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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 13 2007 10:44 lololol wrote:
Wasn't TA a very macro oriented game, although it had better interface then SC?
In my opinion, TA's interface is REALLY horrible. Sure, you have unlimited unit selection but the hotkey system is WORTHLESS, you can't even center on the units 
Building is also done like exclusively with the mouse.. I think it was mostly macro but I heard air fights were very micro intensive early game. There's a really cool clan site for TA (actually there's tonnes of nice TA sites, lots of people love that game since it's pretty damn good) which had like literally hundreds of tips and tricks.. Forgot what it was called tho, they had a nice interview with one of their members (which mentioned Korea and SC progaming, and poker).
Btw, in case any TA players are reading this, I've played TA at a very casual level so I don't really have any experience of what competitive TA is like. Me saying it's macro based is just the impression I got.
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I don't have much more to say, just that:
Could we please leave out the argument that "macro is not fun"? It is speculative, it is subjective, and it is wrong.
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On November 14 2007 00:46 ForAdun wrote:
I don't have much more to say, just that:
Could we please leave out the argument that "macro is not fun"? It is speculative, it is subjective, and it is wrong.
Sadly, this is a thread about opinions, and it is the opinion of many that SC1's macro is not fun. If we had to remove all arguments I do not agree with, we wouldn't have much of a thread left ^^.
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8748 Posts
He's making the same mistake that pro-MBS people made months ago by thinking that all the mental demands of SC are maintained despite a reduction of physical demands. The overarching mental demand of every game is how to spend the resource of time.
Let's say at 10 minutes into a game, I'm thinking of 5 tasks (A,B,C,D,E) I need to do that would take 20 seconds to complete, but I only have 12 seconds to do them because of physical/UI limitations. I have to think about how much time I can cut off from each task by doing a less than perfect job. Task 'A' is the most important, but I can save 5 seconds by doing it in a less-than-perfect way that'll only reduce it to 90% effectiveness. I decide this is a worthwhile cut, because 10% off of my most important task is worth the 5 seconds. I have to shave 3 more seconds off between the remaining 4 tasks. So I do a similar process of ranking them in order of importance, thinking of what less effective methods there are for completing them, how much time those alternative methods will save and how much less effective they are. I then have a plan for the next 12 seconds of the game. And please note that these things are incredibly variable so it's humanly impossible to optimize in every situation. Real time decision-making is necessary and there will always be room for improvement.
Vaphell seems to argue for a game that'll never give you more tasks than you have time to complete. So the mental challenge is simply thinking of the tasks and then the player can proceed to do them all in the most effective ways known. Build orders, micromanagement, macromanagement, etc, all need to be optimized, but once they're optimized, a player can always do them optimally. This greatly diminishes mental demand and creativity. It makes copying much easier and more effective. If my alternative method of doing task 'A' was some genius micro maneuver that, once started, let's me look elsewhere, but still maintains near perfect effectiveness, then that genius would have no place in a game where I have nowhere else to look but on my units.
I know that Blizzard isn't making a game like the one I said vaphell is arguing for. And perhaps vaphell doesn't want that game either. But MBS, automining, autocasting, etc, would bring SC2 closer to that game than SC1. For many people, namely the anti-MBS crowd, it seems that these features bring SC2 too close to that game. The fact is that exceedingly impossible physical demands brought on by a limited UI are absolutely essential to the most difficult mental challenge of SC1. MBS will certainly reduce the physical demand of the game and if it is enough to ruin the mental challenge I've described, then it should be removed.
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nony: I think you forget one simple thing here - Blizzard did not want to put so much physical skill into SC when they were releasing it. It was the Koreans, and their will to practice longer and harder than anyone else, who have created such demand. I am no Korean, I don't want to live off of gaming and play 1 game 12hrs/day just to keep up with the rest, and I think that most "foreigners", as you call them, don't want it either.
I want to see people from all over the world competing against each other, not just 1 country because it's much more boring.
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On November 14 2007 06:44 Manit0u wrote:
nony: I think you forget one simple thing here - Blizzard did not want to put so much physical skill into SC when they were releasing it. It was the Koreans, and their will to practice longer and harder than anyone else, who have created such demand. I am no Korean, I don't want to live off of gaming and play 1 game 12hrs/day just to keep up with the rest, and I think that most "foreigners", as you call them, don't want it either.
I want to see people from all over the world competing against each other, not just 1 country because it's much more boring.
doesnt matter what blizzard intended, without the physical requirements the pro scene would be nowhere near as a competetive, and less competetive is bad as no one is gonna pay you to go up on tv and do something anyone can do.
as for you not practicing 12 hours a day, thats fine. you're never gonna be a progamer, im pretty sure you're ok with that fact. you dont have to play 12 hours a day to enjoy the game, you just have to play that much to be insanely good at it.
not only koreans are capable of practicing 12 hours a day, its just no one else does it (on a large scale) because only korea has developed a progaming scene that supports it. in korea you might become a progamer playing 12 hours/day, elsewhere its just a waste of time.
