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I would define macro and micro as relative values.
Imagine StarCraft had no units that fought with each other, had no enemy bases to destroy, and was simply a race to see who could reach 200/200 supply and 2000 min/gas in the bank first. In that case, the winner of a game of StarCraft would be decided only by how well that player acquired resources, devised/executed a build order, made expansions, and trained units. And, basically, I would then argue that it is those actions which would comprised the actual "micro" of the game since they are the actual actions by which we end the game.
If we break down the actions performed in RTS games, we have a small number of starting actions based upon initial conditions. As those actions are performed, they open up new, specific actions that previously weren't available. As the game progresses, this highly-logical string of actions becomes longer and longer until we reach the point where we are performing the kinds of actions that directly connect with the fundamental goals of the game (in a way where there are no performable actions that would better interface with the final goal). These game-ending actions are what I would call the "micro."
In StarCraft, the highest stage of micro would be defined by the actions that directly damage your opponent's base structures as well as his ability to defend. These are the last actions to perform in a logical string of actions you can perform (or can have performed for you). Essentially, if you can destroy all your opponent's buildings you win. Somewhere behind that we'll find the actions that directly prevent him from damaging your defenses and your base structures. On and on it goes until we get all the way back to our beginning actions that are the most indirectly connected to our final goals.
You can think of macro and micro as an incline leading toward a flat top (like part of a mesa). The more macro we perform, the more actions we will be able to string out until we reach the actions that are micro. The whole time we're performing these actions, we will want to perform more macro which will then string out to even more micro.
Building an expansion in StarCraft is always macro since that doesn't directly translate to ending the game. For instance, you can build an expansion when your opponent is basically already dead and the resources you collect won't help you finish him off before he is finished off. Micro actions cannot lead to macro actions either. For instance, you can destroy an enemy expansion, and free up more resources for your economy to collect, but to the exact degree that destroying his expansion creates this situation for you, that is actually a more macro concern behind the act of damaging his structures.
While this does get confusing, the actions that directly damage your opponent's ability to defend and directly damaged his base are the dead-end actions of the game. Even if all you did was select your whole army and attack-moved them to a location on the mini-map, and relied upon individual unit AI to initiate attacks, those AI-initiated actions would be the end micro (the computer is simply helping you by performing those actions for you). Even when on defense and you micro your HT to cast Storm and kill a group of enemy units, you're still directly damaging your opponent's ability to defend with the kind of action that is the most fundamentally interfaced with that result, and, since that is one of your end goals, that is a greater form of micro in comparison to defense (which is a more macro action). So, at best, we can say that good micro opens up macro possibilities and will meet the concerns of macro actions, but cannot lead to macro actions since they actually lead to the dead end of a string instead.
Well, that's basically what I think anyways. Even if I'm wrong I still like my definition of macro/micro.
Now in terms of the MBS debate, it's very good to have a game with a huge number of macro actions that can be performed since that leads to a large number of micro actions, and a large number of interesting choices for player's to make in terms of deciding what actions will provide the best benefit in a given situation. SBS is good at providing this kind of good gameplay, and I must admit that I can see how it is fun in its own ways.
The reason I'm pro MBS is just the fact that I know other kinds of macro actions, such as large-scale army configurations/movements, and simultaneous battles, and map-location-specific unit production (like a proxie) would be far more interesting and fun than repetitiously selecting my buildings and hitting "p" over and over again. Unless MBS were first implemented, these kinds of macro actions are not as important and not really as available. The reason is because I'm pretty sure that SBS makes generic kinds of macro, which regard your army as a very singular object and your unit production as a giant mass to feed your singular army, faster and more powerful.
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On November 09 2007 22:05 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: But some restricitons add nothing to the game. If you give every player on a soccer field an additional 50 kg's of weigth the game would change but the idea of it would not change. The players would simply have to adapt to the weigth purely mechanically (by weigth training probably) and change their playstyle into something slower to compensate for the weigth. The ideas of the game has not changed, but the playstyle certainly has and brute strength counts for more.
Similarly, requiring players to click more could be an example of this. The question is if it would really be that negative since it actually speeds up the game and makes it more exciting. However it would still be preferble to do this in some other way.
However in starcraft it does not just require more mechanical speed. It DOES add an element. If you have to go to your base and spend 10 seconds getting your macro stuff done, the skill isnt how fast you can click those buildings, the skill is when do you go back to do it. Do you sacrifice microing a battle to go back to your base and macro? Do you attack or do you macro? Can you confidently go back to your base and macro, leaving another area of the map that needs your attention vacant?
