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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On February 06 2008 00:24 Gandalf wrote: This might seem ridiculous to you, but Starcraft proves this. Ten years on, its still being played tons. For it to be proof you have to prove that Starcraft would not have been successful with MBS. I mean seriously? | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5558 Posts
On February 06 2008 00:33 Unentschieden wrote: I think that MBS WILL get a more or less reasonable drawback that makes it less usefull for perfectionalists. Otherwise, yes MBS could change gameplay substantionally. But Blizzard officially anounced that they would counterbalance the "ease" of the new UI (including unlimited selection, MBS, Automine, Lazy Peon Button...). The problem is that nothing is indicating any such thing, and CowGoMoo says it's unlikely Blizzard will consider it. I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution. This way macro still requires attention, and thus decision making, while pro-MBS players may still double-click on their Gateways and press 'z' to produce Zealots. This also solves the issue of Zerg macro being an "easy mode", which, according to Cow, it currently is. Alternatively, units could fully queue up in initial buildings of one's selection first. I.e. you press 'z' 6 times, and 5 Zealots queue up in your first Gate & 1 in your second one out of, say, 10 Gates, instead of 2 Zealots getting queued up in each of your selected Gates when you press 'z' 2 times. | ||
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
Blizzard will add a drawback unless the design as it is already states a drawback in itself. In the worst case scenario they would take it out. That, of course, is future music since the game is prealpha. I don´t think Zerg can be considered "easy" or "hard" if they aren´t even presentable yet. But some of the suggestions like "unhotkeyable" are not drawbacks, they defeat the point entirely. The point is it to make the game easier to control, even at the expense of efficiency. If MBS neither makes the game easier to control NOR makes it any more efficient it shouldn´t be added at all. | ||
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maybenexttime
Poland5558 Posts
As for the reason behind implementing MBS: is it to make the game easier to control by being able to macro in battle or just to be able to double-click-select/drag-select multiple buildings? I guess it'd be helpful if Blizzard clarified that one. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
On February 06 2008 00:36 Klive5ive wrote: For it to be proof you have to prove that Starcraft would not have been successful with MBS. I mean seriously? If you're going to be like this, then fine. Obviously no 100% proof can exist for either party in this argument then, since we cant go back in time in another dimension and have blizzard launch sc there with MBS, and then see how it does. We have to go on what we do have, because while it might not be absolute, 100% proof, it sure is better than spinning unfoundied theories. So, what do we know? We know that Starcraft is leaps and bounds ahead of any other RTS ever made. This includes games that have been made during the ten years following Starcrafts release. Games that are obviously more advanced from a technical standpoint. Despite this, none has come even remotely close to what Starcraft has achieved. So obviously, Starcraft has some qualities that no other RTS has, simply because it is the only RTS to have enjoyed such success. Using your logic, I could point out that there are a lot of RTS games that do have MBS, and they all suck. Using your logic, I could say that micro is completely irrelevant to the success of Starcraft. When you reply with a "wtf? I mean seriously?", I could say for you to prove otherwise, you would have to prove starcraft would not have been successful without micro. The only way to do that would be the whole go back in time thing again. Since its well established that Starcraft is the most successful and most competitive RTS game of all time, what Blizzard must do now is build on the elements that caused that success. This does not mean that they cant innovate, or introduce new stuff, or tweak the mechanics of micro and macro, but the essence of Starcraft living on in SC2 is the surest way to guarantee success, both with the casual gaming masses and the more hardcore, pro scene. | ||
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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
You did a nice job of backpedaling by the way. I could point out that there are a lot of RTS games that do have MBS, and they all suck. Ok so those games were not as good, but I don't think that is because of MBS. No other game has matched the beauty of 3 fully balanced races, or the distinct play styles and tactics that each pro-gamer brings to a MU. I don't want to quote the maths again, but I agree fully with other posters when they say that MBS will take away such a small portion of the game that it would be irrelevant to the success. And I argue that SC2 will be the same, the success will not depend in anyway on the inclusion or non-inclusion of MBS. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
