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On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game.
You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today.
You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport.
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To add to that, it's about the longevity.
I'm for MBS and new macro-intensive features if Blizzard manage to implement them, and against MBS if they don't. I hope they prevail.
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On March 18 2008 17:52 Centric wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2008 16:59 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:On March 18 2008 11:42 valiance. wrote:
MBS isn't necessarily going to make SC2 a less competitive game, it just changes what makes it starcraft-like. Warcraft 3 is plenty competitive, it just has a different micro:macro ratio than SC. So Blizz adding micro tasks to balance out macro might keep the overall difficulty and competitiveness of SC2 the same as SC1, but it's at the cost of making SC2 feel more like WC3.
That said, MBS is NOT being added in order to make SC2 a more competitive e-sport game, it's being added so SC2 will have some appeal beyond the sc1 e-sports community. The increase in micro is a direct response to the increased ease of macro introduced by MBS.
I'm unsure if SBS would be a good tradeoff for Blizz. I don't know if the public would buy into an SC2 with SBS, and I don't know if SC1 die hards and Koreans can make SC2 the success Blizz wants it to be. The group of hardcore fans will be essential to the success of SC2 in any case, but Blizz needs to reach beyond nostalgic SC1 fans coming back for SC2, and beyond TL fans and beyond Korean pro gamers, and beyond fans of the pro circuit, to people who HAVE NEVER HEARD of starcraft in their lives! If they are too timid in making SC2 different from its predecessor, it will NOT be as good as it could be. Only a revolutionary, godly game could live up to the legacy of SC1, and I think being locked into the thought patterns of SC1 will limit the ambitions of SC2.
That said, without balance, without a viable pro-scene, you end up with a game like DoW, which lives on fluff and fun, but is unplayable AS A GAME. That doesn't make DoW a bad game, it's fun, reviewers liked it, and it has a community that has stuck with it through x-pack after x-pack, but it's nowhere near what it could be. It's not a classic, because it's not a good, balanced, competitive game. It's the balance that bred the pro-scene and is the cornerstone of SC.
I'm just worried that Blizz will not be able to find a way to keep the starcraft feel AND the difficulty of SC1. Adding MBS but not adding micro keeps the SC feel, but also makes the game a lot easier. Adding micro just makes SC2 into WC4. SC2 will never feel exactly like SC1, but Blizz should make an effort to find new macro tasks to keep the difficulty AND feel of SC2 intact. I agree with this post. But I would like to add why SC2 would probably be better off with MBS. Warcraft III is a very successful strategy game that is played vigorously on the pro level, especially in Europe and China, the latter of which the pro scene has been on a rapid rise. The main reasons Warcraft III would not, or does not, appeal to certain players is due to Upkeep, Heroes, and items. MBS is not a factor here. Starcraft II will attact new players who want to play a true strategy game without the Upkeep, Heores, and Items. MBS will make their interface easier, they will adjust better, and Starcraft II with MBS will become just as big, if not bigger, than Warcraft II, since many pro players like Moon, etc, and most Warcraft III players will move onto Starcraft II. (The majority of people who stay will either be hardcore players, or Defense of the Ancients players); The only community that is criticizing MBS is us, the hardcore Starcraft fans. However, Starcraft II will be a very competitive game regardless of whether SC casuals, hardcores, and pros decide to move to it or not. This is because, as I mentioned before, a limited game like Warcraft III is still highly popular. New players will flood SC2, and new players will dominate it. SC2 is not SC1. Yes, they will be limiting a strategical element of SC2 - macro - but removing MBS would only cater to players of a 10 year old game, who ( when considering the amount of players of all RTS's and the amount of new players who will move to SC2) are and will be a very, very small minority in SC2. It would be very illogical for Blizzard to step back from MBS just to cater the crowd of a ten year old game. That would be similar to Java programmers reverting their code back to the binary 1's and 0's to cater to the old school hardcore programmers. New pro's will rise in SC2, and SC2 will be a success regardless of what the SC1 community demands of the game. You forget the fact that StarCraft has the most dominant e-sports scene out of any RTS ever created. I would argue that the fanbase (comprised mostly of Koreans) obliterates that of all other RTS scenes combined. You are right in the fact that new players will flood into SC2. Blizzard does not make crap games. It will receive top-notch ratings along with a large fan-base. However, the fact of the matter is we are not concerned with the game's popularity. We are concerned about how competitive SC2 will be, and how viable it will be as an e-sport. In other words, you are right in saying that SC2 will be popular, but you are wrong in saying that it will be competitive. And by competitive, I mean at the level it is today. You are missing the point. Casual players of a game, attracted by "popularity," do not spend ten years following a game, perfecting their strategy, and continuing to get better. SC1 has such depth due to this micro/macro trade-off that it has players who will play a ten-year old game with inferior features over the newer games of today. You are wrong in stating that the people who move from SC1 to SC2 will be a minority. I argue that they will be one of the largest factors in deciding whether anyone will play SC2 for ten years.