This is the element that will be lost from starcraft if MBS is added. These dilemas which are constantly in the minds of players is what makes starcraft such a hectic and intense game. If your looking at the two analogies, MBS fits into the soccer players not being able to handle the ball. Its a limitation yes, but the limitation opens up a new area for players to show their skill, and new ways of handling problems. It adds Multitasking to the game, which is one of the gameplay factors that has made starcraft 1 as big as it is today.
EDIT: To Tiptup, interesting little read about macro and micro. However the general rule we go by to make understanding macro from micro goes like this.
If your using a unit apart from a drone. Its a micro action If your using a building or a drone, its a macro action. The only time this doesnt hold true is when your attacking with drones.
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On November 09 2007 22:24 Fen wrote: This is the element that will be lost from starcraft if MBS is added. These dilemas which are constantly in the minds of players is what makes starcraft such a hectic and intense game. If your looking at the two analogies, MBS fits into the soccer players not being able to handle the ball. Its a limitation yes, but the limitation opens up a new area for players to show their skill, and new ways of handling problems. It adds Multitasking to the game, which is one of the gameplay factors that has made starcraft 1 as big as it is today.
I completely agree with you. Micro, in terms of babysitting our individual units is very powerful in SC, and those powerful kinds of actions sit in a sort of balance with the three, primary, macro actions of building peons/units, setting rally points, and telling our peons to collect a resource all game long. I myself would definitely want that kind of balance to remain. It would be sad to see that disappear and the whole game be reduced to micro. Macro is an undeniably fun balance for micro. However, what if it were possible to introduce a kind of balancing macro that could focus more on large-scale strategy decisions. Such as trying to outflank your opponent with your entire army on the scale of the entire map itself?
If we had MBS in BW, the kind of macro I would prefer (like army configurations, army paths, multiple battles, large-scale flanking, proxies, smart tech-paths, and the like) would not be all that strong in comparison to individual unit micro, and we'd lose the macro/micro balance. But, if it were possible to strengthen those types of macro actions by having skill with them pay off in big ways, wouldn't it be worth it to weaken the bonuses that come from skillfully performing SBS and peon management?
Again, if Blizzard can't strengthen the kind of macro I'd like, then I believe they should carry SBS over into SC2, but I know the kind of game I'd aim for, and that game wouldn't need SBS. I have a large interface improvement I've been working on which would strengthen strategic macro, but its not quite finished yet. When it is I'll post it in a new thread and see what you guys think. At the very least, if my interface is deficient, the "fastest" game speed can be increased to insane levels.
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On November 09 2007 22:24 Fen wrote: This is the element that will be lost from starcraft if MBS is added. And i can say no, these elements wont be removed, however they will be changed so that you wont have to leave your army as often, you will still have to leave it quite a lot anyway for everything base related that doesn't get removed with mbs.
As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects.
So the analogy isn't crystal clear even if you dont want to see the flaws.
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The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan.
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A preface:
The reason I enjoy SC:BW is because of the strategic depth of the game. A player is required to make constant strategic and tactical decisions over the course of the game, and for a given level of ability, the player who makes the best decisions wins. So on some level, I'm in favor of anything that improves the number of decisions a player makes as well as the efficacy of those decisions (ie, how much those decisions affect the outcome of a game). Now, I don't want this to mean that proper strategic and tactical knowledge should completely swamp the effects of skill (ie, "dancing" your fingers across the keyboard, macroing building the appropriate units from 12 gates all in the space of 5 seconds), but I think the the strategy is the interesting part. I love watching innovative or unexpected things, and I'm of the opinion that they should be encouraged. Don't get me wrong, a good, old-fashioned goon vs. carrier fight is nice. But I'm much happier to see a Terran throw up 5 ports and lock down some observers.
So that's the perspective I'm going to be arguing from. If we disagree on what makes the game enjoyable to play and watch, it's likely we'll disagree on what will make SC2 good.
My point:
I'm pro-MBS. Other posters have mentioned that on some level, it's an arbitrary limitation on players executing the game. I agree with this. The interface is there so that players may input their decisions, imposing their will on their units. The well-designed interface makes this task fluid and simple. Restrictions like unit/building selection limits necessarily impede this task, all other things equal.
