[D] MBS Discussion II

On December 16 2007 01:41 1esu wrote:
@Fen

I'm going to give a rebuttal to your argument, but it's going to be from the perspective of Western progaming. SC is already well entrenched in Korea, but SC2 is an opportunity to expand the scope of the franchise as a mainstream e-sport into the rest of the world, so I feel it should be the focus of any discussion regarding the e-sports market for SC2. Furthermore, as your argument solely concerned the e-sports market for SC2, so shall my rebuttal, so for the time being I'm not addressing concerns of the effects of the interface changes on the competitiveness of the gameplay.

As you stated, spectators are critical to the success of any e-sport, and usually the largest subgroup within those spectators are people who play the game competitively. Therefore, the question when considering how we can expand SC2 as an e-sport should be "How can we increase the number of people who play the game competitively?"

Let's look at the most obvious group of potential competitive players: the SC veterans. The competitive spirit that drove these players to struggle through one of the most difficult environments in competitive gaming will virtually ensure their participation in the SC2 competitive community regardless of interface changes, unless the game is so horribly uncompetitive that they are forced back to BW.

Secondly, there are the Warcraft 3 players, and players of other RTS games. The interface changes currently in SC2 are intended to make the transition into SC2 very smooth for these players, allowing them to compete with the SC veterans without being immediately crushed by the latter's superiority in static mechanical skill, i.e. macro mechanics. Note that they still may be crushed by superiority in strategy, mental skills such as timing and prediction, and dynamic mechanical skills, i.e. micro; however, players of other RTS games tend to value these skills more than static mechanical skill, and as such will be much less likely to be disencouraged from competitive play by being beaten through the use of the former as opposed to the use of the latter. A good AMM system will reduce the frequency of such beatdowns, but they are inevitable at the gap between the best non-veterans and the veterans. Rolling back the interface changes may alienate quite a few of these players from competitive play, but many will still stick it out despite the inevitable perception that the preservation of the old interface was done to appeal to the SC veterans.

The final and most often ignored group are the cross-genre players, or players who normally play games of other genres but will be drawn to SC2 because of the franchise's, and Blizzard's, reputation. Just like SC was the first, or one of the first, RTS games that SC veterans played, so too will SC2 be one of the first RTS games for many people from this group. RTS games are one of the least played genres of games, simply because the very nature of the gameplay gives RTS games a more difficult learning curve than their counterparts in other genres. For example, multitasking is a skill largely unique to the RTS genre, with the exception of competitive deathmatch FPS games. Therefore, it is especially important that the learning curve be as smooth as possible for these newcomers to the genre, so as to maximize the potential for these players to advance into the competitive community. For all their theoretical faults, MBS and the other interface changes definitely make the learning curve of an already difficult-to-pick-up genre considerably easier.

But why is there a need to expand the competitive community, you might ask. Well, it's almost painfully obvious that the Western SC community as it now stands is insufficient to support an e-sport. If graphics is all that is holding SC back from becoming a popular e-sport outside of Korea, then once Project Revolution (SC in the WC3 engine as accurately as possible) is released we should immediately see SC rise to e-sports status in the West.

(to be finished in 8 hours, stupid work)

On December 16 2007 03:01 BluzMan wrote:
To be honest, I don't see MBS ruining SC2 in any way. While it might simplify the game for lower-echelon players somewhat, after analyzing my own games I might say that unit production, while it is important, does not take even a significant amount of my time when playing.

Let's take the resource (human actions) and see how it is being spent.

1) Microing armies. Quite much the most attention-demanding aspect. In some games (and in some MU's) you are allowed to sit with your army and do nothing, however, in most games, especially late-game, your army is always on the move even when not engaged in any sort of fight. You move your army around the map to deny the opponent a complete understanding of your strength, you also always want to get a good position. On large maps with complex terrain this involves constant movement by a faster army to create a weakness in the slower army's position and to get a good flank, while the slower army moves around to anticipate and block those flanks. This is what takes the most action resource definetely.

2) Base management. Note that it is NOT production. Base management involves constructing your buildings, getting cannons, getting psi generators. All this stuff requires very much mouse movement that needs to be executed with precision AND on the same time it involves moving your hand across the keyboard (while 1a2a3a stuff doesn't require it) AND also screen movement. While base management also contributes to "macro APM", I'm trying to make a point that it requires much more time than production itself. So, MBS won't affect macro in it's whole drastically - it will only simplify one aspect of it, and that aspect is not the most time-demanding.

3) Production. F2 click Z click D etc doesn't take that much time. With good production facility layouts it's actually the easiest aspect of macro since it's so easy to do without thought. MBS will reduce the time load on this even further, but, methaphorically speaking, the difference between 1 and 2 is not that significant in comparison to 100. Yet MBS will make rallying much easier, but I think it's actually a good thing because rallying 10+ gates is ridiculously hard in SC. And MBS essentially removes control over what unit mix you build (you don't want all your factories to make tanks), so a player who controls manually will have an edge.

4) Non-action time-demanding stuff. It actually takes a lot of time. You spend your time looking at the minimap, thinking (yes, the less you think, the higher your speed is, this is why people learn build orders, mind automation is crucial), evaluating army strength etc. This is the fourth eater, and again, I think it takes more time than production.


However, there's also a nice point that at the highest level, everything counts. If two players play a perfect and very intense game, the one who forgets to rally his probes to mine and lets three of them stand by the nexus is likely to be at a disadvantage. The more things are automated, the less subtle things will decide the game. Probably a bad thing, so, while MBS's effect is not nearly as drastic as most people try to make it look like, it is still there and Blizzard should better try to make some tasks that compensate for this. Yes, mundane tasks are somewhat boring. But at the highest competition levels, the player must work to get his win, not only outthink or outmicro his opponent. Winning in SC is a hard work that involves doing a lot of things that are very mundane, boring and make little sense, but that's why it's so good.

On December 16 2007 08:37 Showtime! wrote:
Now I know why they closed the other thread: ty for pointing that shit out. The guy doesn't know what he is talking about. We've known that for a while. It looks like he is shooting blank bullets into the air with every chance he gets. Cognitive dissonance doesn't work in this scenario. Anti-MBS players aren't one game gurus. You want to study their minds/behavior then use the studies I spoke about before. Many of us have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm sorry to say, but having unlimited MBS doesn't work. I've played one too many crappy MBS RTS games to know this. They aren't as compelling to watch or enjoyable to play. You want to create a game with everlasting fanfare you would be best to avoid it.

Okay I'm officially done.

On December 16 2007 11:08 Spenguin wrote:
Just thought of something else!

If MBS was introduced then they would balance it out by making build times longer, might happen, might not.

On December 16 2007 12:08 BlackSphinx wrote:


The problem is, the games were crappy not because of MBS, but because of the teams behind these games were waaay far behind Blizzard.

Blizzard made a game with

A: Heroes
B: Neutral units
C: Items
D: Shops
E: 4 Races
F: MBS
G: Very basic economy
H: Autorally/Automine/Autocast/AutomatedMatchmaking/AlmostAutomicro

work well enough to become a worldwide popular E-Sport. I think MBS alone is BY FAR an easier challenge.

Pointing out simply something. Not agreeing on a point certainly doesn't mean somebody doesn't know anything. I agree that not all Anti-MBS people are coming from the same point, though.

Putting the blame on a single mechanic for the weakness of ALL other games is a bad idea. Even more so when it's known anybody decent won't always use MBS, because sometime certain unit mixes are required.


That might be an idea, but I am against it, for the simple reason it would break the flow of the game.

I'd rather have minerals rolling in faster and food limit up than build times down.

Any player who wishes to play this game competitively but would give up for something as minor as SBS would quit for many other challenging reasons. The vast majority of people who absolutely need MBS wont be playing competitively at all. For those people MBS should be available as a feature for non competitive play.

The western SC community is easily large enough to fund an esports scene. Unfortunately the esports scene in the western front is run by old white men who know nothing about esports at all (trust me, i've met them). Koreans are light years ahead in the esports industry so they're using games that have hardcore sport like qualities. Western esports industries simply pick up the newest games that come out and use them despite their almost invisible communities--no wonder esports isn't bigger here yet.

On December 16 2007 12:38 Aphelion wrote:
That game you refer too is also being held up as a exemplar for ALL that we do not want SC2 to be, and is a game which failed to fill Starcraft's shoes in Korea, despite great efforts to promote it on the part of the TV channels.

"Warcraft 3 is the best game Blizzard ever made. Starcraft is the art made by God through Blizzard for all gamers." - random poster on Chinese boards.

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.

