win in the same way, MBS or no MBS. Also take in mind that the average player they played against was probably spending most of their time feeling out how the game looked and played, rather than seriously trying to beat the TL.netters.
EDIT: And I feel my lack of recent experience playing SC (though I watch it almost religiously) allows me to step away from my love of SC and look at the issue from a more neutral standpoint. Note that while my arguments tend to be more pro-MBS, I'm arguing more that there are consequences to removing MBS on the SC2 competitive community and that MBS won't necessarily hurt SC2's gameplay rather than that MBS is an improvement. I do respect the contributions of those more skilled in competitive RTS play than mine (esp. Nony, because he backs his concerns up better than his colleagues), but they are more liable to over-exaggerate or gloss over crucial points, resulting in posts that seem to me to be more emotion than logic. That's why I view their contributions as opinions, not fact, and argue against those points which I find illogical.
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MBS will let you abuse a macro advantage much more easily. It will encourage greedy play. I think an analysis did by FA or some other poster showed that it will actually help veteran SC players more at the lower levels, reduce the likelihood of defensive comebacks, etc. The logical outcome with MBS and easy macro would be more people expanding as much as possible as economic advantage is quickly and easily realized. Nowadays, newer players commonly don't expand that much because they don't know how to utilize that economic advantage. For people wanting more old-school, micro games - you will be sorely disappointed.
If you think the only advantage a veteran SC player will have in SC2 is the interface - you really don't understand the gameplay nearly enough. Feel the game out a little instead of just posting. You will appreciate progaming in a totally different way.
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I may be totally off base here, but what's keeping your opponent from harrassing you when you play greedily? I would think that with macro mechanics being comparatively easier, that killing a bunch of workers or killing an expansion while maintaining your own would lead to a much bigger advantage with MBS than without.
And I don't think that knowledge of the interface is the only advantage a veteran SC player will have, but it's certainly one of the major, if not the most major, advantage. And one of the clearest for less-experienced players to see. I didn't mention such concepts as multitasking, unit control, and keyboard/mouse skill because I was focusing on new players who had previous competitive experience in other RTSs, and so the veterans' skill with the SC interface would give them a comparatively larger advantage than increased skill in other areas as its the one of the few SC2 skills (if not the only) that that subset of new players are complete novices in but veterans aren't.
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Harass is difficult to deal with when you have to multitask and macro. Thats what harass is - to steal your attention and mess up your macro. I believe MBS will make harass much easier to deal with, and the economic loss you get from unsuccessful harass will set you back even more now that its so easy to macro. Either way, harass will be much more ordinary and less exciting both from the aggressor and defender's viewpoint.
While the top players from other RTSes will certainly stake out the name in SC2, I believe that the overall base of SC fans is much much deeper and more superior. Its really not comparable. What other game do you see players strutting around with their APM like an e-penis?
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On October 01 2007 12:02 Aphelion wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2007 12:00 XG3 wrote:On September 30 2007 20:56 Artosis3 wrote:
Savior doesn't have enough sunkens. Nada rushes in with his marine medic force. Savior grabs all his sunkens at once and targets perfectly. Bam medic gone. Bam medic gone. Bam marine gone. Bam marine gone. here come the drones. Sorry Nada, Savior doesn't need enough sunkens anymore. What are your thoughts on MUS? What are your thoughts about preprogrammed BOs?
No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS.
Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS."
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On October 01 2007 13:56 XG3 wrote:
What are your thoughts on MUS?
No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS.
Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS."
if you're serious in your analogy, then take a moment to reflect on the slippery slope fallacy and contemplate how you're probably committing it. also consider false analogy as a logical fallacy.
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On October 01 2007 13:56 XG3 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2007 12:02 Aphelion wrote:On October 01 2007 12:00 XG3 wrote:On September 30 2007 20:56 Artosis3 wrote:
Savior doesn't have enough sunkens. Nada rushes in with his marine medic force. Savior grabs all his sunkens at once and targets perfectly. Bam medic gone. Bam medic gone. Bam marine gone. Bam marine gone. here come the drones. Sorry Nada, Savior doesn't need enough sunkens anymore. What are your thoughts on MUS? What are your thoughts about preprogrammed BOs? No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS. Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS."