Now, the way I see it, the most important decision players make right now is how to allocate their time. Do they spend time microing their Ghost to go around locking down stuff? Do they micro their queens, spawning broodlings on all of those nasty temps? Nope, too time consuming for not enough reward. If they short-cut the time, their units die and they waste resources. If they spend the time, they don't have enough chance to macro properly and end up with 3K banked and 100 supply left.
Now, "APM" or "attention" (whatever you want to call it) is a scarce resource in the game. A player must allocate his time as effectively as he can to win. What SBS does is make it much, much costlier for a player to spend time microing those micro-intense units like Ghosts and Queens: microing that queen might net you a kill on the high temp and get your unit out alive, but in the time it took you to do that, maybe you could've had expanded and pumped out a bunch of ultra/lings.
All adding MBS does is lower the costs of microing such units dramatically. It makes it so that, instead of having to completely neglect his base, a player will be able to give the queen the necessary level of attention and only miss half a step in his macro rather than a full three steps. From what we've seen so far, SC2 is going to have more "micro-intensive" (the blink goons, stasis orbs, etc.) than BW did. This means that, for these units to be used effectively, players will need to spend more time microing them than they did on corresponding units in the original game. If they maintain SBS, what we'll see is these units being underused: using these units will be very costly because of macro players are forced to not do while microing. On the other hand, if we see MBS included, macro will become less expensive. Players will be able to not fall drastically behind because they were using their stalkers or reapers to the peak of their efficacy.
So what this all amounts to is giving players more latitude to use their skill in a way that executes their decisions better. Instead of taking 10s to execute the split-second decision to make lots and goons, it takes maybe 1s and lets you use those other 9 to harass flawlessly with your stalkers or set up some crazy illusion fake-out around an expansion sensor tower while you move your real army into position at the front of their main and a warp prism moves around to the back of their base to warp some units from your Warp Gate. Things that are conceptually possible now but impractical because of limitations on micro/macro time would become realistic if MBS were implemented.
Now, don't get me wrong, if you suddenly added MBS to BW, the game would become quite imbalanced. But on the other hand, if SC2 is designed properly, there will be a whole range from which players can choose to spend their time. I for one can't wait to see cloaked ghosts running in to snipe temps only to see the toss swing an observer into place when he sees the cloak distortion, micro his high temps back and blink some stalkers on top of the ghosts.
In summation:
By decreasing the cost (in time) of macro by adding MBS, we effectively encourage players to spend more time microing, allowing their split-second tactical decisions on the battlefield to have a greater impact on the game. It encourages players to harass, to perform simultaneous attacks on multiple locations, and allows them the necessary time to perform the clever, Boxer-like moves that make the game so interesting and enjoyable.
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On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them.
With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides.
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On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides.
I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate.
It would be in no way innapropriate to implement SBS in starcraft 2 for the sake of making the game require more multitasking. We've already seen that SBS can work in a competative game. As for MBS's effect on multitasking, it WILL have a huge effect. Its not the clicking, its the attention that someone has to place on another part of the map that makes SBS difficult. You have to control more things at once.
Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects.
These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it.
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Calgary25950 Posts
I'm MBS indifferent.
The thing about Brood War, is there are no barriers to entry; the game is intuitive. The skill ceiling is also remarkably high. This is the ideal game - minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.
MBS does make the game more accessible to new players. But it also lowers the skill ceiling.
The argument that it encourages more harassment and micromanagement is fine, but in Starcraft you can still play like that WHILE macroing. The point is, between micro, macro and "tactics" (ie. harassment, or even strategy or whatever you want to call overarching game plan) you often often have to sacrifice one even at the highest levels.
So what is going to replace that? I think the game is fine being reduced to simply micro and "tactics", but you must see that the skill ceiling is much lower.
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On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you.
With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof.
On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides. I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate. Its not dangerous for your health to have 20 kg of weights on you, instead its very good for your health and builds up your body. 20kg is a basic military outfit complete with an assault rifle and body armor.
No, the reason they dont put weights on people in soccer is beacuse it would slow down the game and the positives for the game of not requiring 20kg of weights on every player far outweights the negatives. In the same way a pro mbs person can say that reducing the amounths of apm required to macro by introducing mbs is equal to remove 20kg of weights on all football players, making it a lot more apealing for new players and can thus create a much larger fanbase than the old game. Ofcourse it would reduce some skill from high level play, but the success of a game comes from how big the active fanbase is and not the intricate high level play.
