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On March 01 2008 17:38 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2008 15:38 wswordsmen wrote:
I have a hypothentical (and likely unrealistic) question about MBS, and also an argument for MBS on defence structures (cannons, bunkers, turrets, sunks ext.)
First the question: If Blizzard could come up with a replacement task to draw a players attention away from their army so they wouldn't be constantly microing it would you be opposed to MBS?
note: the new task is as big as macro is in SC.
Now on MBS in defence structures, there is no reason not to have it, if it is included from the begining. There was a previous topic that was linked to in the first post in MBS II (not sure about 3) about how MBS on defence structures would mean that the attacker would be at a big disadvantage (they used the example of MnM vs Sunkens), but what they didn't include that the increased control over the defencive buildings could be balanced by reducing damage the structure does. This would mean that it would increase the skill ceiling keep the game balanced and it would be logical if it was kept away from all unit producing structures and used only for structues that can attack.
Note: This argument is limited to only structures that do not produce units, and maybe comsat. That is a debate I want to avoid.
ps. I will probably edit this for grammer and stupid stuff tommarow. First Question - Not at all. We are not against MBS by itself, we are against the effect that it will have on the game. Replace the effect with another macro task and i'll be happy. Addendum: As long as its fun and forces multi-taskingSecond - I have no problems about MBS for supply depots and defenses and stuff. Only a a problem with buildings that produce having MBS.
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On March 01 2008 09:15 FrozenArbiter wrote:In WC3 everything has like 500 hp 
Wc3 is about heroes and they're small squads of units it's a different game, but yeah:
On March 01 2008 09:15 FrozenArbiter wrote:
I but I'd say one advantage SC has over WC3 in the "easy to watch" department is that shit actually dies.
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I haven't read all of the pages before this post, but just look at how it only really took a dozen patches to make starcraft what it is today, whereas warcraft is on it's 21st patch and there are still issues...
The most likely possibility I see them trying to replace macro with is unit abilities, like having to load marines for the ghost drop pods and other things like that...
warcraft3 was a completely different game from SC aside from being another RTS. but I think it's key to remember that when you put too many races into a game it just gets too complicated... like extended rock paper scissors
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haha awesome =]
I'm not too concerned with them making it over-complicated by any means, the standard mid-game unit mixes in SC1 games atm are so inflexible and run mostly the same in most matchups (note the 'mostly'). Having to really consider drastic variance in these mixes to counter an opponent you can't scout well will make a greater deal of chance in the game, and more apparent imbalance too.
Anyway, MBS...
I'd like to see it used and used well, my gut instinct says 'no' but that's probably one of many reasons why i've never really got into another RTS after SC/BW cos i can't adapt enough.
There's a real danger of keeping the game too similar to the original and not taking the opportunity to utilise changes in the RTS market which are prevelent for good reason, and i think making a game more accessable to new players is probably better than hedging your bets on the possibility of it becoming a progaming game, just because BW made it (it seems obvious but i feel it's by no means guaranteed if it turns out to be shit, tho you may disagree).
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One of the greatest parts about starcraft and macro is that i, as a spectator, am able to get excited over something that has nothing to do with unit control (micro, spells and such). These different layers of starcraft make it troughout interesting. It doesn't even matter what was intended or not, what is a feature or the result of old ways of designing games.
The more i know how difficult something actualy is to master, the more i get excited over it. You can look at a tennis match and all you see is a player beating his opponent. You may be able to realise that some moves are difficult, just by common sense and physics. But if you played tennis by yourself, and you know how hard it acctualy is to be that good, you get sucked in to a profesional match on a hole different level.
I don't play tennis, played it once, tought it was too hard. I don't follow the scene at all, but i am still able to understand when a game is good. It comes automatically.
Now we have computer games. And since what you see is digital we have the power to change the game completly. To put it in other words. We can play basketball on a basketball court, and then play football on the same court. Tennis, hockey, you decide. If we wan't we can slice the court in half and make the field smaller. You get the picture.
That's why it is important to stay calm. We must create games with the right spirit in mind. Allways. And since we have so many games and genres, we must study why good games are good and bad games bad.
We are at a point where computer games are able to replace a real sport. Not completly, just from a spectators point of view. You have both, no discussion there. But the value is important. Just look at one of the big ass proleague finals. That is troughout impressive. And that's why i think we need to sit back, and let it swirl around in our heads for a minute. Engrasp how big this acctualy is.
Only then we will realise that the responsibility starcraft 2 has is huge. And we need to analyse starcraft from each and every direction. Every feature, every layer has to be considered.
Can starcraft 2 become a great game with mbs?
Can starcraft 2 become a great successor of starcraft/broodwar?
Can starcraft 2 provide the deepness that is required to stay alive?
Can starcraft 2 carry hundreds of professional players, teams, leagues and tv stations?
See when you read these questions you will realise that there are so many levels of where starcraft 2 would have to succeed to take over starcraft. The best singleplayer in the world has nothing to do with progaming. A good multiplayer is no guarantee for a huge following and the important basis, the sponsoring.
