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On February 06 2008 11:06 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
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).
Wtf, we're clearly already being forced to adapt, have u been under a rock while all the new units have been introduced? We've never played with those units before, nor have we performed build orders with the new tech trees. Adaptation is inevitable, and it's certainly nothing that the better players of starcraft are going to fear.
You make it sound like we're scared to lose or something, which is funny because anyone who's decent at this game fully understands the benefit of loss.
I'd say it's definitely more likely that the pro-MBS people (let's call them newbs), are the ones scared of having to actually learn how to macro, and would rather be given a free ticket to the land of insta-army.
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Ah ma gawd, iz awn!
Only a matter of time now until someone starts ranting about nazis.
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On February 06 2008 12:14 Meh wrote:
Only a matter of time now until someone starts ranting about nazis.
GODWINS LAW!!
Well gee golly, I'm gone for one day and there's two whole new pages of argument to address. I kinda agree that this is starting to get repetative.
First let me say that I've written a wall of somewhat meandering text. I think there's some good reasoning buried in here, but if you don't feel like doing a lot of reading, I've really gone and summarised everything important at the end (under TL:DR (good innovation Unentschieden!))
I think we have a solution: MBS is allowed, but not able to be hotkeyed. Satisifies some noobs (who probably don't use hotkeys for production facilities anyways (I know it took me a long time to figure out to do that)), satisifies the requirement to have Rally Points mass changeable, satisifies the requirement that Unit production requires a return to the base. Keyboard macro is still a legitimate
On February 05 2008 20:10 Unentschieden wrote:There are some "points" that are really stopping this discussion imho (at least from a anti-MBS POV): 1. SC is perfect and any change is a degresson 2. Fighting the SC UI is a magic on it´s own (ok that´s partly #1) 3. Players won´t start playing SC2 competativly because they like the game but because it is competative 4. MBS completely removes the Macro aspect from the game 5. Blizzard doesn´t need money 6. SC2 doesn´t need to attract new players I disagree with all of the above. These points DO come up and I hope that at least some will understand how they hurt a discussion. Oh and HamerD: Some have problems with my nick but up to now no one had mangled it like you did  (honestly where did the l come from?) No hard feelings on that though. My point on making the game attractive to more people and make it less clunky/unintuitive are basically the same.
Are we really back to this? This is one of the worst arguments I've read in this thread in a long time. Strawmen and defunct argument.
Let me throw this right out there: MBS inclusion = more noobs is a DEFUNCT argument. It will not really affect ratings, and real noobs might not even realize that there is no MBS.
To Fen: ""Fighting the SC UI" as you call it is what 90% of computer games are all about. Micro in starcraft is also fighting the UI, trying to aim a gun in an FPS is fighting the UI.
Give me a break. There's a huge difference between the fighting the UI argument of the Pro-MBS side and micro and aiming. Micro is an engaged battle between two players, where the clicks made in micro affect the strategy your opponent uses. You pull in and out looking for weakness, you cast spells, you constantly reposition. Unit production SBS is fighting against the UI because all there is as a UI barrier for you to overcome while you make some units. Aiming is the farthest from fighting the UI because there is no restriction, only your mouse movement directly translated into cursor motion. It's easier than aiming a real gun, which makes a UI improvement in real life. Well that's a pretty dumb argument, but I think you get my point.
We've been around and around the competative argument, but I still really think that MBS doesn't make Starcraft 2 less competative. It means there's more focus on macro, less focus on multi-tasking, but that doesn't directly translate into a less competative game. A game with only micro could theoritically be very very competative. Reaching back to Gandalf's comparison of MBS to dribbling in Basketball (a comparison I find to be a very good one, actually), removing the dribbling rule from Basketball wouldn't make that particular game any less competative, it would just change the feeling of the game a lot. And it would leave a lot of players who had spent many hours perfecting a now defunct skill upset.