Also saying that mbs is like allowing soccer players to take the ball with their hands is quite off. Thats a total rule change, wich is more equal to the difference of normal maps and zero clutter maps. With mbs you still do exactly the same things, the same bos and the same strats, but a little easier, if you use hands in soccer it is a completely different game called team handball instead wich already is a succesfull game in the world.
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Calgary25950 Posts
On November 10 2007 01:21 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you. With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof. Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides. I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate. Its not dangerous for your health to have 20 kg of weights on you, instead its very good for your health and builds up your body. 20kg is a basic military outfit complete with an assault rifle and body armor. No, the reason they dont put weights on people in soccer is beacuse it would slow down the game and the positives for the game of not requiring 20kg of weights on every player far outweights the negatives. In the same way a pro mbs person can say that reducing the amounths of apm required to macro by introducing mbs is equal to remove 20kg of weights on all football players, making it a lot more apealing for new players and can thus create a much larger fanbase than the old game. Ofcourse it would reduce some skill from high level play, but the success of a game comes from how big the active fanbase is and not the intricate high level play. Also saying that mbs is like allowing soccer players to take the ball with their hands is quite off. Thats a total rule change, wich is more equal to the difference of normal maps and zero clutter maps. With mbs you still do exactly the same things, the same bos and the same strats, but a little easier, if you use hands in soccer it is a completely different game called team handball instead wich already is a succesfull game in the world.
Your analogy is wrong because you don't spend the entire game macroing. Macro isn't like having weights on you, it's like having weights on you for 1 miunte, every 5 minutes of a soccer game. This adds a strategic element, when do you wear these weights? "Oh shit, I haven't been wearing my weights for the past 4 minutes and here they come on an offensive rush, I can't stop it wearing weights but I'll be disqualified if I don't".
You can see this adds strategy to the game, and taking this out you still have a great game, but with less decision-making and less sacrifice of your time towards one action or the other.
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On November 10 2007 01:33 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 01:21 Klockan3 wrote:On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you. With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof. On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides. I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate. Its not dangerous for your health to have 20 kg of weights on you, instead its very good for your health and builds up your body. 20kg is a basic military outfit complete with an assault rifle and body armor. No, the reason they dont put weights on people in soccer is beacuse it would slow down the game and the positives for the game of not requiring 20kg of weights on every player far outweights the negatives. In the same way a pro mbs person can say that reducing the amounths of apm required to macro by introducing mbs is equal to remove 20kg of weights on all football players, making it a lot more apealing for new players and can thus create a much larger fanbase than the old game. Ofcourse it would reduce some skill from high level play, but the success of a game comes from how big the active fanbase is and not the intricate high level play. Also saying that mbs is like allowing soccer players to take the ball with their hands is quite off. Thats a total rule change, wich is more equal to the difference of normal maps and zero clutter maps. With mbs you still do exactly the same things, the same bos and the same strats, but a little easier, if you use hands in soccer it is a completely different game called team handball instead wich already is a succesfull game in the world. Your analogy is wrong because you don't spend the entire game macroing. Macro isn't like having weights on you, it's like having weights on you for 1 miunte, every 5 minutes of a soccer game. This adds a strategic element, when do you wear these weights? "Oh shit, I haven't been wearing my weights for the past 4 minutes and here they come on an offensive rush, I can't stop it wearing weights but I'll be disqualified if I don't". You can see this adds strategy to the game, and taking this out you still have a great game, but with less decision-making and less sacrifice of your time towards one action or the other. Yeah, no analogy is 100% correct, and i never said that mbs is just better than not mbs, i just explained that the persons who are pro mbs have a reason to it.
A lot of anti mbs just thinks that whoever is pro mbs is a selfcentered noob who only want the game to be easier for him to enjoy, wich isnt the case since there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off with mbs in it, just as well as there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off without mbs.
Anyone thinking that mbs or not is an easy question and that anyone not thinking like them are idiots havent understood anything. You can still support a side ofcourse, but denying that the opposite have any credibiliy is just dumb.