On February 06 2008 00:33 Unentschieden wrote: Well let me say the same to you. We obviously have completely different ideas about the "true" role of macro. To "We obviously have completely different ideas about the "true" role of macro", I will say thank you, you have finally realized your comprehension of macro is grossly shallow. If you disagree with any of the factors I listed as playing a role in macro or being affected by the demands of macro, you are just plain wrong. Anyone whos played SC for any reasonable amount of time will tell you so. So now, before we proceed, explain to me what YOU think macro is, and how you think it affects gameplay, and how it interacts with all the other elements of the game. Please, dont sidestep this question or try to be glib. Lets see if you even get what macro is. Please also explain how the macro system in SC has held the game back. If it hasnt, and if all it has done is help ensure SC became the best RTS of all time, then you need to take a step back and reconsider your stance.Why is it bad? Why is it inferior? Why and how will it damage SC2? DONT talk about whats realistic, about why you dont like it or blah blah. Tell us the impact of SCs macro system implemented in SC2, and how it will be detrimental to the game. When something works so well, the obvious challenge is to improve it - not to exclude it and introduce a system that has resulted in many a mediocre RTS games. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
On February 06 2008 02:58 Klive5ive wrote: I was merely pointing out the absurdity of your statement. You did a nice job of backpedaling by the way. That's a very good point (I looked very hard, and eventually I found a point in that wall of text worth replying to). Ok so those games were not as good, but I don't think that is because of MBS. No other game has matched the beauty of 3 fully balanced races, or the distinct play styles and tactics that each pro-gamer brings to a MU. I don't want to quote the maths again, but I agree fully with other posters when they say that MBS will take away such a small portion of the game that it would be irrelevant to the success. And I argue that SC2 will be the same, the success will not depend in anyway on the inclusion or non-inclusion of MBS. Ok, so you dont "think" its because of MBS. What you think isnt good enough by your own standards. Prove it, please, absolutely. 100% proof is required in this thread. No proof, no post. And distinct play styles were introduced by progamers because starcraft was good enough to create a pro scene and entice people to play that much in the first place. How many other games have done this? I'm glad you do agree that Starcraft IS the most successful RTS of all time. This would mean, and no, I'm not providing any mathematical proof of this, that it had some element(s), or a balance of element(s), that made it massively superior to all other RTS games. Blizzard needs to deduce what those were, and then build on those, and improve on those further - and that will guarantee the success of SC2 at every level. And who is better equipped to deduce what those element(s) or balance might be? Someone who has played 200 zero clutter games, or someone like Boxer, who has a profound understanding of the game? Your statement that MBS will take only a negligibly small portion of the game away is totally wrong. Were that really so, why is it that anyone who has played this game for a respectable amount of time will disagree with it? MBS will HEAVILY impact gameplay, and it will take away big chunks (not chunk) of the game away. Please prove it wont be so, beyond doubt that is. I need 100% proof because without that one cannot argue, ever. The people who played SC2 at blizzcon said MBS was detrimental to the fun of the game. They actually played the game, you havent. How do you argue against that? And please tell us why SC2 wont be impacted by the inclusion or non inclusion of MBS. Are you trying to see it is such an irrelevant aspect of the game that radically changing it wont make any difference? Also please tell us what it is about SBS that you actually dislike? I hope the repetitive task argument doesnt come up again. Everything in SC is repetitive. I hope the decision:click ratio doesnt make another entrance, we've already decided why thats stupid. Or the "more advanced" UI. Why not advance it further and exclude even those two clicks? Or advance the micro UI so you can execute complex full army micro maneuvers with a single click? Theres no end to "advancement" - simply saying "advanced" isnt an argument. All the pro MBS arguments seem to be based on personal preferences, there is neither logic nor evidence to support them. And to the large amounts of evidence that exists to support SBS, you say prove it, which I cant unless you get me the delorean. | ||
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