Not saying we should remove dribbling from basketball, by any stretch :D
To 1esu. I like the way you think a lot. I completely agree with you that it would be wonderful if there were a way to make macro both a) a time sink and b) mentally stimulating with multiple available strategies. I think it's important that macro have some time aspect to it, because the frantic pace of Starcraft I do believe is a huge reason for its success, but reptative clicks for that sake isn't the best we can do, is it?
I can't really think of a mechanism to make this work out though. You take your scv and start dancing around the minerals and all of your workers mine faster. Lol, what a dumb idea. You see what i mean though?
I also wanted to take a stab at Gandalf's challenge to demonstrate how SBS has ruined Starcraft. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to bullshit a lot, but it's worth a go. SBS makes it so that even the fastest and most competent pros are at a loss in the lategame. There isn't a player who doesn't have units piling up, SVCs idle and careless unit loss constantly. It would be a much better spectator sport if the best pros didn't fuck up all the time. They fuck up becuase they're telling their units to mine and clicking gateways, and giving them a few extra seconds isn't going to give us pros twiddling their thumbs, it's going to mean that all their workers are gainfully employed, their units are moving to the map, there's action constantly. And don't even mention 12 unit group limit. Nothing annoys me more than watching beautiful lategame armies running into the walls because it's too fucking hard to move 4 control groups of units at the same bleeding time.
That was all trash. If you read through that, I really do apologize. It's the same sort of trite arguments that the pro-MBS side started on. I thought I'd keep it on though, a bizzarre stream of conciousness experiment for anybody who cares.
The real argument that the anti-MBS side should be making is that then it wouldn't be Starcraft.
To Maybenexttime: I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution.
You and I are in complete agreement. Anybody else here agree?
TL:DR
Changing the nature of the game isn't equal to making it less competative. However, we love the nature of Starcraft, so it would be dandy if it didn't change.
The ideal solution to the MBS problem is more mentally challenging macro actions, but nobody has a solid idea on what that means.
The solution at hand is to keep MBS, but disallow MBS hotkeying. This satisifies noobs who want to make units quickly (who generally don't hotkey production buildings anyway), it allows mass rally points, and it requires a return to the base. Macro is still demanding, because you have to select just as many gateways for each type of unit you want.
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Provided that MBS (or let's better say: the decreased attention gap that results from it) really does hurt the competitiveness (although we really have to wait until beta until we can say this for sure), I agree with 1esu too, that Blizzard should change the macro aspect somehow to force the player to spend enough attention to it. But SBS for many players is too uninteresting and tedious. The side effect of SBS, namely having to pay constant attention to macroing, may be beneficial for the game, but the task itself is not very much so. I'd prefer a more dynamic and strategical, less robotic approach.
I don't care how they'd do it, and I'm too lazy to think of something right now, I'd just prefer not having to go through the same repetitive tasks again. SBS macro is simply too static in an otherwise interesting and dynamic game.
Although I personally think that SC2 has a lot of new ways to play the game, like all the units that can move over terrain, so I believe that players are already forced to pay more attention to the gameplay instead of paying attention to constant macroing. So I think this will be balanced. I may be too naive there, but on the other hand, most of the anti MBS posters are horribly exaggerating ("death of macro", "noobification", while all there is to it is a shift of priority, slightly less macro resulting in slightly more micro).
One very simple solution to all (potential) troubles is to make the game slightly faster, by the way. If you don't believe that, play a SC1 game on "fast" instead of "fastest" and see how much better you will be.
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wtf does TL:DR mean?
Twin-linked: damage reduction?
Two ladies: double recreation?
To luxembourg: denmark reeks?!
BTW has anyone paused to think that the actual fact that you have to click and make troops constantly with SBS is actually rather fun, if you remove yourselves from starcraft for a month, I bet you'll miss it!
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I like the way this is going.
The most obvious and propably radical to increase macrostrain without adding "artificial" strains (dead clicks) would be the addition of a 3rd resource.
We already have a flexible base makeup (interchangable addons, though imho I´d like a 3rd one) and a advanced build mode (Warp in).
edit:
TL:DR means Too Long, Didn´t Read. The dreaded textwall is the natural enemy of the common forumdweller.
