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Well, thats not an argument on the whole mbs debate, its mostly an argument to show that the argument "All pros in starcraft are against mbs" is not the killer argument the anti mbs side makes it out to be.
And to the poster that responded to this, i try random approaches since i have already argued on all points possible to argue about in the eariler threads so i see no use in restating the whole first threads and instead i try to find new viewpoints to this whole debate to bring it forward, or to show that this is an unavoidable stalemate. Since you weren't around for the earlier threads it can seem like i shoot randomly and dont understand the debate ofcourse.
And no, starcraft players aren't one game gurus but they do over and over choose starcraft over other games, and such choices clearly alters the logic going on about whats good and whats bad according to that (And tons of similar) study/ies.
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On December 16 2007 19:13 Zanno wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2007 15:44 Fen wrote:
Ok there is something that is being overlooked here. Smartcasting aside, progamers are already at the limits of micro in starcraft. In a big battle, they dont go back to their base unless they have a window of time where it is possible. Due to the nature of starcraft, units die fast. Battles only go on for a matter of seconds. During those seconds, progamers are using 100% of their APM on micro. MBS is not going to increase their micro, they are already microing at the max that they will be able to. So if your main point is "MBS will increase the amount/level of micro" then you are totally wrong. MBS will have almost no effect on the quality or amount of micro that will be seen in battles. It's not 200/200 TvP battles in the middle of the map smash your whole army together micro battles I'm thinking about, I'm thinking more about the increased viablity of attacking in 2+ places at once. If you didn't have to juggle building units and microing your army, is it unreasonable to believe the end result would be that you could do a better job of juggling multiple battles instead? I have seen a few Bisu fpvods where he does go back to his base in the middle of a battle, is he the rule or the exception here, or am i just completely failing to catch that he has a safe window of opportunity to do so?
I don't understand why you would want to do this. It's more or less common sense that the last thing you would ever want to do is split your army.... Your just going to get bowled over by the opponent's massive ball. This can only work with drops or small raids.
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On December 17 2007 08:23 NatsuTerran wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2007 19:13 Zanno wrote:On December 16 2007 15:44 Fen wrote:
Ok there is something that is being overlooked here. Smartcasting aside, progamers are already at the limits of micro in starcraft. In a big battle, they dont go back to their base unless they have a window of time where it is possible. Due to the nature of starcraft, units die fast. Battles only go on for a matter of seconds. During those seconds, progamers are using 100% of their APM on micro. MBS is not going to increase their micro, they are already microing at the max that they will be able to. So if your main point is "MBS will increase the amount/level of micro" then you are totally wrong. MBS will have almost no effect on the quality or amount of micro that will be seen in battles. It's not 200/200 TvP battles in the middle of the map smash your whole army together micro battles I'm thinking about, I'm thinking more about the increased viablity of attacking in 2+ places at once. If you didn't have to juggle building units and microing your army, is it unreasonable to believe the end result would be that you could do a better job of juggling multiple battles instead? I have seen a few Bisu fpvods where he does go back to his base in the middle of a battle, is he the rule or the exception here, or am i just completely failing to catch that he has a safe window of opportunity to do so? I don't understand why you would want to do this. It's more or less common sense that the last thing you would ever want to do is split your army.... Your just going to get bowled over by the opponent's massive ball. This can only work with drops or small raids.
I must disagree. Think about flanking. Or watch TvZ, when terran moves out with tanks, m&m's and 1 vessel and keeps some units at his natural to be safe versus counter-attack. It takes a while for him to arrive at the zerg natural so there will be many new units left at his own natural. If his push wasn't strong enough he has to add these units to his attack.
On Blue Storm we often see one army being split to take control over more room, in PvZ and TvZ it takes very good control if one attacks.
Then there are some counter-mechanics like carriers vs goliaths. If protoss attacks a terran expansion with his carriers terran will send his goliaths there and he will have to control them properly. In that case terran often attacks somewhere else with tanks and vultures at the same time to take advantage of the carrier-positioning and to win time.
