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On December 08 2007 09:24 talismania wrote:
I feel it's also worth clarifying that MBS does not decrease the "amount" of macro. ...
... time spent macroing (or at least the production aspect of macro) is decreased, ...
After reading that I was wondering if your logic is different from mine, and...
... but not the amount of macro decisions. It basically just subtracts X% of time from clicking buildings and adds that X% to clicking units.
... after that I was wondering where you get that conclusion from.
I really need some explanation, I don't understand your argumentation at all.
@ Motiva
First of all I want to show respect for your work. Your post isn't just long, it's also qualitative and very accurate. Well done.
Now comes the feedback. I'll only quote parts of it since it's really long so don't worry if my response is a bit one-sided - for the most of the other parts I agree with you.
On December 08 2007 19:48 Motiva wrote:
In what way would MBS truly hurt the game? Which leads me to the question does the necessity of high APM really increase the skill "ceiling" and does it truly make the game more competitive? I am going to assume we all lean a bit closer to the competitive rather than the casual.
Yes, necessity of high APM (or say speed) increases the skill ceiling and therefore makes the game more competitive because speed must be combined with accuracy, thought, reaction, timing and detailed knowledge. Correct me if there's more.
Do the additional actions required by a macro system lacking MBS provide more of an unnecessary time sink or a necessary time sink?
A good question.
My opinion is based on experience with competitive SC and I think the additional actions provide a necessary time sink. They are necessary for the competition/skill ceiling and it provides extra-fun for many players because they must be more active not only with their hands but also with their mind. The additional actions are definitely not necessary for the game or the sales, only for the competition.
Does effective management of these time sinks equate to skill? (Is the player who hot keys all of his buildings better than the player that hot keys one in the same area and then 'mouse macros'?)
There is no difference. I prefer the latter but from testings I know that the former takes equal skills. It is more or less a thing of personal taste.
Is it more important to require a high count of actions to produce a high count of units, or is it more important that these players capitalize on timing and prefection?
Again, good question. I don't think it can be answered directly.
Producing a high count of units is on top at times but not all the time. Timing and perfection have become more and more important through the evolution of competitive SC and from what I see in FPVOD'S (and from my own experience) it can be so important that timing and perfection can beat the importance of producing units in some situations. Can be, If, if and if.
For instance in TvZ there is a timing push after FE to counter hive tech. Before terran pushes out it is very important to produce high counts of units but at the same time it is very important that some siege tanks are ready before zerg gets a defiler mound.
In PvT battles can be very micro-heavy and timing and perfection can decide the whole game. One of the basics for PvT is to produce units seconds before battling if possible. If that isn't possible things can go very wrong. And this is where multitasking comes into play: if there is just 1 or 2 free seconds in a battle the player should use it and get as many of his gateways running as possible. If there is no free second he must choose to keep control or to risk something.
The latter is the main argument for competitive players to stand against MBS. We (if I can add myself in) know the aspect "multitasking" in SC very well and we want to have it in a similar way in SC2, too. It is impressive and it is training (motor, mental).
The beauty of starcraft is that on the highest levels it requires as close to perfection as you can get, but nobody is perfect. Not even Savior, Bisu, Stork, GGPlay.....(I could continue my way down the KeSPA) They all make countless mistakes in any seriously intense game. MBS won't make or break Starcraft 2. What will make or break SC2 is whether or not there is more to do than is actually possible.
This leads me to the conclusion that MBS is neither good or bad, and it really depends on all of the other mechanics.
This argument has been brought up several times and again I'll try to explain why it isn't valid. It's not valid because of the statement you make.
"MBS won't make or break Starcraft 2" - true.
The thing is that we (pro-MBS) didn't argue that way. In simple words we said: "MBS makes SC2 too easy".
The difference is huge and must be realized.
With MBS this adds a lot of focus onto Micro (while obviously not to the level of WC3 this can also be seen with the new viable abuses of terrain and abilities like blink) unless additional mechanics are added to macromanagement (The new warp unit for protoss for example).
The problem is that even the micro-management in SC2 has been scaled down. I'm talking about MUS aka massive-unit-selection. The trouble from MBS can't be solved because of MUS, both together makes things even worse. And then there's automining, too... and smartcasting... these things have been discussed in other topics already but they are so important... I've changed my view (not opinion) of it several times but in the end it won't taste any better.
I just want to say that even if MBS - against my believe and my experience - doesn't harm competitive SC2 there are too many other negative influences that make it obvious to me that SC2 can't be as competitive as SC. Not the current way.
The other factor which I think needs to be brought up in this, is that this is not WC3 and a major factor in macromanement is the scaling of your economy to the production of the buildings themselves. This does not require higher APM than anything else, yet any player that can do this perfectly over his opponent generates a massive advantage. I don't care how many buildings you can select if you can't scale them properly to your economy or your economy to them, then your production will be worse than mine.
True, but only in a few cases. Less jobs to do = more free time to spend (or not to spend because of MUS etc.). The overall situation will stay the same, the skill ceiling decreases. All in all your opponents will have easier times against you (and all others) because of MBS and automining.
In that early to early-mid game where the players don't have enough buildings to really make MBS stand out as a big difference in mechanics this same "economy scaling" is still just as important. At this point in the game Build Orders make a huge difference, if your playing ZvZ and you 9 pool to your opponents 12hatch FE then you have the advantage for a short period of time. MBS doesn't have anything to do with this directly but it is still relative. If only that it shows that there are far more dynamics to the game than many of these simplified posts would have you believe and that MBS only has limited effects. It also shows that APM is only a correlation to skill and is not absolute.
Yes, very true, I share your opinion. But it's irrelevant for MBS as you say yourself.