Our goal is not to beat WC3. We could do that on any given day. Our goal is to match SC1 in its success and longevity. We cannot do that with MBS. As I have said already, MBS removes a part of the game that is too valuable to remove - the macro-oriented part. Only in SC do people lose because they have micro-ed too long and forgotten to macro, and only in SC do people lose when they have macro-ed too much and left their units to die. In adding MBS, you gut the macro-portion of SC, and castrate much of the competitive potential SC2 has as an e-sport.
Wait.. what? You're saying that StarCraft II's popularity very is dependent on how well it will manage to convert StarCraft: BroodWars players to the sequel?
If every sequel is dependent on the following of the earlier entries in the series how do you explain the success of games like: StarCraft:Broodwars, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike?
And it's not like we haven't seen big evolutions from one sequel to another which were successfull: Quake 2 --> Quake 3 for example.
Blizzard is generally good at pleasing their fans, but they make games for everyone - not just the rabid fanboys. Surely, their aim must be to cater not only to the hardcore fans but to new players alike. Hardcore fans are relatively easy to please. They would settle for, well, they would settle for StarCraft: Broodwars. New players, who tried the original but couldn't get into it, or who've never ever heard of StarCraft though.. they are harder to cater to.. and a MUCH larger group than the hardcore fanbase.
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Actually, it's the contrary - casual players are way easier to please, most of them are satisfied with a good singleplayer/lore and a playable game. ;;
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But WC3 is too easy for a competitive game. Inactive players can beat ones that practice very very hard. And it's because WC3 lacks multitasking. Even Grubby said so.
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On March 18 2008 21:29 BlackStar wrote:
But WC3 is too easy for a competitive game. Inactive players can beat ones that practice very very hard. And it's because WC3 lacks multitasking. Even Grubby said so.
Maybe he's just really talented and deserves it?
I mean, I know next to nothing about WC3 pros but Grubby is a name I've read about a few years ago alreaedy, so he's been at the top for quite some time. If WC3 was too easy then there would be much more change at the top, but I don't see much change there.
Btw, Flash started playing SC just 3 years ago (at the age of 12), and he's almost at the very top right now, dominating pretty much everyone, AND he's attending school as well, meaning he's not devoted purely to SC.
Most pros can concentrate on SC only, yet they aren't as good.
There are people who find games like this easy, it just comes naturally to them, meaning they don't have to train that much.
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Deadbeef you couldn't be more wrong, sorry. What you just said brings a tear to my eye out of pure stupidity. What was one of the first rules? Look things up if you don't know! Stop making outlandish remarks.
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I said I know next to nothing about it so it was obviously just an assumption, I don't know if it's right or wrong. Nothing about stupidity, go look up that word if you don't know it.
Though I'd need confirmation from someone else, I don't really trust you on that matter.  Because you like to flame.
Or give me more info. For starters, you could tell which part exactly was wrong, and why. Then I might look it up.