On December 16 2007 07:51 zizou21 wrote:
I think Klockan made a really interesting approach, using cognitive dissonance:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?currentpage=31&topic_id=62216

On December 16 2007 19:13 Zanno wrote:
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?

On December 17 2007 08:23 NatsuTerran wrote:


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.

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.

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.

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

On December 17 2007 14:42 BlackSphinx wrote:


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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

On December 24 2007 07:56 ForAdun wrote:
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.

On December 24 2007 07:56 ForAdun wrote:
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.

On December 24 2007 10:04 Motiva wrote:
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.

On December 24 2007 17:48 ForAdun wrote:


Thank you very much. MBS makes the game easier.

On December 24 2007 17:48 ForAdun wrote:


Thank you very much. MBS makes the game easier.

On December 25 2007 02:28 Motiva wrote:
Well I'd argue that the better player wouldn't make less mistakes regardless, and 1 match shouldn't be used to determine skill levels by anyone hence sneezing makes much less of a difference.

Our scores were fairly close but he was certainly substantially better than me. Due to luck and sufficient micro skills I was able to stay in the game for 20 minutes, but due to map control and superior strategy he was able to clearly win it just took a longer time than it might of on say... a different map or with different races or even a fricken rematch... He was prolly a whole letter grade better than me on iccup.

On December 25 2007 03:11 Fen wrote:
Its 3 am on christmas day, I need to go to bed, so Ill make this quick



Mistakes happen. Im confident that I could win a single point against the best tennis player in the world, given a bit of time, just due to the fact that they will inevitably make a mistake. Humans make mistakes. Its important that the game does not punish a person too harshly for minor mistakes. By lowering the skill ceiling, and therefore bringing players closer to perfection, mistakes are much more damaging to a player than they would be in a game with a higher skill ceiling.

As for 1 match shouldn't be used to determine skill. I agree, 1 match is inconclusive. However that doesnt change the fact that tournaments will still run 1 game only until it gets to final levels. So while we can say that, it is important that a better player will always have an advantage.

On December 24 2007 10:04 Motiva wrote:
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.

On December 25 2007 08:59 Klockan3 wrote:

I'll make a point here, do you realize that sbs adds around as much random luck as it adds skill differentiation? I mean, sbs could quite easily be compared to the challange of guitar hero(Wich means that there is very few % difference between the good players) but it also gives you spots were you can miss enemy moves at which means that you can lose just because you got caught right during an sbs sequence.

On December 25 2007 11:39 Markus wrote:
@ForAdun re: several arguments anti-MBS that are still undisputed post:

Sorry bro but they have been disputed many times. You just don't accept them, just like many pro-MBS'ers do not accept your posts. And theres really no point in arguing it anymore.

On December 25 2007 12:22 ForAdun wrote:


1.) SC players who've tested the SC2 Alpha said that the new features make the gameplay less demanding + thrilling.

2.) Assuming that MBS wouldn't hurt the competition (it will) it still sorta "discriminates" macro-players (also counts for automining).

On December 25 2007 12:43 Zanno wrote:
they each got to play like what, 5 games of 2v2 vs a bunch of wow noobs

of course the game is not going to be demanding/thrilling when you're playing against a complete newbie in a completely imbalanced game, who more likely than not showed up mostly for the cosplay and never played SC beyond a few games of pubbie BGH

as far as i know aside from the pros in attendance nobody got to play 1v1 at all, let alone a 2v2 with 4 competent players involved

for the last fucking time, oov doesn't have oov macro because he can click on buildings fast, oov has oov macro because he has impeccable economic sense, he knows when to power scvs, when to expand, when to lay facts down, when to mass, everything basically.

consider the point disputed

On December 25 2007 21:12 lololol wrote:
Blizzcon games were locked to normal game speed, not on fastest, so unless what I read was wrong and it wasn't that way, these games prove absolutely nothing, playing SC1 on normal and drawing conclusions about the game has about the same weight as this, i.e. absolutely none.

It's pure idiocy to beleive that all the progamers click buildings slower than oov and that's the reason oov has scary macro. I doubt anyone that has any idea what he's talking about will argue with such idiocy and will try to prove obvious things.

On December 25 2007 09:55 ForAdun wrote:


The last sentence says that "MBS maybe makes the game easier for the person who had 4 fingers".
Why can't we just leave out the 'maybe'? I think this is alright because if that wasn't your opinion you would not have said it, right?
I'll reduce that to "MBS easens the game for handicapped persons".
I think everyone here agrees to me that a 4-fingered person is weaker than a 5-fingered person if both their fingers are equally skilled, so I consider the 4-fingered person to be weaker.
Should be fine then if I translate that into "MBS easens the game for weaker players".

I've obviously reduced your statement a bit, but your original message is still there, correct? And this is where I found you saying that MBS makes the game easier.

Feel free to claim that my argumentation is that of a child but I already see you having a hard time to refute it.

On December 28 2007 03:10 Wraithlin wrote:
Do pro-MBS people really belive that the player who lets 1000 minerals accrue so that he can MBS his 10 gateways to produce one type of unit has an advantage over the person who SBS's his gateways out of choice to produce a balanced army without letting a mass of resources accrue ?

On December 28 2007 09:52 BlackStar wrote:
If MBS is in the game you will always be using MBS.

And even MBS used in the most stupid way is better than SBS under certain circumstances, as I describes as well.

Why don't you look at how much minerals you generate if you have to micro for 15 seconds while mining from 4/5 bases?

With MBS you can build all-round units with all your buildings. Yes, not the best unit mix. But you can build them while microing and it only requites a '5s' to build 14 stalkers.

...

Your SBS opponent will have to go back to his base and select and order each individual production building. He can get the optimum unit mixture. But his units will arrive 15 second late.

On December 28 2007 10:14 Wraithlin wrote:
Not if there is advantage to using SBS over MBS.

Name them

How many games are you playing where you mine from 5 bases simultaineously?

Wait, it takes you 15seconds to queue units from 14 gateways...

Is there any evidence that MBS is smart and will queue units in an unused gateway over a gateway already in use ?

On December 28 2007 10:53 MyLostTemple wrote:
Bottom line is that overall SC2 is easier on every front when compared to SC. If you think there are other things that will occupy their time i highly suggest you prove what those are. And saying 'strategy' can now be focused on is illogical because progamers and other SCers can already do that. If you want a competitive game then you shouldn't want MBS automining and smartcasting. It's that simple.

On December 28 2007 10:53 MyLostTemple wrote:
i'm sick of reading comments by people who claim that MBS wont really dumb down the skill level of the game. A large portion of Starcraft is macro. with mbs automining and other features that let the computer play for you we lose this portion of SC--a part that helped keep SC comeptitive. Now dumbly asserting that we can focus on other things is stupid. Progamers have already proven they can play near perfect games, lowering the bar doesn't help with that. What else are they going to focus on? Micro?... micro is already MUCH easier with smartcasting and unlimited selection.

Bottom line is that overall SC2 is easier on every front when compared to SC. If you think there are other things that will occupy their time i highly suggest you prove what those are. And saying 'strategy' can now be focused on is illogical because progamers and other SCers can already do that. If you want a competitive game then you shouldn't want MBS automining and smartcasting. It's that simple.

Progamers have already proven they can play near perfect games, lowering the bar doesn't help with that

Bottom line is that overall SC2 is easier on every front when compared to SC.

If you think there are other things that will occupy their time i highly suggest you prove what those are.

And saying 'strategy' can now be focused on is illogical because progamers and other SCers can already do that.

If you want a competitive game then you shouldn't want MBS automining and smartcasting. It's that simple.

On December 28 2007 09:52 BlackStar wrote:

With MBS you can build all-round units with all your buildings. Yes, not the best unit mix. But you can build them while microing and it only requites a '5s' to build 14 stalkers. Not to mention this will prevent you from queuing up several units in one gateway while another one is available. Just spam 5s every once in a while while microing and you will be producing Stalkers with perfect macro.
Your SBS opponent will have to go back to his base and select and order each individual production building. He can get the optimum unit mixture. But his units will arrive 15 second late.

On December 28 2007 20:38 BlackStar wrote:
Motiva, please stop deliberately misinterpreting him and making straw man arguments. It's annoying.

On December 28 2007 15:32 Markus wrote:


Age of Empires 2 had a MBS. And trust me 80% of your time was attacking on multiple fronts, selecting 6-8 groups of skirms/other units and clicking on an enemy skirm/other unit to 1 hit it/kill it as fast as possible. The better you were the more groups you could micro and the more kills you'd get each volley. Whoever could micro their units better, kept units away from their counter better, would win. The other 20% of the time was macro'ing your eco/keeping steady military production, but you still needed to macro your ass off. Age2 without a MBS would have been much worse in my opinion as you would have to spend much much more time macro'ing and less time on your military, basically attack-moving and not micro'ing as much in most battles, and definately not fighting on multiple fronts you'd be forced into 1 big army vs 1 big army battles.