MBS is neither a mechanic that will make or break Starcraft 2. MBS has it's pros and cons and I personally feel that if they were to keep the game exactly how it were, but only to add MBS, new units, and prettier graphics then the focus of the game would change a lot. Then MBS would simply reduce the accuracy of the correlation between skill and APM. There is far too many dynamics to the game to simply state that because it reduces the required APM it lowers the skill ceiling. As in SC there is far too much to possibly do that really if you imagine MBS within starcraft, it just changes the focus and opens up entirely new windows of opportunity. The only players I can see this hurting are those players that have spent the past 5 years + of mastering this 1 game, and will have trouble adapting away from their robotic hot key spamming routines. But I can see those that have spent the past 5 years+ mastering this 1 game and are excellent at adapting to not lose a step, because if you can cognitively maintain 300 APM while triple+ tasking and reading your opponent as well as effectively managing all of the other dynamics i mention within this post and all those that I forget -- Well then odds are you'll be the more skilled player regardless of MBS.
I think when it comes to the "break" of SC2 I think I have cleared all obscurities.
I must strongly disagree with you that MBS in SC would only hurt strong "oldies". The feeling of the game is different for all players depending on what level they play. Strong players must be very fast with their hands and their mind. If that factor gets decreased by just say 10% then there will be 10% more rising players which will probably result in SKorea having 10% more potential progamers. I don't know the numbers but it would be huge.
This would cause a bigger luck-factor in who becomes a progamer and who does not, because they are all about equal in skill. That luck-factor can't be good for the progaming scene, I'm very sure you'd agree.
If blizzard complicates all of the timing, micro, economy management, match ups, and needed unit distribution well then the changes provided by MBS really wane in comparison.
Agreed.
The thing is: we haven't heard about anything like that from Blizzard... if they are working on it they should start releasing info's better now than never. I tend to say SC2 will be too easy just taking known facts and interviews and that since half a year already.
lol, I hope this wasn't too long either. 
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SCII should be, like SC, a game that rewards skill disproportionately. Just like chess or go does.
Right now RTS games are a lot about multitasking, micro, macro, APM, etc. Basically controlling and managing stuff in real time. This works great.
Then, there are also strategy, mind games, timings, build orders, counter strategies, scouting, predictiong and things like that. They also require quite some skill.
Now a game that tests 'lame' skill is not a good game. If in chess you do have to do some kind of agility test while playing the game normally then many people will consider that stupid.
There are people that think that micro, macro, APM, multitasking and all these kinds of things that are so characteristic of RTS games are wrong skills to test. Hell, there's even people that say FPS games shouldn't be about aiming.
These people want more mental skills to be tested by these games. While that may seem fine there is always the issue of a skill ceiling and the spectrum of skill. At this moment it is clearly impossible to have a competitive RTS game that is not about controlling and managing in real time. We can't do away with it yet. And even if we could, we will still have RTS games that test micro and macro.
One can't make an RTS game solely based on general decision making.
I also don't understand why so many people attack macro exclusively. It has often been the micro that was attacked as well. Many people seem to think that RTS games should be about grand strategies, not about controlling specific units.
So really, you can't make a competitive game that rewards skill disproportionately without macro AND micro like SC has.
Instead of reducing macro and acting like they can be replaced why not add in more difficult overall mental decision making stuff first. And then in the future maybe Blizzard can create a new innovative RTS game where it does pay off to practice 10 hours a day in a professional team but which totally lacks macro and micro. Can't be done right now. No one knows how to do it.
Instead of reducing the difficulty of macro to the difficulty level of general decision making they should rather raise up the difficulty of decision making to match that of macro, micro and multitasking.
And then for their next new really innovative RTS game they can think about focusing primarily on decision making.
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@above: I don't know if chess vs sc is the best comparison... maybe if sc were turn-based and you automatically played with black sheep wall on.
@foradun:
MBS only affects the army production aspect of macromanagement. The way I see it, this production is comprised of two steps. One is the decision to produce something, the other is the execution of that decision. In both SBS and MBS, the decision to produce 10 marines or something is the same, but the execution is faster in MBS. So when I say that the "amount" of macro isn't decreased, I mean that the number of production decisions isn't decreased; only the time executing those decisions is.
The second part of my argument is that the player will use the free time generated by the decrease in execution of macro production decisions in other ways, presumably by micro'ing their forces. I doubt they'll just sit there, but I can't prove that people won't, of course.
Now, since the execution of the production decision in SBS involves clicking buildings, and microing forces involves clicking units (or clicking where to tell those units to move), the freed-up time that used to be spent clicking buildings will be spent clicking units.
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Talismania, maybe reread my post because it seems you totally missed all points I made.
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didn't mean to give that impression, sorry. I just saw that chess comparison and thought it didn't work right... I wasn't trying to say anything about the rest of your post. For what it's worth, I agree with you in the sense that I hope Blizzard deepens the complexity of gameplay to allow for maximum diversity in potential strategies, and that decision-making in the overall strategic sense should be a critically important part of the game.
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Only thing I said was that in SCII a progamer should crush a competitive amateur player like a grandmaster crushes a club player while it takes just as much practice to become a progamer as it takes to become a grandmaster.
And, I said that some skills that are tested in a game can be lame. I had an example that contained chess.
I never compared them. I never said anything that doesn't work because of in chess you can see all the moves your opponent makes and in SC not or that doesn't work because chess is turn based and Starcraft is real time.
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On December 09 2007 02:18 talismania wrote:
@foradun:
MBS only affects the army production aspect of macromanagement. The way I see it, this production is comprised of two steps. One is the decision to produce something, the other is the execution of that decision. In both SBS and MBS, the decision to produce 10 marines or something is the same, but the execution is faster in MBS. So when I say that the "amount" of macro isn't decreased, I mean that the number of production decisions isn't decreased; only the time executing those decisions is.
The second part of my argument is that the player will use the free time generated by the decrease in execution of macro production decisions in other ways, presumably by micro'ing their forces. I doubt they'll just sit there, but I can't prove that people won't, of course.
Now, since the execution of the production decision in SBS involves clicking buildings, and microing forces involves clicking units (or clicking where to tell those units to move), the freed-up time that used to be spent clicking buildings will be spent clicking units.