And that's not even half of all possible scenarios where players split their army. It happens in any matchup, 100% depending on the current situation. Most of the time it starts with someone harassing an expansion, battles get started everywhere, both players are trying to find holes, to gain an advantage and to fill holes in their own defenses, one's dropping an expansion with 4 overlords, or irradiating some passing lurkers, recalling some units while defending an expansion or instead attacking an expansion, harassing a lonely zerg expansion with 2 tanks added to a group of m&m's because the expansion is protected by some lurkers and sunkens, defending an expansion against swarm/ling harassment with a HT, or in TvZ lifting the CC and running the scv's, I don't know where to stop, I've got too many scenarios in my mind so I should really stop now. I'm sure most of us can add 10000 other scenarios to that.
It is rather funny that one of the main pro-MBS arguments is that it would cause more battles to take place at the same time. I find that so funny because it is already the case in SC, now more than ever before. 
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On December 17 2007 09:08 ForAdun wrote:It is rather funny that one of the main pro-MBS arguments is that it would cause more battles to take place at the same time. I find that so funny because it is already the case in SC, now more than ever before.
Well, the main aspect here is that SC2 is trying to break as a spectator Esport in America.
Soccer (or Football, depending of where you're from) can't get a real start there. Why? Strategic. Solid. When you're a guy that knows the game, it's ART to watch. But when you don't, it's boring. See WC3 for most of the SC community. I love watching WC3 vods, but everybody tells me it's boring. Anyway.
MBS = more units = more blood splattering (IMPORTANT IN AMERICA!) = spectator win = more players = more pros = higher competition.
There WILL be more fights all around the map, but whoever says it's because of MBS is stupid. It's because of deepstrikes (prisms, drop pods, nydus worms). Play DoW for a taste. It creates very hectic, multifight gameplay.
The only trap is to make the game too easy, but there are multiple ways to make it harder to control and to make MBS less of a crutch. These are to make the game faster, have more micro possibilities, or emphasis on the necessity of multiple kinds of units so that Ctrlclick + hotkey isn't always an option.
In short, MBS is a mechanic that will bring people in, make the game better to watch, but if used intelligently will NOT make the game a n00bfest.
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Well, I'm sorry but I don't see the same conclusion that you see. The first 5 paragraphs all make sense to me, tho I disagree to the 3rd (because that has nothing to do with MBS). But the 6th paragraph is illogical. It looks like you randomly put your opinion behind the rest, an unfounded opinion as I see it.
I don't say you can't do that but you should make it more obvious that there's no prove for it. But if you got prove I'd be thankful If you could point out what exactly proves it.
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On December 17 2007 21:13 ForAdun wrote:
Well, I'm sorry but I don't see the same conclusion that you see. The first 5 paragraphs all make sense to me, tho I disagree to the 3rd (because that has nothing to do with MBS). But the 6th paragraph is illogical. It looks like you randomly put your opinion behind the rest, an unfounded opinion as I see it.
I don't say you can't do that but you should make it more obvious that there's no prove for it. But if you got prove I'd be thankful If you could point out what exactly proves it.
It's not illogical; the first and second statements stem from the 3rd paragraph, and the last statement stems from the 5th (though I think he meant 'design' rather than 'use'). You disagree with the conclusion because you disagree with the 3rd paragraph's argument, but that doesn't mean it's illogical.
EDIT: Responding to below - then call out his 3rd paragraph, not his conclusion.
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It is illogical because he left out one step called "reason". He didn't tell any reason why MBS = more units, he didn't tell any reason why MBS will bring people in and why MBS makes the game better to watch. Not a single reason.
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A lot of people arguing in favor of MBS are painting a picture that SBS is so hard. SBS is not hard to get use to and it won't take long for a player to program the mechanics in their brain. Infact its very likely that one may get more entertainment out of SBS because that aspect of the game is easy to learn and you can always get faster at it. Look at guitar hero for example, almost anyone can pass the first stage on easy because the mechanics are simple, people keep playing it because they enjoy the simplicity and understand by practicing they will get faster and be able to do amazing things in the end. Everyone knows the success that guitar hero has had and the rock band phenomina that is taking place right now. Simple games but people love it.