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Calgary25950 Posts
On November 10 2007 01:40 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 01:33 Chill wrote:On November 10 2007 01:21 Klockan3 wrote:On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you. With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof. On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides. I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate. Its not dangerous for your health to have 20 kg of weights on you, instead its very good for your health and builds up your body. 20kg is a basic military outfit complete with an assault rifle and body armor. No, the reason they dont put weights on people in soccer is beacuse it would slow down the game and the positives for the game of not requiring 20kg of weights on every player far outweights the negatives. In the same way a pro mbs person can say that reducing the amounths of apm required to macro by introducing mbs is equal to remove 20kg of weights on all football players, making it a lot more apealing for new players and can thus create a much larger fanbase than the old game. Ofcourse it would reduce some skill from high level play, but the success of a game comes from how big the active fanbase is and not the intricate high level play. Also saying that mbs is like allowing soccer players to take the ball with their hands is quite off. Thats a total rule change, wich is more equal to the difference of normal maps and zero clutter maps. With mbs you still do exactly the same things, the same bos and the same strats, but a little easier, if you use hands in soccer it is a completely different game called team handball instead wich already is a succesfull game in the world. Your analogy is wrong because you don't spend the entire game macroing. Macro isn't like having weights on you, it's like having weights on you for 1 miunte, every 5 minutes of a soccer game. This adds a strategic element, when do you wear these weights? "Oh shit, I haven't been wearing my weights for the past 4 minutes and here they come on an offensive rush, I can't stop it wearing weights but I'll be disqualified if I don't". You can see this adds strategy to the game, and taking this out you still have a great game, but with less decision-making and less sacrifice of your time towards one action or the other. Yeah, no analogy is 100% correct, and i never said that mbs is just better than not mbs, i just explained that the persons who are pro mbs have a reason to it. A lot of anti mbs just thinks that whoever is pro mbs is a selfcentered noob who only want the game to be easier for him to enjoy, wich isnt the case since there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off with mbs in it, just as well as there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off without mbs. Anyone thinking that mbs or not is an easy question and that anyone not thinking like them are idiots havent understood anything. You can still support a side ofcourse, but denying that the opposite have any credibiliy is just dumb.
I don't know how this applies to anything I said. I took your analogy (which was Pro-MBS) and reworked it so it was Anti-MBS. I'm not saying you have no credibility. In fact I don't even know where your comment is coming from. You derailed the analogy discussion and are now just attacking the Anti-MBS group as a whole. WTF?
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On November 10 2007 01:45 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 01:40 Klockan3 wrote:On November 10 2007 01:33 Chill wrote:On November 10 2007 01:21 Klockan3 wrote:On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you. With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof. On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:On November 10 2007 00:10 Klockan3 wrote:On November 09 2007 23:42 Fen wrote: The element that I am referring to is multitasking. If you read my post you will see this. You cannot argue that with MBS there will be more multitasking so that post is worthless Klockan. The argument is that multitasking wont be lost, not that there will be more than before. That fits very well into the weight analogy since the soccer players no longer needs to think so much about how they move since they can move along the field very easily without heavy weights, but thinking on how you move is still very important eventhough its not as important with the heavily restricted movement the weights give them. With this i dont say that the weight analogy is better, that would make me no better than you, instead i say that they don't matter since neighter analogy fits the perspective of both sides. I think that both analogies fit fine. Both display a situation where a competative medium would impose a restriction for the sake of making something harder. Yes a player would have to think a little bit more about his movements if he had weights, however it would be great for seperating people based on their fittness. The reason why we do not implement it in soccer however is because its dangerous for health and would be innappropriate. Its not dangerous for your health to have 20 kg of weights on you, instead its very good for your health and builds up your body. 20kg is a basic military outfit complete with an assault rifle and body armor. No, the reason they dont put weights on people in soccer is beacuse it would slow down the game and the positives for the game of not requiring 20kg of weights on every player far outweights the negatives. In the same way a pro mbs person can say that reducing the amounths of apm required to macro by introducing mbs is equal to remove 20kg of weights on all football players, making it a lot more apealing for new players and can thus create a much larger fanbase than the old game. Ofcourse it would reduce some skill from high level play, but the success of a game comes from how big the active fanbase is and not the intricate high level play. Also saying that mbs is like allowing soccer players to take the ball with their hands is quite off. Thats a total rule change, wich is more equal to the difference of normal maps and zero clutter maps. With mbs you still do exactly the same things, the same bos and the same strats, but a little easier, if you use hands in soccer it is a completely different game called team handball instead wich already is a succesfull game in the world. Your analogy is wrong because you don't spend the entire game macroing. Macro isn't like having weights on you, it's like having weights on you for 1 miunte, every 5 minutes of a soccer game. This adds a strategic element, when do you wear these weights? "Oh shit, I haven't been wearing my weights for the past 4 minutes and here they come on an offensive rush, I can't stop it wearing weights but I'll be disqualified if I don't". You can see this adds strategy to the game, and taking this out you still have a great game, but with less decision-making and less sacrifice of your time towards one action or the other. Yeah, no analogy is 100% correct, and i never said that mbs is just better than not mbs, i just explained that the persons who are pro mbs have a reason to it. A lot of anti mbs just thinks that whoever is pro mbs is a selfcentered noob who only want the game to be easier for him to enjoy, wich isnt the case since there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off with mbs in it, just as well as there are logical reasons to why the game could be better off without mbs. Anyone thinking that mbs or not is an easy question and that anyone not thinking like them are idiots havent understood anything. You can still support a side ofcourse, but denying that the opposite have any credibiliy is just dumb. I don't know how this applies to anything I said. I took your analogy (which was Pro-MBS) and reworked it so it was Anti-MBS. I'm not saying you have no credibility. In fact I don't even know where your comment is coming from. You derailed the analogy discussion and are now just attacking the Anti-MBS group as a whole. WTF? Read my posts, the fundamental parts of them were that no analogy is fitting in these discussions, you basically said what i have said the whole time again and i in this post you just quoted explained why i did it in the way i did.