I understood your previous post before that already but thanks.
The question if people will be more idle because of the UI in SC2 is exactly what we're discussing all the time. Saying "I doubt" without reasoning is rather unproductive because others - like me - have added arguments to their opinions. That's all I ask from you.
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Having no MBS in scbw is why its big as it is today so why put it in? what they should be doing is trying to make sc2 appeal more to the koreans because its the koreans who boosted scbw in the first place. its obvious that they wont like it. and its simple 1# more automated less skill simple as that you can look at it all you want but the outcome is the same. so ask yourself why do koreans like sc? because of the proscene. And what makes a player pro? is the amount of skill he has. but i will say this having no MBS will pretty much kill sc2 for the fact taht previous scbw players will destory new comers to teh starcraft scene because im guessing most players in scbw shud be around 150-200apm it wont be that hard to bring that micro/macro into sc2. so all i can think is have 2 types of sc2 maybe 1 for general battle.net with MBS and maybe after you go certain amount of wins it unlocks like a ladder type system. which has a set game speed takes away the MBS making it pretty much like scbw
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@ForAdun
I enjoyed your post. It's obvious we differ in opinion on a few things, but overall I think we both understand the issues at hand.
I think we really only disagree on 2 major points which I will attempt to discuss. I should note before I begin that I am currently neither for or against MBS -- I see it as a double edged sword for me... I am far better at SBS than most Sc2 players will be when they begin, but I have by no means mastered it, and am only a truly effective macro based player as my primary race. As such i try to refrain from a bias where it is possible (I am only human  ). But instead I try to express an openness for the idea, the possibility of change, and the necessity of thorough testing.
The only real issue I had with your post in fact would be the part discussing the "breaking" of SC2. I suppose my perspective on breaking game wasn't that the game would fail, or not recieve critical acclaim, but by break I suppose i meant the expectations of the competitive scene.
And in order to meet the standards of any said competitive scene that is truely competitive it cannot be "too easy"
In other words by saying "MBS won't make or break SC2" It was a poor way of saying "MBS won't make sc2 too easy"
The support I would provide for this argument would be:
1) In order for MBS to truely be capitalized upon it has to be late enough in the game for you to survive long enough to scale your economy up to support that number of buildings -- Hence plenty of other factors(everything that happens the first 5+ minutes of the game) play into the viability of MBS. All of the other factors also require skill and practice just as much as anything else Human v Human.
2) It's not like taking the focus off additional actions required to queue units leaves the player without anything to do. To the least I would argue to maintain MBS until it can be thoroughly tested (which is what it seems like they're doing) I say this because, with an extra 3 seconds every 12 seconds you have more time to formulate your strategy and read your opponents, as well as spending more time, microing, setting rallys, expanding, scouting, harassing ect ect I could go on, We all know the many dynamics of the game I don't feel it's necessary to list all the possibilities. I am simply trying to state that with free time in unexpected places unexpected changes in the evolution of the metagame very well could take place.
As well as everything i said in my previous post.
Also your comments on how Strong players must be very fast with their hands and their mind. While I obviously agree with that. Any player that wants to even pretend to compete has to be a certain speed and have attained a certain understanding.
But the rest of that paragraph, you state something along the lines of if the factor requiring a certain speed (APM, Practiced Hotkey Routine ect) was less then there will be more players arising to compete since the bar has been lowered, which results in tougher competition for more progamers in Skorea. But this is bad because half of that competition excels in aspects that aren't in the game anymore. (correct me if i mis-paraphrased)
Well... There are a few problems I have with this numbers aside.
The biggest one would be that I do not feel that lowering the required attention investment required for one specific set of tasks necessarily "lowers the bar" but rather transforms the bar. Because obviously the quick minded and more dexterous players will change focus and spend those "attention" resources elsewhere -- not losing a step, but rather streamlining many. A paradigm shift within the game.
I suppose the central theme of that argument, and what holds it up goes back to something I said in my initial post:
"Multiple Building Selection is necessary *IF* the fastest player in the world still cant keep up with the game at it's more intense moment. (You'll see the best starcraft players in the world have drones sit for upwards of many seconds. You'll see imperfect micro on some level almost every game. You'll even see buildings sit unused for a few seconds here and there)"
And I suppose while I am at it this above argument should be altered to: Multiple building selection is worth thoroughly testing and analyzing because the fastest player in the world ect ect ect
The point is that MBS changes the focus of time/attention investments in a game where there is more than can possibly be done in order to achieve perfection.
wow... this has already turned into a long post. hmmm I do not feel i provided a sufficiently clear articulation with sufficient support. But perhaps... I should end by attempting to sum it all up.
In essence I am saying that MBS will not make the game necessarily easier because within Starcraft there is far more present to do mid-late game (when MBS makes the most difference because if you only have 1 hatchery MBS doesn't exist ect ect) than any human thus far can do perfectly every time -- and thus the addition of MBS simply streamlines 1 aspect out of a large mass of aspects that make up competitive starcraft.
You could argue that not all matches in starcraft are so intense and full of nonstop multitasking and action on multiple fronts with a macro based late game. But you could also argue that the effect would MBS would be most present during those scenarios. -- but back to the point
Therefore I would argue that the skill ceiling of starcraft doesn't exist or that if it does we have certainly not achieved it after the most intense, rigorous, and dedicated attempts spanning over 9 years. The metagame is still improving and evolving. And to cut myself short, and hopefully not extend this another 5 pages, I would like to end with: You cannot lower a ceiling that doesn't exist OR if the highest possible height in skill a player can achieve is 20 what difference does it make if the height of the ceiling is 60, 50, 103, or 20.1. It doesn't matter if it's not achievable. Thus I argue for more testing and some feed back from players who's judgment I find credible by whatever means. And then maybe some more testing. But until then I won't write it off as "Will make the game too easy" but instead "Opens the possibility for a paradigm shift within the metagame and playstyles" -- Which would be a whole different subject and quite an interesting thread.