With that being said the reason why SBS is so important to starcraft is as we all know its what makes starcraft a unique game. When we look at other RTS's such as the C&C seriers and W3 its mainly just microing your units. A player can focus 90% of their attention on it, but SC is different, it requires a player to split their attention and make decisions on what is more important, microing or macroing at any given moment.Which not only makes the game harder on a strategic level but on a speed level as well adding a lot more dynamics and depth to game.
As blizzard made pretty clear (on the Q&A when they answered korean questions) APM is going to be implemented in replays and maybe even have an effect in the final score of the game. When new comers to the SC series understand that speed is a factor in starcraft 2 I beleive it will make the game even more addicting to them giving them something simple to improve on. Remebering back when I was a complete newb to starcraft, had no idea what APM was, I didn't even know about korea progaming. I remembering seeing my first first person VOD chojja on lost temple. I was amazed at the speed he was going at. Shortly after BWchart came out and I discovered what APM was. Starcraft became to me not only so much more fun and addicting, but so much more complex.
I do agree that people may be a little frusterated at first with the game mechanics, but with any new game who isn't? Unless the game is beyond horrible in the end the mechanics is not what is going determine if you keep playing.
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im not gonna lie, i like battling and watching battles alot more than i like producing units and setting rally points for 10 gateways, with MBS people will just rally units to the battle, and the commentator would just be watching the battle the whole time, and they might last longer than a minute
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8751 Posts
On December 18 2007 05:38 andyliu52 wrote:
im not gonna lie, i like battling and watching battles alot more than i like producing units and setting rally points for 10 gateways, with MBS people will just rally units to the battle, and the commentator would just be watching the battle the whole time, and they might last longer than a minute
Professional SC players don't have any major difficulties with bringing in reinforcements. Having to work harder to produce units does not reduce the amount of battles. If they want to reinforce units, they will. If they want to engage in battle, they will.
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8751 Posts
On December 17 2007 14:42 BlackSphinx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 17 2007 09:08 ForAdun wrote:It is rather funny that one of the main pro-MBS arguments is that it would cause more battles to take place at the same time. I find that so funny because it is already the case in SC, now more than ever before. Well, the main aspect here is that SC2 is trying to break as a spectator Esport in America. Soccer (or Football, depending of where you're from) can't get a real start there. Why? Strategic. Solid. When you're a guy that knows the game, it's ART to watch. But when you don't, it's boring. See WC3 for most of the SC community. I love watching WC3 vods, but everybody tells me it's boring. Anyway.
I think there are much better reasons why soccer isn't popular in America. First of all, it would face extreme competition in the market. Imagine there was a third cola drink that was as good or better than Pepsi and Coca Cola. How can it break the rock solid soft drink market? Second of all, there is a very strong baseball/football/basketball culture and tradition in the USA. Kids have memories of watching those games with their relatives. Games are on during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sons have bonded with fathers while watching games live or by throwing the balls in their backyards. Soccer has almost no sentimental value established in the USA and has to fight against strong traditions and enormous cultures. These things make a much bigger difference than the natures of the games themselves.
And how can you seriously think that Americans don't want to watch soccer specifically because they're averted to strategy? How would they know if it's deeply strategic at first glance and how does it affect their experience as a first time viewer? Perhaps you can suggest that, as newbies, they won't enjoy the game because they can only see it at its most basic and straightforward level and that level is not often exciting. But the fact that deeper, more exciting levels exist wouldn't repel anyone.
Nonetheless, I don't see any validity in arguing for soccer having deeper complexity than American football. I think both games are deep enough that a fan can delve as far as he wants and he won't come close to fully understanding and appreciating every action in the game. Obviously, that should also be the way SC2 is. SC is like that. From what I've heard, WC3 isn't like that anymore.