I'm completly honest. I don't think that there is a right or wrong answer. I have a tendency of course, but that doesn't mean that this is the only way. We can do nothing but sit back and hope for the best. Wich is quite hard, because you never know if blizzard acctualy puts up enough research in why starcraft progaming is so huge. The standard phrase "it's just a good game" is too simplified and "just another good game" might fail at what starcraft made possible.
And that's why i don't follow the hype much. There is this part in me that just fears the outcome. I believe it will be a great game nomatter what happens. But will it be able to be that good?
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Hopefully it will have a big impact on the non-Korean world. For Korea, I don't see it replacing SC1 anytime soon. SC1 is just too big and established. Hopefully SC2 will get a new starleague and grow, but it will take a while until it can take on SC1 in terms of popularity and number of progamers.
And I definately want the game to be more accessible for the low and mid skill range. The problem with SC1 really is that you have to be too good and too fast in order to really enjoy many facets of the game. If you're fairly low APM and don't have enough time or intent to train, then whenever you play you will be 90% busy with completely basic macro mechanical tasks. Which just isn't very fulfilling for many players.
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On March 04 2008 02:45 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
If you're fairly low APM and don't have enough time or intent to train, then whenever you play you will be 90% busy with completely basic macro mechanical tasks. Which just isn't very fulfilling for many players.
Huh?
Thats only true if you are playing someone better than you and trying to win...which means you are playing competitively. If you are playing competitively, I dont think its too much to expect some practice....APM isn't a natural gift, and not all that valuable by itself.
If you want to play against someone your own skill level (or worse), then no, you dont have to spend 90% of the time doing that, because you dont have to have flawless micro. You arent playing for points either, so if you want to play 40APM, 1 base nuke rush, go for it. There is absolutely nothing stopping you.
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On March 04 2008 02:45 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
The problem with SC1 really is that you have to be too good and too fast in order to really enjoy many facets of the game.
edit: oh dear i misread ur post. my utmost apologies.
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I'm speaking from the average perspective myself, but I include the newb perspective too.
You completely missed the point btw. My point was that there's extreme pressure on you just to get the basic mechanics done. Whenever I play, I have to invest 90% of my APM into macro or else I won't have enough units, whether I play a bad player or a good one it's always the same. The UI puts a lot of pressure on me, without the enemy even contributing anything to the pressure yet. Which is why I want it improved.
Oh well you edited it now... well nvm.
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BAH!!!!!
It really does come down to whether you want the actual starcraft experience, or just to fiddle around with some troops on a battlefield 
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On March 03 2008 20:16 BNI wrote:
i love this :D does anyone want to play a game?!
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On March 04 2008 09:23 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
I'm speaking from the average perspective myself, but I include the newb perspective too.
You completely missed the point btw. My point was that there's extreme pressure on you just to get the basic mechanics done. Whenever I play, I have to invest 90% of my APM into macro or else I won't have enough units, whether I play a bad player or a good one it's always the same. The UI puts a lot of pressure on me, without the enemy even contributing anything to the pressure yet. Which is why I want it improved.
Oh well you edited it now... well nvm.
do I have to pull off 40 apm ghosts to prove a point?
If you want to play for fun, there is no mechanics pressure.
If you want to play competetively, then yes, you do have to have strong mechanics, but that is just as much because this game is 10 years old and has such an experienced playing base....
On the other hand, I have a friend who just started playing and has a decent battlenet (not ladder) record for 1v1 melee with like 60 apm and absolutely no understanding of builds (forge first pvt for instance) and still gets a few wins...so its not like if you want to play for fun there arent any options.
You just have to realize that if you want to play competitively, you are going to have to put in the work. Expecting otherwise is like expecting auto-aim in counterstrike.
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i wonder if they'll have a BGH equivalent in SC2? They'd better have or else they'll lose a lot of users! I think MBS would make approximately no difference to that game style tho.
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On March 04 2008 12:26 fusionsdf wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2008 09:23 0xDEADBEEF wrote:
I'm speaking from the average perspective myself, but I include the newb perspective too.
You completely missed the point btw. My point was that there's extreme pressure on you just to get the basic mechanics done. Whenever I play, I have to invest 90% of my APM into macro or else I won't have enough units, whether I play a bad player or a good one it's always the same. The UI puts a lot of pressure on me, without the enemy even contributing anything to the pressure yet. Which is why I want it improved.
Oh well you edited it now... well nvm. do I have to pull off 40 apm ghosts to prove a point? If you want to play for fun, there is no mechanics pressure. If you want to play competetively, then yes, you do have to have strong mechanics, but that is just as much because this game is 10 years old and has such an experienced playing base.... On the other hand, I have a friend who just started playing and has a decent battlenet (not ladder) record for 1v1 melee with like 60 apm and absolutely no understanding of builds (forge first pvt for instance) and still gets a few wins...so its not like if you want to play for fun there arent any options. You just have to realize that if you want to play competitively, you are going to have to put in the work. Expecting otherwise is like expecting auto-aim in counterstrike.
You're right, but it isn't exactly what I meant.
