EPTMy only point is that making an analogy based on a sport is based only on an opinion. The only valid comparison would be simliar features in other RTS games, but no non-Blizzard RTS has attracted competition, so we're basically on our own wondering if MBS is good or bad for competiton. I just get sick of seeing "Starcraft II with MBS is like Cycling with training wheels" It's nothing like that. It's nothing like any of the hundred analogies i've seen it compared to.
[Poll] MBS implementation (or not) - Page 17
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GeneralStan
United States4789 Posts
My only point is that making an analogy based on a sport is based only on an opinion. The only valid comparison would be simliar features in other RTS games, but no non-Blizzard RTS has attracted competition, so we're basically on our own wondering if MBS is good or bad for competiton. I just get sick of seeing "Starcraft II with MBS is like Cycling with training wheels" It's nothing like that. It's nothing like any of the hundred analogies i've seen it compared to. | ||
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ForAdun
Germany986 Posts
As much as I agree to you mensrea, this is going too far. You can keep your anger to yourself and argue like a man but you decide to start a flamewar that only you can win as you know. I don't have respect for that. I'll leave this topic. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On October 16 2007 13:10 mensrea wrote: ...and Bush said there would be nukes in Iraq, so there must be. And Microsoft is always saying they are at the leading edge of software innovation, so they must be. I am always amazed at the number of unconscious lemmings we have running around on this planet. I wasn't talking about Blizzard PR, I was referring to the direct quote from Dustin in the latest Q&A. It is fact that Blizzard has a combination of raw talent and a dedication to making their games as good as possible, even if it takes years, that exceeds any of their peers in the RTS industry. So I'm sorry if the fact that I have faith in them to make a highly competitive game with a more accessible interface makes you think of me as an "unconscious lemming". One of Blizzard's first public statements about SC2 was that it would be designed with competitive gaming in mind. The implementation of MBS suggests that this statement was marketroid fluff designed to generate hype. The conclusions reached by those against MBS implementation are based on empirical data. The pro gaming experience in Korea suggests that MBS would be more likely to diminish the game than make it better. Of course, experience is never a completely accurate indicator of future outcomes - but it's a helluva lot more sound than "well, Blizzard said the game would be better, so it must be". The proponents of MBS appear to be relying on speculation and wishful thinking disguised as rational argument. First, the fact is that SC2 is not an expansion of SC, it is a sequel. If SC2 was an expansion of SC (and the PR people certainly make it seem so) I would totally agree with you and every other anti-MBS poster. But the fact is, SC2 is a sequel, and while sequels generally remain true to the core concept of their predecessors, they usually have considerably different gameplay. The precise control of large armies is a core concept of SC gameplay; the exponential difficulty curve in producing greater numbers of units is peripheral at best (though an important feature for balance, which I'll get to later in this post). Therefore, accounts of how MBS would hurt SC2 based on SC1 gameplay experience must be taken with a grain of salt, and certainly should not be considered "empirical". First-hand accounts from Blizzcon may seem more valid, but just as you wouldn't judge SC based on SC alpha, you shouldn't judge SC2 based on SC2 alpha. Secondly, to paraphrase Dustin again, accessibility AND longevity are very important to a healthy, successful competitive community. Making a game accessible to new players is a principle of multiplayer game design that is much older than the SC competitive scene. At the beginning, the SC interface was accessible because it offered two options to the new player: point-and-click or hotkey. Everyone started with the former, and gradually moved to the latter en-masse. However, nowadays new players cannot play BW as it was meant to be played with any modicum of skill without learning the hotkey-based system, which was intended to be the expert-only, difficult-to-master part of the interface. Therefore, the SC interface is now inaccessible, especially considering the more streamlined interfaces used in contemporary RTS games. Third, the designers stated at the beginning that the interface was being streamlined so that new, skill intensive features could be added. SC already demanded too much from the player, so keeping the interface as is would effectively restrict the designers from including more features, since no one would have the time to use them. Finally, it is true that MBS reduces the importance of the "static" skills associated with macro mechanics, e.g. building units via hotkeys. I call these skills "static" because they are not situationally-dependent; the basic hotkey patterns to build units follow the same progressions regardless of external factors like your opponent, their strategy, or the map. On the other hand, there are "dynamic" skills such