On November 12 2007 13:17 BlackSphinx wrote: On spectating.
I think that for mr.n00b that'll end up watching pros of his favorite game, which he really enjoyed the campaign of but really gets his ass kicked online, will not understand how the quick production of units is such a big deal, but will understand, and will be very excited and wanting for more, when he'll see immense battles and out of this world micromanagement.
Micromanagement is far more spectacular for the regular guy than macromanagement. It's not even a contest. Yes, us gamers who spend a lot of time studying the game will see the finesse and delicacy of an heavy macro TvP match, but mr.n00b will just think "COME ON! FIGHT ALREADY! GEEZ...".
A game boasting more micro and a larger average number of units will go a longer way in breaking the barrier of E-Sports vs mainstream media than a game like SC1.
How much of the spectator base do people who aren't competitive themselves make up? I'd wager its a very small percentage.
Still, its a good point
Do you expect those thousands of people that watch Pro-gaming in Korea to all be competitive? Its hard to imagine. However, starcraft is a fundamental balance of micro/macro. Thats what I enjoy about it. I don't want to see Sc2 turn into WC4.
the large majority of them will be, yes
those that aren't are watching for the star appeal or for fleeting entertainment, and thus will be drawn to it regardless. As long as the game is fast-paced and not 'warcraft 4', it will be interesting to watch, which leaves emphasis on the desires of hardcore spectators and competitive players as the more important goal.
People who don't understand the game or simply watch it casually absolutely won't care if there's an MBS system or not, but people who watch it with interest or play competitively certainly will.
I think you're overestimating the number of people involved in competitive gaming. Either that, your definition of competitive is far different from mine. Let me phrase it a different way. Do you think all those fangirls watching Starcraft are competitive gamers?
In the end, it will boil down to this. People who watch the games will feel the need to copy their idols, that is play the game. They will enjoy being able to select multiple buildings since it is simpler and less frustrating. They don't need to be competitive to enjoy that feature.
the fangirls watch pro sc cuz they think they are good looking, i know a couple myself rofl. they dont watch it for the game value, but they think like hong jin ho is good lookin
On November 15 2007 03:34 Aphelion wrote: These pro MBS arguments about "strategic depth" only apply if there were no fog of war. With fog of war, unless there is a dominant strategy or expected strategy, games will turn out to be a complete luck fest. Already there are "build order wins" in SC. Hence games must be determined largely by execution and subtle adjustments after scouting kicks in.
Are you trying to say there AREN'T dominant build orders in Starcraft?
TvP, TvZ, ZvZ are ridiculously static strategically, it's very rare to see anything outside of the box
The only MUs that you see any variance of build orders are PvZ and the occasional zealot rush in PvP
I am claiming that any good RTS game will evolve to have dominant strategies. Without dominant strategies and with the lack of information early game, the game will turn to a rock-scissors-paper luck fest. What you claim to be "static strategy" is the only alternative to no strategy at all.
You will not have many different yet equally viable builds in a good RTS. There will always be a dominant and optimal play in general. This is not to say there will not be strategy - but those will be subtle tweaks, in game adjustments and decision making. Its nothing like, haha, I just thought of this amazing unit combo that will pwn against what my enemy is doing!
This talk of a "strategically deep" game, with many viable openings and unit combos is a fool's dream. Strategical innovation will be done in the beginning phases of a game as players strive to figure out what is best. But once enough is known about the game, strategy will change much much more slowly, and people will naturally adopt what is optimal. You saw this in SC, where the first few years you could see much more variation in styles, and innovators like Ra and Boxer dominated. But as the game goes on, there should be a few optimal strategies which will be discovered. That is only natural. In an RTS, the starting conditions are known exactly, and with the multitude of games being played, the ideal will be approached by sheer iteration. In the end, builds are extremely refined and tweaks are not at all obvious to the casual observer.
Mechanics will hence become ever more important as a determinant of skill. Mechanics will determine what strategy you can and cannot execute. Mechanics will ensure that you don't win simply by BO luck, and that inferior players will not easily luck out against superior ones through an unscoutable cheese. Mechanics will add another dimension to your strategy, as you have to recognize the key points and strength of your strategy and allocate your attention to what is important. If you are doing an all-in hang bang attack, you will micro your army to its most minute detail and forget scv production, whereas you would be better off adding gates and macroing as opposed to microing your probe vs an scvif you have a solid economic advantage. Strategy is your plan, but mechanics is your resource, your ability to direct and animate your subjects to achieving your overall goal.