OK DONE!
Thank you for your time, sorry for the long winded nature and length.
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I would just like to ask.
Does anyone think that there is an imbalance between the races because the zerg obviously require fewer actions for efficient APM to unit production ratio -- normally having fewer hatcheries than a terran player has Barracks, Factories, Starports? ect. ect.
Or does the speculation that the average distance between hatcheries is usually greater than that between gateways balance it for the "mouse macro" player, but not the keyboard macro player?
Or do the mechanics of larva management balance the mechanics of apm to production mechanics? (Protoss and Terran get 4 Primary unit production buildings -- Zerg get 3 -anything- larva)
What sort of implications does MBS have for larva management for zerg? Any?
lol.
/spam
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The question if people will be more idle because of the UI in SC2 is exactly what we're discussing all the time. Saying "I doubt" without reasoning is rather unproductive because others - like me - have added arguments to their opinions. That's all I ask from you.
Well there's no way to say whether or not people will be idle without an experiment... and Blizzard is the only entity in a position to do that experiment. My hypothesis (just a hypothesis), and I don't think it's unreasonable, is that players, good ones anyway, won't be idle. Why would they be? Wouldn't they spend the time doing additional scouting, splitting their forces, doing more harassment, etc?
The real question is not whether players will spend their extra time idly -- the real question is if what they do during that time makes up for the decrease in the skill gap caused by MBS. If it does, then MBS does not affect the overall distribution of skill among players (although of course it will impact how the game is played) and sc2 will have the same pro-gaming potential as bw. If it doesn't, then presumably the distribution of skill among players will become compacted around the mean, and sc2 will have less of a pro-gaming potential (or at least there will be more pro-gamers at the top than there are now).
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On December 09 2007 07:08 Motiva wrote:
I would just like to ask.
Does anyone think that there is an imbalance between the races because the zerg obviously require fewer actions for efficient APM to unit production ratio -- normally having fewer hatcheries than a terran player has Barracks, Factories, Starports? ect. ect.
Or does the speculation that the average distance between hatcheries is usually greater than that between gateways balance it for the "mouse macro" player, but not the keyboard macro player?
Or do the mechanics of larva management balance the mechanics of apm to production mechanics? (Protoss and Terran get 4 Primary unit production buildings -- Zerg get 3 -anything- larva)
What sort of implications does MBS have for larva management for zerg? Any?
lol.
/spam
Well there's a simple answer for that: zerg got larvae which makes up for the "lack" of production buildings. It's an extra step every single round of production. Zerg players also have to focuse more on worker-control than terran and protoss players. I think this equalizes the amount of macro needed.
To your previous post I can gladly say that your argumentation is really strong, the level of the discussion has been raised a lot.
I also can't find any real new counter-arguments to 99% of what I disagree to.  lol jk
You do a good job.
The 1% left are the postings of gamers who've played the SC2 alpha and said that they got bored at times (or something like that).
I'm not sure if we can trust all of them that they don't lie about themselves having played the alpha version but ye, I'm optimistic most of them are alright 
That's about it. Of course I won't change my opinion now but if I ever start arguing about SC2 again Blizzard must first officially release more facts. Otherwise I'm done thanks to you.
Keep up the good work.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On December 09 2007 07:08 Motiva wrote:
I would just like to ask.
Does anyone think that there is an imbalance between the races because the zerg obviously require fewer actions for efficient APM to unit production ratio -- normally having fewer hatcheries than a terran player has Barracks, Factories, Starports? ect. ect.
Or does the speculation that the average distance between hatcheries is usually greater than that between gateways balance it for the "mouse macro" player, but not the keyboard macro player?
Or do the mechanics of larva management balance the mechanics of apm to production mechanics? (Protoss and Terran get 4 Primary unit production buildings -- Zerg get 3 -anything- larva)
What sort of implications does MBS have for larva management for zerg? Any?
lol.
/spam
zerg produce at a faster rate because larva spawn faster. This means they don't actually need less apm like your suggesting.
I do think MBS would favor races that produce out of different types of buildings giving them much more control of their macro than a race that can only produce out of one type building.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On December 09 2007 06:25 Motiva wrote:@ForAdun I enjoyed your post. It's obvious we differ in opinion on a few things, but overall I think we both understand the issues at hand. I think we really only disagree on 2 major points which I will attempt to discuss. I should note before I begin that I am currently neither for or against MBS -- I see it as a double edged sword for me... I am far better at SBS than most Sc2 players will be when they begin, but I have by no means mastered it, and am only a truly effective macro based player as my primary race. As such i try to refrain from a bias where it is possible (I am only human ). But instead I try to express an openness for the idea, the possibility of change, and the necessity of thorough testing. The only real issue I had with your post in fact would be the part discussing the "breaking" of SC2. I suppose my perspective on breaking game wasn't that the game would fail, or not recieve critical acclaim, but by break I suppose i meant the expectations of the competitive scene. And in order to meet the standards of any said competitive scene that is truely competitive it cannot be "too easy" In other words by saying "MBS won't make or break SC2" It was a poor way of saying "MBS won't make sc2 too easy" The support I would provide for this argument would be: 1) In order for MBS to truely be capitalized upon it has to be late enough in the game for you to survive long enough to scale your economy up to support that number of buildings -- Hence plenty of other factors(everything that happens the first 5+ minutes of the game) play into the viability of MBS. All of the other factors also require skill and practice just as much as anything else Human v Human. 