I'm sick of reading comments by people who probably have not played any other RTS game competitively, make comments on a game they have never played yet. They talk like they know RTS's inside and out, when they've probably never played anything else, and generally think they are superior to everyone else because theres a competitive scene in a country they probably do not live in and a scene they probably do not participate in other than as a spectator.

Btw, unlimited unit selection would have done _nothing_ to the competitive scene of Age. In age your units die so fast, and you have units all over the map so much, being able to group them all into 1 group would have been meaningless. If they make SC2 like WC3 though thats a different story. But you cannot tell how it will affect gameplay until you see it. So stop commenting on MBS, unlimited unit selection, and anything else until the game comes out.

On December 28 2007 20:23 Motiva wrote:


Well... First off this isn't about automining or any of the other features, and using them to support your MBS argument is irrelevant, and please stay on topic if your going to be derogatory in your argumentation.

Not only is stating that "dumbly asserting that we can focus on other things is stupid" redundant it's also largely unfounded. You can't prove that, How do you know that the new nomad won't require 124 more clicks than the science vessal in an average minute? You can't. I don't think it will, nor do i believe anything thinks such. You simply can't prove it. So please don't spam anymore. It's also not very polite to redundantly call peoples speculations on a debatable topic stupid or dumb especially when you don't state any facts to support your claim. You simply state this is how it is and if you disagree you don't know anything. You yourself don't know anything about Competitive starcraft 2. It doesn't even exist yet (however I got money saying you'll reply to this saying you know something about a different game called Starcraft 1. A game of which you are extremely familiar with). Does that mean that to create a corrolation is folly? Certainly not. But does it provide factual evidence? Certainly not..

as for

I've never seen a Starcraft 2 tourny? I didn't know there were pros already. But since we're attempting to create a bullshit corrolation to Starcraft. I'll merit this. Can you tell me how high the bar is? Not the bar of any particular player, but the closest to perfection that can be achieved in a 30 minute game perhaps? Not definitively. So how can you gauge the bar to be lower? Because you have a preconception of where the bar is and the effects of something you have no experience with in a game you haven't played. Make sense?

Also, I feel that there is a hole in your logic. Let me explain. I'll use a number scale to help conceptualize this abstraction. Lets say the perfect game of Starcraft as played by a God-Machine of the utmost perfection is rated as a 100. Lets say (accuracy for this number isn't too relevant and is not to be debated as it'd be vain) the best starcraft human in the world plays about an 85 on this scale. With MBS the machine still maintains a 100 as perfection cannot be perfected. By your logic the human would then have a rating of 100(perfect is perfect after all). But i don't think you meant true perfection, So lets say with MBS the pro gamer jump to 95.

I could articulate it differently to where the numbers go down since the 100 represents the bar. I'd rather keep the round numbers and have the average of skill raise. There is not really a difference in my view, the point values simply change.

Now from the perspective of those that feel that MBS will not greatly lower the bar because of numerous reason (SBS isn't really that hard, more time to do even more difficult things on multiple fronts, micro ect ect ect) The example might look something like this

Pre MBS:
Machine 100
Top Pro 85

Now with the implementation of MBS
Machine 100
Top Pro 87

(Edit: If you're arguing that a very very miniscule difference in the overall playstyle of the game makes it less competitive. I would like to see a nice concise formulation of the argument that is valid.)(I say playstyle because it's not like MBS generates an advantage for either player)
Why? Because if you're a top pro SBS does not take up very much of your time, nor is it very difficult. Also if your a top pro you should be talented enough to use the few seconds of very little of your time that was absorbed by SBS to find a way to generate any other sort of advantage over your opponent.

I would be surprised if anyone would argue that any human ever in the future or past could beat this computer, how can perfection be beaten?

Some of your argumentation seems like you believe that the current starcraft pros are already like the Theoretical machine i'm talking about. If that's true then your saying that no time in the future could someone play better than they are playing now, you're also saying that we should see no more variation in the game. I've never heard of true perfection varying. (I'm interested in being enlightened on that part though) On those grounds too these "perfect humans" should have no problem adapting to A non MBS environment.

You're not arguing that they're only so "near perfect" right now because of SBS are you? I would think it would be any and all of the other countless facets of the game. Let's try not to become bias in our oversimplifications please.

Essentially: Are Anti-MBS players arguing that a machine that played starcraft to perfection would have no change in his play because of the few seconds per game made available? That doesn't sound very perfect to me.



First. Prove it. Second. PM me and I'll make a generous offer for a copy of your copy of Starcraft 2 since you seem to have a copy. How else would you have such information? OH! Speculation. My bad.

as for


Well... I'll talk out of my ass a little just to humor you.

New unit abilities (Ever think that perhaps abilities could be time intensive? Nomad comes to mind. Just a bullshit idea i'm spewing)

New Terrain mechanics allow for new tactics and strategies which could or not could be more time intensive (as this requires you to split up your army it could allow for multiple fronts to occur a lot more frequenty which for sufficient micro would indeed require more time)

Now to call on me to prove these things is like me calling on you to explain the more techincal details of the effects and needs of balancing psi storm with smartcasting in conjunction with the balance of the rest of the protoss force. It can't be done with our information so lets try not to lie. I'm simply making an attempt at humoring you and this entire section of my reply isn't part of the point.



You heard it here first people! There is no more room for strategic improvement within Starcraft. Or wait... What?


And now just because this is what I think should be written:


If you want a competitive game that's a true sequel to starcraft, yet not identical. In your ignorance you should prolly maintain an Anti-Automining and Anti-Smartcasting stance. It's not so simple.

On December 28 2007 21:54 Showtime! wrote:
HEWP!

I'm surrounded by a crowd of blundering idiots.

You people go around in more circles than NASCAR. It is kind of sad and the amount of speculation and theorycrafting is ridiculous for things you know nothing about: "'PRO' DEBATERS!" ROFL.

We aren't laughing with you; we're laughing at you. Keep it going though I find you highly entertaining.

BONG!

On December 29 2007 04:07 MyLostTemple wrote:


....

i already played sc2 at blizzcon. i was given a private showing of it with testie and some other people who were invited to be there by blizzard. i played for hours the first day and continued to play as the event progressed. if your so ill informed about the progression of SC2 you don't even know people have played it yet i'm surprised you'd even bother to post in this thread. anyways, the game is very VERY similar to SC1. basically SC2 is a face lift from SC. They've improved the graphics and added new units while removing less used ones. The game looks great and it will obviously be very successful. The only element that needs fixing is the interface.

You can do many of the same builds you could do in the original SC. For instance i opened up with a 10/12 gate one game, then teched to to my cyber core (it has another name in sc2) and upgraded blink since that has replaced the dragoon range upgrade. I then went 3 gate stalker rush w/ blink. Unfortunately the computer was playing most of the macro game for me with auto mining, MBS and other stuff.

This brings me to my next point: MBS is only one factor in a big chunk of newbifications that will greatly damage the competitive element of SC2. Do not box up my argument since my emphasis still adheres to the thread guidelines. All of these must be dealt with: MBS, Automing, smartcasting.

Also, you can figure out how close to prefection a gamer has reached in a game by following his macro, basic strategic decisions and margin of errors in micro. For instance when i watched OOv play he macroed almost perfectly, never missing an scv or a depot. At the same time he managed to have nearly perfect micro and his builds were very good. With features like MBS the skill ceiling will be lowered and since blizzard has done nothing to replace the macro aspect of the game i can easily argue that SC2 will be a watered down easier version of SC.

I'm not going to engage your bogus imaginary number diagram which claims to prove how MBS won't damage the competitive scene. please don't make stuff up, it makes you look bad.

As someone who plays "near perfect" obviously is also using the most optimal build or at least one that's very close.

On December 29 2007 06:09 IdrA wrote:

no, due to limitations in scouting and the fact that you're playing a human opponent who is trying to outsmart you people will never always use the optimal build.

when people talk about pros playing the game perfectly they mean executing perfectly and responding to what information they DO have perfectly.

On December 30 2007 06:36 IdrA wrote:
thats the entire problem with this whole debate. you, and other pro-mbs people, only view the game as a whole, without considering how all the different parts work together, and view the strategy and mindgames as the only important part.

it is a real time strategy game(that is why the chess analogies are meaningless, chess is turn-based). that means how well you execute the game matters, as does the strategical portion of the game. you're right, theres never gonna be perfection in the strategy part of the game. but in the mechanical, execution portion of the game perfection is definitely attainable, or at least approachable. there is a skill cap there, and adding mbs will certainly lower it which is a bad thing for all the reasons that have already been discussed.

you're right, theres never gonna be perfection in the strategy part of the game. but in the mechanical, execution portion of the game perfection is definitely attainable, or at least approachable. there is a skill cap there, and adding mbs will certainly lower it which is a bad thing for all the reasons that have already been discussed.