I think for a game to not be boring at first view, spectators need to have a decent amount of indicators of who is winning at the moment. A football offense is winning if they made some yards on a play. A basketball offense is winning if they scored a basket on their possession. A baseball offense is winning if they're getting players on the bases. In an RTS, a player is winning if he's building a bigger army, if he has more bases, or if his army is killing the opponent's army. These things are straightforward and easily assumed by a first time viewer. The most important thing Blizzard needs to do to make SC2 a spectator sport is to design graphics so that a first time viewer can tell who is winning a battle while it is happening. It should not be a flurry of graphics and then one player's army is left standing. MBS is not really coming into play at all.
MBS does not change the experience for a first time viewer but it can reduce the appreciation a long time viewer has for a player's skills. There is no ground to be gained by pro-MBS folks who go the "spectator sport" route.
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Seriously... is soccer really any more "strategic" than football?? I don't think so. I don't think it's even more strategic than basketball or baseball even. I think all sports are strategic in their own way and while some are definately more strategic than others, arguing that soccer isn't popular in America because of strategy is crazy.
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I don't think BlackSphinx was arguing that soccer was less popular because it was literally more strategic. I think what he was trying to get at was that soccer lacks the viscerality of the other sports.
By viscerality, I mean the ability for the spectator to intuitively understand the difference in skill between a professional and an average player just by watching the game. This is less important to an experienced spectator who understands the subtleties of the game (as they can then appreciate the more subtle differences in skill), but can be the make-or-break factor for a first-time observer. American football, baseball, tennis, and golf have alternating periods of intense action, then rest, allowing players to show off their skills to their full extent with every active period. Basketball and soccer, on the other hand, are constantly active, with the only breaks happening after scores; thus, the primary visceral moments don't happen as often as in sports with alternating on-off periods. Seeing a pass in american football is a visceral moment, seeing a pass in soccer is less so. The difference between basketball and soccer is that basketball takes less time to move the ball from one scoring area to the other, and limits the time players can possess the ball in their opponent's scoring area without attempting to score; these differences allow basketball to have many more visceral moments in the same period of time than soccer.
Physical sports are naturally more visceral than other forms of competition, because a human can instinctively judge how difficult a certain physical action is to perform themselves (thus why I used the word "visceral") with only the most basic understanding of the sport, and even sometimes with no knowledge of the sport. However, since e-sports feature much less physical action the viscerality must be primarily experienced through the medium of the game. A quick example: the traditional first-person view for CS matches, though it makes for a difficult-to-follow experience for the new spectator, is considerably more visceral than the easier-to-follow third-person view used by CGS for their CS:S matches because the spectator can see the reaction times of the players and the intensity of the combat in real time in the former, while the latter is reduced to showing it in first-person flashbacks after the round is over.
Now, to apply this concept to SC. Micro, on one hand, is a visceral skill: people totally new to SC can immediately see that vult/muta/shuttle-reaver micro is clearly a product of superior human skill and not the computer's AI. Likewise, people can easily ascertain the skill involved in executing multiple simultaneous drops or attacks that even the commentators can barely keep up with. Macro-mechanics and macro-related multitasking, on the other hand, are almost invisible to the first-time spectator, as the relative sizes of bases and armies can also be the results of superior micro and/or macro-management. The only current ways to know how quickly a player is macroing aside from experience (knowing the usual rate of conversion from an economic advantage of a given size into an army advantage of a given size) or the reactions of the commentator are during FP-views or views of the players' hands manipulating the keyboard/mouse. The latter was given constantly on the center screen during WCG 2007 for the benefit of those in the audience, but ultimately takes up too much space (and would be too small in the standard angle, anyways) for a constant showing on a standard viewscreen. Therefore, an increase in focus on micro for SC2, assuming that battles remain easily understandable, makes for a more visceral spectator experience.
