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On November 20 2007 03:51 stk01001 wrote:If being able to teach your hand to move extemely quickly over a keyboard and being able to consistentley hit the proper keys time after time isn't a skill... then what is it? So the guy in the guiness book of world records for being able to type 180 words a minute doesn't have a skill?
What I wanted to say is that handspeed is purely mechanical thing that most people can achieve with time, hell I bet most people here can get 500apm by just clicking randomly etc. Skill comes in where you know what you're doing with those clicks, where it has some desirable effect - it's fast thinking and overall mental abilities that derriviate pros from noobs most of the time, not their handspeed which is really a small factor in RTSs'. 200 of which 150 are well made actions are worth a lot more than 400 of which 200-250 are just spam.
Edit: And I wouldn't quote Guiness records since they're irrevelant to the skill discussion - is the tallest/shortest person in the world "skilled" in that? Guiness records are just trivia, sometimes funny but most of the time just pure bullshit that most people don't give a shit about.
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On November 20 2007 18:44 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2007 03:51 stk01001 wrote:On November 20 2007 03:33 Manit0u wrote: Handspeed =/= skill If being able to teach your hand to move extemely quickly over a keyboard and being able to consistentley hit the proper keys time after time isn't a skill... then what is it? So the guy in the guiness book of world records for being able to type 180 words a minute doesn't have a skill? What I wanted to say is that handspeed is purely mechanical thing that most people can achieve with time, hell I bet most people here can get 500apm by just clicking randomly etc. Skill comes in where you know what you're doing with those clicks, where it has some desirable effect - it's fast thinking and overall mental abilities that derriviate pros from noobs most of the time, not their handspeed which is really a small factor in RTSs'. 200 of which 150 are well made actions are worth a lot more than 400 of which 200-250 are just spam. Edit: And I wouldn't quote Guiness records since they're irrevelant to the skill discussion - is the tallest/shortest person in the world "skilled" in that? Guiness records are just trivia, sometimes funny but most of the time just pure bullshit that most people don't give a shit about.
Pro's with an APM of 300-400 don't spam, their actions are all useful. They are really so much more active then amateurs. Hard to believe? It is reality. Watch progaming FPVods, after the first 5 minutes you won't find them spamming anymore but they still keep their 300-400 APM. They almost never idle, only when they have to think about something really hard. Some pro's have only 200-250 APM but - and now listen well - this is above average and proves a lot of handspeed/activity. These days the average APM for a progamer is 250-350. I'd also like to talk about EAPM but most people don't understand how much more the EAPM can tell about someone's handspeed/activity.
You say handspeed can be achieved over time by anyone. This counts for strategical knowledge, too. We may have an endless talk about what takes more skill but the truth is - guess what - handspeed and strategy are equally neccessary in SC. Do you really believe that SC2 will attract the same amount of people if blizzard cuts the handspeed needed in two? I don't.
PS: Guiness records are probably the best thing about the human race. You're ignorant.
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On November 21 2007 01:09 ForAdun wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2007 18:44 Manit0u wrote:On November 20 2007 03:51 stk01001 wrote:On November 20 2007 03:33 Manit0u wrote: Handspeed =/= skill If being able to teach your hand to move extemely quickly over a keyboard and being able to consistentley hit the proper keys time after time isn't a skill... then what is it? So the guy in the guiness book of world records for being able to type 180 words a minute doesn't have a skill? What I wanted to say is that handspeed is purely mechanical thing that most people can achieve with time, hell I bet most people here can get 500apm by just clicking randomly etc. Skill comes in where you know what you're doing with those clicks, where it has some desirable effect - it's fast thinking and overall mental abilities that derriviate pros from noobs most of the time, not their handspeed which is really a small factor in RTSs'. 200 of which 150 are well made actions are worth a lot more than 400 of which 200-250 are just spam. Edit: And I wouldn't quote Guiness records since they're irrevelant to the skill discussion - is the tallest/shortest person in the world "skilled" in that? Guiness records are just trivia, sometimes funny but most of the time just pure bullshit that most people don't give a shit about. Pro's with an APM of 300-400 don't spam, their actions are all useful. They are really so much more active then amateurs. Hard to believe? It is reality. Watch progaming FPVods, after the first 5 minutes you won't find them spamming anymore but they still keep their 300-400 APM. They almost never idle, only when they have to think about something really hard. Some pro's have only 200-250 APM but - and now listen well - this is above average and proves a lot of handspeed/activity. These days the average APM for a progamer is 250-350. I'd also like to talk about EAPM but most people don't understand how much more the EAPM can tell about someone's handspeed/activity. You say handspeed can be achieved over time by anyone. This counts for strategical knowledge, too. We may have an endless talk about what takes more skill but the truth is - guess what - handspeed and strategy are equally neccessary in SC. Do you really believe that SC2 will attract the same amount of people if blizzard cuts the handspeed needed in two? I don't. PS: Guiness records are probably the best thing about the human race. You're ignorant.