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So you want a game that has no skill gap between the progamers and the ones who dont want to take it too seriously? Are we going through this again? if you want to succeed in something you have to dedicate to it. SC2 is supposed to be the next big thing in progaming, a job for progamers. I can't mention even one sports where a casual amateur should be at the same level as a professional athlete. The difference between SC and SC2 is that SC's huge success in korea was an accident, with SC2 they are trying to replicate it. SC was meant to be just another game until the Koreans found it, now if they want to repeat the same success Blizzard can't just flip a coin and let luck decide. This time they have SC from which they can look at the best parts, that are most essential and representative of progaming itself.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On November 14 2007 03:19 BlackSphinx wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2007 00:46 ForAdun wrote:
I don't have much more to say, just that:
Could we please leave out the argument that "macro is not fun"? It is speculative, it is subjective, and it is wrong. Sadly, this is a thread about opinions, and it is the opinion of many that SC1's macro is not fun. If we had to remove all arguments I do not agree with, we wouldn't have much of a thread left ^^.
It's a really useless argument tho, seeing as how I can just say "Oh but I find it fun!" and we go around in circles.. I mean it's kinda pointless :/
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8748 Posts
On November 14 2007 06:44 Manit0u wrote:
nony: I think you forget one simple thing here - Blizzard did not want to put so much physical skill into SC when they were releasing it. It was the Koreans, and their will to practice longer and harder than anyone else, who have created such demand. I am no Korean, I don't want to live off of gaming and play 1 game 12hrs/day just to keep up with the rest, and I think that most "foreigners", as you call them, don't want it either.
I want to see people from all over the world competing against each other, not just 1 country because it's much more boring.
Not everybody needs to compete with the best players in the world. If you can play 5 hours a week, then compete with other players who compete 5 hours a week.
Koreans made SC a successful competitive game. It doesn't make sense to look at how the Koreans handled SC and then purposefully avoid it and still expect healthy competition. Making the game easy enough so that a casual player can keep up with a hardcore player will not make competition more universal. It'll get rid of competition all together.
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Calgary25980 Posts
I don't understand the argument where people feel entitled to being top tier at the game with minimal effort put in. These kinds of games never become competitive because the skill ceiling is low - anyone can pick up the game in a short time and be top tier. It's fine if you're not able to be the best at the game with little effort. Think of every other competitive game and sport that has existed for more than five years (soccer, chess, street fighter, basketball, hockey, golf, badminton, table tennis, mma, distance running, poker, counter strike, etc.) and I think you'll find they're pretty similar - In order to be top tier at them you need to essentially dedicate your life to them, unless you are born with an exceedingly large amount of talent. You can still play them casually and have fun by competiting against people of your own skill level.
Now you also don't want the skill floor to be too high that it causes barriers to entry. You want the game to be extremely easy to learn, and nearly impossible to master. MBS is an interesting problem because it lowers the skill floor AND lowers the skill ceiling. I think it's hard to say which is more important to be honest. As long as there is something to raise the skill ceiling back up that doesn't feel artificial (simply for the sake of making the game hard) I think MBS is fine. But for now we have to assume this magical thing doesn't exist because there's no word of it. So for the sake of longevity and competitive gaming, MBS does more harm than good in my opinion.
There's a reason the saying is "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master", and not "A minute to learn, a couple weeks to master."
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I'm all for MBS. It makes the game simpler for my casual playing pleasure.
I think mostly everyone who says that it will ruin SC2 or make it less skillfull is wrong. At the highest skill level the players surely cannot:
1) Keep producing a static unit ratio army.
2) Keep a constant number of production buildings.
In my opinion a pro would still need 4 or 5 building groups to make sure his production goes as he wants it. And then he'd probably still resort to building "by hand".
The early game might get more micro intense, but from mid game on a serious player would not just produce with MBS.
I think MBS at the very least deserves a chance. In the worst case cenario it can be implemented as an option if it turns out to be gamebreaking, which is highly unlikely.
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You completely misunderstood me. I have never mentioned that a casual player doesn't need to do so much to become pro. I just want SC2 to be casual-player friendly while retaining it's competetiveness.
For example in WC3 you all hate so much because it's game for "noobs" the gap between casual player and pro is really enormous and it is after all a very competetive game. And it's not because of the interface you know, it's because of timing/experience/thinking the progamer has and casual player does not, there are pros with 150apm who beat those with 300apm because they use it wiser. THAT is strategy, not mechanical 1z2z3z4z5z6z repeating.
But I feel I'm just wasting my time by putting arguments that will just bounce off the stone wall of SC eliteness.
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Hungary11291 Posts
On November 14 2007 08:10 Chill wrote: As long as there is something to raise the skill ceiling back up that doesn't feel artificial (simply for the sake of making the game hard) I think MBS is fine. But for now we have to assume this magical thing doesn't exist because there's no word of it. So for the sake of longevity and competitive gaming, MBS does more harm than good in my opinion.