Oh, don't play dumb. You know exactly what my question has to do with yours.
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On October 01 2007 14:13 Failsafe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2007 13:56 XG3 wrote:
What are your thoughts on MUS?
No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS.
Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS." if you're serious in your analogy, then take a moment to reflect on the slippery slope fallacy and contemplate how you're probably committing it. also consider false analogy as a logical fallacy.
How is it a slippery slope? I'm specifically talking about the example he gave, where the sunkens are focus attacking the medics. MUS and MBS are similar in the example he gave are they not? If you disagree that they're analogous, then tell me why.
If you want to talk about logical fallicies, I've read several in this thread, including one where someone mentioned how no RTS games have been better since StarCraft, and since they all included MBS, therefore MBS sucks.
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On October 01 2007 13:53 Aphelion wrote:
Harass is difficult to deal with when you have to multitask and macro. Thats what harass is - to steal your attention and mess up your macro. I believe MBS will make harass much easier to deal with, and the economic loss you get from unsuccessful harass will set you back even more now that its so easy to macro. Either way, harass will be much more ordinary and less exciting both from the aggressor and defender's viewpoint.
DISCLAIMER: This is all conjecture on my part, since I obviously don't have a feature-complete copy of SC2 on my hands to test my hypotheses.
Early/mid-game harrass would still be effective with that reasoning, as the macro involved in those stages of the game isn't really affected by MBS - it's still more BOs, expo timing, supply timing, etc. at that point. Also, with MBS the minor resource advantages a player gains from semi-successful harass are amplified, so even causing your opponent to retreat some of their workers, or place down static defenses, or mistime their expansion or their other buildings will be easier for a decent player to take advantage of. If the harrass manages to do actual damage to your opponent's economy, then you get even more of an advantage with MBS than without. I do agree that harrass will be more risky with MBS, though, due to the increased advantage your opponent gets from you pursuing a low-econ strat.
And by the way, I am anti-MBS regarding static defense, since it seems to make them overpowered - it's like saying in TF2 that an engineer can control his sentry gun. It's easier to limit MBS to unit-producing buildings than to try and re-balance the static defenses to adjust for player control.
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On October 01 2007 14:22 XG3 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2007 14:13 Failsafe wrote:On October 01 2007 13:56 XG3 wrote:
What are your thoughts on MUS?
No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS.
Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS." if you're serious in your analogy, then take a moment to reflect on the slippery slope fallacy and contemplate how you're probably committing it. also consider false analogy as a logical fallacy. How is it a slippery slope? I'm specifically talking about the example he gave, where the sunkens are focus attacking the medics. MUS and MBS are similar in the example he gave are they not? If you disagree that they're analogous, then tell me why. If you want to talk about logical fallicies, I've read several in this thread, including one where someone mentioned how no RTS games have been better since StarCraft, and since they all included MBS, therefore MBS sucks.
your question was terribly underexplained hence all the confusion. defensive static structures are completely different than production buildings. anyway you've just committed yet another logical fallacy, see ad hominem tu quoque, except even worse since the person you're leveling your remark against isn't even the one who made the previous errors.
beyond that i think that you do bring up an interesting issue in whether MBS could be effectively applied to static defensive structures but not to production structures. i like the idea of MBS applied to static structures myself, because it adds a dynamic to the game and the trouble that artosis suggested with the m&m vs sunken example could be addressed in the game's structure.
as for any serious comparison between MUS and MBS where production buildings are concerned, you'd definitely be slippery sloping yourself if you tried it
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On October 01 2007 14:32 Failsafe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 01 2007 14:22 XG3 wrote:On October 01 2007 14:13 Failsafe wrote:On October 01 2007 13:56 XG3 wrote:
What are your thoughts on MUS?
No idea what that has to do with my question, but I'm genuinely curious what people think about multiple unit selection (MUS). I'd like to explore and discuss what consequences that may or may not have on gameplay, and if the lack of it would have made the original starcraft better, and if it's analogous to the current discussion of MBS.