Note to those who are itching to release the spectre of WC3 on that conclusion: the problem with WC3 is not that the battles are not visceral, but that they are nigh impossible for the first-time viewer to understand the flow (heck, it's difficult to follow the flow of the big-picture gameplay). Viewers must be able to follow the flow of the battle before they can understand how a player's actions are influencing the flow of the battle. After all, one must know where the football is going in an American football passing play before they can appreciate the pass or catch. This is a very similar point to Nony's post about indicators, which I'd like to briefly elaborate on:
I think for a game to not be boring at first view, spectators need to have a decent amount of indicators of who is winning at the moment. A football offense is winning if they made some yards on a play. A basketball offense is winning if they scored a basket on their possession. A baseball offense is winning if they're getting players on the bases. In an RTS, a player is winning if he's building a bigger army, if he has more bases, or if his army is killing the opponent's army. These things are straightforward and easily assumed by a first time viewer. The most important thing Blizzard needs to do to make SC2 a spectator sport is to design graphics so that a first time viewer can tell who is winning a battle while it is happening. It should not be a flurry of graphics and then one player's army is left standing. MBS is not really coming into play at all.
Though the most important point in that quote is that the most important objective for SC2 to be spectator-friendly is to make the flow of the battles and overall gameplay as clear as possible to the viewer, you also brought up an interesting point about in-game scoring.
In other sports, play usually progresses in successive phases that move towards a score, with each successful phase making it easier to score in the next phase, and each failed phase moving towards (partially or entirely) a loss of possession. In American football, these phases are the downs; in baseball, they are the at bats; in tennis, they are the individual points scored towards a game win; in basketball and soccer, they are passes towards a score attempt. One might call these phases 'advantages' leading towards a score, and more scores bring a player closer to victory.
Scores and advantages are almost always quantified for ease of viewing in other sports, yet in SC they are currently not. This is likely because there isn't much that can be called 'scoring' in an SC game; players fight for advantages until the positive feedback inherent in SC's design makes one player's advantage too large to be overturned, which eventually leads to their opponent's resignation, the 'score'. However, a real-time update of the minerals, gas, and supply count for each player was introduced in the otherwise-empty bottom-right corner of the screen during WCG; it's brought back for short periods every now and then in Korean broadcasts, but I think making it permanent, particularly the supply counts, would make SC matches more easily quantifiable, and thus easier for the new spectator to understand who's ahead.
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The way I see it, soccer will never catch on in the US because it doesn't allow for commercial breaks and so the networks will never carry it.
That, and the "we already have other sports" argument.
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This isn't about Soccer. You turned a simple analogy into a whole different argument...
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[lie]
I want MBS so i only have to use 1 macro on my super expensive keyboard instead of a few.
This way i can set a macro to build out of my 10 gateways -- a different button for each unit instead of this whole 2-3 buttons per unit. Come on, my keyboard only has 10 programmable buttons.
[/lie]
heh I've tired of this thread, and stopped posting with the creation of this incarnation of the debate. Though something that didn't occur to me in the previous debates is that some people could practically already have MBS with an expensive enough keyboard and perhaps a brain enough to set the macros up... having a keyboard to where you press X Y Z(read Macro-button 1,2,3) instead of 4sd5sd6sd7sd8sd9sd0sd is essentially implementing something very similar to MBS.
Anyone rich enough to own a Razer Tarantula(or one of the few other's with programmable keys), and having set up it's macros have any input on this?
I don't really know how the Tarantula's macros work. The big problem i can see with this is that if your going to assign a macro to build your units out of multiple buildings then you have to assign which unit in the midst of that macro, hence it is MBS except -- It only works for the 1 specified unit. (I also think theres a limit on the length of the macro so you can prolly only assign so many commands to each macro-button.
Albeit possibly off-topic I still think it's relative and am interested if anyone here has tried this? I'd figure that there are most likely also other programs on the PC where you could prolly assign macros to your keys and have the same effect.... Is this hacking?
And just to waste more words -- My Opinions: Arguing the viability of MBS at this stage of development with our knowledge of the game is just silly. It should be an accepted fact that the possibility of the top SC pros not being the top SC2 pros wouldn't be suprising and in many cases should be welcomed. Top SC pros are the masters at what they do because they do it <10% better than the other pros. Those pros are pros because they do it <25% better than the semi-pros . These numbers are not factual but rather more to make the point that Top pros are only slightly better than pros and pros are only slightly better than others. It's a natural progression of skill so that the very best is differentiated.