On December 30 2007 09:57 IdrA wrote:
doesnt matter if sbs isnt all that relevant for the top pros (and it is relevant btw, no matter how fast you are sbs still takes time and focus away from everything else) it is very relevant below pro level. take it away and all the sudden all those semi pros and amateurs who just couldnt execute quite fast enough can now compete with the pros. thats a bad thing, makes the game less competitive if more people can play at the top level without any extra investment of practice/time.

actually you're wrong. there are plenty of people arguing against MBS who are not very good players at all. however you will not find ANYONE who is good at all or who understands the nuances of the game supporting MBS, because yes it does have the potential to break the game.
and yes, maintaning sbs will favor the starcraft players, because starcraft players have been practicing with it for years. but in the same light removing it will favor the warcraft players who have become used to the micro intensive game style it would create because they have been playing that kind of game for years. no matter what you do its going to favor experienced rts players over beginners (for obvious reasons). given that it is starcraft2, not warcraft4, i see nothing wrong with starcraft players getting that (unavoidable) benefit.

but you're wrong about me and other known players arguing against MBS for selfish reasons. in all honesty i should be for MBS. the mechanical portion of the game is what koreans really excel at, because they practice so much more than us. give me mbs and all the sudden i can macro as well as a progamer, so i can be much more competitive. MBS helps good players who arent quite pro level much more than it helps people like you who are just bad at the game in general, because you have way more pressing issues than how quickly you can make a round of units.

take it away and all the sudden all those semi pros and amateurs who just couldnt execute quite fast enough can now compete with the pros.

however you will not find ANYONE who is good at all or who understands the nuances of the game supporting MBS

On December 30 2007 10:06 MyLostTemple wrote:
i am appalled by the idea that anti MBS people are self interested gosu's who have a bias. I lived with many newbie SC players in college who never played competitively; even a zero clutter player. When i told them about MBS even they were disgusted. The point is that anti-mbs people want the game to have the same congruency as before because it helps keep the game challenging and fun. The interface is a large reason as to why SC was so successful as an esport. Granted it's not everything, it's definitely part of it. Being ignorant as to what makes a game competitive is not a mater of 'opinions.'

When you add features like MBS (and automining) you've put a big hole in a competitive aspect that helps maintain the competitive whole of the game. Saying that since most pros are already good at macroing with SBS and therefore MBS should be added is like saying dribbling in basketball should be removed because most professional basketball players are already masters at dribbling.

The point is that anti-mbs people want the game to have the same congruency as before because it helps keep the game challenging and fun. The interface is a large reason as to why SC was so successful as an esport. Granted it's not everything, it's definitely part of it. Being ignorant as to what makes a game competitive is not a mater of 'opinions.'

On December 30 2007 10:06 IdrA wrote:
why mbs could break the game:
didnt want to include this as it would clutter the post and it has been posted a few hundred times already.

first, the skill cap discussion as already mentioned.
but, more importantly, it removes the diversity of gameplay that makes starcraft so great. you look at warcraft and almost everything is micro, and its a significantly more boring game than starcraft. you may disagree, but the general population doesnt. there is a reason starcraft is a massive spectator sport and warcraft isnt. however in starcraft both macro and micro are important, no matter how good your micro is you cant make up for having half your opponents unit count, and vice versa.
if you add MBS this will still be the case, but it will no longer be important, because everyone will have the same (ideal) number of units, because macro will no longer be a (relatively) difficult, time consuming task. that means everyone will be forced to play a certain way.
right now you have macro players, like oov and pusan, micro players like boxer and casy, creative strategical players like upmagic and nal_ra. that is what makes the game so cool, all of these players play drastically different styles and are still competitive. oov chooses to focus on maximum unit production, and because that means he has to spend more time and attention on unit production and econ management his micro and strategy suffers(remember we're only talking relative to other progamers here). and same with the rest, boxer can do wonders with 12 marines while his barracks sit idle and so forth. but given MBS boxer can hit 6m7c8s and have the same macro and econ management as oov, so oov is no longer special. this means 'macro players' are essentially phased out of progaming, it is no longer viable to focus on that. instead EVERYONE has to play like boxer and ra, and while that might sound better to some people, think how exciting boxer will be when everyone, not just boxer, can kill 7 lurks with a group of marines.

On December 30 2007 11:21 Motiva wrote:


eh I didn't mean it was directly selfish. It's natural to resist change, and whatever that's beside my argument.

I'm suprised to hear you say that the difference between the Semi-Pros, ameteurs, and Pros is just SBS. Regardless -- Aren't we talking on the e-sport level in which only the best of the best reside?

I'm pretty surprised to hear this as well... I blizzard doesn't understand anything about the game they made... They prolly haven't been watching the pro scene at all either. They're just blindly going into this? I only say this because as it stands now MBS is in Starcraft 2. Blizzard may decide to take it out because of what you discuss in your other post that I haven't replied to yet And I do agree that is a serious issue -- We do want a healthy metagame -- But please be realistic.

As for Warcraft 3... it's a terrible example because so many of the other mechanics function differently... The combination of economy scaling and upkeep alone are hinderance enough on the macro aspect of the game that this is irrelevant. Then the added focus on micro does also hinder the viability of some strategies, and this is something that should be addressed with the progression of the game. MBS is only a minor facet in the progression.

But you can just ignore my point and reiterate the same thing over and over again and I'll do the same and then the game will come out and you'll still be competitive because MBS isn't a big deal. Macro based players will just be economy based players. ect ect.

the longer it stays in the more the game is going to be adjusted to it and the harder it is going to be to take out. yes, theoretically, the game could end up just fine with mbs. but it is very, very unlikely (unless blizzard has some new macro-oriented, time consuming task theyre going to introduce). also, there is absolutely no reason to add mbs other than to satisfy a bunch of whiny newbs who will buy the game anyway, whether it has mbs or not. so i dont really see the point in taking such a big risk for little, if any, gain.

On December 30 2007 16:16 IdrA wrote:
not really because all youve done is try to marginalize the dangers of introducing/testing mbs (and most of that is based on questionable assumptions)
you still havent given a reason that mbs should be added. only reasons that it might not be horrible.
if there is any risk at all, and no one can deny that there is to some extent, then there has to be something to gain from taking that risk. as far as i can see there really isnt. (especially if you contend that people will buy the game regardless of mbs, as appealing to the masses is one of the general positives for mbs)

On December 30 2007 18:11 MyLostTemple wrote:
i agree with idra. you only make assertions and bring little evidence to the table. Further more if MBS is ultimately put into SC2, i can already for see a massive backlash from the people in the previous SC competitive scene. I have yet to find a player who's actually good at this game that admittedly wants MBS, smartcasting or automining. I HOPE blizzard cares about the people who played the previous game enough to keep it alive. However, after seeing it at Blizzcon I'm rather confused.

I actually interviewed a ton of SC players who were competing in the world cyber games grand finals for ggl asking them what they thought of MBS and these other features. Every person i asked firmly said 'no' with the exception of one WCG ref i interviewed who didn't mind MBS but absolutely opposed autominig. Unfortunately GGL never produced it =[

Regardless; no, we are not done. If your going to boil down your Pro MBS argumentation to an 'opinion' that you can't back with anything but claims; well then i think you need to do a little more work. And backing that 'opinion' up by saying anti-mbs people are merely self interested is ridiculous.

On December 31 2007 01:52 SoMuchBetter wrote:
one concern i have about MBS is one from the old micro vs macro argument that you don't really see much of these days.

whenever someone playing the game gets involved in a battle, they are constantly deciding where they need to divert their attention to between their micro and their macro. should i be back at my base, making sure that my production is up to par and that my expansions are in working order? or maybe i should be at the front line getting more value out of my units?

while it may not sound like much, its my belief that this battle between what you're doing and when you should be doing it creates variance in styles that make up the differences between players. With starcraft's current state of SBS, no automining, etc. its impossible to do both tasks simultaneously (although progamers do a good job of trying). This is one of the primary differences between "micro" players and "macro" players. Those with stronger micro focus more on unit control, while those with stronger macro focus on reinforcing their army. its not the choices of build orders that make people different players, after all, anyone can execute 'X build', its how they decide to play the game in these subtle manners that one doesn't really think about.

to generalize, boxer is the guy controlling that doomed group of marine medics until they kill a dozen times their worth, letting his minerals soar, while iloveoov is the guy who lets them die and comes back a minute later with an army twice the size

i worry that with the inclusion of MBS, automine, etc, the choices players must make between being at the front line and being at home are effectively decided for them. Why ever move your screen away from the battle if you can control everything without ever looking back at your base past early game? all of a sudden, boxer controlling that last doomed group of units isn't boxer anymore, because the game made the choice for us to do the same, and coming back a minute later with an army twice the size isn't iloveoov either, because everyone was doing that as well

On December 31 2007 01:39 Motiva wrote:


Well I think you misunderstood my purpose. I don't think the burden of proof is on me to provide evidence for why it should be in the game. It already is. If it wasn't I certainly wouldn't be for putting it into the game. I however am open to change.