On February 06 2008 03:00 Gandalf wrote: If you disagree with any of the factors I listed as playing a role in macro or being affected by the demands of macro, you are just plain wrong. Anyone whos played SC for any reasonable amount of time will tell you so. Yeah, tell me so People! Sorry about that, I just couldn´t resist. My idea of Macro? Let me quote myself: On February 05 2008 22:14 Unentschieden wrote: First we need to actually figure out what Macro is compromised of. First, I´d say is harvesting resources. The skill in that would be to figure out how many peons you need at a given time and send them actually doing something. How much of macro is that? Lets say... 20%, expansions are part of this. Next would be buildings. This has a major effect on the game (proxy, expanding, strategy etc.), so I´d give it 40%. Then there is teching, all these expensive upgrades etc. ~20% since most of the units are useless without upgrades (later on) The final (imho) part would be the actuall units, the deciding on them and actually building them. that would be the last 40%. The percentages give my idea of "importance" of the certain area to overall good Macro. I think the SC UI would scare away new players, today they expect a easy "entrance" for a game. They need to get the feeling that they advance or they abort progression out of frustration - Blizzard showed understanding of that concept with WoW-a ape could get from 1-60. Any resembelance of challenge starts from there. Once again, let me compare MBS to Queues. They are a great help in the beginning, when you need to learn the basics. Later on, at the competative level, they don´t help you or make it any easier. The doctrine "Easy to learn, hard to master" is supported by such a implementation. | ||
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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
A wall of text and ramblings don't make your points more valid. Plus I think everyone can see your being purposely abrasive with all the 100% comments. As I said before I was merely pointing out the absurdity of your claim that "the success of Starcraft proves MBS is a bad thing." On February 06 2008 03:22 Gandalf wrote: The people who played SC2 at blizzcon said MBS was detrimental to the fun of the game. They actually played the game, you havent. How do you argue against that? Well first of all I'm sure they "all" didn't say that. Secondly I don't think the majority said it takes the fun away, merely that it made it easier to play. But most importantly they weren't playing at anything like a high level, they had 5 minutes to learn and apply strategies. I don't believe their opinion is a lot more valid than ours. On February 06 2008 03:22 Gandalf wrote: And please tell us why SC2 wont be impacted by the inclusion or non inclusion of MBS. Are you trying to see it is such an irrelevant aspect of the game that radically changing it wont make any difference? Well... yes. I think I made that very clear. I don't think it would effect an ICCUP ladder or pro play. The only difference in my view is it would make the game more fun for beginners and casual gamers; players who wouldn't even think of playing ICCUP. On February 06 2008 03:22 Gandalf wrote: Also please tell us what it is about SBS that you actually dislike? Personally I don't mind SBS at all. | ||
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HamerD
United Kingdom1922 Posts
 )How come you guys type such perfect english? Klive, Your specific point about pros/noobs and the difference of MBS or no MBS has been argued about for like 15 pages with lots of people saying the same things as you. Unit-guy with a shield (sorry lol i will never learn your name ><), Alls I can say is that I got into SC VERY late (only a few months ago) and as such SC has had to win my attention past aoe3 and cnc3 and aoc and war3 etc. But definitely SC beats them all down and I honestly reckon that a part of that is the tricky base management which isn't TOO tricky. I've been thinking that blizzard want to perhaps rip off cnc3 in many ways. They seem to want a game with the exact same pace and even the same units (those tripod guys look like ripoffs ><). Weird, cos cnc3 sucks ass compared to SC imho | ||
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Meh
Sweden458 Posts
Starcraft 1 was not a great game when it first came out. To be honest, I stopped playing after a few months, and then began again shortly before Broodwar came out. Do you even remember that, for example, you had to single-select reavers and carriers if you wanted to make more scarabs/interceptors? That was a total whore of a chore, a UI implementation that was exactly what you'd expect it to be: build 1.00 And do you remember that when Starcraft 1 first came out, it was no more balanced than CnC? Just like Warcraft3, the winners were the cheesers and the losers were the people who actually played the game. Not to mention all the bugs. The greatness of Starcraft is not it's fundamental build (part of which happened to be SBS). It's the fact that after 10 years, Blizzard still patch it, still improve it. Starcraft 2, I believe, will be nowhere near as good as Starcraft 1 when it hits the shelves. But give it two-three years of patching, then you can come back and discuss whether MBS was really such a big deal (if it's still in there and hasn't been patched away that is). As it is now, only a fraction of the people in this thread has even played the friggin game, and even the good arguments are based off of completely different games alltogether. Would you please let the game at least hit beta before you start stating your opinions as if they were 100% true? Discussing is fine, as long as both parts acknowledge that, in the grand scheme of things, they know precisely dick about this game. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