With that clear it should be obvious that the top pros are so good because they're extremely good at a very narrow set of things that separate them from the rest. A lot of this is practice, but if everyone had equal practice time there would still be some better than others. So Practice is null to the point.
The big rupture in the community on the debate of MBS largely may spark from this fear that a relatively minor change in the game mechanics completely upsets the balance of skills. This is untrue. It might mean that Top SC pros aren't Top SC2 pros. They'll still rape-la-noobs obviously but I don't think this would surprise anyone.
The real debate of MBS is whether it makes the game easier.
This is something I should clarify a little. By easier I am not talking about the game play but rather the utilization of mechanics (Yes Mechanics make up some of the game play but bare with me). Going Start -> Run -> Iexplore. Is clearly easier than Double Clicking My Computer -> C: -> C: ect ect -> ect ect.
This is obviously a simplification of the mechanics -- Hence utilization of the mechanics is easier.
This is where I think the majority of arguments break down. If you're arguing that MBS will make SC2 macro easier you are correct in teh sense that you will have to press fewer buttons and so it will use up less time and the like. This is possible within SC1 with the use of a $100 Keyboard or I'm sure there is some macro program that'll do it even better.
Does making the utilization of specific mechanics make the overall game's "Skill Ceiling" lower?
The answer to this is another question:
Is the skill ceiling of Starcraft dependent upon the utilization of these specific mechanics?
The answer to this is another question:
Is what differentiates the Top pros, from the other pros, and the other pros from the semi pros simply a greater ability on the keyboard and having practiced macro routines more or is what differentiates them simply a greater understanding of the game, a greater strategic mind, sheer multitasking ability, creativity or any and all other factors aside from the specific manner of utilization of the mechanic in question?
I don't know. I lean more towards the fact that anyone semi-pro and up typically has the same general ability on the utilization of a keyboard and most of what determines who wins is strategy, playstyle, and general ability on all other facets of the game.
After a short break from this thread I figured I might as well post something and this is an attempt to reiterate my previous arguments for MBS in a different manner. I have typed the same thing over and over again just to receive the same reply i've replied to as a reply so unless you can come up with a response other than those I have already received and replied to. I will be simply quoting myself from previous posts in the previous thread.
Thank you for your time
Motiva
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I cut out the unimportant paragraphs (already known) and this is what's left:
On December 24 2007 05:47 Motiva wrote:
I don't know. I lean more towards the fact that anyone semi-pro and up typically has the same general ability on the utilization of a keyboard and most of what determines who wins is strategy, playstyle, and general ability on all other facets of the game.
You can lean on whatever you want, fact is that every human is an individual thus all or most progamers having the same motor-driven skills is impossible. They have different talents, they train differently, they focuse on different things, they have different views, etc. This is what separates them from each other.
I'm talking about the human factor.
Two players having the same overall skill still aren't equally skilled when we take specific skills into account. As a result we can see not only different playing styles but also different rankings for different players. Good examples for a big difference in skills are Boxer/iloveoov, Stork/Bisu, Savior/JulyZerg. Some might say these players simply have different styles - which is true - but another truth is that they also have different strengths and weaknesses. Boxer and iloveoov clearly focuse on different skills and they also had their own prime. Bisu and Stork also focuse on different skills and they have completely different playing styles but they both are in their primes right now. They keep fighting it and the situation is unclear. Now if they were all able to use MBS I can see Boxer and iloveoov coming closer together in skill, perhaps Boxer will start being more successful once more and iloveoov would stay where he is.
Or why is it that Bisu keeps beating Savior? Savior has shown an improved version of his old PvZ but against Bisu it doesn't matter at all. Why is that? I tell you why: it is because Bisu got the better multitasking skills which he uses for tactical shots and strong macro-management. As a result Bisu has a better timing for his own gaming plan than Savior. Bisu wins some seconds with hunting some overlords with his sairs which 2 minutes later results in harassing an expansion which results in Bisu having 1 expansion faster than normal etc. etc. Take MBS into account and that little, growing (or decreasing) advantage - the human factor - is nearly gone because Savior has a bit more free time and uses it to focuse on his defense against harass, Bisu will not be able to outplay Savior anymore.