And i never attacked anti as a whole, i said many, not all.
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On November 10 2007 01:21 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On November 10 2007 00:44 Fen wrote:Klockan As i said, those analogies only holds if you already believe in mbs and are thus useless.
In your opinion if we include mbs and instead adds volatile buildings which means you have to click on each building every minute or they start to rapidly lose health and then explode we would have an just as deep game as before, right? We can even include things so that different buildings have to be clicked at different intervals to raise the bar even further! If you are against this, then you can also see that not having mbs in is flawed in some aspects. These are great examples of things that would be inappropriate and will not be implemented due to it. But it would hace exactly the same effect on the game as sbs, so in effect you understand why mbs is important for the game. For those that want mbs in, sbs is just as stupid as that feature is to you. With this i have to add that this in no way prooves that mbs>sbs, just that there is no way you can know wich is best as of now since we dont have any proof.
I dont think you understood my point. I stated that some additions, even though they would increase the skill ceiling are inappropriate. There are many reasons why a certain element is inappropriate and its basic common sense so im not going to go into that any further. SBS is not inappropriate and therefore cannot be argued against by using metaphors that are inappropriate.
To argue a metaphor against SBS, your going to have to find a worthless rule that increases difficulty for the sake of increasing difficulty in a competative medium that would benefit the game if it didnt exist.
This is said not as an argument for or against MBS/SBS, just a simple argument to debunk all the stupid metaphors people are using such as soccer players running around with 50kg packs being equivilant to SBS.
[Offtopic] Running with weights adds extra strain to your joints (particularly your ankles) and is generally considered a bad thing to do by many doctors [/Offtopic]
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On November 09 2007 22:46 Tiptup wrote: If we had MBS in BW, the kind of macro I would prefer (like army configurations, army paths, multiple battles, large-scale flanking, proxies, smart tech-paths, and the like)
I think you are aware of this, but this is simply not how BW players define macro. When we say macro, we mean solely economy, expansion, and unit production. All the stuff you said counts under the category of "management". Please stick to the terms we use - otherwise you will just further confuse an already hard to follow debate.
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First post I do here, and what a thread it is. I will start by introducing myself.
I am a MPMGEP, which means Multiple Platform Multiple Genres Extreme Player. In short, I play an immense amount of game styles and always attempt to hit the top level with each. Whether it be RTSes, MMORPGs FPSes or even console sport games.
On RTS, lately I spent a good amount of time playing DoW, quit because of many broken matchups (Tau v Chaos was funny, Tau v Necron was NOT), and upon hearing the news of SC2 popping up, came back to Starcraft, a game i hadn't seriously played ever since the release of WC3, although I kept following the pro scene. I visited TL.net often but just now decided to register. I'm about an ELL 40 WC3 player, and haven't played SC long enough on ICCup to see where I'll rank, but I estimate somewhere inside B ranks. My APM hovers around 120-150 when I'm in shape (in WC3 and DoW). I will talk a bit about my experience upon returning to StarCraft after playing what some of you will consider "lesser" games (which I do not agree with).
