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One argument that sort of came up before but somehow vanished is the ongoing erroding to efficiency. More a old UI/ new UI issue it incorporates SBS and MBS.
How many expansions show up in a competative game? Or more specifficately, why don´t we expand untill all "spots" are taken? Simple, for a number of reasons each successive expansion is less attractive than the one before it. And I think that the old UI has a mayor hand in that.
But I also think that more expansions increase "attractivness" (is that even a word?) of a match, it increases need for map awareness, defense strategies, unit spreading (static defenses alone just don´t cut it) and creative ways to exploit the above.
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On March 21 2008 00:15 Unentschieden wrote:
One argument that sort of came up before but somehow vanished is the ongoing erroding to efficiency. More a old UI/ new UI issue it incorporates SBS and MBS.
How many expansions show up in a competative game? Or more specifficately, why don´t we expand untill all "spots" are taken? Simple, for a number of reasons each successive expansion is less attractive than the one before it. And I think that the old UI has a mayor hand in that.
But I also think that more expansions increase "attractivness" (is that even a word?) of a match, it increases need for map awareness, defense strategies, unit spreading (static defenses alone just don´t cut it) and creative ways to exploit the above.
Increased expansions also comes with a need for more drones for the expansion to be worthwhile. When you start reaching the 200 limit, you dont want to be building any more drones, you want units. By this stage of the game, you already have enough to support your army, so more expansions arent really a need.
That being said, its a good thing that expansions have diminishing returns. Without this, the person with more expansions has too much of an advantage over his opponent. It simply becomes a game of, this guy has more expansions and therefore he will win. The diminishing returns means that one player has more expansions and therefore has an advantage, but the advantage of having 1 more expo wont be enough to seal a victory.
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On March 20 2008 20:36 Blacklizard wrote:
For me, even if the player wins due to way better macro or overall positioning or whatnot, but he lost 10 more marines that game than he should have or he missed cycles of building units a few times by several moments (say 10-20 seconds)... it just really bothers me a lot. My argument (take this with a grain of salt, I don't watch football) is that it's like watching a pro football team throw 4 interceptions but still win. It's just ugly.
Now, my impression from some of the less angry posts on the anti-MBS side is that we shouldn't perceive a little bit of this as something that much of a travesty. It's war, war's hell, and you have to get a little dirty to get the job done. A valid argument, I'd say. But again, it's a matter of opinion to some degree, maybe a large degree, on how much of that is acceptable.
this is the fundamental missunderstanding you're having. anti-mbs does not view mistakes as dirty or ugly or something requiring a degree of acceptance. they're encouraged and they are healthy. we want mistakes and we want them everywhere. there should never be perfection, always better, faster, smarter.
you go on to talk about the extra attention afforded to the player changing 5-10 marine mistakes into 1-2 marine mistakes, 10-20 wasted seconds into 1-2 wasted seconds. this is bad for the game. if average unit counts remain comparable to sc1 1-2 marines simply is not going to make a difference and mistakes and errors will be marginalised. if micro becomes so mechnical that player skill difference is only worth 5% like you indirectly suggest would pleasing for you to watch (less ugly) then the game would very much fall into build wars and unit hard-counters.
that is not sensationalism; the less potential for mistakes the less variation between player input. the less variation in player input the more relevant hard unit and build counters becomes.
the only other thing you could possibly mean is that 1-2 marines will (somehow?) make as much difference as 5-10 marines do currently, that the difference would in the end be only to the outside observer and the to the player mistakes andclutch plays would have the same impact as ever. my response to this is WHY? the only thing this would achieve is to make it less exciting, less visceral for spectators. attempting to change the game so professionals appear more perfect is silly.
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Maybenexttime, I think I understand what you are getting at... if not please correct me. You are saying that with MBS you'll never be more worse off on macro than being behind a few units (over the course of a match) as opposed to huge amounts of units that you'd be behind in BW.
I agree that could happen, but that's part of my point. The game will be much tighter with much less room for error in that way. I think it'd be more competitive (in theory at least), because players get smaller advantages for everything they do instead of much bigger advantages they get in BW.