These examples shall not prove anything at all, I use them to explain my point of view.
Big pressure often results in some sort of powerlessness. Progamers learn to control themselves and to overcome the pressure. This is their solution.
MBS is another solution, but like everything in life it causes a new problem: a decrease in skill ceiling. There is no way around it because there is no final balance in life. Eating much results in being bigger and more solid but you also slow down. If you want to overcome that problem you must train your body so you have to push yourself. A simple analogy which shows that nothing's for free.
This also counts for MBS. If MBS only had a very small effect on the skill ceiling, then things would be fine. In the 4th paragraph I give a simple reason why this is not the case.
The main anti-MBS argument is that a players skill (and style) would become too similar to all other players skill because we can't show such huge skill differences in SC2 as we can in SC.
MBS destroys a lot of individuality hence it doesn't allow individual skills. In SC it is not possible to achieve perfection but sometimes it seems so because of individuals, mainly top progamers. These individuals show individual skills in macro- or micro-management, multitasking, tactics etc.
From a list like that MBS lessens the skill needed for macro-management, just like autogathering. And MUS and smartcasting lessen the skill needed for micro-management.
This does not make MBS less of a threat, it makes all four features an even bigger threat than MBS alone.
Since there is no reason to implement these features other than making the game easier, it is hardly possible to argue that this effect wouldn't harm the competition. The few who tried arguing had to accept loads of counter-arguments without a word of protest, the others where more intelligent and argued that MBS & Co. is important for other things than competition. But we've seen well-founded reasons why MBS has no effect on entertainment and selling numbers. There's nothing left to say, or is it?
All in all, we're still waiting for an argument pro-MBS that nobody can refute.
But we do already have several arguments anti-MBS that are still undisputed.
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Ok, I used the word lean where i shouldn't that doesn't discredit my argument.
Personalization of logic doesn't negate the point.
Yes I understand that players of overall equal skill aren't equal in specifics most of the time. That is fairly irrelevant to the point I was making, and the questions I was looking for people to speculate and reply upon. I was rather trying to logically deduce that of all of these skills -- on the e-sports level SBS has little to no competitive prowess. Every pro is about equally good at pressing 5sd6sd because the skill ceiling is very lower for pressing 5sd6sd.
Take MBS into account and that little, growing (or decreasing) advantage - the human factor - is nearly gone because Savior has a bit more free time and uses it to focuse on his defense against harass, Bisu will not be able to outplay Savior anymore.
These examples shall not prove anything at all, I use them to explain my point of view.
I disagree with this statement -> "nearly gone" is a vast exaggeration. In fact I haven't seen a valid argument argueing that it decreases the human factor any more than a very small amount(as any good enough player can SBS quite effectively). Changes the focus of the game in-so-far that any speculation is hogwash at the current standing time -- sure.
As for your example -- I think it's a vast exaggeration as well... That 1.2 seconds free'd up will really break the game for Bisu. If only savior could have gotten in those 8 clicks while Bisu was obviously not using MBS as well...
All your example really points out is that there is a lot going on in the game and that if we free up 1.2 seconds every 10 seconds then there is room for even more to go on.
Since there is no reason to implement these features other than making the game easier, it is hardly possible to argue that this effect wouldn't harm the competition. The few who tried arguing had to accept loads of counter-arguments without a word of protest, the others where more intelligent and argued that MBS & Co. is important for other things than competition. But we've seen well-founded reasons why MBS has no effect on entertainment and selling numbers. There's nothing left to say, or is it?
I'm sorry but first you're making the assumption that it makes the game easier, then your making the assumption that this would harm the competition of the game.
There is no solid evidence that MBS makes Starcraft 2 easier than Stacraft 2 is without it.
There is no solid evidence that Starcraft 2MBS is less competitive than Starcraft 2SBS. The best we can do is compare it to starcraft which isn't a very good comparision considering different build orders, different timings, different units, new functionality with terrain, interesting new tactics and base-raiding functionality. All of this could completely change the focus of the game, the importance of economy, expansion timing and dependence. Really any such speculation is hogwash.