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On March 18 2008 20:23 maybenexttime wrote:
Actually, it's the contrary - casual players are way easier to please, most of them are satisfied with a good singleplayer/lore and a playable game. ;;
Not wrong, but semi casual are not. Hence, people who just want to go online without reaching high level are not so really pleased with the game, hence the number of BGH, and DoTA games blossoming on b.net. Unbalance is as irritating for them as a it is for high level players, for instance.
I'll try to express the diffuse feeling some softcore players had with BW. From single player and casual lan play, they discovered the many units, upgrades, spells and could get a glimpse of actual SC depth. Then things get serious, and you start playing against unknown player, experiencing cheese, macro overwhelming and all game features that can spell distaster upon the unprepared one. Then you start refining your speed and multitasking, cranking enough unit to wistand the ennemy macro. And at least, you can start toying with your army, microing vulture, mutalisk, reavers, using successfuly defilers, templars, etc. But, the issue is, if you can micro at will, it's quite obvious you stand above your opponent in some way. Confronting a new level of challengers reverts it to a macro/macro domination. Then some day, people playing for fun come to the conclusion they won't find satisfaction in honing again and again their macro skills, whereas they can't really have fun playing against weakers, unchallenging opponents. Eventually they stop their progression and later quit playing. (if they didn't, they wouldn't be softcore  )
It may be only a element among others but somehow Blizzard felt this issue and annouced WC3 as a micro oriented game. A really micro, micro oriented game, but losing some key elements that contributes heavily to SC : responsive units, insanely brutal fights, scattered expansions and ruthless fight for ressources. By no way it could be played as more micro oriented starcraft : it wasn't at all .
So maybe there is a group of players, the "could-be-dedicated-ones" waiting for SC2 as a complex game with immense skill curve, but more rewarding progression than BW, or rather rewarding in a slighty different way. Something around 40-60 macro/micro whereas BW stands about 60-40. And all other SC features included, scattered armies and bases, quick killing machines to micro, etc. Of course, a game responding to new gaming standards as well.
Issue is : will MBS and micro additions spawn that kind of a game, or in a micro unbalanced one ?
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Well, I believe that good ladder system (liek the one used in WC3) solves such issues to a large degree. Semi-casual players will play people more or less on their skill level.
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That is already assumed. The problem SHOULD be your enemy but a lot of the challenge in SC is hardcoded. Macroduties don´t differ between playing against the computer or in a top tournament.
Just the amount of leeway differs there.
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Exactly : almost all players want to play against challenging opponents and this is what a good ladder provides. But what some players don't like is having to focus too much on some macro tasks before anything else when playing for the win. One may outnumber his opponent with good multitasking and macro, but not feel satisfied with it, while others don't mind at all. The reason is they sense so much depth in the whole game, but they must resort to focus on production to get an edge.
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Try to look at macro as an action that you can perform. It has a downside, it has an upside. The downside of course being that it requires attention, it is hard to manage while doing other things as well. The upside is that it will give you more units and mean your micro actions will be stronger. To macro is a strategical choice. Something that you can use to beat your opponent. You can neglect one area, for strength in another area.
Now MBS makes building units a trivial action. Something that does not have a downside, just something that must be done every defined period in time to maintain the constant advantages that it is providing. Do you think it will diversify strategy? I highly doubt it. In fact, it will stunt strategical diversity. With a trivial unit building system, pros will always be equal macro-wise.
Someone posted a game of warcraft a little while ago showing how 'exciting' the game was supposed to be. It was a mirror matchup, and 1 thing stood out in that game which dissapointed me greatly. Both players built identicle numbers and mixtures of units. They literally had identicle bases (with a slight difference in layout) and the EXACT same army.
Do you think the same will happen in starcraft 2? I think so. The nature of the proscene is to find the best possible way to do something. Add things like MBS and automine and you result in standardising a gameplay element.
A well known saying is that what determines a good player isnt how he plays when things are going his way, but how he plays when they are not. If you lose the advantage in macro in starcraft 2 due to getting base raided or losing a battle. Im curious as to what a better player can do to get himself back into the game.