as goon micro and expansion timing, which are situationally dependent; how you apply those skills, or whether you use them at all, varies depending on external factors. Now, if SC2 just included MBS without adding anything else, that would indeed reduce the skill ceiling. However, what they're doing is replacing those "lost" static skills with new features that all (so far) involve dynamic skills. It's true there aren't many such features so far, but just because the PR hasn't told us about them doesn't mean that they're not there. N.B. That last argument relies on the assumption that dynamic skills are inherently deeper, more prestigious, and have a greater effect on widening the skill curve than static skills. I can defend this assumption if you disagree, but this post will be long enough as is. Blizzard is not infallible. They have fucked up royally before. Witness the sorry evolution of the War3 gaming scene in Korea - Boxer, Garimto, Yellow, all the old school SC greats tried War3 in its early release phase because they, like yours truly, thought it would be the next SC. Blizzard ended up nerfing that game to hell and everyone went back to playing SC. The void was filled by a bunch of not-good-enoughs who couldn't make it in the SC scene. The result? A professional scene that is less than 10% of SC by any metric you could care to apply. First, ROC sucks in comparison to TFT, just like vanilla SC sucks in comparison to BW. It's likely many people think SC2 will suck upon release also, unless the open beta is longer than a year. Secondly, Blizzard went in a totally different direction with WC3, enough so that it's practically irrelevant to our discussions here. WC3 is a hybrid-genre game, as much an RPG as it is an RTS, as inspired by D&D as it was by SC. It's a totally different style of game, with its heroes, creeps, and upkeep, and so it's not surprising at all that SC players didn't like its flavor. And I think Blizzard was pretty successful in their endeavour in the long run, when you consider how ambitious a concept it really was. But, hey what about the rest of the world? Don't it matter? Should we not care about new players? No. They do not matter. The rest of the world does not matter. Korea has the most viable, most vibrant professional gaming scene by miles. Can anyone reasonably dispute this? It is the majors. That is the market you must cater to if you are serious about creating a game with professional gaming imprinted in its DNA. The focus should not be on the fucking fringes. Making a game that will succeed in Korea is what will make the game popular and LASTING in all other markets. If you care about the "new" players, then do not cater to them. They will thank you for it in the end (in sustained sales of the game). First, you ignore new players at the risk of losing the opportunity for a competitive community exponentially larger than the one SC currently has (not as much so in Korea, but take your blinders off for a second and consider the rest of the world). Again, making the game accessible to new players is one of the fundamental facets of multiplayer game design, and is even more important in creating a sequel as a considerable part of your community will have experience with the predecessor that the new players don't. Have you heard of competitive combat flight simulators? Sounds like a great idea, don't you think? I mean, who doesn't like watching dogfights in Top Gun, and fighter planes are too expensive for recreational use, so simulating dogfights via computers would make for a good competitive game. Now, have you played a combat flight simulator? I doubt you have, because the learning curve is so high that it's practically impossible to retain new players long enough for them to become competitive. Secondly, SC's success in Korea is far better explained by it being in the right place at the right time than the difficulty of the interface. Although, considering that the other favorite game in Korea is Baduk, which also has a very difficult learning curve (and an even higher skill ceiling), you could say that the Korean culture is more receptive to high learning curves than others. Finally, only a small portion of non-Korean people who have played SC at one point or another have ever heard of the Korean competitive scene, much less visited this site or watched a VOD. Even if SC2 is the best thing since kimchi in Korea, that will have little effect on its popularity elsewhere in the world, though it may cause players aware of it to play longer. Personally, I'd prefer that the gameplay primarily keeps players playing, rather than the knowledge that SC2 is a huge e-sport in another country (not saying that it doesn't for SC, but you're implying that popularity in Korea -> popularity elsewhere). The NBA does not change its rules to suit the shorter stature of Asians. FIFA does not alter the conventions of football because certain nations feel they make the game culturally anathema. You do not force training wheels on the professional cyclists of the Tour de France so as to avoid overwhelming the casual bicycle enthusiast. Sports also don't have sequels. Again, if this was an expansion of SC I'd agree, but it's a different game by definition. Sports are also not computer games, in so many respects that I can't name them all, but I can give you two: a) sports' physicality is obvious; and b) sports have extensive instructional programs, so that while the skill curve may be very high, the learning curve is very low. BTW, that last analogy doesn't make any sense; casual bicycle enthusiasts use training wheels? P.S. I lost about half this post in an absent-minded misclick when my gf called from work, so forgive me if it's too truncated in parts; I like rewriting the same material as much as anyone else. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On October 17 2007 03:32 mensrea wrote: And for crissakes, I really do wish people would at least take the time to read between the lines and figure out that I am neither for nor against MBS on SC2 (because I have yet to play the game). I'm neither for nor against MBS in SC2 either for the same reasons, though you should have stated that out front like I usually do. I just don't like how the anti-MBS posters want to have MBS taken out before it's properly playtested, which would be a mistake of epic proportions. Not that I'm saying Blizzard would do it, but seeing how they've responding to the Soul Hunter, Reaver, Firebat, etc. I get a little worried. | ||
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teapot
United Kingdom266 Posts
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Element)LoGiC
Canada1143 Posts
However, what they're doing is replacing those "lost" static skills with new features that all (so far) involve dynamic skills. It's true there aren't many such features so far, but just because the PR hasn't told us about them doesn't mean that they're not there. I don't understand how taking away from unit/building management that required you to look away from your force for a significant amount of time and replacing it with unit management that doesn't require you to look away and thus multitask makes sense to you. I really don't. This type of multitasking is a huge aspect of sc, and taking it away only affects good players. It's like playing basketball against somebody who just started, except you can't make 3 point shots and dunk. This will severely limit the good player, but the new player couldn't have done anything else anyway. MBS is just here to satisfy the kind of player that repeats "OWNED" after every BGH opponent they somehow manage to fumble into killing. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On October 17 2007 04:32 Element)LoGiC wrote: I don't understand how taking away from unit/building management that required you to look away from your force for a significant amount of time and replacing it with unit management that doesn't require you to look away and thus multitask makes sense to you. I really don't. This type of multitasking is a huge aspect of sc, and taking it away only affects good players. It's like playing basketball against somebody who just started, except you can't make 3 point shots and dunk. This will severely limit the good player, but the new player couldn't have done anything else anyway. MBS is just here to satisfy the kind of player that repeats "OWNED" after every BGH opponent they somehow manage to fumble into killing. I was speaking generally about skill, multitasking is another argument entirely, and one I agree with. MBS does reduce multitasking, and Blizzard will have to find ways (preferably involving dynamic skills) to bring that degree of multitasking back through other means. However, (and this is totally conjecture) I don't think MBS will have as much effect on the whole game as some make it out to be. First, MBS only starts seriously affecting the game in the mid/late-game period, when players run out of hotkeys to bind buildings with. At this point, you'll have to start worrying about protecting your economies, and economy damage is much more effective with MBS since there's no negative feedback associated with a significant economy advantage (since greater numbers of units aren't harder to produce). Therefore, you're going to have to really pay attention to your bases so that you can defend against incoming attacks, since static defense is still an inefficient use of resources in most cases and you can't afford to throw away an expansion. Other anti-MBS arguments I agree with: The removal of the negative feedback associated with multiple unit-producing buildings could lead to a "slippery slope" of economic losses being too difficult to come back from; and MBS should only apply to unit-producing buildings. Finally, I've never played BGH, nor have I ever been interested in it; it's almost an entirely different game from SC. P.S. Thanks teapot. | ||
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SoleSteeler
Canada5417 Posts
"how come in starcraft i cant select more than like 8 people" "it's impossible to stop rushes in starcraft, add more automatic base defense" "Lost Temple was a popular non money map, but thats a different kind of a map. Its more of a small space frontier setting up its forces kind of map, not world power kind of faction like BGH maps." "I'd call Starcraft equal to or only slightly better than Total Annihilation, and many feel that it was about equal to Red Alert." etc. :/ | ||
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