On February 06 2008 03:45 Unentschieden wrote: Yeah, tell me so People! Sorry about that, I just couldn´t resist. My idea of Macro? Let me quote myself: The percentages give my idea of "importance" of the certain area to overall good Macro. I think the SC UI would scare away new players, today they expect a easy "entrance" for a game. They need to get the feeling that they advance or they abort progression out of frustration - Blizzard showed understanding of that concept with WoW-a ape could get from 1-60. Any resembelance of challenge starts from there. Once again, let me compare MBS to Queues. They are a great help in the beginning, when you need to learn the basics. Later on, at the competative level, they don´t help you or make it any easier. The doctrine "Easy to learn, hard to master" is supported by such a implementation. If you do disagree with what I stated plays a role in macro, explain why. Dont just disagree and sit on it. While the components you have mentioned of macro are indeed so, you've ignored a lot. You've ignored that macro being a time requiring activity heavily influences deicision making. When a pro piles up 1000 minerals, its not because hes too slow to multitask well - hes either saving money for a particular reason, or is embroiled in an engagement so critical that he decides to give it his 100% attention. Despite the fact that a 400apm player can macro with hotkeys blazingly fast, the physical stress of macro still influences decisions. With MBS, this is gone. MBS will also decrease how much the player is stressed to be aware of whats happening. In a regular starcraft game, with its back and forth action, all the micro and the macro, it is challenging to be fully aware of everything thats going on. That creates important roles for harassment, for dual or triple attacks, and so on. With MBS, a person can devote himself much more to his army and keeping his eyes peeled for any surprises - the game will become more predictable and linear. In a late game scenario, lets take zerg since we've talked about protoss too much, you'll have hatcheries spread out all over the map. Shifting between bases to macro means you have to divide your time well between various tasks - an aspect that will be lost with MBS. Now imagine a scenario where you are running your enemy over, and want to rally all 12 of your hatches to a certain base of his. With SBS, this is challenging, you still have to macro off 12 hatcheries while jumping around the map. With MBS, one click to rally, two to mass units every 30 seconds, and you can sit back and relax. (Although I dont care about MBS for rally points) I disagree with the percentages you've assigned to various sub tasks, and I think its better if we all stay from that kind of argument. However, I would first split macro as having mental and physical components - the former would encompass all the decision making, and the latter the physical execution. A task such as a weapons upgrade, for example, has a much larger mental component, since when to upgrade can be an important decision, but physically, it is just two clicks. Unit production, on the other hand, has a greater degree of physical involvement, and so on. Finally, ten years ago, I would've found it really hard to learn a lot of the games being played today. They are far too complex compared to any game we had back then. I mean, I started off with prince of persia, and guess what, I found some parts friggin hard. Now it would be a joke. I think gamers today are MUCH more prepared to handle more challenging games than they were when SC came out. We already have a ton of people who can play really fast after years of playing various games. You cannot compare MBS to queues, they are totally different. Queuing allows a poor player to use his money, but the returns are not immediate. It is actually detrimental to your macro to queue 2+ units in your facilities, and hence weaker players who get forced into queuing by a better opponent actually suffer in terms of macro. In other words, queuing does nothing to lessen the gap between a better and a worse player. MBS does the opposite - two clicks per minute macro can be accomplished by any player. | ||
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Unentschieden
Germany1471 Posts
Macro in itself does not require timecritical desicions like Microing does-if you want say, 20 dragoons you wont change your mind 10 seconds later(unless scouting or something else occurs). Timeconsuming Macro limits the complexity of Micro combat - Micro and Macro should both be challenging but Macro more on a long term scale. That would allow more depht on both "sides". Increase the effect of physical ability on the succsess of Micro and increase the importance of "brains" for Macroing, let the two aspects of the game become more distinctive. Also I think you seriously overestimate the effect MBS would have. That was one reason I tried to break up the Macro aspect - I don´t think that it would effect the game as much as you do. But I doubt we can get any further on THAT point without the beta. Depends what games you mean. There are still "simple" games produced-but the PC gamer as a target group got older. Also the term of e-sport is quite new, before that complex games were just for the "geeks" a small subgroup that didn´t have the buying power to warrant expensive game develpments. What do you think it costs to develop a "blockbuster" game today? On your last paragraph: I think the exact opposite. As stated before I think you seriously overestimate the effect of MBS on overall Macro. Performing Macro like you describe it - 2 clicks per minute - would imho be horribly inefficinet, just like queuing up. TL:DR I agree with your argumentation but not your deduction. | ||