There's a reason the saying is "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master", and not "A minute to learn, a couple weeks to master."
This is exactly the point the pro-MBS faction is trying to make with the "artifical limitations" argument - that gameplay might stay at the same level of intensity, yet allowing for more interesting actions to take than clicking single buildings and pressing one or two keys. Part of the argument is an appeal to the anti-MBS faction to start thinking outside of the box and not making SBS the holy grail of skill-preservation.
Yet, what I want to have a go at is another matter. While reading the latest Q&A batch, the matter of the limit of selectable units came up, with the answer: Q&A Nr. 21
A. Currently, players are able to select more than 150 units in a single control group. The final actual number will be determined by hardware performance tests on the game, but should still be close to that number.
Now my question would be, if this is a similar case to the introduction of MBS or if it is not. Let me explain:
In Broodwar there is a limit on managing your units: You can only select 12 of them at a time and group that many into a hotgroup. Already sending a large army into battle requires some skill and timing, so all the groups would reach the combat zone in time, as you have to go through sending all the single groups. In terms of the anti-MBS arguments: Arranging your army takes time and some mechanical skills, and thus serves to preserve the gaps between different skill levels. You have to take the concious decision to pursue an attack and you have to invest your management time (lets call it like this) into the setup of your army and execution of the attack.
This matter is partly mediated now through the - nearly infinite - ability to select units. Keep in mind that there will be very few occasions where you have to control more than 150 units (with 200 supply to spend, this might only occur when controlling a BUNCH of zerglings). So some basic mechanical management, which was necessary to the control limit of 9 units and the same group limit, are abolished now. Therefore, as one could argue, combat management is dumbed down to some extent. Yes, it will be necessary to manually control many aspects, but some management work which was previously necessary has now become obsolete.
Now, what does this have to do with MBS? I would like to ask how these arguments compare to each other. For someone could argue that through introduction of unlimited unit-selection:
- the skill ceiling is lowered
- one essential aspect of the game feeling (how to control your units) is majorily changed, battle management becomes easier and thus this part (we can add it to "micro") plays a less important role, threatening the macro / micro balance.
To me, this resembles quite accurately some arguments brought up against MBS. This is not to imply that these arguments have the same validity. I for one do not believe they do, but rather I want to ask, why these cases are different, why MBS is a huge problem for many people but unlimited-unit-selection is not. [help me finding a better acronym than "uus" please]
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Unlimited unit selection is a big problem for me. Your quote really, really shocked me. I had to double check again and again if thats true.
If thats the case, yes, there is no question MBS is included. And it is just as safe to say that Blizzard doesn't really intend to cater to competitive gamers when it gets down to it.
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I stopped reading your post when i saw "You can only select 9 of them at a time and group that many into a hotgroup" , Aesop.
Obviously you don't know why there isn't a topic about unlimited unit selection , and there is one about MBS.
edit : Aphelion , unlimited unit selection isn't as game changing as MBS , this was argued back in may if i remember correctly.
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Hungary11291 Posts
On November 14 2007 09:17 Dariush wrote:
I stopped reading your post when i saw "You can only select 9 of them at a time and group that many into a hotgroup" , Aesop.
I have no idea how that number slipped in, but the rest of the post stays valid nontheless. And I find it a bit weird that you openly admit not reading the post and getting to the point I was trying to suggest.
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On November 14 2007 09:17 Dariush wrote:
edit : Aphelion , unlimited unit selection isn't as game changing as MBS , this was argued back in may if i remember correctly.
Maybe, but if Blizzard is going with this, there is NO WAY they will not go for MBS. They shows their mentality very clearly: cater to the noobs first.
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On November 14 2007 09:26 Aphelion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2007 09:17 Dariush wrote:
edit : Aphelion , unlimited unit selection isn't as game changing as MBS , this was argued back in may if i remember correctly. Maybe, but if Blizzard is going with this, there is NO WAY they will not go for MBS. They shows their mentality very clearly: cater to the noobs first.
They actually said MBS is not final , it may be removed.
it was in one of their Q&As.
oh and Aesop , by quoting the unlimited unit selection , i knew you're gonna compare it to MBS somehow.
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On November 14 2007 09:26 Aphelion wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2007 09:17 Dariush wrote:
edit : Aphelion , unlimited unit selection isn't as game changing as MBS , this was argued back in may if i remember correctly. Maybe, but if Blizzard is going with this, there is NO WAY they will not go for MBS. They shows their mentality very clearly: cater to the noobs first.
I understand how catering to the "noobs" first is bad for you (and, possibly, the current competitive scene), but haven't you and others here stated (numerous times) that regardless of how SCII turns out, you will eventually go back to BW? I just don't see why Blizzard should cater to pros as opposed to noobs in this context...
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EPT