2) It's not like taking the focus off additional actions required to queue units leaves the player without anything to do. To the least I would argue to maintain MBS until it can be thoroughly tested (which is what it seems like they're doing) I say this because, with an extra 3 seconds every 12 seconds you have more time to formulate your strategy and read your opponents, as well as spending more time, microing, setting rallys, expanding, scouting, harassing ect ect I could go on, We all know the many dynamics of the game I don't feel it's necessary to list all the possibilities. I am simply trying to state that with free time in unexpected places unexpected changes in the evolution of the metagame very well could take place. As well as everything i said in my previous post. Also your comments on how Strong players must be very fast with their hands and their mind. While I obviously agree with that. Any player that wants to even pretend to compete has to be a certain speed and have attained a certain understanding. But the rest of that paragraph, you state something along the lines of if the factor requiring a certain speed (APM, Practiced Hotkey Routine ect) was less then there will be more players arising to compete since the bar has been lowered, which results in tougher competition for more progamers in Skorea. But this is bad because half of that competition excels in aspects that aren't in the game anymore. (correct me if i mis-paraphrased) Well... There are a few problems I have with this numbers aside. The biggest one would be that I do not feel that lowering the required attention investment required for one specific set of tasks necessarily "lowers the bar" but rather transforms the bar. Because obviously the quick minded and more dexterous players will change focus and spend those "attention" resources elsewhere -- not losing a step, but rather streamlining many. A paradigm shift within the game. I suppose the central theme of that argument, and what holds it up goes back to something I said in my initial post: "Multiple Building Selection is necessary *IF* the fastest player in the world still cant keep up with the game at it's more intense moment. (You'll see the best starcraft players in the world have drones sit for upwards of many seconds. You'll see imperfect micro on some level almost every game. You'll even see buildings sit unused for a few seconds here and there)" And I suppose while I am at it this above argument should be altered to: Multiple building selection is worth thoroughly testing and analyzing because the fastest player in the world ect ect ect The point is that MBS changes the focus of time/attention investments in a game where there is more than can possibly be done in order to achieve perfection. wow... this has already turned into a long post. hmmm I do not feel i provided a sufficiently clear articulation with sufficient support. But perhaps... I should end by attempting to sum it all up. In essence I am saying that MBS will not make the game necessarily easier because within Starcraft there is far more present to do mid-late game (when MBS makes the most difference because if you only have 1 hatchery MBS doesn't exist ect ect) than any human thus far can do perfectly every time -- and thus the addition of MBS simply streamlines 1 aspect out of a large mass of aspects that make up competitive starcraft. You could argue that not all matches in starcraft are so intense and full of nonstop multitasking and action on multiple fronts with a macro based late game. But you could also argue that the effect would MBS would be most present during those scenarios. -- but back to the point Therefore I would argue that the skill ceiling of starcraft doesn't exist or that if it does we have certainly not achieved it after the most intense, rigorous, and dedicated attempts spanning over 9 years. The metagame is still improving and evolving. And to cut myself short, and hopefully not extend this another 5 pages, I would like to end with: You cannot lower a ceiling that doesn't exist OR if the highest possible height in skill a player can achieve is 20 what difference does it make if the height of the ceiling is 60, 50, 103, or 20.1. It doesn't matter if it's not achievable. Thus I argue for more testing and some feed back from players who's judgment I find credible by whatever means. And then maybe some more testing. But until then I won't write it off as "Will make the game too easy" but instead "Opens the possibility for a paradigm shift within the metagame and playstyles" -- Which would be a whole different subject and quite an interesting thread. OK DONE! Thank you for your time, sorry for the long winded nature and length.
I don't see the logic in lowering the bar because we've seen a few progamers with idle workers. That's like saying we need to lower the basket ball hoop because we see professional basket ball players miss when they shoot or making a golf course simpler because we don't see constant holes in one. You're ambiguously asserting that there will be new things to focus on with MBS. What new things? Do you really think Savior can't have perfect timing, excellent strategy, awesome micro and still macro like a god? If you think this is the case and progamers are spamming keys while their brains are numb you're grossly mistaken. Even top foreigners will tell you it's not hard to macro while making difficult strategic decisions in game.
Bare in mind that there is a 10 year old army of die hard SC fans that will fill the role of the esports scene when this game comes out, it would make sense to complement what they learned in the first game, not punish it.
There is a fascination with Starcraft in the sense that it is so incredibly hard to master, it is the most respected and profitable Esport in the industry. The skill difference between one player and another can be so huge it's unbelievable. There is so much room for improvement that you can play it for 10 years and find new things out. That says something.
Meanwhile warcraft 3 has been harshly criticized as being too shallow and at times given up to randomness. APM is important in starcraft because training the brain to compute as many tasks as possible while making critical strategic decisions is an incredible feat. If anything Blizzard should be making SC2 harder, not easier. They should be recognizing the features that helped keep the game competitive and then build off them, not rearrange them so that we have Starcraft wearing Warcraft 3's pants: A game that's mostly micro with some macro that's made easy.
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why the wc3 hate ? the game is good and has skill, its just lost in the misdt of lights and item generated randomness.
also the hero factor witch makes the game less strategical and more micro sometimes takes some of the fun of using all strategical resources avaible to you, because its just more efficient to walk around with your army killing stuff that drop items, theres very little wc3 players that can surpass the barrier imposed by hero based play to general strategy like drops etc.. like grubby
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Anyone else get the feeling the slew of < 10 post users on this page are all owned by one person that likes to argue with himself?
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Alright, some more points here, some are old but reformulated.
I'm sorry, it's much longer than I intended it to be, but it's worth the read I think. I've tried to remain very objective.
- MBS will have effectively zero effect on the early and mid game. The correct unit mix is important, and MBS doesn't help at all with mixing units. You'll have to do it manually by clicking on each production building and then selecting each unit.
Also, at that stage of the game you don't have the resources yet to build a ton of units of the same type. And you only have few production buildings anyway. No one, except newbies, will have serious problems managing a few production buildings. The problems only arise when there are 6 or more and you also have to make use of a high income of money (if you accumulate too much money (> 1000), you are considered to be inefficient at macroing). The latter is probably the main reason why macroing is "hard": quickly using up all your money.
This all means that, compared to SC1, if the game only lasts approximately 10 minutes, there will not be a real advantage in having MBS.
Pros will still be able to horribly beat newbies in under 10 minutes.