Highly competitive communities can form within even the user friendly environments. Some of these easier games have been played as sports and e-sports. The Human element is far too great to simply be ruled out by MBS and that is just fucking ridiculous.
Now yeah sure, Starcraft 2 might seem easier than Starcraft 1 because of MBS because Starcraft 1 is SBS.... So? This can't kill the competitive community, and anyone telling you that is true is telling you their bias...
Why don't we start arguing to blizzard that we don't have to double click to build a unit or to lower the selection groups to 6. In fact down with all hotkeys -- Mouse speed FTW. It would after all take more skill within a specific skill set.
However we have a bias towards how we like this current game we're playing called Starcraft 1 and we like the way it is. We like the way it is so much that we don't want blizzard to change it. That is the only undisputed anti-MBS argument I've read.
If anyone could provide me a concise, unpersonalized, and elegant argument of Anti-MBS that can not be disputed (no bias) then please someone provide it for my education must truly be lacking.
EDIT:
But then are you actually arguing against this statement?
the fact that anyone semi-pro and up typically has the same general ability on the utilization of a keyboard and most of what determines who wins is strategy, playstyle, and general ability on all other facets of the game.
If your not arguing against my statement that any 225+ APM Player that has successfully played has roughly the same ability at pressing the keys then what are you arguing?
I don't feel that they all have identical skills some may excel more than others but my point is this doesn't, won't, and can't break the top-tier competitive level.
The main anti-MBS argument is that a players skill (and style) would become too similar to all other players skill because we can't show such huge skill differences in SC2 as we can in SC.
MBS destroys a lot of individuality hence it doesn't allow individual skills. In SC it is not possible to achieve perfection but sometimes it seems so because of individuals, mainly top progamers. These individuals show individual skills in macro- or micro-management, multitasking, tactics etc.
From a list like that MBS lessens the skill needed for macro-management, just like autogathering. And MUS and smartcasting lessen the skill needed for micro-management.
This does not make MBS less of a threat, it makes all four features an even bigger threat than MBS alone.
As for this. I thought the main argument was that it lowers the skill ceiling. Regardless, I disagree with this there are far greater things that differentiate iloveoov and boxer than their ability to press keys. You can't possibly be aruging that there would be no difference in how Iloveoov and Boxer would play in a TvT match of Starcraft2. I refuse to believe that you truly think that. >
You realize that Boxer does spend all of his minerals, yet iloveoov will still outproduce him. Why? for some reason I don't think it's because Iloveoov has superior SBS skills. Rather because he's taken a more economy driven gameplay style.
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Now just because you bring them up.
I am against Autogathering -> Why? This reduces the number of non-redundant(SBS being redundant) tasks one must perform within small amounts of time. I think there is less chance of this being removed than MBS, but I feel that this will have greater ill effects of the sort Anti-MBS players say MBS will have than MBS itself.
As for smartcasting, I think it should possibly be implemented in some ways. Some spells sure. AoE spells maybe not. Perhaps with some box-like mechanism similar to SC1 in conjunction with it.
as for MUS, I feel the same with MBS. Zerg players will prolly still hotkey hatcheries to multiple keys lategame, and MUS players will obviously need to select smaller groups for micro and ect. ect. ect.
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What is MBS doing if it's not making the game easier? Hm?
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Making the mechanics easier and changing the focus of the game?
If Change = Simplification It is not an immediate truth that Change = Easier.
MBS is making SBS easier. That makes our conception of SC1 Late-game seem like it would be a lot easier. Yes that's a normal first impression... Can you truly argue that it would make Starcraft easier for either play in Savior v Bisu?
Would you argue that Chess is an easier game than Starcraft at the top tier competitive level? Does the keyboard really make the game that much more difficult? No -- Starcraft just requires a different skill set. MBS simply reduces the stress on the keyboard oriented skill set. Does this make the game easier? Maybe for the person who had 4 fingers and has spent an equal amount of time practicing as a 5 fingered person.
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EPT