With TL:DR you anounce the part of your post that is actually interesting.
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A 3rd resource would be interesting and make macro much more strategical. It would be hard to find good builds and to adapt your build to any given situation. It would be especially nice if more workers than just 3-4 (as it is with gas in SC1) would have to be involved gathering the additional resource. That would mean you'd have to manage your workers really well in early to mid game, and often re-assign workers from gathering one resource to gathering a different one temporarily.
But the disadvantage of it is that it would be incredibly hard for Blizzard to balance the game respectively unit costs then. It's already hard with 2 resources.
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A 3rd resource WC2-esque oil?
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3rd resource sux!!!!!!!!!!!!
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On February 06 2008 22:11 HamerD wrote:
wtf does TL:DR mean?
Twin-linked: damage reduction?
Two ladies: double recreation?
To luxembourg: denmark reeks?!
BTW has anyone paused to think that the actual fact that you have to click and make troops constantly with SBS is actually rather fun, if you remove yourselves from starcraft for a month, I bet you'll miss it!
Too long, didn't read
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Third resource like in age of empires series right? That could be very cool, although you would just be moving a step closer to aoe3 which has possibly the most simple UI you could ever get.
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3rd resource? Do not want.
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On February 07 2008 03:21 HamerD wrote:
Third resource like in age of empires series right? That could be very cool, although you would just be moving a step closer to aoe3 which has possibly the most simple UI you could ever get.
Uhm, sorry, but posts like this are really the epitome of ignorance and "elitism" (as in: hate of all things different).
Imagine the current SC1 had a 3rd resource, let's say a 2nd gas type, where you'd need 20 workers to get the most out of it (instead of 3 or 4 for vespene gas).
Would this game be anything like AoE3 then? Please...
Also, what does this aspect (3rd resource) by itself have to do with "easy UI"?
I mean sorry, but when I read posts like these I really have to think "are some anti MBS posters really that ignorant?". You can't really seem to imagine new ways to play the game. You might as well just leave the discussion and keep on playing SC1 forever, because there will never be a new exact SC1.
Apologies if you didn't mean to express exactly that, but that's how it reads...
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Besides, it's very unlikely that they introduce a 3rd resource, because the game is being balanced for 2 resources at the moment.
It was merely an example of how to make the macro aspect of the game more complex so that the player has to put more attention and actions into it.
An example of how to get the same side effect SBS has (to force the player to spend some attention and actions for macro), without adding SBS itself which feels awkward and artificial to many players, even oldschool ones like me.
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On February 06 2008 13:30 GeneralStan wrote:
To Maybenexttime: I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution.
You and I are in complete agreement. Anybody else here agree?
Yes I agree with this as well.
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On February 07 2008 11:18 0xDEADBEEF wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2008 03:21 HamerD wrote:
Third resource like in age of empires series right? That could be very cool, although you would just be moving a step closer to aoe3 which has possibly the most simple UI you could ever get. Uhm, sorry, but posts like this are really the epitome of ignorance and "elitism" (as in: hate of all things different). Imagine the current SC1 had a 3rd resource, let's say a 2nd gas type, where you'd need 20 workers to get the most out of it (instead of 3 or 4 for vespene gas). Would this game be anything like AoE3 then? Please... Also, what does this aspect (3rd resource) by itself have to do with "easy UI"? I mean sorry, but when I read posts like these I really have to think "are some anti MBS posters really that ignorant?". You can't really seem to imagine new ways to play the game. You might as well just leave the discussion and keep on playing SC1 forever, because there will never be a new exact SC1. Apologies if you didn't mean to express exactly that, but that's how it reads...
Wait. Your ignorance comment is completely invalid. Your elitism accusation is correct, and I am elitist. But elitism is not as you define it, it is: only liking the best. SC is the best, the best format.
And if you add in MBS, automine and speed up the game (which is happening), and you add in a 3rd resource, then YOU ARE IGNORANT if you think that that DOES NOT move you closer to aoe3 than stacraft is. SO my fucking post is valid!!!
