EPTIt is almost as if build scv was on h and selfdestruct command centre on j - a single wrong key can cost you the game.
I find it funny how some are anti automine but have no problem with the "lazy peon button".
[D] MBS Discussion II - Page 20
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
It is almost as if build scv was on h and selfdestruct command centre on j - a single wrong key can cost you the game. I find it funny how some are anti automine but have no problem with the "lazy peon button". | ||
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almostfamous
United States10 Posts
On January 30 2008 10:42 Unentschieden wrote: I find it funny how some are anti automine but have no problem with the "lazy peon button". People don't mind the "lazy peon button" because it doesn't make the action for you. Its only a reminder, nothing more. By the way, nice post BEEF, I think you may have me convinced that MBS is a good thing to have in SC2. Now I'll finally be able to use some of those fun abilities Almost unrelated, but not quite: Do we know if you will be able to cycle through your groups as easily as in WC3? | ||
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Aqualicy
Norway25 Posts
Most of the arguments against MBS are too excessive -- the circumstances described are too black and white. The addition of MBS doesn't immediately implicate an exclusion of micromanagement within economy and production management because the necessity for perfection will still be present, MBS be damned. We're not going to see the described ten Gateway 4z hotkey on a professional level because in StarCraft and, assuming Blizzard doesn't screw it up, the upcoming StarCraft II, there are invariably other considerations, unit combinations notwithstanding. In StarCraft in general, and in the early to mid game especially, there are severe economical considerations to make, and fine balances between your unit count and your plans for expansion. A lot of the time you'll only want to produce one unit from one of your several Gateways while your Probe heads towards your natural, preparing to build a Nexus with your slowly accumulating wealth. You'll occasionally need to produce different units from different Gateways. Have proxy Gateways? You'll need a different hotkey for those, lest the game builds units at the wrong Gateways. Have eight Gateways but you want to build only three units, i.e. expensive spellcasters? You can't do a quick "4p" hotkey if you have your eight Gateways keyed to 4 because if all Gateways start producing you'll be stuck cancelling build orders from the other five. Have two Robotics Facilities? When have you ever played a game where you'd want to consistently and invariably start building the same unit in both Robotics Facilities at the same time? Professional players will demand perfect, flexible control; they will occasionally use MBS, but with heavy and skillful moderation. It is possible that a lot of the time, good players will have perhaps 1-3 buildings on a single hotkey up until an eventual late game. For this reason, I'm actually more concerned that MBS can be detrimental to playing as good as you possibly can be. I theorize that abusing MBS sacrifices control, and it's possible MBS will in fact be a hurdle newbies will have to overcome whenever they want to take their game to the next level. I'm up for reading a persuasive argument to the contrary, but I personally just don't see how MBS can be synonymous with instant perfect army macromanagement, nor how it can be so detrimental to skill-demanding gameplay overall. I think the biggest stroke of pure genius Blizzard could possibly do is create a game where MBS is included as standard, but where using it might not the best option. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
 I don't know if I start playing SC2. Only if it's good. But this stupid MBS discussion is really totally over the top, and there are a lot of false fears IMHO.I agree with Aqualicy, although it has already been said before. The following is a fact: If you need different units or a special unit mix, which is a quite common task, then MBS won't help you at all. MBS will merely help when you have to build a lot of the same unit type. And that's it. The additional time you gain from MBS is really small. If you're a newbie or average gamer you have many other, much more pressing issues, so that MBS won't help you much. If you use MBS all the time, you will end up with a probably ineffective unit mix because you didn't adapt to your opponent. MBS will, however, make late game management for pro gamers slightly easier. There is often the time when you need 10 zealots, and you need them right now. Without MBS, this takes a big effort. With MBS, you could just bind 10 gateways to one key (say, 0) and then type "0z". This allows you to focus on other tasks at hand, and in late game there will be A LOT! This allows you to do tasks which you would have ignored otherwise. | ||
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Aqualicy
Norway25 Posts
... Edit: To clarify my original question in this post, I am certain Blizzard will be keeping their originally planned MBS. I'm just curious if they'll give any further comments on it considering the amount of interest this issue has seen. | ||
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Fuu
198 Posts
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