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Gandalf
Pakistan1905 Posts
Video games have always had both physical and mental components, and I doubt anyone will argue against that. Dexterity and finesse with controls often has importance at some part or the other. I remember as a kid I used to play street fighter and there used to be this bonus stage where I'd have to mash buttons as fast as I could in order to break some breaks. Mindless, but fun. Obviously games have evolved to the point where actions must have more reason behind them. The average PC gamer is indeed older, and its because the first generation of players has grown older. This doesnt mean a 13 year old today cant pick up hard games today - because, come on, 13 year olds can kick serious ass. Young or old, players today are much better equipped to handle more complicated games. If anything, easy games are boring. Pacman released today would be a joke. Performing macro with MBS will not be just like queuing up. Queuing up uses up resources for an inferior player, but gives no immediate return. But why does he queue, why doesnt he just put down more gates? Because its a skill he has yet to perfect. Because putting down gates and macroing units while fighting is a challenge. With MBS, actual unit making will require next to no time, hence freeing up sufficient time to put down gates, and changing a lot of things. Macro requires a lot of time critical decisions. How can you say otherwise? A glaring example is a timing push in TvP, you mess it up, and you're screwed. You do it will, and it works wonders. I'm glad you agree that there are physical and mental components for macro and micro. You also state you want to minimize the physical component of macro (and therefore, I assume, free up more time, one of the effects of which will be to increase the physical component of micro), but that is a personal preference. The fact that you want a more micro intensive game makes it obvious you arent against physical labor during a game, its only the distribution you want altered. This discussion is how MBS will impact on a large scale, not how you would tailor the game according to specifically what you like or dislike. You must acknowledge that a particular feature you are not to pleased with could be extremely fun to others. A casual gamer doesnt care about being gosu. Or about getting A+ on iccup. A casual gamer logs onto bnet, has only heard of boxer and nada here and there, plays a few games with his friends or pubs, and logs off. 90% of bnet would rape him 1/1, but he doesnt care - hes a casual gamer. As long as he can find games with people in his skill range, hes happy. The absolute level of his skill is irrelevant. This is why the exclusion of MBS will not affect the casual gamer. Klivefive is awesomely brilliant for saying: "Well first of all I'm sure they "all" didn't say that. Secondly I don't think the majority said it takes the fun away, merely that it made it easier to play. But most importantly they weren't playing at anything like a high level, they had 5 minutes to learn and apply strategies. I don't believe their opinion is a lot more valid than ours." And what might be the source of this information? If you look through older threads, you'll find your paragraph is entirely wrong. I believe MBS took so much fun out of the game that some starcrafters sat down with the developers and tried to explain why it must be excluded. I also dont get where the 5 minute number came from, thats not even the length of one game. I do believe their opinion is more valid than ours, however minutely so, because 1) They played SC2, we didnt, and 2) Some of these players have played several RTS games and understand their gameplay very well. And to klivefives statement of the thread: "I don't think it would effect an ICCUP ladder or pro play. The only difference in my view is it would make the game more fun for beginners and casual gamers; players who wouldn't even think of playing ICCUP." People who dont even think about playing iccup, who are casual gamers, dont give a crap if they have 3000 mins piled up. Casual gamers consider their money well spent if they play a game for a few months. SC will sell well, MBS or no MBS, but converting casual gamers into hardcore gamers, and hence lengthen the life of SC2, will require certain factors, one of which is SBS. I dont know how to respond to your claim it wont affect ladder or pro play. Over two threads, there have been countless posts explaining why it will be otherwise. As usual, you stubbornly ignore all the real questions, extrapolate a misplaced comma to mean something it doesnt, and argue about irrelevancies such as realism or decision:click ratio or repetitive actions or blah blah yadda yadda I have yet to read a single argument that clearly delineates how the inclusion of MBS will benefit SC2 as opposed to SBS at the ladder or pro scene. Please realize that saying "MBS will affect casual gamers but not ladder or pro games" is not an argument - its just a statement, without any support whatsoever. Would it be possible for Blizzard to implement two different UIs, differing only in MBS and SBS, with split ladders, so that players from one cannot play against the other? The casual gamers can go the MBS way. But should they implement this, I have a feeling that sooner or later, the MBS ladder will die out - because the casual gamers will die out after a certain time, and everyone else will want to get better and have more fun. | ||