- The SC2 alpha at Blizzcon was set to a LOW speed. Blizzard stated that there will be higher speeds for the players to choose, so everyone is going to play on the highest speed then.
You played the alpha version and were bored? Well, if you play SC1 on normal or fast speed you'll be bored too. You most likely weren't bored because of MBS, but because of the speed.
- MBS won't remove the "management" aspect of the game (I'll regard this as something different than macro, you'll shortly see why).
You know players like GoRush (in his prime), Savior, Bisu or <insert good Terran manager here>.
These players have the same amount of APM than their other race colleagues, which means they are usually just as fast. Savior, however, has a relatively "low APM" count (250-350 on average), and there are some other Zergs with upwards of 350 APM, so they should in *theory* be able to multitask and macro better.
But do they really?
Savior is a genius at macroing because he can read his opponent extremely well, adapt to any given game situation, time his expansions and worker/unit production extremely well and spend his resources wisely. All these things are NOT part of mechanical skill. Others in this thread have called it a "mental skill".
This is something that the anti-MBS side seems to forget about. Maybe because it's a hard thing to measure, or maybe because it could be seen as "luck", when you lose against some random guy who simply had a better management than you and overpowered you. Then you watch the rep and just think "huh, I had 100 APM more, how the fuck did he always have more than me, that damn lucker/hacker".
Fact is, these mental skills require a TON of game experience and also a certain intelligence (while purely mechanical skills require NO intelligence at all - it's purely a matter of a lot of training and keyboard/mouse dexterity, so every progamer will eventually become very good at the mechanics).
The "real" skill lies in mental skills like that, and mechanical skill is only an obstacle for lower-skilled players AND for micro-heavy players. MBS will NOT remove these mental skills, instead, it will probably put more emphasis on them, meaning that you will need to be at least decent in them in order to become successful. If you're merely an APM robot, and playing like a machine, and simply copying replays, you won't make it far, although you WILL make it far in SC1. MBS can solve the "imbalance" between mechanical skill and mental skill.
If you can play a real-time strategy game like a robot and be very successful, then there's something wrong, because that's the wrong thing RTS games should put emphasis on.
It should be a factor, of course, but it should not be the DECIDING factor of how skilled you are.
In SC1, it can be...
The harder you make the UI, the more you reward uninspired, robot-like players, and the harder you make it for the really smart players who bring fresh strategies to the table.
- About the balance between macro and micro: consider a late-game SC1 scenario, PvT. Both players are at upwards of 130 supply. Standard goon/zeal/HT vs. tank/vulture.
P decides to attack the Terran, who is occupying the center of the map (say, Python). He splits his big army in 2 and flanks from 2 directions. He does A-click, send his zeals in first, goons next, HTs last who then storm a few times. That's basically all the micro there is. If P has superior numbers, he wins the battle, if not, he loses and has to retreat his units.
More micro than this is simply not worth it. For example, spreading the goons to avoid tank splash? No one does that.
It's MUCH more efficient to macro all the time and to ignore micro as much as possible.
The longer the game lasts, the more time every player has to spend on macro. Once you've hit 200/200, or the map is completely mined out, then you can micro a lot of course, but before that it's MUCH more rewarding to reproduce units fast than it is to truly display great micro with his existing units.
The balance between macro and micro, always mentioned as a strength of SC1, gradually shifts in favor of macro the longer the game lasts. This is a real problem, and MBS seems to be a perfect solution for this.
You want a player like Boxer to lose? Just take some random newschool Protoss, let him scout well, then *play it safe* until late game / 130+ supply. Then, he will simply be able to overpower Boxer, because better micro doesn't help you anymore at that stage of the game. Boxer will slowly fall to the pressure of a shitload of units every 2 minutes. Micro? Who cares?
- WC3 is no comparison. There's a lot of game features that absolutely destroy macro and management, and turn the game into a "micro only" game:
-- upkeep
-- hero-centric play
-- the high unit hitpoint count allows you to have a slow reaction time and use that time for other things (like constructing buildings or "macroing")
-- much less workers needed than in SC1/SC2
-- much less expansions needed, too
None of this will be true for SC2.
In conclusion:
If you fear that macro will become less important, I say: fear not, and remember the point about "management". SC2 will give you a lot of opportunity to display superior management. There's even some new map features, like the yellow mineral patches which give you more resources but are supposed to be located in a dangerous position. All this rewards management. (Mechanical) macro is made easier, yes, but:
- it only affects late game
- good management affects ALL stages of the game
- micro will become more important. Not dominant, mind you, but you probably will be able to win large-scale late-game battles because of better micro and not because you had a few more units than your opponent. This is NOT possible in current newschool BW, I'm afraid. Well, maybe in TvZ, but that's the ONLY non-mirror matchup where micro is very rewarding at all stages of the game. In current BW, if you are a micro-heavy player, you have to win the game early on or in mid game, otherwise you WILL lose if your macro/mechanics sucks. SC2 can change that and truly balance things out again.
SC1 *had* a balance between macro and micro, but high skill levels and current maps have destroyed that balance. MBS will restore it.
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On December 09 2007 12:21 MyLostTemple wrote:
I don't see the logic in lowering the bar because we've seen a few progamers with idle workers. That's like saying we need to lower the basket ball hoop because we see professional basket ball players miss when they shoot or making a golf course simpler because we don't see constant holes in one. You're ambiguously asserting that there will be new things to focus on with MBS. What new things? Do you really think Savior can't have perfect timing, excellent strategy, awesome micro and still macro like a god? If you think this is the case and progamers are spamming keys while their brains are numb you're grossly mistaken. Even top foreigners will tell you it's not hard to macro while making difficult strategic decisions in game.
Bare in mind that there is a 10 year old army of die hard SC fans that will fill the role of the esports scene when this game comes out, it would make sense to complement what they learned in the first game, not punish it.
There is a fascination with Starcraft in the sense that it is so incredibly hard to master, it is the most respected and profitable Esport in the industry. The skill difference between one player and another can be so huge it's unbelievable. There is so much room for improvement that you can play it for 10 years and find new things out. That says something.