If strategy is the soul of SC, mechanics is the grit, the blood, the muscle and the sinew which actualizes all things.
Your comment is absolutely invalid because all the "BO luck" occurs in the early game, where the effects of MBS will be absolutely minimal. Build order luck is more of a map dependent issue - length between the other 1-3 potential mains, scouting in the right direction, whether or not there are substantial blind spots in the worker's scouting path, and furthermore, the vulnerablity of the build order picked - than it is one of mechanics. Furthermore, most lucky build orders require, as you said, the execution of an intense micro victory. MBS will only have an effect on early game scenarios if both players are extremely bad, in which case they are not worth discussing - anyone decent can handle macroing off 3 gates in SBS without much difficulty. It's not like they're implementing some sort of autobuild.
Now if, you want to talk about late game, yes, MBS will have an effect on late game strategies because, in a theoretical version of Starcraft 1 with MBS and Smartcasting, it's pretty reasonable to believe mass ghosts and other micro intensive strategies would become viable. There's no luck in late game strategy, you either scout it or you get caught with your pants down. Its your own fault if you're unprepared for a tech switch.
On November 15 2007 09:42 Zanno wrote: Your comment is absolutely invalid because all the "BO luck" occurs in the early game, where the effects of MBS will be absolutely minimal. Build order luck is more of a map dependent issue - length between the other 1-3 potential mains, scouting in the right direction, whether or not there are substantial blind spots in the worker's scouting path, and furthermore, the vulnerablity of the build order picked - than it is one of mechanics. Furthermore, most lucky build orders require, as you said, the execution of an intense micro victory. MBS will only have an effect on early game scenarios if both players are extremely bad, in which case they are not worth discussing - anyone decent can handle macroing off 3 gates in SBS without much difficulty. It's not like they're implementing some sort of autobuild.
Now if, you want to talk about late game, yes, MBS will have an effect on late game strategies because, in a theoretical version of Starcraft 1 with MBS and Smartcasting, it's pretty reasonable to believe mass ghosts and other micro intensive strategies would become viable. There's no luck in late game strategy, you either scout it or you get caught with your pants down. Its your own fault if you're unprepared for a tech switch.
right now all we have is BO luck because, after risky cheese builds, there is only a small range of strategies that are viable. the point was that if MBS allows more strategic diversity, as mbs proponents claim it will, it will increase that element of luck beyond just risky build orders. a limited range of strategies increases the skill necessary to play because you can learn to read situations and have a good idea what your opponent intends to do and then counter it accordingly. however if there are a whole bunch of different possibilities it becomes much more reliant on luck, which is a bad thing. so really you could even make the argument that mbs decreases the skill-based strategical aspect, as in choosing the best possible strategy depending on what you know from the game, and makes it mostly a strategy guessing game.
On November 15 2007 07:29 Aphelion wrote: But once enough is known about the game, strategy will change much much more slowly, and people will naturally adopt what is optimal.
True, but I think some of BW's units and abilities could have been more worth their costs in terms minerals, gas, time and micro. (The Scout is a perfect example of this. Also ZvZ sucks in terms of versatile unit strategies.) While basic strategies are inevitable, particularly at the pro level, it never hurts to have the option to mix up those strategies from time to time. (Say if a Protoss player wanted to use Disruption Web to protect Dragoons from Siege Tanks, that would be more viable with a slightly lower energy cost.)
Also, I hate the idea of a completely rock/paper/scissors StarCraft (it's good to have units that can at least become versatile when micro'ed well) but I doubt that would make the game luck based. Scouting would become more important and the optimal strategies that Aphelion described would simply build armies that incorporate every type of unit by default (rather boring if you ask me).
Though I should clarify that last paragraph by saying that a rock/paper/scissors style balance is good if it can enhance strategic map control. In other words, when all the specialized and easy-to-counter units move around the map slowly (in comparison to faster, more-versatile units), and are more offensively oriented in their use, rock/paper/scissors can be very fun. (Unfortunately, I doubt Blizzard is keeping this in mind.)
Anyways, for those of you who enjoy SBS oriented gameplay to a high degree, I have a question: would that be because of its repetitive/predictable nature?