I've attempted to explain why I don't think it's such a great risk. It's certainly much more of a risk than if they maintained SBS... However, making Starcraft 2 is a greater risk than just making more money off of WoW... It's not a matter of risk at this point (pre-alpha) it's simply a matter of exploring possibilities. Some of which are obviously not what the competitive community wants (smartcast, automine, MBS) but without risk there is no such thing as innovation.

I also don't think the burden of proof is on me to provide evidence for it's purpose because I don't even care if it makes it into the game. I'm simply trying to explain what you've admitted, and my purpose is over here. Though it could have gone a lot smoother. lol. I mean I've even argued fairly well as to why it should most definitely not be in the game on a previous thread. I don't know if you've realized that.

On December 31 2007 01:52 SoMuchBetter wrote:
one concern i have about MBS is one from the old micro vs macro argument that you don't really see much of these days.

whenever someone playing the game gets involved in a battle, they are constantly deciding where they need to divert their attention to between their micro and their macro. should i be back at my base, making sure that my production is up to par and that my expansions are in working order? or maybe i should be at the front line getting more value out of my units?

while it may not sound like much, its my belief that this battle between what you're doing and when you should be doing it creates variance in styles that make up the differences between players. With starcraft's current state of SBS, no automining, etc. its impossible to do both tasks simultaneously (although progamers do a good job of trying). This is one of the primary differences between "micro" players and "macro" players. Those with stronger micro focus more on unit control, while those with stronger macro focus on reinforcing their army. its not the choices of build orders that make people different players, after all, anyone can execute 'X build', its how they decide to play the game in these subtle manners that one doesn't really think about.

to generalize, boxer is the guy controlling that doomed group of marine medics until they kill a dozen times their worth, letting his minerals soar, while iloveoov is the guy who lets them die and comes back a minute later with an army twice the size

i worry that with the inclusion of MBS, automine, etc, the choices players must make between being at the front line and being at home are effectively decided for them. Why ever move your screen away from the battle if you can control everything without ever looking back at your base past early game? all of a sudden, boxer controlling that last doomed group of units isn't boxer anymore, because the game made the choice for us to do the same, and coming back a minute later with an army twice the size isn't iloveoov either, because everyone was doing that as well

On December 31 2007 01:57 Motiva wrote:



Well first. That's a decision by blizzard -- how much do they wish to compliment the previous competitive community? Or do they aim to keep SC1 alive, and expect the current scene to continue what it's currently doing?

As for why you're confused...Perhaps cause you played it quite some time ago, and even now the game isn't even in alpha? Do I need to show you screen shots of SC 1 BETA?

I would have liked to have seen that... I enjoy you're work.

I'm surprised your still giving me this ultimatum. First off how is it not an opinion? IdrA can admit that it is POSSIBLE to create a competitive game with MBS. Very Hard and risking a lot definitely. I don't think it's an opinion that innovation requires risk, but I do think it is an opinion as to how you want to mold a game of the future.

It is your opinion that Starcraft 2 should maintain the same mechanics and balance of micro and macro and everything else from Starcraft 1.

It is a different opinion to say, nah we want change lets try X Y Z and play around with it.

When the game comes out, and the general consensus is that MBS ruined the game, and we're all still playing SC 1 well then that might be able to be boiled down past opinion. But right now that's hogwash. You have no evidence that MBS has produced a negative effect on the current game. You might have personal experience that you didn't like it when you played a slightly different game 6 months ago. You may have asked every single top player in teh world and got their opinion on it. Congrats man, how is that not opinion?

Deciding what kind of game you want as an end result from blizzard is called forming an opinion. Some opinions are better than others but this does not negate the fact that they are opinions.

I haven't met a single person that isn't self interested..... It's not ridiculous it's fairly valid. That doesn't make it a negative thing. It would be quite foolish of top players to not be self interested. I don't see a professional gamer playing the game, admitting it could be competitive, and then stating that the game needs to be more different than Starcraft 1 so there is a more level playing field on release day.

To say that anyone is not at least mildly self interested is to revel in your bias.

If you can't admit that it's possible yet risky for blizzard to make a game with MBS that can be competitive for a long time well then I'm done here.

If can admit that -- Well then I'm done here.

How am I not done here?

I agree with just about everything IdrA has to say, and enjoyed talking with him quite thoroughly. You however just revel in your bias and tell me i'm a gd noob idiot for thinking about creating actual innovation within the game and the possibilities of risk. Fuck man I'm not even for MBS i'm just telling the majority of you STFU and WAIT, It might not all be bad (automine, mbs, smartcast) In my personal OPINION though, MBS is the only one worth thoroughly testing because I have a bias against how I want the game to be formed. -- Go read my post in a previous thread as to why MBS should definitely not be in the game....

EDIT:

And when you say 'merely self interested' I think your taking my argument a step further than I intended. The way you say it sounds like top pros are solely self interested. I don't think that, that's absurd. It's just as absurd to say that they want a completely different game.

On December 31 2007 05:13 MyLostTemple wrote:


i'll basically echo what idra says. The burden of prof is on you to explain why MBS should be kept in the game. If your simply stating that your opinion is it should be tested first (which i agree with) i don't see why you keep posting here. There are people who wish to discuss the matter throughly on this fourm.

On December 31 2007 05:45 HunterGatherer wrote:
I already said in the first MBS discussion that top players now, who have evolved starcraft for 10 years, and the game keeps evolving, that all their hard work will be negated. Auto mine yes, smartcasting maybe, but not MBS. It messes up too many of the mechanics that makes SC the greatest RTS on earth. It goes beyond SBS, it is SBS + 12 unit cap + everything else. And blizz is wasting time not making a true sequel. Blizzard has already lost the status quo. I dont even consider them human.

On December 31 2007 06:03 Motiva wrote:



Well basically, I've explained thoroughly why i believe it should be tested further and I've also explained in previous posts as to why I don't think the current state of the game is a good enough example to base anything off of. Automine and Smartcast are part of this argument i've posted previously and I've explained why the combination of the 3 isn't what this game needs. As such I suppose you could say that the only reason i keep posting here is because I think that this perspective is widely undermined in the majority of the MBS arguments. The majority of the posts here simply say to do away with all 3 without stopping to consider the possibilities of compromises and modifications. Things that certainly need to be done if we're going to keep these things.

As for the burden of proof... I don't think that's really even necessary. How is proof even possible at this stage in the game? We're discussing potential aspects of a potential game. I could provide potential proof...

Essentially you're arguing that the competitive community wants a game like X. I'm saying yea, I can see why, but you should also consider that A B and Z all can also provide a very competitive environment equally enthralling. C through F might provide horrible games. ect ect ect.

Essentially, we were done here a few posts ago, but you had to argue the semantics of opinion, and then demand that I need proof to argue something that can't even be proved. Provide evidence sure. Evidence and Proof are very different things. Sure we want a game similar to Starcraft but that shouldn't blind exercising attempts at potential improvements.

You're demanding evidence strong enough to prove that MBS is better than SBS. And this is where it breaks down into opinion. In order to see this perspective I suppose you should have to know what this discussion is really about.

Are you arguing that I need to provide proof that MBS does no ill?
or
Are you arguing that I need to provide proof that MBS does good?
or
Are you arguing that I need to provide proof that MBS is better than SBS?
or
Are you arguing that I need to provide proof that there was a need to take SBS out?

In order to prove my point I don't need to provide proof for any of those things because I am not arguing any of those things.

Do I need to provide sufficient evidence and explanation as to why I feel that MBS can be included in a game that can still maintain a highly competitive atmosphere that is different, fresh, long lasting, and yet still what can be described as "Starcraft"?

Yes, and I did.

The part that is opinion is what we all would "describe as starcraft". Some people can't view "Starcraft" without SBS, and I can understand that perspective very well. SBS is a central part of Starcraft. Theres a lot more to the game as well.