Thanks.. pretty much covered my response. Manit0u, the point stands that we are discussing BW... and when discussing hand speed in that context, it is obviously not referring to spam. We all know anyone can just spam 500 APM, that's not the point.
And no, the tallest guy in the guiness book does not have a skill, that is something he can't control. The guy who types really fast had to teach himself to do that. There's a difference, it's a bad comparison.
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United States22883 Posts
On November 17 2007 10:49 teamsolid wrote: Beautiful post Tasteless, thanks for writing it. Although, I don\'t agree with some of the logic. What about CS or any other FPS? All of them are incredibly easy to get into and play. You just point and shoot. What about Kart Rider, the 2nd most popular televised game in Korea? You just drive. I think it\'s mainly the competitive human nature that drives the skill level of those games to such heights. In all games, CS, Kart Rider and SC, you get absolutely destroyed when you first step into a competitive environment. It may be easier to do well on a pub in CS if you have naturally good aim, but you still have no place in competition without lots of experience. Coming from a CAL-i CS background, the high skill ceiling Tasteless talks about is really what has drawn me in to becoming a SC fan, even though I hadn't touched the game in over 6 years until this past summer. Human nature alone isn't enough to make a game a great esport nor is a high skill ceiling (as we can see from the success of CS vs. dueling FPS games.) It's a combination of many things and I don't think any has done it better than SC.
It's difficult to explain why the heavy influence on macro is so appealing to me. I suspect part of it is that it challenges us to think differently and plan ahead for the future instead of focusing solely on the "now" and probably also because it allows for complete dominance if one side isn't properly trained. I don't think we'd see a Sauron Zerg type destruction happen between a WC3 pro and semi-pro, yet we saw it between two SC pros.
In terms of sport, I think a balance needs to be struck between overly intensive and too laid back. Golf is an excellent example of where poor course conditions can make it too difficult and can bog down the fan's experience, but we also don't want to see multiple players -20 on the final day of a tournament. Competitively, SC struck that balance without auto-mining and MBS and Blizzard shouldn't consider changing what worked just for the sake of "updating the UI" unless they can make a legitimate case that the balance will be restored. So far, there's practically zero indication of that happening.
It really comes down to whether Blizzard wants to appeal to hardcore competitors or not. I've probably spent over half an hour restarting games over and over again just practicing the initial mineral cloning and first drone production/OL scout so that for at least the first 30-45 seconds of a match I can be as perfect as a pro, and I'm not yet. To a lot of people that seems like insanity, but to me practicing and improving is awesome, and I want to dominate the player who just clumps all 4 workers on 1 stack. Given that units die so quickly in SC compared to WC3, my added skill in micro generally isn't enough to make that happen.
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On November 21 2007 01:09 ForAdun wrote:
Do you really believe that SC2 will attract the same amount of people if blizzard cuts the handspeed needed in two? I don't.
I do. But including MBS is not going to cut the handspeed needed in two in any way. Average APM of a WC3 progamer is 200-300 too and they don't macro so much, in SC2 you will land somewhere in between SC and WC3 with your APM distribution (micro/macro) so I don't believe that handspeed requirement will change all that much.