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MBS surely makes building units a trivial actions. Moving an army is a slightly less trivial one, because you have to account for limited selection (wich is no more in SC2) and keeping different unit separate.
The feeling with SBS being illogical is simple : if one managed to get all expansion, mining, production structures, supplies to afford a large unit output, why does he have to cope with cycling within all the buildings to get his army ? If he managed to build an excellent eco or at least keep his opponent's eco at a lower level than his, he deserves some kind of reward. At this point, pro MBS think the focus on macro has been sufficient, because expanding and base building are not trivial tasks when pressured by the ennemy, while pro SBS consider more focus has to be given to get constant or increasing reinforcements.
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On March 19 2008 00:56 Seelys wrote:
The feeling with SBS being illogical is simple : if one managed to get all expansion, mining, production structures, supplies to afford a large unit output, why does he have to cope with cycling within all the buildings to get his army ? If he managed to build an excellent eco or at least keep his opponent's eco at a lower level than his, he deserves some kind of reward. At this point, pro MBS think the focus on macro has been sufficient, because expanding and base building are not trivial tasks when pressured by the ennemy, while pro SBS consider more focus has to be given to get constant or increasing reinforcements.
Everything must have an up side and a down side to be balanced.
You get more bases than your opponent, then you also have to deal with the difficulty of controlling them. This way, as soon as one person gets a macro advantage, its not gg. The other player can pull himself back into the game, because he has less to worry about and therefore will be more efficient.
When you look at starcraft, 2 bases generally means twice the macro power of one base. However 3 for most people represents only about 2.6 times macro power. 4 Bases is worth about 3 times the macro power and so on. There is a diminishing returns situation where each base you add on means youve got another base to look after, and seeing as you can only handle a certain number of bases effectively. This is another aspect of balance which prevents the person in front from being just statistically too powerful to realistically take on.
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Well expanding have its down side : ressources spent, focus needed, being more vulnerable, dispatching units. If Blizzard does indeed put more emphasis on raiding, aggressive expanding will be a risky move. Of course map configuration wil have a huge impact on this.
But I agree early advantage should'nt be GG.
By the way, do you consider the new Zerg upgrade system as a new macro task ? I would personnally, since it's related to preparing armies.
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The issue is that certain parts of Macro are already standertized, just hard to do.
The act of expanding is a gameplay fact and only completely unrealistic theorycrafting can come up with a scenario in that you can realistically win without expanding or at least building more of the same building.
Expanding though, is a difficult act - timing protection utilization (just defenses/mining or also production and tech?) are all (supposed to be) vital challenges in game progression.
Edit: To clarify, this is good. This allows you to improve your gameplay on the macro side completely unrelated from your handspeed (as it should be imho).
In the last years Maps had to activly support expanding to avoid "2base". (More minerals at expansions, easy to defend naturals - well naturals themselves!)
As you pointed out, yes you are supposed to expand - but the effectivitiy of expansions isn´t supposed to errode like that. The stretching of your defenses/terretory to cover is supposed to be the drawback (allowing for "fancy" flankings, nuking, sneaking, proxying etc...)not economic ineffeciency.
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Well, new Zerg upgrades are more of a strategy thing, to be honest. After a while they'll become standarized just like build orders.
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But do you have to manually apply them to units ? (like yamato/torpedo upgrade on BC). I've not found reports on this to be clear...
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@Fen:
Well, first of all, it was a mirror matchup. Watch some SC1 mirror matchups and you'll see that both players also pretty much always have the same unless someone gets a significant advantage, expands, and from then on has more or stronger units. In which case the other player has a problem (of course).
Second, WC3 is supposed to be heavily micro-oriented, so one can assume standardized macro among good players.
In SC2, however, the need to constantly expand and manage your bases will be there, so even if at some point both players should have the exact same armies, after a battle someone will probably have an advantage and build upon this advantage (maybe expand, tech to something stronger, or build more of the same, or start a small harassment attack/worker raid, or other things). After that, armies will be different. Just like in SC1.
In non-mirror matchups it's of course silly to speak of "exactly the same army".
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EPT