My favorite aspect of SBS is how it offers interesting choices in terms of what a player has time to focus on (either his army or the underlying choices that support his army). After that, I like how SBS introduces a high difficulty depth to the gameplay (by multiplying the number of simultaneously important actions). I also like how SBS helps keep the game more map specific in terms of unit production. All of these bonuses are definitely worth having a temporarily confused newbie. But, other than all of that, I think the depth provided by SBS could be replaced by something less repetitive and more strategic (StarCraft is a strategy game after all). Call me crazy.
It's sad to read that a good player like Idra thinks like that about the game. As if a RTS would only require players using standard strategy vs. standard strategy. As if skill was all about the execution, nothing else.
And "strategy guessing game"? wtf? Ever heard of scouting? Having more viable strategies is a good thing, I don't see why it should be any different. Compare PvZ to ZvZ in SC1 and you know that most, if not all, players enjoy matchups in which you have many different options the most. And having MBS will, at least theoretically, bring us a step forward to that goal. Units that are relatively weak and specialized are more likely to be used when the players don't have to dedicate so much time and effort to their standard army.
It's mostly speculation, yes, because we don't yet have a good MBS RTS to compare SC2 to (WC3 in some aspects, but on the whole it's way too different from SC, and other RTS are either imbalanced or too unpopular to know them inside-out). On the other hand, SC1 is also the only good SBS RTS there is. If there is one game that can improve what we like about SC1, it's SC2, and nothing else.
did i say there could only be one strategy? i said it was best if there was a very limited number of viable strategies. when your opponent could be doing almost anything it becomes very difficult to read the game and react accordingly, because certain situations could indicate multiple different strategies. for instance, before bisu toss players bitched that pvz was imbalanced because most of the time it was hard to figure out what tech z was going since standard 3 hat opening could branch into 3-4 solid builds, and your scout probe would die to lings before you could see what. introducing too much strategic diversity would be like this except on a much larger scale. whats best is if there are a reasonably limited number(>1) of viable strategies, that way you still have the strategic component to the game, but it is indeed a skill. intuition + knowledge + scouting ability allow you to figure out whats going on and you dont need to guess or get lucky because there are so many options its impractical to narrow it down in time.
and bisu changed that by making fe->sair commonplace, however to have that same solution for all of sc2 every race would have to have some way of constant, hard to prevent reconnaissance so they would have adequate scouting information. and that would be going too far the other way, there would be no skill left in it because everything would be right in front of you. the best way to maintain a balance is to have what sc has.
Ugh, I was gonna send him a warning but then I realized 2 things: 1) He's a new user so he can't make new threads. 2) What would I do if I found a SC2 video with a release date in it (even if this one is probably a fake)? I'd try to post it somewhere for others to see!
On November 15 2007 15:02 mensrea wrote: (Is it just me or is FA like really, really reasonable. I mean, really, really. God bless him. I may have found a template for my redemption.)
Hahaha... we have ourselves a new Eri. Maybe it's a Scandinavian thing?
I'm not really sure about this but by watching FPvods of pros it's pretty clear that even with SBS they rarely look back at their base for more than 1-2 seconds during the fight and even then they know perfectly well what their units will do during this time, what is going to happen to them etc. so basically MBS will have almost no impact on them while it's going to have huge impact on moderate gamer level. Main difference will be that pros will require ~200-250 apm instead of 300-400 to play at the same level they do now. What's wrong with that?
On November 16 2007 05:09 Manit0u wrote: Main difference will be that pros will require ~200-250 apm instead of 300-400 to play at the same level they do now. What's wrong with that?
If someone with 400 APM does not have any advantage over someone with 250 APM, to me that's a problem. That kind of sounds like what your saying, unless I'm misunderstanding in which case I apologize.
I said that they could do the same things they do now with less apm but since they have much much more they'll be able to do much much more, no? Like fighting a big battle, making new units, building 2 expansions and sending 3 drops on enemy expansions at the same time. Wicked sick
On November 16 2007 09:36 Manit0u wrote: I said that they could do the same things they do now with less apm but since they have much much more they'll be able to do much much more, no? Like fighting a big battle, making new units, building 2 expansions and sending 3 drops on enemy expansions at the same time. Wicked sick
please stop arguing until you realize that progamers are already quite capable of doing all of that very quickly right now, without mbs.
I think a really interesting question concerning MBS is how it will effekt the diversity of playing styles on a high level. I think it will create a proscene where every pro can manage to macro equally good and where the micro and some strategical gamethinking will determen the best player. This is ONE dimension less than before and therefore less diversity. Some say that blizzard will make up for the loss of macro in the base production area with something else, if so with what?