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if you dont think the handspeed requirement will change, where are the actions gonna come from? the reason wc3 apm stays up is because its much more micro intensive. one of the defining features of the starcraft line is the balance between micro and macro, making sc2 micro intensive like wc3 to make up for the lost speed would kinda destroy that.
even if mbs really wouldnt dumb the game down, its almost guaranteed to make it more one dimensional unless you can come up with another time consuming, macro related task. and if you do that it defeats the purpose of removing manual macro.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On November 27 2007 04:02 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2007 01:09 ForAdun wrote:
Do you really believe that SC2 will attract the same amount of people if blizzard cuts the handspeed needed in two? I don't.
I do. But including MBS is not going to cut the handspeed needed in two in any way. Average APM of a WC3 progamer is 200-300 too and they don't macro so much, in SC2 you will land somewhere in between SC and WC3 with your APM distribution (micro/macro) so I don't believe that handspeed requirement will change all that much.
the more i read your posts the more i question how much you understand this game. It's not the fact the APM numbers are the same, it's the origins of the APM that matter. War3 APM is almost entirely devoted to unit micro where Starcrafts apm is split between micro and macro with a bit more emphasis on macro. So if you have a war3 player with 300 apm and an SC player with 300 apm it dosn't mean the problem is solved by any means. The Starcraft players attention is split between more tasks via the keyboard and the mouse thus making it more challenging.
I've spoken with SO many war3 pro gamers who admit they only need to practice an hour or two a day to stay in shape, others admit they practice even less than that. Have you ever seen the hands of a war3 progamer? It hugs the left side of the keyboard with the thumb curled under the hand to tap the alt key repeatedly in a battle. they need to bind fewer hotkeys on the keyboard and their hand generally remains stationary in this position. It's the mouse spamming move and as they micro units around in combination with the attack button and ocassionally using items that buys up all of their APM time. I've stood behind SC progamers when they play and it is an incredible feat to see the speed as they glide across the keyboard macoring AND microing which they play.... doing much more than microing units. With MBS automining and other features all i can see is a much slower less impressive version of SC.
I, of course, am all for beta testing this before final conclusions are made, but after playing it at blizzcon i can say, in my own experience, that these features have a high chance of hurting the sport factor of SC2 and pissing off the competitive SC scene greatly.
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On November 27 2007 05:53 MyLostTemple wrote:
I, of course, am all for beta testing this before final conclusions are made, but after playing it at blizzcon i can say, in my own experience, that these features have a high chance of hurting the sport factor of SC2 and pissing off the competitive SC scene greatly.
Thank you! If only the rest had the same opinion.
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I agree with tasteless. It's pretty obvious that the competitive scene for SC 2 is going to be severly damaged with the implementation of MBS, AS IT STANDS NOW. WC3 has already proven this for the most part I feel. (again, refer to tasteless' above comments about talking to progamers).
However, I am still hopeful that the game can be saved during beta testing (maybe before?). What blizzard needs to do is beta test SC2 with as many people as possible, with a concentration in korea. (maybe hire some progamers?) Still... it will take a long time..
I am not saying they are going to discover some miracle solution to this problem during beta, i'm just saying that it's possible developments will be made and the SC2 pro scene can be salvaged. I'm very, very hopeful SC2 is going to be a great game, and I feel Blizzard WANTS it to succeed. I'm just very nervous about this whole thing....
The way I see it... if the SC2 pro scene is a bust (god forbid), at least lessons will be learned and we can always go back to SC1. I have a feeling no game will ever be able to replace SC.. but I'm definately willing to give SC 2 a HUGE chance.
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I haven't read much of this thread, but thought I'd just throw in my thoughts:
MBS is good or bad depending on the way you look at it. Most non-koreans who just like to play a game for fun will often complain that starcraft is way too fast pace and requires a twitch to keep up. The New era of gamers like to lean back and play with a cigarette or coke in one hand. (Really) Think of all the people that played Starcraft when it first came out. The age majortiy of these people is probably 23++ by now. There for the twitch is slowly fading.
Blizzard knows that every Korean will play their game until they die of old age and thats a fact. But Blizzard is really smart that way. They are catering to the North American/Europeon Market where the majority of players would rather have MBS over not having it so that they can play a more relaxed game and not get frusterated as easy. Also they can maybe compete with the Koreans and top foreign players. So in a marketing sense I think its awesome for Blizzard.