Provide sufficient argumentation as to why MBS could never be put into a game that could ever possibly be highly competitive, and long lived as a esport and spectator sport. You can't, why? Because the possibilities are relatively endless. The best you can do is argue why you don't want change, how the past was, and why you feel the past is important. That's fine and I agree with you there, however I'm not writing MBS off yet... Smartcast, Automine... Man I hope they get rid of them for the sake of the competitive scene.

This is redundant... I've said just about everything here in previous posts, and more.

On December 31 2007 09:55 IdrA wrote:
ya, that is his point. however he advocates keeping it in and testing it till beta, and if they do that it probably wont come. to justify that there has to be something good that will come of it.
and if something is bad or neutral why would you keep it in the first place

On December 31 2007 09:55 IdrA wrote:
ya, that is his point. however he advocates keeping it in and testing it till beta, and if they do that it probably wont come. to justify that there has to be something good that will come of it.
and if something is bad or neutral why would you keep it in the first place

On January 01 2008 07:40 IdrA wrote:
theres no way to make a good, starcraft-esque competitive game with mbs (without adding a macro-based task similar to sbs that negates the purpose of adding mbs)

I would like to stay, what we can do now besides arguing and opinion expressing,
we can play now Project Revolution, which is a War3 mod, which tries to recreate StarCraft in 3D.
They just released the terran demo, you can play tvt with it.
It has MBS, afaik you have to press tab to change the selection to the next building.

Good players could test it and say opinions.

On January 01 2008 08:04 teamsolid wrote:

Why are you even debating this if this is the kind of mindset that you hold. Might as well just state your opinion and leave the thread, or just copy/paste this one-liner in response to everyone else's lengthy arguments, rather than "demanding proof" while failing to provide any. Any evidence provided to the contrary is obviously falling upon deaf ears.

On January 01 2008 08:04 teamsolid wrote:

Why are you even debating this if this is the kind of mindset that you hold. Might as well just state your opinion and leave the thread, or just copy/paste this one-liner in response to everyone else's lengthy arguments, rather than "demanding proof" while failing to provide any. Any evidence provided to the contrary is obviously falling upon deaf ears.

On January 01 2008 07:40 IdrA wrote:
except it is not a sc2 specific claim.
theres no way to make a good, starcraft-esque competitive game with mbs (without adding a macro-based task similar to sbs that negates the purpose of adding mbs)

On January 01 2008 08:36 fusionsdf wrote:


do you have any evidence to provide?

On January 01 2008 08:37 IdrA wrote:

except i, and many others, have already gone over the points that demonstrate how mbs would hurt competitive sc2 in detail many times. read the last few pages of the thread.

On January 01 2008 08:50 InRaged wrote:

and mbs like 5mmmmmmccg*tab*tt*tab*v*tab*s isn't starcraft-esque, right?

On January 01 2008 08:56 teamsolid wrote:

Yes, and many others have also provided plenty of evidence for both sides (pages upon pages arguing in every MBS thread) but there is no concrete "proof" for either one. InRaged, I think you are confusing the definitions between "evidence" and "proof".

On January 01 2008 10:28 IdrA wrote:

where are you getting the demand for proof from?

On December 31 2007 04:23 IdrA wrote:

the burden of proof has shifted to you

On January 01 2008 10:28 IdrA wrote:
and no there hasnt been valid evidence provided in support of mbs. their main arguments are accessibility for lower level players and removal of a boring repetitive portion of the game, and both of those have been more than adequately refuted.

On January 01 2008 11:11 teamsolid wrote:

Neither have been "adequately refuted". They are both in fact valid arguments having numerous direct consequences on the competitive scene, but their importance is however under debate as is every other argument for or against MBS, with many different people having equally as many opinions.

if you dont have to move away from the battle to macro(forced to prioritize between micro and macro) it eliminates some of the diversity that makes starcraft such a good game

On January 01 2008 07:40 IdrA wrote:
except it is not a sc2 specific claim.
theres no way to make a good, starcraft-esque competitive game with mbs (without adding a macro-based task similar to sbs that negates the purpose of adding mbs)

On January 02 2008 01:56 Motiva wrote:
Alright... I don't even know why I'm here to post this. Everything that follows has already been stated, and you're rebuttals have already been stated. But read on?

As for the accessibility of the game affecting it's competitive status. That's just plain silly. There are competitive games out there with relatively simple UI mechanics regardless.

MBS really would have a very minor affect on the accessibility of the game, only slightly helping those that are experienced enough to use hotkeys, but can't use them well.

The real issue here is now whether or not this mechanics that is already in the game for whatever reason blizzard has actually can do good for the game.

With our general knowledge being somewhere around zero if we exclude Starcraft. We really can't tell if the effects generate a better or worse game.

I say this because all we have to go by is SC and how it was. There are also all sorts of tiny little facets in MBS alone, and with proper tweaking that "time that needs to be filled" could very well be filled.

Does it queue to the most efficient building?

Do you have to tab between buildings to make a unit out of them?

If you have 5 barracks selected do you just have to press "m" or "mmmmm" ?

Can you have multiple types of building selected simultaneously??

Can you set rally points with multiple buildings selected?

How does this fit in with the Terran's ability to build multiple marines out of a single barracks simultaneously?

How does this affect Zerg, whom have to worry about larva management, and whom also typically don't consolidate their Hatcheries, but rather have them fairly spread out?

And that's just what I could think of real quick. -- and really if you can think of more, or have productive comments about any of those things I'd be eager to discuss. That is turn this into a discuss instead of an argument. lol

I'm interested in hearing about Project Revolution or whatever it was called, sounded interesting.

The biggest issue most people have with MBS is that it has the potential to destroy the fragile balance of Micro, Macro, and Strategy. There are a few stances you can take on this depending on your bias. Some people may want a "strategy" game to focus soley on strategy. Some people are micro gods and i'm sure they wouldn't be concerned if macro was removed. Anyone bothering to argue here most likely wants some of both, well balanced. Like Starcraft.

However change is going to occur, and we're aiming here to discuss how this change affects what we want out of this game. As for evidence as to why MBS should even be put in, in the first place -- Good luck anything there is not only opinion, but also irrelevant because It's already in the game .

The real discussion is not to provide evidence as to why it should be in the game, but rather to discuss (notice I didn't use the word prove or evidence) as to why we should remove it, or not remove it, as well as any alternatives or tweaks. Hell -- Proper Tweaking could provide something just as integral to SC and SBS.

The remove it side has spoken, I understand their argument and it has very very strong merit.

However, merit is merit and doesn't necessarily denote immediate action. It's still early in this phase of development for the game, and just about anything can happen. I'm sure there are 100 different way to tweak MBS. I'm sure atleast a few of those ways could provide a game with a proper balance.

Then theres the whole spiel on Could the balance in the original been better? I'm going to not even get into that, if someone wishes to, feel free.

From what I've seen from Starcraft2 they are adding a lot of potential for strong micro and strategy tactics that are fairly foreign to what we know and love in Starcraft 1. (Reapers, Blink, Colossus(sp), Viking, Protoss Phase Prisms, Terrain visibility)

You could argue any of those specifics if you like, but the point is theres a lot more different.

Will it still be standard play to only have 1 entrance to your main? Or Will 2 or more be more standard? I'm just saying that there things worth arguing over just as much. (if theres any worth in any of it)

What I'm saying is that Blizzard is going to mess with this balance quite a bit, and we need to acknowledge, discuss, and formulate a concise stance so that when it comes time for us to submit our feedback we can be very precise about what we do like and what we don't like.

The majority of the people I don't think would lose too much sleep if Starcraft 2 was just an upgraded Starcraft 1 with the same units, balance, new graphics, same mechanics, but a lot of cute new additions to bnet ect ect.

I also don't think it's impossible that blizzard could release a game that's thrown Starcraft and Warcraft's micro/macro balances out the window and does something new and cute.



As IdrA says, this is an important part of the original game and we do want the players to have to go back to their current base and have a lot of multitasking they have to handle.

My perspective on this is that this is why it's either MBS or Automine but certainly not both. Personally I'd take MBS over Automine. Why?

Automine forces you to go back to your base, You're a zerg player and you're got 5 expansions and you're still using some of your larva for drones. You have to bounce all over the map to assign those drones work, if they're MBSed and Automined that's a bit too simple.

With just automine, the zerg player doesn't really have much of a change the only difference is that they run out of hotkeys for their hatcheries at about this point.