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HamerD
United Kingdom1922 Posts
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Klive5ive
United Kingdom6056 Posts
On February 06 2008 07:46 Gandalf wrote: My last post for this thread, its getting too repetitive. I think after the assault on intellect that this thread is, rubbing some salt in my eyes will be pleasant relief. You really are unbelievable. This level of arrogance is astounding. It is never alright in reasonable discussion to sink this low. I respect your point of view, even though I disagree. There's no point speculating anymore, I'm pretty sure everything has been covered. We'll just have to wait and see. | ||
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1esu
United States303 Posts
My argument is that MBS, in addition to making the macro-mechanical learning curve easier and allowing the development team more room to create new features (who would otherwise be limited by feasibility of use due to SBS's macro-mechanical time sink), can also help make SC's macro more interesting and more fun for players if implemented correctly, not because it would make the game more "realistic" or "less repetitive". In retrospect, I should have defined "decision" more carefully, as people took it to mean "strategy" or "plan of action", and made good arguments (that I agree with) as to why simplifying the UI to the point where players could implement strategies with a few clicks took skill out of the game. So, to clarify, by decision I mean a meaningful choice. Note that these meaningful choices, unlike strategies or plans of action, don't have to be consciously determined; in fact, for most SC veterans, many meaningful choices are determined instinctually, especially in micro. With this in mind, I think a great UI should allow the player to execute all meaningful choices in the minimum number of clicks, ensuring each click is the direct execution of a meaningful choice. To explain, take the example of a micro-mechanical action: ordering 9 zealots to attack 3 tanks, 3 to each tank, while ignoring other units on the way. The strategy might be to order my zealots to attack the tanks, but the player still can make several meaningful choices within: how many zealots to assign to each tank, whether to ignore other units or not along the way, which zealots to assign to each "attack group" (which matters if they have differences in health). Keeping this in mind, look at the number of clicks needed to execute these choices: Three drag-clicks to select each group of three zealots, and three right-clicks to tell each group of zealots to attack a different tank while ignoring other units. This comes to six clicks total, which is ok; any less, and we would pass the line where the computer is making choices for the player, whether in how many zealots to send to which tank or the distribution of the zealots into the three groups. Now, look at the meaningful choices within the macro-mechanical action of producing a wave of units: which types of units to produce in this wave, and how many of each type. The important point here is that where to produce those units should be a meaningful choice, and is for the Zerg, but isn't for Protoss or Terran because SBS strongly encourages them to construct their unit-producing buildings in one location to maintain productive efficiency in the late-game. If determining which building to produce a specific unit from (other than ordering units to be built out of their respective types of buildings) was a meaningful choice in SC, I would have no theoretical problem with an SBS UI. However, since it isn't, all the clicks required to select individual buildings while producing units are effectively "dead" clicks, since it doesn't matter where the unit is being produced from unless the player is proxying (in which case two of the building clicks result from a meaningful choice, the first main building selection and the first proxied building selection). Now, even if these clicks are "dead", it wouldn't really matter if the player didn't have to deal with these "dead" clicks so often in a game. The problem is that unit production happens at predictable intervals, and has the "dead" clicks occurring in the same order and pattern every time regardless of the status of the game (as opposed to the micro situation, which is subtly different every time). Add that to the fact that macro-mechanics is one of if not the most distinguishing factors between players in early skill levels and you see why this might be a problem for peoples' enjoyment of the competitive game. Now, the situation is not as simple as just minimizing the number of building clicks to those that execute meaningful choices by implementing MBS. An extremely important skill in macro-management is macro-related multitasking, or "presence of mind" (PoM) as I've heard FakeSteve describe it: the choice of when to neglect other game elements to attend to the time-consuming aspects of macro, mostly macro-mechanical actions. This skill is inextricably tied to the time it takes to execute macro-mechanical