If Blizzard really appreciates their hard core community one idea they could use is to have a game filter system that can turn MBS off for tournament/ladder type game settings thus making both the hard core and casual crowds happy. Thoughts? Has anyone posted something like this yet? sorry long thread im lazy : )
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Valhalla18444 Posts
the problem, korn, is that they've said they're building an esport. they've stated that as their goal with sc2 and MBS is detrimental to that development
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On November 21 2007 01:09 ForAdun wrote: You say handspeed can be achieved over time by anyone. This counts for strategical knowledge, too. We may have an endless talk about what takes more skill but the truth is - guess what - handspeed and strategy are equally neccessary in SC. Do you really believe that SC2 will attract the same amount of people if blizzard cuts the handspeed needed in two? I don't.. well i agree, but by putting mbs into starcraft 2, it is only suspicious/paranoid or stupid people that would think that would make such a result. think about some of the stuff we've seen so far...do you realize how slow warcraft3 is compared to starcraft? but starcraft 2 will likely be fast. if a bunch of starcraft 2 units have skills that you need to use properly, there is going to be a lot of micro to handle... multiple building selection is just a small piece of the puzzle, and we even yet only see a fragment of starcraft 2. ok, here's what i really mean. in starcraft 2. it looks like every race will have a much better swarming potential, that is, to be able to attack from here, there, almost anywhere. we got troops that jump over cliffs, we got protoss units teleporting wherever you send your flying prism...zerg units that are capable of who knows what to get to where they want to go to...and if you are able to build units very fast with MBS, you will have such a huge army and so many possibilities for battle that a slow player will be utterly overwhelmed. but watch a pro player, he's going to send several large attack groups and be able to micro them very effectively all while macroing...and his pro counterpart the same. with MBS, you won't be as likely to feel let down seeing a pro slacking off here or there because he couldn't keep up with the game. true, MBS will free up a lot of useless actions. and that is the point. to focus on what's more important. honestly, i don't believe blizzard realized that players would be able to macro as well as these pros have. and that surprised them. and blizzard wants them to be able to macro awesomely AND to still have plenty of time for micro. i don't see one thing wrong with that. it's not as if 1 player will get to have MBS and the other player won't get to have it...i just think that people that don't like the idea of MBS are still living in starcraft. of couse blizzard isn't going to release a patch for starcraft to allow MBS. that's just absurd. but Starcraft 2 will be a new game, and it will fit. think about it. new mineral patches yielded greater mineral harvesting? MBS and very high unit selection? sounds like you will have way more units to handle, and honestly...
look at all the super high apm pros. what are most of their actions? move. they're moving their units all over the map. when they can build those units even faster, with less actions, don't you think move is going to dwarf their actions even more? makes perfect sense. and if that's where they're spending all their apm on...isn't that going to make them even BETTER players than the slower players? yes, obviously the slower players will have some of their apm freed up so that they can move more too...but they're both going to have so many units that the faster player will still have that fast handmovement advantage. he won't lose that. blizzard won't be taking away the advantage of the higher skilled players, but it will be helping out both levels of players. that is my perspective. and i'm certain that's what blizzard is aiming for, so if you don't trust them, that's fine. pff, i wouldn't blame any of you for being paranoid about it. but i mean, i just hope you guys got real lives in case the game does flop for you, know what i mean? i just don't understand how this topic could have gone 16 pages... i mean it's like the starcraft community is in an uproar over circumcission, or however that's spelled.
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Have you ever seen the hands of a war3 progamer? It hugs the left side of the keyboard with the thumb curled under the hand to tap the alt key repeatedly in a battle. they need to bind fewer hotkeys on the keyboard and their hand generally remains stationary in this position. It's the mouse spamming move and as they micro units around in combination with the attack button and ocassionally using items that buys up all of their APM time.
Yes, I have seen them. And it's not because they don't have to do so much with the keyboard, they still need it to use skills/spells etc. The factor here is custom hotkeys. In SC progamers don't change the hotkeys which are spread all over the keyboard (especially for protoss) while in WC3 most pros just set all the hotkeys to qwerasdfzxcv so they don't need to move their hand so much.