In BW, if someone missing two cycles of making units from minute 6 to minute 10, ... he'd probably lose (I'm making up these times, but you get my meaning). In SC2 with MBS, the same player may have made those units that he previously wouldn't have made... but if the other player is better (and scouting, harass etc. allows him to see the other guy is short on units at this exact point in time), he would have attacked him or distracted him even more or attacked even harder or in another place at this point and gained a bigger lead. Now granted, if the 2nd player never has the opportunity to gain momentum from the smaller mistakes, then the game will probably fail. But even if it takes a long time for players to be able to capitalize on these mistakes by gaining a "feel" for what the other guy should be doing or should have in terms of units, etc. ... even if that doesn't happen for a year or two or five after the game comes out, maybe that will still be fine or even good b/c it requires that much more experience to get past that level of expertise.
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On March 21 2008 00:39 Lachrymose wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2008 20:36 Blacklizard wrote:
For me, even if the player wins due to way better macro or overall positioning or whatnot, but he lost 10 more marines that game than he should have or he missed cycles of building units a few times by several moments (say 10-20 seconds)... it just really bothers me a lot. My argument (take this with a grain of salt, I don't watch football) is that it's like watching a pro football team throw 4 interceptions but still win. It's just ugly.
Now, my impression from some of the less angry posts on the anti-MBS side is that we shouldn't perceive a little bit of this as something that much of a travesty. It's war, war's hell, and you have to get a little dirty to get the job done. A valid argument, I'd say. But again, it's a matter of opinion to some degree, maybe a large degree, on how much of that is acceptable. this is the fundamental missunderstanding you're having. anti-mbs does not view mistakes as dirty or ugly or something requiring a degree of acceptance. they're encouraged and they are healthy. we want mistakes and we want them everywhere. there should never be perfection, always better, faster, smarter. you go on to talk about the extra attention afforded to the player changing 5-10 marine mistakes into 1-2 marine mistakes, 10-20 wasted seconds into 1-2 wasted seconds. this is bad for the game. if average unit counts remain comparable to sc1 1-2 marines simply is not going to make a difference and mistakes and errors will be marginalised. if micro becomes so mechnical that player skill difference is only worth 5% like you indirectly suggest would pleasing for you to watch (less ugly) then the game would very much fall into build wars and unit hard-counters. that is not sensationalism; the less potential for mistakes the less variation between player input. the less variation in player input the more relevant hard unit and build counters becomes. the only other thing you could possibly mean is that 1-2 marines will (somehow?) make as much difference as 5-10 marines do currently, that the difference would in the end be only to the outside observer and the to the player mistakes andclutch plays would have the same impact as ever. my response to this is WHY? the only thing this would achieve is to make it less exciting, less visceral for spectators. attempting to change the game so professionals appear more perfect is silly.
If all anti-MBS players want the max number of mistakes in a game, then the arguments that everybody laughs at... that all the UI enhancements from Warcraft1 or 2 should be taken out... so that even more mistakes are made and things are even more impossible to do with the given time... would be totally valid.
I have to believe that there is a balance to be struck between not necessarily how many mistakes are made, but the level of the mistakes. If SC2 has more harassment, then there certainly will be more opportunity for mistakes in that area and the macro mistakes may be critical at the level of a few moments as opposed to larger chunks of time. I think that'd probably be fine.
I'm making up numbers, so please don't hold me to a number like 5% difference or whatnot. But you do get my point I think, and disagree. If not, let me say this (i'm out of time at the moment... gotta post)... I love seeing units die! I love it, I do not want War3 style battles. The more that die the better. Maybe a better example I should have given is if you have a group of 50 marines in BW in a close match, and half of them die in one battle when if you had microed them only 10 or 15 would have died... I say that's bad.