I played quite a few games with a good player to dust the rust off, only to notice with horror that my APM dropped in the 50s to start, then bumped back up to the 90s, and now hovers around 110 in StarCraft. The reason why is simple, SC is so counter-intuitive compared to recent games that my brain froze on many occasions, and even now I find my skill raising as I learn to fight the UI more than ever. However, as I desire to gain skill in SC to prepare for SC2 (I also plan a heavy Ladder run upon the next WC3 patch), I keep playing.
Now, if SC was a new game, I don't think many would do like me and keep drudging at the game to fight the UI. Most would turn around and say "Meh, this game kinda sucks". A good example is AoExigo, released in 2004. Now, what I believe is if SC2's UI is the same as SC's UI, an immense amount of players will be lost, thus leading to the game being stale, and nobody leaving SC1 in the first place, because it'll have no balance problems inherent to the release of a new RTS.
Now, why do I believe MBS will not break the game. I take upon my experience over a large amount of RTSes (starting with WC2 on Kali on my gosu P266).
The first example here is the difference between WC2 and StarCraft. StarCraft is seriously easier to play than WC2, and upon SC's release a lot of top Kali players dubbed SC "Warcraft in Space" and a newbie's game, because of such additions as a unit queue, 12 units in an hotkey and a limited economic system (Minerals are more limited than Gold Mines were in WC2) as well as easier to cast spells. Okay, we know how it turned out. SC took over and WC2 was lost, due to stale gameplay and a worse interface. SC's skill ceiling was indeed lower than WC2, but otherwise unattainable.
SC goes well, and then we see WC3 is released. WC2 diehards launch an immense cry of agony that still chills me to this day when WC3 is shown to have a smaller amount of units, a fixed economy and heroes, autocast spells all around and creeps. Well, again, we see how that turned out. Outside of Korea WC3 is the dominant RTS and has a Pro scene that is vibrant and very much alive to this day, with China leading the charge with a big love for this game.
Now, Warcraft 3 is as "n00bified" as a Blizzard RTS can get, compared to Starcraft. Less units, focus on micro, almost inexistant macro (in the SC sense of the term, however WC3 macro is a very subtle art of army position, map control and decision making which is very important in a fixed economy game), autocast all around, and most of all, Heroes, which seems to be a severe point of hate around these boards. I will talk about the history if WC3's evolution later as another point why MBS can do no harm. Anyway, it was theoried that the game woud be mastered in a montha nd nothing would come of it. 5 years later, the gameplay isn't stale, new styles still pop up (WE.TeD is blowing my mind) and top players still improve (have you see Sky lately? O_o).
So, on the fact Starcraft 2 with MBS, and other UI improvements will be a newbie game, or a game where the distance between Pro and n00b isn't as sharp as it should be, is fundamentally false. WC3 proved that despite being the most easy to pick up RTS ever, the difference is still humongous. Why? Because unit building took a back seat, different skills popped up as being dominant, and those skills cannot be called "skilless". WC3 is not a skilless game, but a game requiring different skills from SC. What I see now, is an enormous amount of players who desire to have SC2 use the EXACT SAME SKILLSET as SC1 required. To which I issue this question: why? I wouldn't want that. Especially since one of the main skills of SC1 domination is to be able to overcome the interface. How boring a skill is that? Learning funnier skills like "Crazy stalker Blink harass" sounds seriously more fun, and don't say it's because I don't like challenges. I love 'em.
As well, I believe strongly that the majority of the gamer base (not the SC1 hardcore player base) would not desire, nor accept being weakened by an artificially limited interface.
Now, what is going to happen is that SC1 pros will have to compete with WC3 pros for the top of SC2 because everybody is going to have to relearn a new game! Isn't that wonderful? Also, people with good gaming senses will have the opportunity to break down and get a better understanding of the fundamentals of SC2 and make a name for themselves by acquiring better skill faster, that is wonderful as well! This is why SC2 should be a new game! Because, if the game is the same as the old one, why bother making it? A good example of gameplay evolution over the same basics is Team Forteress 2. Different from the original yet similar, with gameplay avances and extreme personality. That's a winning formula that is an immense amount of fun! And that's exactly where SC2 is going.
Now, I am also of the opinion that bashing a game mechanic without experiencing it first is quite surprising, as we do not know except by hearsay what it's like to play with it, and what changes it brings. I doubt SC2's advanced control scheme breaks the game, as the game will obviously be balanced around it.