Keyboard usage in SC (simple example): 1a2a3a4a5z6z7z8z9z0z
Keyboard usage in WC3: 1ztabztabz2ccc3w4(or tab)w - put in some random alt keys there too...
And what I was trying to tell earlier is: Micro: WC3>SC2>SC Macro: WC3<SC2<SC
But it's all just theorycrafting before we can all play the game, isn't it?
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United States22883 Posts
On November 27 2007 14:35 BC.KoRn wrote: Most non-koreans who just like to play a game for fun will often complain that starcraft is way too fast pace and requires a twitch to keep up. The New era of gamers like to lean back and play with a cigarette or coke in one hand. (Really) Think of all the people that played Starcraft when it first came out. The age majortiy of these people is probably 23++ by now. There for the twitch is slowly fading.
That's not necessarily true though. Yes, if you take a BGH player against an iCCup player the game will seem too fast, but if you're playing someone with the same skill level it's not so difficult. The only time macro becomes an issue is when one player has it and the other player doesn't, and the majority of people who buy SC2 won't have it, so it's hardly an issue if they're ranked properly. If a bad CS player joins a decent pub and gets reamed over and over, of course they're going to get frustrated and probably give up, but it doesn't mean the skill ceiling needs to be lowered to give that player a good time. It just means they need to find a new server where they can be more competitive.
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CS does not require as much skill as Quake(for example), it's much slower paced, it is like an MBS RTS and it still has much better competitive enviroment with high differentiation in skill levels, so how can a much less skill requiring game than Quake have it better? It's because there is still an unachievable perfect play and higher accessability makes it much more popular and entertaining. The latter is actually the most important factor, because if a game is very boring, no matter how infinitely high the skill cap is, people won't play it and won't watch it.
To play SC perfectly you'll need much much higher than achievable by human speed, even if you make it easier, it will still be unachievable, but it will definitely help accessability and make it more entertaining.
What's going to replace macro... lets see, after you train hard and your apm rises by 50, do you ask what's going to replace macro for you and want it rebalanced for you, because you now devote 0.3 seconds less every minute to macro?! The time fast players spend queueing units is quite small actually and MBS is not gonna cut off more than 1-2 seconds per minute game time, not to mention Savior use 8 hotkeys for hatcheries, so he can macro extremely fast and the most effect it will have for him is freeing up hotkeys, and not the time devoted to macro or the need to shift concentration on macroing during combat. Combined with the fact that you'll have to queue units more often(the build times of units have been reduced by 15% to 25% in SC2), the players will need to shift their attention to macroing more often(which is actually the hard part in macro, timing it properly and remembering to queue units in battle, so you could even say that macro will be harder) and the micro/macro time balance for very high level players will barely shift.
The macro won't be replaced, it's still there, it's just different -> less hotkeys needed, but more often and being scared of change and that you'll lose your "skill" is not a reason to screw up SC2 in accessability and entertainment value, while not helping competitiveness at all(and actually hurting it, because the other two are the reason a competitive scene forms in the first place), because with or without MBS, near perfect play is still unachieveable.
So if YOU just want the same game, guess what -> you already have it and they are not going to re-release it, so this is not an arguement at all and has nothing to do with SC2 or with the future competitive scene. Games should not be a repeat of what worked best before, because we'd be still playing Pong(or Dune 2 if you want to start with the first RTS) in it's 10000th re-release, which would be again in 2D with the very same gameplay... Games should be evolving!
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One idea I've been toying with in my head would be some sort of an efficiency modifier for buildings. Something akin to a button that would cause units to be built in half the time for double the resource cost. That could potentially give macro a boost if it were balanced for usefulness and fun strategy. Though it is a very rough idea and might not be practical at all.
The primary macro idea I endorse involves a huge addition to StarCraft's interface (combined with a lack of smartcasting) as a way to reward macro players, but I don't know if anyone here would be interested in reading my idea. Also, I doubt Blizzard would implement it since it's complicated and they seem to like the idea of smartcasting too much. (I hate the idea of smartcasting myself. It's fucking boring.)