With just MBS the zerg player still has to hotkey hatches for however many hatches they want. They'd be pretty silly if they didn't still divide hatches up among hotkeys for larva management. Yet they also have to bounce back to each expansion to get that little drone mining

the only real point you had was that it might be ok to vary from the micro/macro/strategy balance of sc because of some of the new micro/harass possibilities. once again warcraft is the micro based game line, if they want to go in that direction they can make warcraft4(and they have said they want to keep the 2 game lines seperate).

On December 31 2007 19:07 Fuu wrote:
1esu, a lot of competitive sports are not 'easily' accessible, and it has never been a reason to simplify them. People still can enjoy a lot playing at their level against same level opponents, even if they dont master the mechanics perfectly. Changing the rules to avoid one component of these mechanics would make them indeed more accessible, but less competitive in the end. It doesnt only modify the 'learning curve'.

Guess why its hardly done ?

I say this because all we have to go by is SC and how it was. There are also all sorts of tiny little facets in MBS alone, and with proper tweaking that "time that needs to be filled" could very well be filled.

Does it queue to the most efficient building?

Do you have to tab between buildings to make a unit out of them?

If you have 5 barracks selected do you just have to press "m" or "mmmmm" ?

Can you have multiple types of building selected simultaneously??

Can you set rally points with multiple buildings selected?

How does this fit in with the Terran's ability to build multiple marines out of a single barracks simultaneously?

How does this affect Zerg, whom have to worry about larva management, and whom also typically don't consolidate their Hatcheries, but rather have them fairly spread out?

On January 02 2008 06:36 IdrA wrote:

it doesnt matter if MBS is already in or not, because theyve said theyre willing to remove it if it negatively affects the game. we've made the case for how it will negatively affect the game. if you dont have something better(or anythign at all) supporting its potential positive impacts then it should be removed
and, oddly enough, you still havent even given POTENTIAL positives, you raised a bunch of questions, thats it. the only real point you had was that it might be ok to vary from the micro/macro/strategy balance of sc because of some of the new micro/harass possibilities. once again warcraft is the micro based game line, if they want to go in that direction they can make warcraft4(and they have said they want to keep the 2 game lines seperate).

On January 02 2008 09:01 1esu wrote:


Well, I'm approaching SC2 as a competitive video game. A competitive sport usually has an extensive support network that teaches players the sport from a young age, and most sports' popularity in a given area extends from the size/effectiveness of their support networks. It also helps that the execution of most actions taken by players in sports is intuitive, as they directly involve the body. The most popular competitive board games, such as Go and Chess, follow the same model: extensive support networks and intuitive actions. Competitive video games, on the other hand, have minimal support networks for teaching new players, and the player's actions must be executed through a non-intuitive medium. Therefore, the best competitive games must have a mix of accessibility and competitiveness. SC was accessible when it came out primarily because of the point-and-click interface (the hotkey system being reserved for experts). However, given that there will be a significant section of SC2's incoming players who are already extremely proficient with the advanced controls, and that the rest of the industry has moved away from complex controls towards simpler ones in the past decade, it's easy to see how SC2 could benefit as a competitive game from making the game more accessible by simplifying the controls. It's also true that you could go the other direction and make SC2 more accessible by creating a larger support network, but that's a much riskier direction as such networks are initiated by the players, not the developers (for example, it would break immersion in the singleplayer if the player was directly taught macro).

However, I doubt you or any of the other anti-MBSers are approaching SC and SC2 as competitive games; rather, you're considering them as two parts of the same sport, and are therefore solely concerned with how the changes will affect the competitiveness of the game.
Unfortunately, sequels are developed with a different mindset than expansion packs; developers usually use sequels as opportunities to innovate in different directions from the gameplay of its predecessor. For example, despite relatively few changes on the surface, Halo 2's pace changed so greatly that the best Halo player at the time was forced to retire. Another example would be CS 1.6 and CS:Source, which are slowly evolving into separate sports, like Rugby Union and Rugby League. If you want to view SC as a sport, I think the best course would be to allow SC and SC2 to evolve in different directions much like 1.6 and Source are; after all, did rugby players give up when American football evolved out of their sport? I mean, it's likely that this dichotomy is going to exist regardless of what the foreign SC community does; why would you expect the Korean proscene to give up all they've worked towards to back SC2, even if it ends up being a carbon copy of BW with new units, until it's proven its worth over time? I'd easily bet money that the SC proscene will exist in Korea at least 2 years after SC2 is released. If anyone's worried about the marketability of SC in the international e-sports market, keep in mind that Blizzard has conveniently put all the old SC units in the editor, so it'd be easy to make SC:BW in the new engine; heck, Blizzard might even make a new version themselves. Or perhaps they could make a Starcraft HD, much like Capcom's release of Street Fighter and Super Puzzle Fighter in HD. The point is that both Blizzard and the e-sports scene would benefit from a coexistence of the two games in the market, but this can only happen if SC2 is different enough from SC to keep the former from replacing the latter. Personally, I think this would be the best possible case, as SC is a unique gem of emergent gameplay, and it shouldn't be thrown away simply because its sequel is being produced.



As of its last known implementation, MBS works as follows: When the player has a building selected, they can shift-click other buildings of the same type, and then can issue commands to all selected buildings with a single click or group them to a hotkey.

What this means in terms of gameplay is that while all buildings of one type (e.g. gateways) can be controlled by a single group hotkey, gameplay that requires a mix of several units built by gateways will lead to players using multiple hotkeys for their gateways. When one factors in the buildings of other types, the hotkey usage could easily approach that required by SC macro. Also, features like reactors and the merc haven, which produce units differently from the norm, will likely require buildings with those features to be set on their own hotkeys, or be handled directly using SBS, for maximum efficiency.

However, the real issue is that the player is no longer required to go back to their base to directly produce units even in the lategame, as the player will not run out of hotkeys as inevitably as in SBS. But keep in mind that the player will have to go back to their base to individually regroup buildings to hotkey groups every time they want to change their unit distribution. The more focus on gameplay elements that encourage frequent changes in unit distribution, e.g. harder yet properly-balanced unit counters, the more players will have to go back to their base. Also, players will still have to go back to their bases for ordering upgrades, as it's an inefficient use of hotkeys to group upgrade buildings.

As for the Zerg, as long as they maintain their hatchery-based production system, my best suggestion would be to not allow MBS for hatcheries, but allow the players to select the hatchery and its larvae simultaneously, thus negating the need for the s key. Zerg players would not have to go back to their base to change unit distribution, but if they want more than one type of unit produced out of a single hatchery, they will have to individually select them anyways, so the two systems should balance out.

On January 01 2008 13:19 IdrA wrote:
and as for the repetitive boring portion of the game, that is necessary to maintain the balance between macro/micro/strategy that has been discussed multiple times in literally every thread on the topic.
seriously read the thread or shut the fuck up.

On January 05 2008 08:23 5HITCOMBO wrote:
My personal thoughts:

MBS should be included, but the only action that you should be able to do for all buildings at once is setting a rally point (i.e. ctrl-click gateways, right click rally point). You cannot select buildings of different types in different groups and produce units (i.e. starports and gateways have to be selected individually to produce units - you can still set their rally points together). You should still have to queue up units one at a time, but they should queue in order of selection and availability (i.e. gateways 1-6 are selected, gateway 1 is making a zealot, you hit z to queue another zealot, gateway 2 queues a zealot for production). If you want to queue more than one unit into a gateway, select the gate individually. If gates 1-6 are queued to produce units, the next unit queued should go into the gate that will be available next (i.e. gates 1-5 have 10 seconds until their unit comes out, gate 6 has 4 seconds; the next unit queued goes into queue at gate 6).

This seems like a decent compromise to me. And of course, drones have separate rally points from units for auto-mining .

On January 04 2008 19:05 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I just want to point out the similarities between PRO-MBS and this idea : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=64720

On January 05 2008 09:00 Fen wrote:


This really isnt a comprimise at all though. Most of the Anti-MBS arguments revolve around players needing to divert their attention to multiple places on the map rather than just watching your army and doing all your macro from hotkeys. The 1click1unit style is no closer to what the Anti-MBS'ers want than what is currently in the game.

A good comprimise in my opinion would be to allow MBS, but not to allow hotkeying of multiple buildings. Therefore you would still need to go back to base to macro, but instead of clicking all your barracks individually and individually giving them a marine build order, you could double click or crtl click a barracks, which would select them all, and then 1 click of the m button could have them all producing marines.

On January 02 2008 03:29 BlackStar wrote:



Why don't we discuss this instead? Current generation RTS games depend on skill of execution and juggling of tasks to make it competitive and challenging. Either it has SBS or it just requires less skill.
I agree that clicking all your buildings isn't the most meaningful skill to test in an RTS. But removing it is far worse.