Edit: In other words, "Let's imagine SC1 without MUS." if you're serious in your analogy, then take a moment to reflect on the slippery slope fallacy and contemplate how you're probably committing it. also consider false analogy as a logical fallacy. How is it a slippery slope? I'm specifically talking about the example he gave, where the sunkens are focus attacking the medics. MUS and MBS are similar in the example he gave are they not? If you disagree that they're analogous, then tell me why. If you want to talk about logical fallicies, I've read several in this thread, including one where someone mentioned how no RTS games have been better since StarCraft, and since they all included MBS, therefore MBS sucks. your question was terribly underexplained hence all the confusion. defensive static structures are completely different than production buildings. anyway you've just committed yet another logical fallacy, see ad hominem tu quoque, except even worse since the person you're leveling your remark against isn't even the one who made the previous errors. beyond that i think that you do bring up an interesting issue in whether MBS could be effectively applied to static defensive structures but not to production structures. i like the idea of MBS applied to static structures myself, because it adds a dynamic to the game and the trouble that artosis suggested with the m&m vs sunken example could be addressed in the game's structure. as for any serious comparison between MUS and MBS where production buildings are concerned, you'd definitely slippery sloping yourself if you tried it
Ok, so let's clarify something. The OP is complaining about MBS in general, but the example he gives is specifically regarding sunkens focus attacking medics.
The OP is complaining that MBS allows static defense buildings to focus target enemy units. Units can already do this obviously. He claims that if SC2 has this feature, then it will ruin the game (because it's less clicks which we all know = less skill).
I'm flipping this argument the other way and exploring whether the lack of MUS would have made SC1 a better game since it would have forced the player to use more clicks and made focus targetting more of a skill based thing.
I'm hoping that we can come to agree that his example (sunkens vs medics) does not prove that MBS sucks, so we can move on to the real issue which is how MBS relates to production buildings.
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I just think that removing MBS is the easy way out, maybe Blizzard is going to take the hard road to making SC2 harder to master economically?
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then i'll stick with what i just said as far as static fighting buildings, and continue to suggest that you consider slippery slopes/sorites paradoxes. an embryo is not a child and a child is not an adult. an acorn is not a tree and although it's ok to hug your sister it's not ok for you to have sex with her unless you're from the same state as me.
differences in degree redefine things. MUS is not at all like MBS in that without MBS starcraft has a beautiful blend of micro, macro, and strategy whereas of course it could not function at all without MUS. I suspect that this was your attempt at a reductio argument and of course it fails because it commits a slippery slope fallacy in equating two things that are very different in degree. you're trying to take the learning curve of starcraft, which is a continuum, and treat it as almost black and white where any two things that make the game easier or more difficult can be equated.
hopefully this explains why you're wrong, but obviously it's somewhat slippery, being a paradox and all
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I am sure my post won't get any more attention than any other. I will give an argument anti-MBS that I do think has not been talked about here yet and I hope that the pro-MBS-speakers will know what I am talking about. I want you guys to think about it. Twice.
I am playing Terran no matter my nick and I love the fact that Terran is weak outside of Korea because that makes me proud to have a solid C rank on ICCUP right now. Terran is hard, Terran is disturbing, Terran is a burden. And if that wasn't enough already, Terran gameplay is not very human, instead I think it goes completely against our human nature. But I play Terran and sometimes I feel like being an artist.
Yes, i have a point that actually got something to do with this topic, please have some more patience.
Many of you may have noticed a strange feeling while playing Starcraft, 1v1 players have it more often. I am talking about a blank feeling and an empty mind in the middle of a game caused by the huge amount of information on the screen, targets to handle, fingers to move/press buttons and decisions to make. Sometimes it is so much that our human mind cannot handle it all and it takes a break from it. When this happens we all have a hard time getting our focus back to actually do something.
Ask a Terran player who knows that feeling and what he thinks about it. I tell you what I think: It makes me feel small, so small...
I think many piano players know the same feeling.
Although it is ironic to feel small just because of stupid pixels on a screen (or notes on paper), yet I can't help it. I want to control my units/buildings/resources perfectly and I do my best but hell no I can't. I can't achieve perfection.