With a few exceptions, most of you MBS supporters don't follow the pro scene very closely or play the game very much competitively. Else this debate would not be so difficult and some of the things you nit pick on or write long theoretical paragraphs about would seem to be self- evident and nondebatable. I am not going to argue with those of you who never even truly tasted the flavor of the original game. You should all just accept the fact that actually playing the game and witnessing this will give you an entirely different perspective, a better and more accurate perspective. As rude as it is to say it, some of you simply have no idea what you are talking about. Time out. | ||
Last Romantic
United States20661 Posts
On October 17 2007 03:57 1esu wrote: I wasn't talking about Blizzard PR, I was referring to the direct quote from Dustin in the latest Q&A. It is fact that Blizzard has a combination of raw talent and a dedication to making their games as good as possible, even if it takes years, that exceeds any of their peers in the RTS industry. So I'm sorry if the fact that I have faith in them to make a highly competitive game with a more accessible interface makes you think of me as an "unconscious lemming". Something I'd like to point out: Blind faith in blizzard. Blizzard is definitely not infallible. The last time they came out with a good RTS was 1998, and that team is, for the most part, no longer working for Blizzard. With a nine year gap and a changed squad working on it, I would say the StarCraft 2 squad now has about as much similarity with the original StarCraft squad as modern PvZ does with the 2001 matchup. While I respect and thank Blizzard for this endeavor and the degree to which they are communicating with the community, I honestly have little faith in how well the design team will be able to incorporate the ideas. Unfortunately, the evidence available to us speaks against it. a) At least for this site, most popularly supported ideas have not been implemented [DT scythe, removal of mothership among others] and questions about core development have been mostly dodged. They've given details with, at most, a middling impact on gameplay. As to large issues such as MBS, they answer with a "we are not sure yet". b) Blizzard wants to make money. They do not want to alienate those ignorant posters who have no idea how StarCraft is played because they're paying just as much for each copy of the game as we are. And there are more of them. c) At blizzcon, TL vets were maxing out incredibly easily in short periods of time without even trying/planning for it. StarCraft took an immense amount of time before 13-minute maxes became commonplace even among the pro scene. If it is so easy for an amateur player to do it on a game he's never played before.. I just don't think the skill ceiling is nearly high enough. d) pursuant to point c, I recognize that the game has changed since its Blizzcon formation. However, the key issue, that of MBS, has not been addressed. While the TLers who went to blizzcon attributed some of the reason the game was so simple to the inadequacies of their opponents, it's key to note that a lot of it was just because MBS made macro way too simplistic. | ||
CaucasianAsian
Korea (South)11577 Posts
Warcraft 3 has been out for a good amount of time, a few years, and they have less players than a game that is twice its age! Doesn't it make you wonder why? Why is Starcraft so popular? What would make someone to choose Starcraft, a game that has been on the market, 10 years this upcoming winter, when there are games with newer interfaces, newer and more advanced graphics, and everyone is leveled out in the beginning to allow an early start to become a reknown player such as Boxer who was known within a year after the game was out. That could be you! You can be the next boxer! All you have to do, is choose what game to play! But as you can see obviously, these games don't even last very long. The new C&C Tiberian Wars for example, is doing horrible. I personally went 40-2 in the game, and I never played the C&C's that came before it. Is that what we are trying to do? Do you really want it possible for someone who has NEVER before played a game with no knowledge of build orders and timing to be able to do so well? I personally do not. When we think about what can make Starcraft II such a great game, we have to think about what it is going to be based on. Starcraft: Brood War obviously will be the answer. We all know for a fact, since we all view TeamLiquid that Starcraft: Brood War is one of the most competitive games out there, we have prize purses of hundreds of thousands of dollars, players have fan clubs of hundreds of thousands, and people are making a living off playing a game! While that is at the professional league, we have players who don't even play in the competitive scene, nor are they even AWARE of it. Yet they have happily doing their business being a fan of the game that we all love. If we are going to make Starcraft II a competitor in the RTS Competitive scene, we have to understand what makes games stable in that scene. First of all, we need a skill differential between those who play hours on end to get good, and keep that skill, and those who play one game a week, playing vs random computers on a fastest map possible. Of course we will want the person who plays 12 hours a day, perfecting every tiny detail about their play to be able to win flawlessly against the latter. By taking away things that people take months to perfect, such as automining, and auto-repair, auto-building interceptors etc... takes away things that people spend months, if not years to perfect. The skill gap will be greatly reduced. Multiple Building Selection once