Now, on those afraid that the game will be broken by the new mechanics, I talked about the evolution of WC3 earlier. Wc3:RoC was a broken game. It was thoroughly tested, and even with AoW/DotT abuse patched, it lacked possibilities. Well, that kind of things can be fixed! What did Blizzard do? Seeing the game became stale very fast, Blizzard did the following.
- Added a new attack and a new armor type - Balanced heroes differently - Changed the way heroes acquire experience (algorithms, requirements on where you gotta be on the map) which opened a lot of different stuff on multitasking an separating armies. - Reduced the amount of gold required for EVERYTHING in the game, upped the supply limit to augment the flow of the game, and augmented wood requirements to reduce the mass teching. - Reduced availability of Town Portals to favorise interraction between players. Only the 1st hero gets one instead of all heroes upon construction. - Added neutral heroes and buildable shops for all races, and removed items which broke gameplay so much you HAD to buy them every game (Gem of true seeing, Dispel rod).
All of this created a gameplay experience that is still changing 4 years after these changes took place. So, if SC2 is at it's base fundamentally flawed, don't worry, Blizzard can and WILL fix it. However, I do not believe it will be just because of a better UI. WC3 wasn't, it's just that they n00bified the game waaay too much, which we will not see with SC2.
I would like to also add that so far, all SC2 units seem to have more skills than SC1 units, making it desirable to have better control over base mechanisms so to be able to fully exploit the different powers and possibilities of all units. This will also make for a significantly better spectator experience, as gosu stuff will happen all over the place more than in current SC games.
In conclusion, since a better control scheme will add more players, make the game more intuitive, bring changes to the gameplay and a new chance for everybody to shine, since it's a new game and since there is no chance the gameplay becomes too dumbed down from it, I believe SC2 should keep it's current UI advances.
Note that I used the term MBS a bit less because I believe it's a small concern compared to the ability to Hotkey an infinite amount of units at once, for example, since MBS will do nothing to help you build a balanced army, or keep a good economy if you can't handle everything.
Now, that post was a handful, I hope you enjoyed. Have fun breaking my points if you like, but always in a respecful manner please =).
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Estimating yourself to be B rank without having played the game for years and having ~120-150apm - thats a little bit arrogant, no?
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By way of introduction, I lean towards pro-MBS because it lowers the learning curve, and I believe a high skill ceiling can still be achieved with MBS at its core. I also prefer skill with the gameplay over skill with the interface. However, if after thorough testing, it's discovered that MBS significantly hurts the depth of the gameplay no matter what Blizzard does, I'd be one of the first to advocate a return to SBS.
On November 09 2007 16:35 HonestTea wrote: The no-hands rule is totally, completely arbitrary: there's no logic behind it. It is also incredibly restricting. However, it creates the right level of difficulty and challenge. Because of that no-hands rule, players must develop a certain level of skill. And that's where all the fun and beauty lies.
The same goes for any other good sport or game. Take basketball. Why is the goal 10 feet in the air? No reason. But it because of it, players develop silky smooth jumpshots, jaw-dropping fingerroll layups, and majestic dunks. Why do you have to dribble once every two steps? Again, no real reason. But because of it, fans get to enjoy killer crossovers and complicated pivot post moves.
Actually, there's a very good logic behind the "no hands" rule in soccer and the dribbling rule in basketball. By design, soccer and basketball are non-contact sports. It is almost impossible to take possession of a ball from someone else who is holding it without contact. Therefore, there has to be a rule that forces a player to temporarily give up control over the ball every now and then so that opponents can attempt to steal it: in soccer, this is done by not letting you hold the ball with your hands, the only way you can completely control it; in basketball (and handball, which is basically soccer with hands) this is done by requiring the player to dribble, continually losing their hold over the ball for short periods of time. It would be impossible to play soccer with hands, or play basketball without dribbling, and not lose the non-contactness that is essential to the sport, so there is no arbitrariness or lack of logic behind those rules.
On the other hand, I don't think that anyone could argue that SBS is essential to a real time strategy game; there are many cases of successful RTSs that use MBS.
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Korea (South)11564 Posts
On November 10 2007 03:42 Aphelion wrote: Estimating yourself to be B rank without having played the game for years and having ~120-150apm - thats a little bit arrogant, no?
As much as I doubt he's even a D+ player, I do know a 155 apm zerg who is B+ on iccup, but she's been playing a crazy amount of games, and is sooo smart in the strategy sense.
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