units like queens are neglected because they are not cost effiect, it's not because they are 'too hard to micro becuase they're too busy macroing.' Even then there are moments when queens can be used, just not many. DAs and sairs with Dweb are used at the pro level. It's not difficult to micro a giant army late game, and if i can do it, pros can do it better. i can cast storms, feedback defilers and reload reavers with ease--because i hotkey them. automine is obviously bad, i don't need to explain this (i hope). The idle worker button is also bad. So is the selection cap; because this makes micro easier too. Now we have macro AND micro made easier in SC2... not a good thing. Let me attempt to explain how MBS will damage specific elements in SC2. Starcraft is a lot like juggling, i have to move my workers, build pylons, stay on top of my upgrades, macro out of my gateways, watch the minimap, maintain map control, micro my units and more. This maters because the more the game develops the more tasks i must juggle. Have you ever been ahead of someone early on and then they manage to come back and beat you? Have you ever seen an incredible come back in an OSL or MSL match? We all have. A player who gets ahead is faced with the larger challenge of staying ahead via more task juggling. this is how SC produces so many incredible back and fourth games. A player who's behind will also have less to juggle and therefore a greater chance to recover. Obviously brilliant strategy comes into play as well. MBS makes the player who's ahead STAY ahead with much more ease. This may not mean much to the average gamer, but to the progamer this is very bad. small mistakes early on are heavily punished as the game progresses. Lets say i'm zerg and i have a protoss contianed on lost temple. I'm ahead on expansions. I'm also good at watching the minimap and i can remember to make my upgrades. With MBS, if i'm having to micro my lurkers, lings and scourge constantly i'll just continue to spam 4sz and 4sh, don't forget how strong MBS will make zerg. my macro will be perfect and it will be 10x harder for the P to recover. Normally i would be faced with the burden of jumping back to my hatcheries which are all over the map WHILE microing at my contain point. The same is true if i'm p and i have a protoss contained. if i'm busy focusing on my army i can hotkey all my gates as 4 and then space out my macro so i make 10 zealots, then 10 dragoons, then use my other hotkeys 5 and 6 to make 5 templars and 5 zealots. Starcraft is unique in the sense that it's the only RTS game where the gamer must participate in every aspect of the game. Progamers are inside every gateway, ready at every mineral patch, vigilantly watching their army, ballancing their pylon distribution and so on. I don't see how making the game easier in any sense will help SC2 look competitive when compared to it's elite other brother. | ||
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Wraithlin
United Kingdom50 Posts
First you have made an argument as to why MBS makes the game easier for the guy ahead, but ignored the fact that MBS will also make the game easier for the guy behind. The guy under pressure will be able to spend more time with his army fighting an efficient defence while building up his army. What you have not argued is that MBS will benefit the person ahead more than the person behind, ahead/behind are not just a function of how many unit producing buildings you have. I could take your argument and turn it around to show how MBS makes it easier to come back because now I dont need to worry about macro while checking for drops and microing my army. That, in my opinion, means that MBS is balanced. With the number of units that can cross relics, attack and defence will be less linear in SC2, and therefore if you take your eye off the battle in defence you may find that suddenly half the opposing army has jumped/blinked/walked around your wall and into your base. You will no longer be able to take your eye off the enemy army for a second and reliably predict where it will be when you return. Secondly, If Blizzard limited SC2 to 4 hotkeys, how would that affect your examples ? There are "solutions" to MBS that dont require removing MBS. | ||
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
General lack of game knowledge is only natural with a game that isn´t even in the alpha stage. Units like Queens or DA are not unbalanced in power but in time tradeoff. They need to much attention to be usefull. Their power or impact is alright but they have no place in a Macro oriented players lineup - wich apparently is the mayority. You wrote: The same is true if i'm p and i have a protoss contained. if i'm busy focusing on my army i can hotkey all my gates as 4 and then space out my macro so i make 10 zealots, then 10 dragoons, then use my other hotkeys 5 and 6 to make 5 templars and 5 zealots. See that only works if you have only 1 base left (easier comebacks) AND you need forces fitting to your hotkeys. What if you would have needed 2 Templars and 6 Carriers? MBS does help but it helps the player that is at the disatvantage slightly more. For production queues it is exactly the other way around. Shouldn´t we remove queues then? | ||
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
do you really think blizzard is going to reduce the amount of hotkeys? come on man. to Unentschieden: No man. Do you honestly think that Queens arn't used in this game becuase of the time trade off?... why do we see science vessels then? What about templars and defilers? The queens spells arn't effective enough to be used all the time + broodling costs too much mana. DAs are used end game PvZ so i dunno where your going with this. If you don't understand how the units work in SC don't try using them as evidence in a discussion. The point i'm making is that a player who's ahead dosn't have to work harder to macro with features like MBS. That's self evident. | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2756 Posts