Meanwhile warcraft 3 has been harshly criticized as being too shallow and at times given up to randomness. APM is important in starcraft because training the brain to compute as many tasks as possible while making critical strategic decisions is an incredible feat. If anything Blizzard should be making SC2 harder, not easier. They should be recognizing the features that helped keep the game competitive and then build off them, not rearrange them so that we have Starcraft wearing Warcraft 3's pants: A game that's mostly micro with some macro that's made easy.
Hmmm... Well I guess I should go in order.....
First. I am not argueing that the bar is being lowered in anyway. In fact a primary theme in my arguments is that what we are percieving as a "lowering" in the bar is naught but a shift in the way we perceive the bar.
Second I am ambiguously asserting that either there will be new things for the players to focus on, AS WELL as perhaps a shift in the original focus on what to spend the resources known as time and attention on.
I did not mean to be interpretted to mean that because we've seen imperfect play we should make it easier to achieve perfect play, but rather I set out to prove that it is too early to say that with MBS perfect play is achievable (or from a different perspective, to say that the game is easier)
And then you lead me to:
"If you think this is the case and progamers are spamming keys while their brains are numb you're grossly mistaken. Even top foreigners will tell you it's not hard to macro while making difficult strategic decisions in game."
If you read my 2 overly long winded posts on this page and the previous and you came to the conclusion that this was my opinion on the stance of the unit production aspects of macromanagment well then I must say that I feel you are grossly mistaken.
In fact from my perspective this works into my argument. I am arguing that Single Building Selection is in essence a time sink. A time sink to which this thread is discussing the necessity. I can't see how you could disagree with this.
Fortunately, since we both agree that "even top foreigners will tell you it's not hard to macro while making difficult strategic decisions in the game" We should be able to agree that since macroing to the trained average player that it maybe really isn't such a deciding factor of skill, but rather simply a routine any experianced play executes. I don't see how this makes the menial takes of unit production a necessary task that cannot be streamlined unless you have formed a bias in your opinion as to what you expect out of the game. If you are unwilling to comprimise your already formed conditioned routines within the strategic framework of the game, then yes I can see why you might want to continue having SBS. I am still interested in testing and cannot truly side with either decision without a basis of personal experience. However the more i read and debate this with fellow players, the more I see this bias having formed. which leads me to your next point
Experienced Players -> Should we reward the 10 year vets of starcraft by only making them relearn build orders, counteres, and new other new mechanics they decide to include, or should we change or streamline an already present mechanic within the game so that the time absorbed by the previous timesink can be absorbed into any of the other counter mechanics within the game.
I would argue that it could be in the interest of the game, game developers, and in the long run the competitive scene to have a semi-fresh start. Obviously the 10 year starcraft vet should have enough of an advantage simply by playing the most competitive RTS out there, having 150+ APM, and full knowledge of countless tactics used by similar units. Perhaps adding MBS not only changes the focus of the game, allowing time for different timesinks, but it also helps level the Day 1 playing field.
As you argued SBS macro really isn't that hard of a thing to do, and I wasn't argueing that macro can't do all of those things, but rather it was an argument that HE CAN do all of those things. A simple speculation on the possibility of what happens when you streamline a mechanic and open up a good 2-3 minutes of time resources to be spent on another mechanic. This is not lowering the bar, this is not making the game easier, this is changing the focus and perhaps a paradigm shift in the priorities of the strategic framework of the game.
This fascination with Starcraft that you speak of (of the inability to master the game) is something I am very familiar with and have brought up within my 2 previous longer posts. not the one marked /spam.
In fact it is this not only fascination with the game, but as close to we can get to a fact about the game -> After 10 years the game is still evolving, players on all levels are improving and finding out new things. That certainly does say something.
I suppose this leads me to believe that your primary argument is that this particular aspect of macro(MBS/SBS) while being nothing a top pro couldn't do without thought in addition to everything else, is also so very important because it helps sort out the bad players from the worse.
I can see the merit in this however, my entire 10 page arguments argue that while SBS does involve skill that doesn't immediately merit it's inclusion into a game that tests a wide array of skills and abilities in real time. Rather I find the more intelligent solution would be to test new possibilities without bias... Though perhaps you have played the game extensively several times, and can explain to me how you were so bored because since you couldn't find anything to do because you didn't have to select each building individually.
Were you arguing that if savior had MBS he wouldn't be able to improve other aspects of his game, and still strive for that unachievable perfection?
The main topics we disagree upon:
You feel that Starcraft2 needs to play nearly identical to the original, and reward 10 year vets by allowing the continuation of their formed routines. I argue that I feel that Starcraft 2 should play very similarly to the original, but I welcome any subtle paradigm shifts in the focus of the gameplay, micro, macro ect.... I primarily argue this because if we do not sample all of these possibilities how would we know that the game could not be better than it is? I also argue this because a 10 year vet will already be rewarded with his superior strategic mind, efficiency, speed, and instinct. I do not feel that a subtle paradigm shift is "punishing" what a player learned originally. I feel I must stress again that I am not arguing for a "lowering" of the bar (although I did speculate that it doesn't matter if the bar is lowered if it is still above the finite limitations of human play -- that is irrelevant though) I am arguing that we should not hold on so tightly to our expectations of the bar, or our wishes for the game.
No matter how good something is, if it is not what you expected and/or is lower than the hype you believed -- you are disappointed.
Which leads me to Warcraft III.
Hmm... This is something I could say quite a bit on, but my posts always seem to run on endlessly until I can bring myself to conscientiously say "that's enough I'll wait for your reply before elaborating further"
I should say that I do agree with the majority of what you said about Wc3. In fact I, myself, have felt many of the things you brought up about wc3. I did find warcraft 3 to be a bit too shallow and on some levels given up to randomness. Though my opinions on the random nature of Warcraft come and go with patches I shall not discuss those here as they are not relative.