Now I tell you why that is:
It is because I actually have to do something. Means i have to use my fingers. You know what I mean, motor function. Well... motor function got **** to do with an RTS, not? In a perfect RTS game it should be unneccessary to move a single part of your body, don't you think? Well i think so. Yes I do, no kidding.
A perfect RTS game shouldn't need us to perform any kind of action. Our mind should do all the work alone.
Listen: Starcraft is not perfect. That's why I love it. Starcraft makes me an artist.
Now Blizzard Entertainment comes and gives us Starcraft 2 and this time they have a special goal, a goal they had for every game they ever made: they want to make it perfect for us.
Means what exactly? They want to help us forget that we can be artists with our fingers!
But then I cannot fall in love with the Terran in Starcraft 2! Can you?
You know Blizzard Entertainment, they always keep a promise, they will make this game perfect, they will take out that blank feeling and that empty mind many of us know so well...
I tell you what they want: they want us to feel comfortable playing a competitive game. Re-read this and laugh, please.
I can't laugh.
That's all i have to say. Please think about it.
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I do not like mbs because it takes aspects of starcraft that make it unique out. This would be like changing the rules on how to move a knight in chess just so beginners won\'t become discouraged. Pro gamers will no longer be able to distinguish themselves as well. Macro will be so easy that the game will turn towards seeing who has the best micro/timing. Imagine if starcraft broodwar was like that. Would anyone ever have recognized boxer, julyzerg, or kingdom for their agressive micro based style ? Would Iloveoov be a no name practice partner with his amazing macro being overlooked due to mbs? By taking out macro you are taking out the gap between gosus and pros. If mbs was in brood war then casual players would be able to go head to head with people that play everyday. Are you willing to sacrifice some of this games beauty just so that it brings more people in? Whats the point of playing a game that is a watered down version of its old self? In my ideal world sc2 would have the same concepts just a wider variety of units (or new race) and perhaps a minor change in graphics (not w3 graphics). This sc2 is not fit to be called sc\'s successor as it is practically looking like a totally different game altogether. Before you flame me ask yourself how long you have been playing starcraft for and at what level. I guarantee that most people that have been playing for a long time and have become good will be against mbs for the reasons listed and that most people that are not that good at the game or are new to the scene will want mbs. I hope that starcraft 2 will not be as different from brood war as it is currently looking. I also hope that everyone realizes that making a game easier means the new players it attracts will most likely not carry the same passion for it as the brood war players have for brood war.
PS. im writing this and im exhausted so please excuse the badly worded sentences and horrible grammar.
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On September 30 2007 21:50 Artosis3 wrote:
lugggy : it takes away from the highest levels of play. we have a diverse pro scene in the best RTS game ever made for a reason. there are all sorts of ways you can interpret this beautiful game of starcraft and compete on the highest levels. MBS takes away most of this. if SC2 will be fast paced with many units then macro will be a big deal. taking away macro aspects in competitive play is not a good thing.
I dunno...but players in the highest level of play would have adjusted to MBS. IMHO, it doesn't really take away anything because players (the good ones anyway) will learn to adapt to it and do other stuff (potentially more intelligent macro stuff) instead of typing 0z9z8z every few seconds or so etc. The example that you gave (sunkens vs. m&m) would never happen if both players knew that each other can use MBS. Boxer (he is the Terran player in your example, right?) would know not to attack his m&ms against a row of sunkens that he knows can concentrate fire/rape his medics.
As of now, we really don't know how MBS really affect playstyle in SC2, save for the first impressions of other people who tried out SC2 @ blizzcon and others who had the privilege to try it out. Most examples in this forum are in the mold of applying MBS or smart casting in SC1 which wold make some SCBW units insanely powerful (templars and their Psi Storms for example) but Blizzard, IMHO, knows what they are doing and will design SC2 taking MBS into consideration.
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I'm so with Artosis on this one, fuck MBS!
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On October 01 2007 13:09 Aphelion wrote:
1esu, I really feel that you not having played SC1 much recently hurts you in your analysis. Why do you think the TL.netters were raping at Blizzcon with almost ridiculous strats? You do know they went undefeated, right? And that was with MBS (which from the accounts, really helped them much more than their opponents the way they were abusing super-greedy strategies.)