On January 30 2008 16:42 MyLostTemple wrote: *snip* No there's not. Queens, DA's and Medic abilities are not used because they are not cost effective BECAUSE they are to micro intensive. Seriously, a DA starts with feedback, has high HP and only needs to kill two templars or two defilers to pay for itself, not including the damage their storms, plauges and dark swarm would have done if they went off. If players could they'd have two DA's infront of their army at all times to feedback enemy casters. But it's not only micro with certain units that aren't being used to it's full potential in Broodwar. We have seen a good muta harass with two groups of mutas once or so and everyone was awed by how impressive it was. Well then, why doesn't all zerg players do it? And early game players send every unit built directly to support their main force. Why doesn't they do this for every unit built during the entire game? There are plenty of things that aren't being done because there is no time to do them. Blizzard have said they are adding more features into SCII and have shown quite a few. Which would be completly useless since no one would be able to use them without MBS/smartcast so we would have a game which had about half of the abilities as useless or at least weak like the DA and possibly a few units that were never used as the queen. Is that what the anti-MBS crowd wants? Or do they want Blizzard to just cut a few of the more micro intensive new features like warpgates? Also I'm sick of how much the anti-MBS crowd overrates how it will change the game. These are things MBS cannot help you with: * Efficent macro. You want to build the zealot when you have 100 minerals, you don't want to build 10 when you have 1000 because then you've waisted time. * Rally every single new unit to where it's supposed to be. * Unit mix. * Supply depot and base managment. In fact I still think were going to see "macro gamers" but they will have to macro a lot better than they do now. This includes building every unit separatly, sending it to the main force and keeping a perfect unit mix, and using this advantage to slowly gain momentum and a bigger force over the opponent. So will MBS make macro less important? Perhaps, but in BW macro is more important than micro and if it's reversed so that micro is sligthly more important than macro in SCII I don't see the problem. It will still be the most macro intensive game on the market, far above the competition (seriously, look at DoW and CoH) and the change will be small. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
On January 30 2008 19:39 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Also I'm sick of how much the anti-MBS crowd overrates how it will change the game. These are things MBS cannot help you with: * Efficent macro. You want to build the zealot when you have 100 minerals, you don't want to build 10 when you have 1000 because then you've waisted time. * Rally every single new unit to where it's supposed to be. * Unit mix. * Supply depot and base managment. Agreeing completely, especially that part. I´d add that you´d also need to predict your needs since you might group too much/to few/the wrong buildings. The main argument against MBS is always that it would remove Macro but no one every brings counter-arguments to the above points. | ||
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Wraithlin
United Kingdom50 Posts
On January 30 2008 19:28 MyLostTemple wrote: Wraithlin: it makes it easier for the guy behind too... yes. but that dosn't help him catch up since once his economy is behind his opponent will have an equally easy time STAYING ahead. with the macro made incrediblly easy for both players and less task juggling there person on top has a much easier time staying on top. Starcraft is not like warcraft 3, you arn't microing endlessly. There are points when you shouldn't attack and instead you should sit back waiting for the correct moment. So saying the player behind can micro more dosn't mean that much since the person ahead will now always have more units with MBS. do you really think blizzard is going to reduce the amount of hotkeys? come on man. I understand your argument, but I disagree that MBS will change significantly the stop/start of SC.Namely, you say there are points when you shouldnt attack. Well, lets examine those times, early on the reason you tend to halt attacks while you have an advantage are fixed defences. You stop your MM push because of sunkens, or your lings are being cut down by a bunker, or your zealots cant get past the supply wall. This is why drops are so devastating, because they bypass not only the opposing army but much of his fixed defences. Early game units that can break seige lines, stalkers, reapers, walkers, are going to reduce the number of instances where the player with the advantage has to stop his advance because he will be able to bypass many fixed defences. Thats not a function of MBS, but the increasingly dynamic units blizzard has introduced. The second type of stalemate tends to occur when both armies are of equivalent size, but the players chose to focus on expanding/macroing rather than trying to outmicro the opposing player to defeat his army. These impasses tend to occur in evenly balanced matches where both players have balanced economic strength. If you had the advantage why would you pause your attacks rather than press the advantage? MBS could actually reduce these stalemates, which are largely a byproduct of both players struggling to out produce the other and therefore not being willing to "waste" time trying to secure a few units advantage actually attacking the opposing force. By lowering the requirements of macro, we are more likely to see players willing to try and attack in the mid game. The third type of stalemate is usually temporary and is essentialyl a "low risk" option, where a player wins a small victory and tries to conver his advantage in units into an economic advantage by expanding. This is functionally a low risk strantegy compared to, say, trying to finisht he game off with the units that player has remaining. MBS coud make this strategy more prevelent because economic advantages would be easier to apply as you have argued. The fourth type is TvT, and that will require a shift in terran units. For your second point. I dont know, but I would wager they are more likely to limit the number of hotkeys than remove MBS. Most of the people who will be turned off by a lack of MBS (and there are alot of these players), are unlikely to use more than, say, 5 hotkeys anyway. [e] Im not arguing against the idea that SC is such a vastly challenging game that it allows for wonderful combacks, or that simplifying the game will potentially make it too easy to "close out" a match from an advantageous position. What SC2 needs to be is challenging because of the games depth rather than because of the games UI. Id rather watch a game decided because of a brilliant blink move by the protos players stalkers, than the ability of the terran player to select his 8 factories and build units from them individually. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