Why don't you pro-MBS people start to discuss this? Rather than stop testing a skill completely why not look for a 'more intelligent' replacement?
Surely, a next generation esports based RTS will be different from SC and SC2. Why not theory craft about new types of ways to test macro skill and other base management skills?

On January 05 2008 07:40 Fen wrote:


I love this point. It completely ignores massive amounts of strategical thinking that occured in starcraft and dismisses them as robot mechanics. This is the sign of a bad starcraft player, who does not realise that there is so much more to an aspect of the game than just the clicking that goes along with it.

Thinking tasks that Auto-mining will reduce/remove

Battlesense: Your ability to read the battlefield and find pockets of time where it is safe to jump back to your base and macro. Or your ability to judge if it is worth the risk to go back.

Prioritisation: Ability to be able to recognise all the tasks that need doing and being able to order them in urgency and importance. More tasks requires more prioritisation.

On January 05 2008 14:31 talismania wrote:
Most of the pro-MBS or neutral-MBS arguers have challenged the premise of that question: that MBS will make the game significantly easier. In some form or the other. The debate hasn't centered at all on "yeah mbs will make the game easier, but here's how it will help blahblahblah." It's been more "mbs won't have an effect at all" or "mbs will alter the gameplay but not the skill ceiling by shifting what skills are involved".

then the anti-MBS people say "no way that the time saved in production will be made up for by other tasks." and the pro or neutrals say "it will" or "it might and testing will tell for sure" and then the antis say "no it won't... why bother testing" and then it stops for a while until someone starts it back up again by asking "wait what was the original argument for your side in the first place?"

except usually the posts are 3000 word essays...

On January 05 2008 14:56 1esu wrote:


I wanted to comment on this more, but I lost the whole post thanks to a refreshing hotel internet disclaimer, and I don't have time to rewrite it, so I'll just ask your opinion on these points. I know this is from the auto-mine thread, but my comments in this rewrite focus mainly on production, so I'm putting it here.

It seems to me that as players approach a theoretically perfect level of unit-production mechanics (a limit approaching 0 seconds to go back to one's base and produce the next wave of units), these two skills matter less and less. It's easier to find a pocket of time for unit production and less risky if you can't as one takes less time to perform the production, and likewise it's much easier to prioritize unit production as it takes lesser and lesser time to perform than the other tasks at hand.

If this is true, then macro-management (building/expanding/etc.) is the dominant factor in these higher-level macro skills, and as such they aren't harmed by MBS to the extent they've been portrayed. If this is false, then unit-production mechanics are the dominant factor, which seems to say that as progamers get better and better on average at unit-production mechanics, the less viable macro-style play will become, which I find an unlikely prediction.

What do you think?

On January 05 2008 14:04 zulu_nation8 wrote:
So I'm a late arriver, what's a good argument for MBS that doesn't involve making the game easier?

On January 06 2008 01:00 zulu_nation8 wrote:
I said GOOD arguments

On November 09 2007 10:15 thedeadhaji wrote:
Be reasonable. Criticism should be allowed in any discussion, but it should be done in a respectful and genial manner, and you are expected to back up your claims.

You are allowed to tell other posters that they are wrong. However, having an argument but absolutely refusing to listen to or give into the other side’s take accomplishes nothing in terms of advancing the discussion. Furthermore, it is often the cause of temper flares, unnecessarily inflammatory remarks, and other forms of abrasive behavior.

Try to understand the viewpoint and perspective of the other side, qualify its strengths and validity, and build upon that to back up your points. Do not blindly repeat “You are wrong, I am right,” no matter how pretty you decorate it.

We have observed posters simply repeating “That assertion is wrong” without giving ample or satisfactory explanation as to why for pages upon pages, ruining what could have been productive discussions. In fact, even if legitimate reasons are provided, downright hardheadedness is a detriment to the discussion, the thread, and the forum itself as a whole. We understand that you could get passionate about defending your stance, but take it overboard and you’re going overboard with it.

On January 06 2008 16:07 zulu_nation8 wrote:
I don't think there are "crucial" actions, i don't know what they are, and if anything mbs would be raising the starting point and lowering the starting requirement not lowering the ceiling

On January 07 2008 08:50 Underwhelmed wrote:
I'm pretty casual SC player, so I offer my input as somebody who isn't very good at the game (and I freely admit that I haven't read all the previous posts):
MBS doesn't make the strategic decisions of the game any easier or remove any of the depth; what it does do is simplify the interface by which those decisions are executed. I'm a little puzzled by why there is so much opposition to this feature - I'm a competitive FPS player, and motions to reduce the technical skill needed aren't widely opposed in FPS games as I've seen here.

What MBS will do is make the game more accessible to the casual player. I think most of you would agree that at the highest level of play, it will make little difference. Some people here seem to believe that MBS will lower the skill ceiling, but the fact is that I don't think anybody will ever reach the theoretical skill ceiling in a game as complex as Starcraft. If Blizzard patched SC now to include MBS, would the almost-top players suddenly become top tier players because they can now select multiple buildings at the same time? I doubt it.

On January 07 2008 09:15 uppTagg wrote:
I dunno if this has been said already or if it's stupid or w/e but I'll say it anyway, what about making it possible to select multiple buildings but you can only hotkey single buildings..?

That way, you can set rally points easily (which is the most annoying thing with SBS in sc imo! :< ), you can't build an army with 5t 6v easy-mode but you can utilize MBS to build an army fast by drag-selecting facts with shops->t, selecting the rest->v but it requires you to leave the battle and go back to base and it also requires you to build the producing buildings in a way that makes it easy to select them (and sometimes even the map may limit this) otherwise it's back to 1-clicking buildings or a combination..

Imo that's the best out of two worlds but that's just my opinion and maybe it doesn't bring anything new.. ^^;

On January 07 2008 09:15 uppTagg wrote:
I dunno if this has been said already or if it's stupid or w/e but I'll say it anyway, what about making it possible to select multiple buildings but you can only hotkey single buildings..?

That way, you can set rally points easily (which is the most annoying thing with SBS in sc imo! :< ), you can't build an army with 5t 6v easy-mode but you can utilize MBS to build an army fast by drag-selecting facts with shops->t, selecting the rest->v but it requires you to leave the battle and go back to base and it also requires you to build the producing buildings in a way that makes it easy to select them (and sometimes even the map may limit this) otherwise it's back to 1-clicking buildings or a combination..

Imo that's the best out of two worlds but that's just my opinion and maybe it doesn't bring anything new.. ^^;

On January 08 2008 09:18 yangstuh wrote:
I think a major fallacy that is being made is mapping the skill ceiling of Starcraft onto Starcraft 2 in an attempt to analyze the benefit or detriment MBS has on SC2. Obviously most of us haven't even touched SC2 yet, and those that did have not gone head to head against a highly developed and competitive community (it exists only in the future after SC2 is released) - they instead fought newbs/casual players and used that as a bases for their argument that SC2 is too easy.. amidst the fact the game also isn't even balanced in that stage of development.

Another fallacy that builds on top of that is, as of what we know now, the fact that SC2 appears to be utilizing much more individual unit skills/spells/features. Zealots with charge, reapers hopping over cliffs, zerglings turning into suicide bombers, warping protoss, triple nuking drop shipping ghosts, etc. All this requires obviously more attention and skill. There are just so many new factors and different elements at play in SC2 (and many that have yet to be revealed to us) that it is not sound logic to pretend that all other factors are constant with Starcraft classic and to just isolate the variable of MBS.

If Starcraft 2 was EXACTLY like Starcraft 1 in respect to gameplay, units, tech, features, skills, etc... then yes all the arguments against MBS, especially in respect to "skill ceiling" would make sense and would have an understandable point. But however, the fact is that there are so many more variables now at play that influence the game, not just MBS, that its impossible to talk about skill ceiling or "the game being too easy" or being "newbified." I think that, just as what has been said many times before, we'll have to wait and play the game via beta testing to really grasp an inkling of understanding of what SC2 is really going to be like/feel like.

Anyways, the point is that talk about skill ceiling and the game being too easy is just pointless and is something that will have to be actually tested to illustrate a point.

On January 02 2008 10:06 Motiva wrote:
While I hate to create consecutive posts as opposed to taking on additional notes w/ edits. I feel this should just be a little side post.

Tasteless, and Testie, and a few others I think did play the game at blizzcon as they've said. I just have a question and that is.

When you were given the private showing and allowed to play for that hour or whatever it was. Afterwards did any blizzard official ask for guys for feedback? If so, What did you tell them?

I'm just wondering how aware blizzard already is of the dislike of MBS. I just read IdrA's interview and i'm just curious how much of this message the pro's and ect have conveyed this and more importantly why they don't like it.