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On February 07 2008 17:07 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 06 2008 13:30 GeneralStan wrote:
To Maybenexttime: I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution.
You and I are in complete agreement. Anybody else here agree?
Yes I agree with this as well.
I guess I agree with this too. Ugh...
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On February 07 2008 18:08 HamerD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2008 17:07 Fen wrote:On February 06 2008 13:30 GeneralStan wrote:
To Maybenexttime: I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution.
You and I are in complete agreement. Anybody else here agree?
Yes I agree with this as well. I guess I agree with this too. Ugh...
I don't think this will end up as the final solution.
It's not intuitive for new players: you can hotkey units - why shouldn't you be able to hotkey buildings?
It's not intuitive for returning players: you could hotkey buildings in StarCraft - why shouldn't you be able to hotkey buildings in StarCraft II?
Making the UI unintuitive is a cardinal sin. Actually, one of the features of a great UI is how transparent it is the the user. If the user never stops to think: "why did they do this?" about the UI, you've done something right, making the UI unintuitive counteracts this.
What's even worse in the case of this suggestion is that most player are likely to answer the question "why did they do this?" (making me unable to hotkey buildings) with "To make the game harder/more complicated". They will be both annoyed and correct.
Making the interface complicated for the sake of being complicated, and making this obvious to the players, will make the players feel that they are fighting the UI more than they should have to, had the designers tried their best to design the UI.
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On February 07 2008 18:29 InterWill wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2008 18:08 HamerD wrote:On February 07 2008 17:07 Fen wrote:On February 06 2008 13:30 GeneralStan wrote:
To Maybenexttime: I still believe that making people unable to hotkey multiple buildings is the best solution.
You and I are in complete agreement. Anybody else here agree?
Yes I agree with this as well. I guess I agree with this too. Ugh... I don't think this will end up as the final solution. It's not intuitive for new players: you can hotkey units - why shouldn't you be able to hotkey buildings? It's not intuitive for returning players: you could hotkey buildings in StarCraft - why shouldn't you be able to hotkey buildings in StarCraft II?
You know whats also not intuitive, the fact that there is a surrender button that makes you lose, but no button that makes the enemy surrender. Buildings are different from units. Players will just look at it and say, ok, we can work with that. If someone chose not to play sc2 because of this, then they are just an idiot who was never going to enjoy the game anyway.
As for the second point. You can hotkey buildings, but only 1. So you can still hotkey 5 of your barracks or whatever, but just not all of them. It means u still have to jump back to ure base to macro properely, but you can do some limited macro in the field if your good.
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On February 07 2008 18:29 InterWill wrote:
What's even worse in the case of this suggestion is that most player are likely to answer the question "why did they do this?" (making me unable to hotkey buildings) with "To make the game harder/more complicated". They will be both annoyed and correct.
Unless they are elitists. They would be happy to scare away the "unworthy". And yes that´s what being elitist means. Some of them went even further...
On February 07 2008 18:29 InterWill wrote:
Making the interface complicated for the sake of being complicated, and making this obvious to the players, will make the players feel that they are fighting the UI more than they should have to, had the designers tried their best to design the UI.
To be fair I think they mean that you should be able to SELECT multiple buildings but not save the selection with a controlgroup.
Still, since the mechanic of MBS is supposed to help the players during the time when they just memorized the Hotkeys untill they activly start competing for ladder positions, the suggestion would defeat the entire point of MBS imho.
Edit:
On February 07 2008 21:03 Fen wrote:
You know whats also not intuitive, the fact that there is a surrender button that makes you lose, but no button that makes the enemy surrender.
Heh I understand what you want to say but that is a hlariously bad example. The scenario you described is only unintuitive to someone who can´t think of a point of view outside of their own, i.e. 1/2 year old toddlers. (Thats why they think they can´t be seen when they close their own eyes.)
Agreed no value in the discussion but that seriously had me laugh out loud.
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EPT