Let's say I choose to play with 40 APM (is that even possible, lol). Then, I can't ever keep up with the most basic of tasks. Ok, it won't matter if I play another 40 APM guy. But the problem is simply that you're being forced to play with a certain minimum APM just to get the very basics done in a decent way.
Now a true newbie who doesn't build more than 10 SCVs and has 2 marines after 10 minutes and zero game understanding might not realize that he totally sucks, but let's assume that you have enough game knowledge so that you know what you should do, but doing these totally basic tasks is keeping you busy most of the time and thus preventing you from doing the more advanced (fun!) things.
Or in other words: low-APM SC means doing the most basic things and nothing else. This is frustrating to new players, as well as seasoned but fairly low-APM players.
In SC1, simple things like pumping marines from 5 rax and moving 3 groups of M&M around the map is already "hard" and requires quite a bit of APM.
The "minimum requirements" to play SC are too high. You might say that's good for the competitiveness, and you wouldn't even be wrong with that, but it should be obvious that it should just scale better. Simple things should be simple, hard things hard. That's all I want. When simple things are hard, something is wrong with the UI.
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On March 04 2008 19:16 Resonate wrote:
i wonder if they'll have a BGH equivalent in SC2? They'd better have or else they'll lose a lot of users! I think MBS would make approximately no difference to that game style tho.
That is exactly the point. Why is BGH so popular in the first place? It isn´t some kind of revolutionary UMS map it just makes the game, for the lack of another word, easier. It isn´t official, it isn´t balanced but obviously it is (more?) fun than regular SC for a big number of players.
Shure WC3 has alternatives too but none of them are slightly modified versions of the original game (no upkeep maps are unpopular).
I am not saying that BGH is better than "vanilla" SC but that there is a reason many players prefer it to SC - why is that so?
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Probably because it's easier (less need to expand, simple map), but maybe also because you're faster into the game. The first 5 minutes of SC are always boring and always the same. Every game you play you waste 5 minutes for nothing. On BGH and FMP you have an army much faster and can start fighting right away.
SC2 will help there by making you start with 6 workers, accelerating the boring start phase.
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On March 04 2008 21:12 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2008 19:16 Resonate wrote:
i wonder if they'll have a BGH equivalent in SC2? They'd better have or else they'll lose a lot of users! I think MBS would make approximately no difference to that game style tho. That is exactly the point. Why is BGH so popular in the first place? It isn´t some kind of revolutionary UMS map it just makes the game, for the lack of another word, easier. It isn´t official, it isn´t balanced but obviously it is (more?) fun than regular SC for a big number of players. Shure WC3 has alternatives too but none of them are slightly modified versions of the original game (no upkeep maps are unpopular). I am not saying that BGH is better than "vanilla" SC but that there is a reason many players prefer it to SC - why is that so?
One word: Stats.
And ofcourse that its a lot easier to play than the normal game, you don't have to think about economy at all on those maps.
In starcraft 1 you can play any map for stats as long as it doesn't use triggers or changes the stats of units, in wc3 you can only play the official ladder maps for stats. If you could get stats for unlimited money, tons of easy creep exp, chokepoint maps in wc3 they would be played a ton also just like the bgh variants of sc.
And yes, i know that the stats of starcraft doesn't mean anything but players do suddenly care a lot more about stuff when they get numbers doing it instead of nothing. And since the official ladder maps will now be the only way to get stats those are the one that even the current bgh noobs etc will play, and the offshots of moneymaps that will get created will die under the pressure of much better real ums maps.
Like in wc3, it started with high gold maps, then 3 big gold mine maps, then 9 gold mine maps, then everything is free and costs no food maps, then they got outclassed by the typical spamcentered ums instead since they are better. In starcraft it stopped were you can't alter the maps more since anything more than what they have done isn't possible without losing the stats.
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Nice, but you kind of dodged the point: why don´t they play the "original" game? Why do they prefer the "easier" gameplay? Is it a problem of the game or the players? If it is the game: improve it. If it is the Players: whyt to do? Unless it is closed beta you don´t have the luxury to choose your players. Blizzard even admited that they are slightly manipulating the playerbase more or less directly.
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On March 04 2008 23:39 Unentschieden wrote:
Nice, but you kind of dodged the point: why don´t they play the "original" game? Why do they prefer the "easier" gameplay? Is it a problem of the game or the players? If it is the game: improve it. If it is the Players: whyt to do? Unless it is closed beta you don´t have the luxury to choose your players. Blizzard even admited that they are slightly manipulating the playerbase more or less directly.
Because the original starcraft is very hard on about every angle making a straight up 1v1 overwhelming for most players, wich is why noobs like to play games were their skill is less important such as teamgames or any of the simplifications of the game such as moneymaps.
Have you never wondered why RTS is such a small genre after all, compared to FPS and especially mmorpgs its a very tiny genre. Well, its because the games are hard to play, and starcraft is probably the hardest RTS game to play properly out there.
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Yeah, I agree that MBS/autocasting should not be added because... again, people who put in the effort to pay attention to everything that's going on is rewarded with victory.
You can't win in StarCraft if you're not outdoing your opponent, and I'd like to keep it that way.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u189/magigary/Rock_Paper_Scissors.jpg)