The shallow aspect of warcraft 3 comes from a paradigm shift in the focus of the game. Not all paradigm shifts were created equally. That however does not mean that we shouldn't be open to new mechanics, changes in old mechanics, and thoroughly tested and approved paradigm shifts.
Plenty of people love WC3, and it's competitive community is better than a large majority of games in existence.
I would argue though. That warcraft 3 is no easier than starcraft -- It simply focuses on an entirely difference set of time sinks as I discussed briefly in my initial post on page 24.
APM is important in Starcraft, but it is still relative to Warcraft 3, and APM in warcraft 3 is still "training the brain to compute as many tasks as possible while making critical strategic decisions" though in Warcraft 3 the shift of focus on what are the better critical strategic decision is different (to kill gatherers or heros ect ect ect)
I do not really understand why you brought WC3 up. You can argue that it may require a slightly higher APM, but you could also argue that APM is simply a correlation and is not a direct truth -- as I did in my initial post on page 24.
I will present my argumentation as to why I feel MBS has nothing to do with the shallow randomness of WC3 and why it is very unlikely that even with MBS and some of the other automation features of wc3, SC2 will not simply be SC in WC3's pants.
I suppose the most brief yet thorough way to do this would be a list.
1) Warcraft 3 took the focus off of the economy of the game all together which opens up a huge amount of time, and attention (supposedly countered by heros and creeps)
2) Warcraft 3 is a game consisting of soft counters. There is no Firebat to Zergling counters in WC3 (maybe a few, but even then pretty nerfed in comparision)
3) The pace of wc3 is intentionally slower, focusing on efficient management of units rather than macro... There is no macro whatsoever in WC3 because there is no focus on economy as well as less focus on unit counters (which affect macro indirectly)
4) The addition of heros provides an additional paradigm shift within the focus of the game that cannot be ignored.
You then somehow lead this into Blizzard should be making SC2 harder not easier, and build off of the aspect that made the game competitive in the first place.
Well, as you stated earlier SBS isn't that hard of a task even to the busiest top tier pro, so is that really what made Starcraft competitive or was the multifaceted micro and macro frameworks of the game, -- not the mechanics of execution but the actual framework -- of Scaling your economy to your unit production while worry about very hard counters(scouting ect) holding positions on the map to secure sufficient expansion (map control)....and all that is micro.
In short. MBS won't make or break the competitive aspects of Starcraft because the effects provided by MBS wane in comparision to the legistics of the multifaceted framework of the game.
Map Control, Sufficient Worker production, proper production building scaling to economy, worker to fighter ratios, counters, scouting, micro.... I could go on forever I think you get the point.
I would like to end on the note that since we can agree that MBS isn't such a big deal for top tier pros and really serves more to differentiate the bad player from the worse (relative terms)... Well on those skill levels... They're having problems with their multitasking, making 1 task out of that set of "Multitasks" easier does not necessarily make the game easier, instead it opens up the opportunity for the more skilled player to capatilize on this free few seconds where he is consciencly composed and waiting for the right timing, and the less skilled player with or without MBS is still scrambling going oh shit.
wow... far too long again I look forward to your reply, I do feel that i was less articulate in this post than the last 2, so if you do have an issue with something I discussed here, please read my initial two posts, so I don't have to write another essay (For those that haven't already)
Thank you for your time.
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Why is this fear so strong that players will be idle at times? Players already idle a lot in starcraft the first 10 minutes, and then the difference comes that the macro wont get extremely craving but the micro instead.
And no, there are no players that have perfect micro in any game ever, if it isn't extremely short with only very very small amounts of units. Its impossible for any human to micro 10 units perfectly, not to talk about ~80-120 which is quite common in starcraft lategames. And microing 100 units takes a completely different skill set than microing 5.
This isn't the end of starcraft, its a lategame paradigm shift to keep the apm at the micro side instead of the macro side were players have a harder time to differentiate themselves. Macro matches are predictable and therefore boring, micro adds the flavor were you never know who will come out on top on the encounters. High level micro is the reason to watch games, high level macro is just a necessity to stay competitive.
But ofcourse if you somehow find it that exiting to imagine how fast they click buildings when you watch games, but cant you just imagine that people don't use mbs in sc2? Because really, the kind of macro removed by mbs is no more complex than playing "wack a mole" with moles coming up in a timed pattern you decide.
If we take this out of the starcraft context, imagine a really deep and fun game, but you had to play wack a mole to gain necessary resources for the primary game, wouldn't that seem kinda dumb? Most would think "Why ruin this great game with this useless chore?", this is the same reason why all educational games fail, people play games because they think its fun, they don't play games since they have to little chores to do in real life.
This is also why mbs will make Starcraft 2 to a huge success, they take the awesome gameplay of starcraft and removes the chores that can easily be emulated by poor flash games.
And of course some starcraft players are skeptic to this, that doesn't mean that its a bad change though since all changes are met with skepticisms.
Imo this whole thing is blown out of proportions, and just for your info DOW got an autoqueing feature wich means that you don't even have to click a button to build units. Be happy that Blizzard didn't add such a feature, today not having such a feature almost seen as outdated and what starcraft 2 is using is seen as a minimum for any rts created.
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ok so i'll add my 2cents to this topic
all those anti MBS guys seem very short-sighted to me
when jaedong did a double muta harrass on main and expansion at the same time a few days ago, everyone was going "wow, that's nice". how about having muta harrass on 4 bases at the same time? well sadly that's not possible because of the ridicously outdated SC UI, and exactly that is what i hope for in SC2 with MBS. macro and mechanics are an important factor for a RTS, no doubt, but i'd like to see macro that has to do with strategy/micro. what i am trying to say is that you could actually macro your micro, for example with triple harrass or 2 large scale attacks on 2 fronts, while still having the time to efficiently micro these attacks. that's not possible in SC because you have to click your 10 facs every 20sec.
well, i could say more, but you get my point i hope.
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EPT