Question: Did the TL.netters tried to rape each other at Blizzcon? Because if they did, then that be some awesome gaming in the sense that TL.netters would be using the most ridiculous strats against each other and that will certainly result in ridiculously enjoyable gaming! I am not sarcastic here, guys. I mean, instead of watching players (or worse, learning to) type in 9z8z7z etc., we would see more ridiculous plays like a drop pod here, a reaper backdoor, a Thor bombardment, stimmed marines w/ medics on frontal assault and all kinds of crazy strats all at the same time and then maintaining the steady stream of attacks with just pressing 1m. I agree that manual dexterity should still be a defining factor in SC2 but not in a way that will seem forced and/or unnecessary. Manual dexterity that is applied in coordinating diverse combat tactics and feints all at the same time is IMHO way better than using it on instructing 1 building to build a unit.
Would it be nicer if actions-per-minute will really mean attack/move/tactical maneuver-per-minute? and that building 1 marine in 5 barracks would just result in 1 apm? That possibly could lead to more explosive and exciting tactics, don't you think?
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The argument for MBS seems to summarize down to one thing...that players with strong multitasking will have less opportunity to utilize their skills.
Here is a nice reasonable argument for MBS:
Yes, it will be easy to max. Yes, macro will no longer be so much of a strain on multitasking. However, once both players are maxed, that means there is nothing left to do but concentrate all tasks into microing a 200/200 battle on several fronts on the map. All that time spent on building units isn't going to vaporize into a dead zone - instead of microing a battle on 3 fronts, they'll be microing battles on 7 fronts. Harrassment will still be effective as long as you manage to kill some workers, for forcing a player to keep some units on defense, and for sheer mind game value alone.
The mental aspect of macro will probably become even more important, and I honestly believe that with all players having "perfect macro", if you want to call it that, build orders will become refined well into the 15 minute mark of the game. The other thing is how MBS works, or at least how it worked in warcraft 3: MBS attempts to create a unit in every barracks in your gate in the order that your gates are in the group. If you have 5 gates selected, gate #1 and gate #2 have a zealot training, and the rest are idle, and you only have 300 minerals, MBS in war3 would queue up units in gate 1, 2, and 3, and completely ignore the other two idle gates. Provided they don't change this, that means you'd need a heavily refined build order so that you have a perfect balance of workers, gateways, and minerals to produce from N rax in order to fully exploit MBS in the first place. This is what seperates you from iloveoov in the first place, not clicking on factories really fast.
Here is a somewhat sketchier argument against MBS, though I'm definitely raising a good point.
Flash back in time to when Blizzard was still patching the game. Back then, if you told people that 14 nexus/14 cc was a viable strategy, they would have thought you were fucking insane. If fast expo strats like that were considered viable back in ~2000, Blizzard most likely would have frowned upon it and increased the build times on Command Centers.
One final note:
A game does not become competitive because of aspects of the game itself, a game becomes competitive because the players push the game to its absolute limits. If they could turn somehow turn Halo 2 and Counterstrike, the two most newbie friendly FPS games ever, into serious competitve platforms, I'm not too worried about Starcraft 2 becoming a dilluted newbfest.
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Removing MBS from a game inferior to SCBW is not going to be enough. I think you guys know this. So saying it will "ruin" SC2 is just wishful thinking. As many people have pointed out the game can up the demand on the player in literally any area of the game. War3 had MBS and it was worthless. I doubt SC2's matchups will demand the macro you guys are thinking of anyways. I don't even want MBS. I don't even like being able to set rally with right click and I refuse to do it. Hell I wish we were all playing War2. But ad hominem leads us nowhere; argument from authority leads us nowhere. MBS is not make or break in SC2 as far as anyone knows and it wouldn't even be make or break in SC1 if the game was going to be completely rebalanced after MBS was applied (which is what SC2 theoretically would go through had they decided against MBS). We should probably expect a less demanding game whether they have MBS or not.
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EPT