Either way, even if StarCraft 2 fails as an E-sport, it might be worth it if Blizzard can actually progress the RTS genre in new ways. Not to say that I see them doing that anywhere, yet, but I would like to see them try. If they can't give us anything good, however, then by all means they should keep SBS. I suppose the community will know more when beta testing begins.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
Too many people missing the big picture, i'll pull some stuff i said in a similar thread.
we must first evaluate what exactly makes warcraft 3 inherently different from starcraft. In war3 there is a specific burden placed upon the player: the creeping factor. A player who creeps faster and more efficiently is rewarded with high level heros and more items at their disposal. This forces the war3 player to enter an endless cycle where he creeps around the map while harassing his opponent who is creeping as well, eventually both players are forced to enter in an all out battle that can't be avoided and the player who creeped better won (unless of course the other player outmicros him.) This is not the how starcraft functions. The starcraft players burden is to acquire expos in specific locations while gather intelligence about his opponent. With that gathered intellegence he builds an army that will allow him to gain more expos while forcing his opponent to have less.
Why does this distinction mater? Because starcraft players aren't microing endlessly, they're spending a large portion of their time micromanaging their base or in other words macroing. There will be a point in time, probably between 6 months to two years after SC2's release, when the basic openings of this game will be figured out. I'm not saying EVERYTHING will be figured out, but there will be a general concept of how to open with each race, what to do, what not to do. With that in mind players will know when they should attack and when they shouldn't.
Think of TvP, most terran players know they can rush early on, but after that they know to sit back and mass up for the inevitable terran push, mean while protoss knows that unless they do some type of harassment they will probably have to sit back and start taking more expos and massing up gates while thinking about arbiters or carriers. Moments like this call for incredible concentration for both players, they must participate in every action that occurs in their base in order to ensure they will be in good standing for the next big battle or fight over an expansion. If MBS, automining and other features are in place here, the game will be unbearably easy. In other words two very good players will end up macroing perfectly. That REALLY matters on the competitive level.
Obviously SC2 will be a new game, but the same logic applies, good players will figure out how to be safe while getting expos early on. Once they get those expos up the whole macro process will be easy as ever. It will only boil down to those few battles that will occur, and smart players will pick those battles wisely as they do in SC. And thus the skill celling lowers and the floor rasies.
Do you realize how easy it will be to copy a replay with features like MBS and automining? Everyone knows how strong a zergling (with upgrades) lurker opening that techs to scourge and eventually to ultras with defilers are. Yet only a very small group of people can execute them perfectly like Mondragon.
It's the execution factor that makes SC fucking awesome, the fact that these progamers can actually DO what they're doing. Macro is a game inside of a game that's called Starcraft. It's a game that i personally find fun, but more importantly it keeps the game competitive. Some people are good at micro but bad at everything else, some are good at strategy and macro but when they get into a battle screw everything up and lose. This is what makes the game incredible, that there are so many features to utilize.
keep in mind there is a 10 year old army of gamers (Korea too) who have played starcraft competitively at one point in time or another, and after playing it myself i wonder if they will be throughly disappointed in what SC2 has become.
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Calgary25950 Posts
I'm starting to sway to the pro MBS side, for the simple reason that Warcraft 3 didn't really have base harassment. The units have so much life and heros can teleport home. I'd imagine if macro is replaced by harassment, you could effectively split your troops three ways and be microing many small, harassing battles at once.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On November 28 2007 05:50 Chill wrote: I'm starting to sway to the pro MBS side, for the simple reason that Warcraft 3 didn't really have base harassment. The units have so much life and heros can teleport home. I'd imagine if macro is replaced by harassment, you could effectively split your troops three ways and be microing many small, harassing battles at once.
dunno how easy it will be to harass workers and such since you can move them all at once with the 150 selection cap. you have to move three or four groups while a storm drop comes in on the original SC. Plus It'll be even easier to prevent harassment since you can be twice as vigilant for them with MBS helping you out.
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If you watched some AoX replays you would see how easy it is to harrass workers and how hard to save them sometimes... Also getting 6 expansions while constantly fighting enemy is nice thing. And macro with MBS isn't as simple as it seem, during one replay I was amazed when I couldn't get my eyes off the pop count during the fights which went up and down like crazy (-> = 3 seconds span): 130 -> 80 -> 140 -> 90.
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