actions; as the time goes down, this skill becomes less relevant. One of the major differences in opinion between the pro-MBS and anti-MBS positions is whether PoM can remain the major factor it is in SC in an SC2 with MBS. The key to PoM remaining a major factor with MBS is for Blizzard to do one or both of two things: 1) Design MBS such that players who want more flexibility and productive efficiency are discouraged from abusing it, thus ensuring that they will have to pay enough attention to their macro that PoM remains a meaningful skill; 2) Add macro-mechanical gameplay elements (preferably involving the micromanagement of workers) that result in more meaningful choices and have a better ratio of choices to clicks, so that the player has more mentally interesting macro-mechnical actions to sink their time into, thus raising the multitasking demand back to SC levels and making PoM a meaningful skill again. The first approach can clearly be seen in the current implementation of MBS. To use MBS in the worst-case sense that anti-MBSers describe it, players must shift-click their buildings into groups for each unit type such that each group contains exactly the number of their respective type of unit that the player wants to produce in every wave. Too few means less units produced in a two-click than the player wants, too many means that certain buildings in that group will never produce units, and if the player wants to change the number of a type of unit produced, they have to go back and re-shift-click the buildings to set up the production line again. Also, the player must wait until they have enough minerals to produce one unit of that type in each of the grouped buildings AND all of the grouped buildings are currently idle, or the player will end up with less units than desired, and those units might even be queued. I doubt anyone could argue that using MBS in this case is productively efficient or flexible; just like queueing, it seems to be designed as a crutch for less skilled players to ease the macro-mechanical learning curve. We already have a great example of the second approach, a more mentally interesting macro-mechanical element, in warpgates for the Protoss. Since there are considerable advantages in the ability to build units anywhere the player has pylon power, it's sensible to predict that most skilled Protoss players will switch to warpgates early on (as it's a core upgrade) and never look back. The proper use of warpgates will likely require SBS (or very limited MBS), and furthermore will force the player to take their attention off their army to spawn units in nearby pylon power when the warpgates refresh. Also, much of this macro will be hotkey-based, and so the player doesn't have to go click on static buildings to accomplish a task whose reward will only be seen as the units rally to the battle much later; instead, they click on a point and a unit almost instantly spawns there, ready for battle. Finally, warpgate macro provides at least one other meaningful choice over SBS macro: the order of spawning units. It is a better choice to spawn your zealots before your high templars into the pylon power of a phase prism near a battle, as if the enemy noticed the spawning the zealots would be able to defend the high templars as they spawn. Considering how productively inefficient and inflexible it is to abuse MBS in its current implementation, and how Blizzard has already revealed macro-mechanical gameplay elements that reward players who focus on macro, just as they promised, I highly doubt that MBS will end up having the disastrous effect on PoM and general multitasking that people in this debate have made it out to be. That doesn't mean it's perfect, however. The effect of MBS on making Zerg macro too easy and the issue of MBS removing the negative feedback loop that helped keep economic advantages from being overwhelming (though considerably mitigated if I'm right about the above two points) still need to be addressed. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
It's not even worth replying anymore, the last 2 or 3 pages contain not a single new argument. edit: not including 1esu's post above, haven't read it yet. I'll just throw in something different to think about: In almost all games, across all genres, there are quite a few players who generally dislike changes a sequel brings. I'll use Quake as an example. Quake 1 players nowadays still think that Quake 2-4 are for noobs, because Q1 is the fastest and most oldschool and "1337" part of the series. They are an unimportant minority though. No one cares, and Q2-4 are competitive anyway. Only Q3 and Q4 are being used in tournaments nowadays. SC lived almost 10 years until the sequel has been announced, and it will still take another year or so until it's actually released. The amount of players who think SC1 can never be improved upon (let's call them elitists) is probably really big. Does that mean they are right? No. It just means that they are close-minded, and that they don't want to be forced to adapt to new/different gameplay (yet). | ||
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prOxi.swAMi
Australia3091 Posts
On February 06 2008 10:36 1esu wrote: Blizzard has already revealed macro-mechanical gameplay elements that reward players who focus on macro, just as they promised Such as? | ||
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