Forcing players in one direction ie taking away a macro element and forcing fokus on micro does not help the game become more fun and diverged.
On November 15 2007 11:46 IdrA wrote: did i say there could only be one strategy? i said it was best if there was a very limited number of viable strategies. when your opponent could be doing almost anything it becomes very difficult to read the game and react accordingly, because certain situations could indicate multiple different strategies.
for instance, before bisu toss players bitched that pvz was imbalanced because most of the time it was hard to figure out what tech z was going since standard 3 hat opening could branch into 3-4 solid builds, and your scout probe would die to lings before you could see what.
introducing too much strategic diversity would be like this except on a much larger scale. whats best is if there are a reasonably limited number(>1) of viable strategies, that way you still have the strategic component to the game, but it is indeed a skill. intuition + knowledge + scouting ability allow you to figure out whats going on and you dont need to guess or get lucky because there are so many options its impractical to narrow it down in time.
and bisu changed that by making fe->sair commonplace, however to have that same solution for all of sc2 every race would have to have some way of constant, hard to prevent reconnaissance so they would have adequate scouting information. and that would be going too far the other way, there would be no skill left in it because everything would be right in front of you. the best way to maintain a balance is to have what sc has.
That simply would make proper scouting more important. Like you mentioned, in SC1 there are sometimes situations when you simply can't scout what your opponent is doing, but instead you have to rely on intuition and probability ("when is he going to attack? what might he possibly do? how many units does he have at his choke right now and how many gates/rax does that translate to?" are the typical questions you ask yourself in these situations). This means we have a slight element of strategy guessing already in SC1. But that's nothing you can't deal with if the game is balanced. Intuition and a sense of timing also plays a big role here, something which you can only learn after time.
While it is true that PvZ was considered imbalanced not long ago, P players have always had the option to build 1 (just 1) corsair simply for scouting purposes (and a little bit of overlord harassing of course). But this wasn't so popular. 2 gate zealot pressure builds were more popular, but then P had the problem of not being able to really find out what Z was going to do (lurk, muta, mass ling, hydra... ?). It was a problem of the common play style of the players, not a general problem of the matchup. If your opponent can do several strategies you simply must find out what it (likely) is going to be.
If 1 cheap worker isn't able to scout everything you need to know, then you must use a flying unit or scan or whatever to find out what he's up to, otherwise you might be at a disadvantage. (Or you try to force your opponent into one strategy (e.g. the "Bisu build" guarantees that the Z starts with either mass hydra or muta/scourge)). Scouting sometimes involves making a little sacrifice to gather information (e.g. sacrifice an overlord to scout the main - already a common thing). Your opponent might need to do the same, so it's balanced. There's no need to make scouting "really easy" (would be like a maphack, no?) as long as it is possible to gather enough information early on. Want early information with "no" sacrifice? -> use 1 worker. Want later information with "no" sacrifice? -> may not be possible, but make a small sacrifice and you'll know. IMHO, it's simply a matter of game balance, and how risky you want to play, and not a general problem with having multiple strategical choices.
On November 16 2007 10:07 SayTT wrote: I think a really interesting question concerning MBS is how it will effekt the diversity of playing styles on a high level. I think it will create a proscene where every pro can manage to macro equally good and where the micro and some strategical gamethinking will determen the best player. This is ONE dimension less than before and therefore less diversity. Some say that blizzard will make up for the loss of macro in the base production area with something else, if so with what?
Forcing players in one direction ie taking away a macro element and forcing fokus on micro does not help the game become more fun and diverged.
Now how I see it is that some pros macro better isn't because they're faster or something, it's because they have better timings/resource management. Unless you want to tell me that there are pros who struggle a lot with "go back to base to build more units" because I find it hard to believe. MBS doesn't really change much for them because they have MBS built-in, it's like a habit or natural reaction, nothing special. To put it simple: In my opinion MBS is going to affect the average players only. It's influence on pros will be insignificant and noobs won't be able to handle it anyway. And I believe that when players will get better and better they will shift more towards selecting fewer buildings/units at a time. It all depends on how all the races are going to build their units, while it's not really needed for T the thing looks a lot different for P (imagine those upgraded warpgates with SBS: go back to base, select building, build unit, go back to where you wanted it, click on the ground, repeat).
And seriously, RTS games shouldn't really be very physically demanding, mentally - yes, more than any other perhaps, but not physically, you ought to be a leader, not cannon fodder in this type of games after all. Physical demands are good for games like Dance Dance Revolution etc.
EPT