again, takes away that gap that differentiates a skilled learned player and one who just bought the game that week. It is a known fact that Starcraft is a macro-orientated game. For instance, we focus our times timing expansions, build orders, reacting to our opponents build orders, creating the right amount and type of units, the production of supplies, or in starcraft II's case, food, building production, etc... When we take away things that make Starcraft what it is, it loses that feeling. I have not played Starcraft II, but just through all of the press, it seems as if it is being more orientated to micro. Why should a player such as the monster, cheater terran (iloveoov), give up his amazing skills so someone who just bought the game can preform in macro management in such a way that it competes with him. I think it is a very poor decision that blizzard is partaking in reducing the things that make Starcraft such a skill differentiated game, and lowering that skill gap to allow players be able to play just as well if not better than those who practice hundreds of hours every week? | ||
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CaucasianAsian
Korea (South)11577 Posts
On October 16 2007 20:09 Gobol wrote: Irrelevant This is what we are arguing about, all you've done here is assume your position is correct and make some irrelevant conclusions off it. By assuming my side of the argument (that MBS will be good for the competitive scene) I can just as easily as say "The implementation of MBS suggests that this statement is being closely adhered to by the dev team". There are retarded arguments on both sides, you should ignore them rather than label them as the only arguments the pro MBS side have. The pro gaming experience in Korea doesn't suggest that, just like the pro gaming experience in China doesn't suggest that MBS would make the game better. There's way too many other factors as to why SC is so large in Korea. Not many people deny ROC was a steaming pile of crap. But it was not designed from the start as a competitive game. And when they got better people to work on TFT they produced a truly excellent game. Most SC players have their opinion of W3 based off ROC, which is why there is so much undeserved hate for TFT. A fairly fair metric is total prize money for tournaments in 2007. And by this metric W3 is >> 10% of SC. This is bullshit. So what if it has the most vibrant professional gaming scene by miles. The segregation of the SC community is a BAD thing. There's a couple of hundred korean player's that are competing for the major tournaments and for everyone else in the world there is some nothing. I don't want that and I doubt Blizzard wants that. This is irrelevant again, if we were talking about adding MBS to SC then sure they are useful analogies, but this is a new game. Just by reading your post, you seem to be uninformed about what makes Starcraft so great. Of course many people from around the globe can say that they play starcraft because its fun. They play starcraft because you can always learn and get better. Some play because they want to become pro, and some because they want to be #1. It is without a doubt, people are drawn to the game because there is always a higher level of skill that can be attained. Everyone on starcraft is competitive in some form or fashion, even UsEast there are clans that make you tryout and beat their recruiter to join, there are UMS games with the title "Diplomacy Noob = Ban". It is most probable that they are not aware of the pro gaming scene at all, except for hearing boxer's name here or there. I'm starting to assume you are one of these players. Maybe Fastest is what you play? That's what I am assuming just by the way you are being perceived. So in order for Blizzard to create a game that will LAST and become a COMPETITIVE game, there has to be a HUGE GAP in skill between someone who plays 24/7 trains hard as hell only playing against top tier players and someone who plays with his little sister trying to beat a computer 2v1. You say there are many factors that create skill, and just so you know, the more factors you take away, the more closer the top tier player is to the player who plays with his 5 year old sister. Some of the factors that take place in any single game of ANY Real Time Strategy game would be: Macro management (Supply production, Expanding, Resource Income, Building Production, Unit production) Micromanagement (Unit Positioning, Unit Control) Timing (When to Attack, When to Expand, When to Retreat, When to Flank, When to Harass, When to Build Units, When to Build Buildings) Build Order (When to build buildings and units to attain your goal the fastest) Adaptation to your opponent (Scouting, reading, acting on your opponents own build/macro/micro/timing push/what build order etc...) Terrain uses (siege tanks on cliff, drops on cliffs, use trees as semi-shield, walling) Strategy (Everything else) Obviously there are a lot of factors that are needed to take into account as to what makes games a game. But what makes a game BETTER than all of the rest? We as starcraft players are competitive so we want to be able to get better and better. Once we are the best, we get bored and quit and move on, but with starcraft, we can't ever be the best so we don't get bored, so we always want to get better) Obviously Starcraft II is not going to be Starcraft: Brood War with new units etc... It will be an entire new GUI, new graphics, new everything. But so was Command and Conquer, and do you not remember that Australian kid who won 1st prize without EVER playing the game before? Do you want that to happen with Starcraft II? Do you want to reduce the game to allow players who are NOT as skilled to win against those who have been training for a long time? If so, then please, this forum is not for you. | ||