Well, the first point isn't really valid because it's probably implemented like this: if you have 200 minerals and 10 gateways selected, and hit 'z', you'll get just 2 zealots. So you can use this as an easier alternative to 'click-z-click-z'. Everythng else is correct though, also the conclusion that MBS is not such a big deal. It does have an effect, of course, but the effect will neither kill macro, nor turn noobs into pros. It's also highly unlikely that MBS will be a 'newbification'. Because the time you gain from using MBS won't remain unused anyway. This will translate directly to micro. Priority will shift from 50% macro 50% micro to 40% macro 60% micro. But in the end it's still the same 100%, so there should be absolutely nothing to worry about. The only valid point I've read here is that many players seem to LIKE doing these repetitive macro tasks, and seem to LIKE that they're not able to micro well. This is a subjective point, but still... this is something that can't be argued against. Either you like it or you don't. If the majority of all players share this view, then it'll look bad for MBS. This has nothing to do with newbification or real problems, though, it's just a matter of preference. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
On January 30 2008 20:31 Wraithlin wrote: I dont know, but I would wager they are more likely to limit the number of hotkeys than remove MBS. Most of the people who will be turned off by a lack of MBS (and there are alot of these players), are unlikely to use more than, say, 5 hotkeys anyway.  I hope that they will add more hotkeys ( custom hotkeys Ftw !!!! ).MBS without more hotkeys would be CRAPPY because MBS allows you to focus more on micro, and if you have less hotkeys, your micro wont be better . | ||
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Wraithlin
United Kingdom50 Posts
On January 30 2008 20:41 Boblion wrote: I hope that they will add more hotkeys ( custom hotkeys Ftw !!!! ).MBS without more hotkeys would be CRAPPY because MBS allows you to focus more on micro, and if you have less hotkeys, your micro wont be better .I disagree. MBS without more hotkeys will be more balanced and is more likely to gain support from both the pro- and anti- MBS communities as a comprimise. It would also give SC more depth, where the more skilled players would be able to gain small advantages by using SBS but complete beginners dont get destroyed because they cant build from 4 rax in under a second. But your post still supports my view of MBS being less of a factor in top level games than the anti-MBS camp believe. | ||
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
On January 30 2008 20:49 Wraithlin wrote: I disagree. MBS without more hotkeys will be more balanced and is more likely to gain support from both the pro- and anti- MBS communities as a comprimise. It would also give SC more depth, where the more skilled players would be able to gain small advantages by using SBS but complete beginners dont get destroyed because they cant build from 4 rax in under a second. MBS and additionnal hotkeys have nothing to do with it -.- MBS without more hotkeys: Macro will be easier for both noobs and good players. As many ppl explained before, good players will still macro better than noobs ( they wont wait to have 400 minerals to build 4 zealot with their 4 gateways ). Moreover ppl will have more time to micro but Sc2 units seem very micro intensive ( more casts and special abilities than in SC 1 ). MBS with more hotkeys ( and custom hotkeys ): it wont be really different for macro but it will be way better for micro because good players will be even better and perform awesome micro if they can hotkey each kind of units/casters . Noobs will be still noobs because they wont be able to use properly all the hotkeys. So imo, MBS+ more (custom) hotkeys > MBS with less hotkeys ( it would be a real regression). On January 30 2008 20:49 Wraithlin wrote: But your post still supports my view of MBS being less of a factor in top level games than the anti-MBS camp believe. Sarcasm ? | ||
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BlackStar
Netherlands3029 Posts
So give us more hotkeys. Just no automining and MBS. Give us the ability to use spells and abilities so that we can stimpack a group of marines while medics or tanks are selected. And give us the ability to tab through individual units like in WC3 so smart casting doesn't need to be added either. | ||
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
obviously a player can still macro slightly faster by not using MBS. The problem is that they arn't peanalized as much for getting behind. There is also no risk for double queing with MBS where there is for SBS. That's bad. also, when a metagame forms there WILL be moments when players can and can not attack each other. when they can't attack each other they must macro, but not with such ease. i'm also all for more hotkeys, i think that would be great. | ||
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