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orangedude
Canada220 Posts
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Aphelion
United States2720 Posts
On October 17 2007 08:56 orangedude wrote: I'm not going to add anything else, but these last two pages contain some of the most eloquently written and reasoned posts about the MBS debate I've seen yet. Both sides made excellent points (with a few useless/ignorant posts mixed in between), but let's just try to keep this civil here if possible. Since when did you become a mod? | ||
Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
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Gobol
37 Posts
On October 17 2007 08:43 CaucasianAsian wrote: Just by reading your post, you seem to be uninformed about what makes Starcraft so great. Of course many people from around the globe can say that they play starcraft because its fun. They play starcraft because you can always learn and get better. Some play because they want to become pro, and some because they want to be #1. It is without a doubt, people are drawn to the game because there is always a higher level of skill that can be attained. Everyone on starcraft is competitive in some form or fashion, even UsEast there are clans that make you tryout and beat their recruiter to join, there are UMS games with the title "Diplomacy Noob = Ban". It is most probable that they are not aware of the pro gaming scene at all, except for hearing boxer's name here or there. I'm starting to assume you are one of these players. Maybe Fastest is what you play? That's what I am assuming just by the way you are being perceived. I haven't played SC for probably 2 years now, but I did use to be of a fairly high level (top 8 of WGTOUR way back when it was the only ladder around), and I did follow the Korean scene closely for a long time. The thing is I have also played W3 at a fairly high level for the last 2 years too which I feel gives me a bit more insight into what makes a game competitive. Most of the people here have only played SC at a competitive level which limits how much they can understand what something like MBS will do to a RTS. So in order for Blizzard to create a game that will LAST and become a COMPETITIVE game, there has to be a HUGE GAP in skill between someone who plays 24/7 trains hard as hell only playing against top tier players and someone who plays with his little sister trying to beat a computer 2v1. I think you vastly underestimate just how simple a game can be and yet have near unlimited potential for skill. Have you seen The King of Kong? Games like Donkey Kong or Pacman are so incredibly simple and lacking in options for the player and yet people are still getting better at them like 25 years on. And they're playing against a computer. You could put every skill reducing feature into SC2 and it's still going to be such a complex game that there will be a huge skill gap between someone who is good and someone who is bad. The thing that can destroy this aren't UI improvements but massive imbalance in the game (which then suddenly reduces the players valid options greatly). You say there are many factors that create skill, and just so you know, the more factors you take away, the more closer the top tier player is to the player who plays with his 5 year old sister. Some of the factors that take place in any single game of ANY Real Time Strategy game would be: Macro management (Supply production, Expanding, Resource Income, Building Production, Unit production) Micromanagement (Unit Positioning, Unit Control) Timing (When to Attack, When to Expand, When to Retreat, When to Flank, When to Harass, When to Build Units, When to Build Buildings) Build Order (When to build buildings and units to attain your goal the fastest) Adaptation to your opponent (Scouting, reading, acting on your opponents own build/macro/micro/timing push/what build order etc...) Terrain uses (siege tanks on cliff, drops on cliffs, use trees as semi-shield, walling) Strategy (Everything else) Obviously there are a lot of factors that are needed to take into account as to what makes games a game. But what makes a game BETTER than all of the rest? We as starcraft players are competitive so we want to be able to get better and better. Once we are the best, we get bored and quit and move on, but with starcraft, we can't ever be the best so we don't get bored, so we always want to get better) This is the main point I disagree with from the anti MBS side. Taking these factors away doesn't reduce the skill gap between players. From SC to WC3 they took out a lot of these things - in particular there is essentially 0 macro skill, but the skill gap between players is basically the same in the two games. When something is taken away, the other areas are focused on more and the skill difference due to these factors increases. Obviously Starcraft II is not going to be Starcraft: Brood War with new units etc... It will be an entire new GUI, new graphics, new everything. But so was Command and Conquer, and do you not remember that Australian kid who won 1st prize without EVER playing the game before? Do you want that to happen with Starcraft II? Do you want to reduce the game to allow players who are NOT as skilled to win against those who have been training for a long time? If so, then please, this forum is not for you. Noone knew about that CnC comp until the day of the competition, so only people who had turned up for the CS comp or to spectate the CS comp entered it. If everyone who enters a comp is a noob then a noob has to win. As for CnC itself, I haven't played the game so I cannot comment, but I suspect the reason it's uncompetitive (apart from a lack of popularity) is that it's probably massively imbalanced to the point of there being only 1 viable strategy. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On October 17 2007 08:43 CaucasianAsian wrote: So in order for Blizzard to create a game that will LAST and become a COMPETITIVE game, there has to be a HUGE GAP in skill between someone who plays 24/7 trains hard as hell only playing against top tier players and someone who plays with his little sister trying to beat a computer 2v1. You say there are many factors that create skill, and just so you know, the more factors you take away, the more closer the top tier player is to the player who plays with his 5 year old sister. Some of the factors that take place in any single game of ANY Real Time Strategy game would be: Macro management (Supply production, Expanding, Resource Income, Building Production, Unit production) Micromanagement (Unit Positioning, Unit Control) Timing (When to Attack, When to Expand, When to Retreat, When to Flank, When to Harass, When to Build Units, When to Build Buildings) Build Order (When to build buildings and units to attain your goal the fastest) Adaptation to your opponent (Scouting, reading, acting on your opponents own build/macro/micro/timing push/what build order etc...) Terrain uses (siege tanks on cliff, drops on cliffs, use trees as semi-shield, walling) Strategy (Everything else) Nice skill breakdown, but I don't see the logic in listing all of these skills, only one (the italicized) of which is clearly affected by MBS, and then concluding that noobs ~= pros in SC2 because this one skill has been reduced in importance by MBS. If the skill curve is going to be reduced significantly at all by this single reduction, its in the very bottom tiers. That's effectively the same thing as smoothening out the initial learning curve, which I believe is a good thing. EDIT: I'd also like to see this Australian guy; if he even made it to WCG, the lone Australian there lost 1-2 in the group stage, and that one win was against the 0-3 guy. Also, the C&C3 finals was a Scrin v. Scrin match in which both players used the same build for both maps: a couple Buzzers and then mass Seeker tanks, followed in the second map by Tripods from one player. As with all new RTSs, C&C3 is imbalanced. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
On October 17 2007 07:58 Last Romantic wrote: Something I'd like to point out: Blind faith in blizzard. Blizzard is definitely not infallible. The last time they came out with a good RTS was 1998, and that team is, for the most part, no longer working for Blizzard. With a nine year gap and a changed squad working on it, I would say the StarCraft 2 squad now has about as much similarity with the original StarCraft squad as modern PvZ does with the 2001 matchup. I don't believe that any game developer is infalliable, I just believe that Blizzard is better equipped than any other RTS developer to devote the time and energy necessary to making an extremely competitive game that has MBS. If they can't do it, then it probably can't be done, and only then SC2 should return to SBS. I just think we should have respect enough for Blizzard to give them the time they need to see if SC2 can be competitive with MBS, rather than shout that MBS should be removed immediately, as many have done in these debates. In regards to (c), being able to max out faster than 13 minutes is an intended consequence of MBS. Blizzard has stated they want SC2 games to be under 20 minutes, and MBS, in making it easier to max out and easier to capitalize on economic advantages, makes the game shorter. I do agree, however, that Blizzard should be careful to avoid the "slippery slope", where making a comeback once you've fallen behind becomes very difficult. In regards to (d), a lot of it was because many of the features Blizzard is planning on implementing (most of which they haven't told us about) to keep the skill curve high while having an easier-to-use interface weren't in the build. Therefore, MBS had a larger impact on the perceived difficulty of the game by veterans than it would if those missing features were in the build. That's why we should wait until a feature-complete build before making a final judgement on MBS in SC2. P.S. Sorry for the double post, I meant to copy the CA response over but I was tired and clicked the post button before I realized. Plus, this is the second post today I had to rewrite because of a misclick. | ||
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KoveN-
Australia503 Posts
Yes, I'm being serious I will be willing to organise this | ||
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BlackStar
Netherlands3029 Posts
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