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On March 20 2008 22:10 eugen1225 wrote:God these MBS threads are long, takes quite a while to read them.  While i understand the anti-MBS arguments, i feel that they are over rated. While it will make the game simpler, it wont be that much easier. However, i consider it unfair to a lot of people, to have them learn a particular basic skill for months just so they can compete with semi descent SC1 players in SC2, i see MBS just as a way of facilitating the introduction of new players to SC2, and to creating a fresh community. I know many of you will disagree, but most of us are "old". We are in the mid twenties, a lot of us will probably stop playing games in a few years because of real life (job, wife==>family), we need to face the fact that we are not the future of eSports nor its community/fan base, this will be the part to play of a new generation, new kids, new fans and new players. Just because a bunch of "old" guys disagrees on a "modern" RTS feature claiming it to be less "pro",its not justified, its more selfish. Imagine a teenager who played other games start playing SC2 without MBS. It will be more frustrating than entertaining, and soon he will stop playing. Imagine this on a larger scale, it will spell the doom of SC2, and its fresh fanbase. Another thing, a guy said once: "You can't lower the skill cap in SC because the level of how good you can be is limitless, players keep raising this skill level constantly, and having MBS will only lower the already infinite skill cap a bit lower (still infinite)." I think he was right, there is no limit to how good you can be. MBS lowers that limit, but its still very high, and no human will be able to pull out perfect plays MBS or no MBS, hence competition still exists, players will train and train to achieve the most perfect possible play, and every once in a while a new guy will elevate the level of play compared to his peers (like it hapens today, over and over). I will stress this out again, keeping MBS out of the game, will only frustrate a lot of new players, and without this new blood (more than half of ppl that will play SC2, maybe even more) SC2 cannot survive. edit: We forget that SC1 spoiled us as well, it had the best UI back then, and a lot of UI features other RTS' didn't have, why should the new generations have to suffer?
Don't glance over this one anti-MBS debaters.
As for macro, my definition of macro was slightly incorrect. In the first half of the game, before expansions are fully utilized, macro has many, many factors. But once build orders are established, and strategy is decided, macro shifts more who can click their producers the fastest - no, who can make faster actions to make more units over the course of time. Meaning, the majority of late game macro would be eliminated by MBS due to hotkeys.
I think its time for pro MBS'ers to accept that argument. Limiting the amount of actions required to produce the desired affects always leads to an easier game, and MBS will lead to a easier late game macro war in Starcraft.
Shift the focus. Is it worth removing MBS just to satisfy a 10 year old fan base, who will continue to age, and probably stop playing SC2 soon after it comes out? Or should the game now focus on the new generation, where most other current RTS games incorporate MBS or something similar to it?
Eugen1225's arguments need a response.
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On March 21 2008 00:32 Fen wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2008 00:15 Unentschieden wrote:
One argument that sort of came up before but somehow vanished is the ongoing erroding to efficiency. More a old UI/ new UI issue it incorporates SBS and MBS.
How many expansions show up in a competative game? Or more specifficately, why don´t we expand untill all "spots" are taken? Simple, for a number of reasons each successive expansion is less attractive than the one before it. And I think that the old UI has a mayor hand in that.
But I also think that more expansions increase "attractivness" (is that even a word?) of a match, it increases need for map awareness, defense strategies, unit spreading (static defenses alone just don´t cut it) and creative ways to exploit the above. Increased expansions also comes with a need for more drones for the expansion to be worthwhile. When you start reaching the 200 limit, you dont want to be building any more drones, you want units. By this stage of the game, you already have enough to support your army, so more expansions arent really a need. That being said, its a good thing that expansions have diminishing returns. Without this, the person with more expansions has too much of an advantage over his opponent. It simply becomes a game of, this guy has more expansions and therefore he will win. The diminishing returns means that one player has more expansions and therefore has an advantage, but the advantage of having 1 more expo wont be enough to seal a victory.
Well as I pointed out, that is not only a MBS/SBS issue. Do workers have to cost ANY supply?
Isn´t it shizophrenic when you argue for more skill differination yet want to encourage comebacks and dimish advantages ingame? Blizzard encourages a steep "slippery slope", that put´s a lot of pressure on players, more than macro circles ever could.
Even today matches don´t last until the "official" win condition, very often you see a "GG" long before all buildings are razed. There is no need or point to drag out the inevitable. "Skilled players need to be able to defeat "inferiors" quickly.
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On March 20 2008 21:16 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2008 15:35 FeArTeHsCoUrGe wrote:
Can someone explain how MBS will kill macro in SC2.
If I'm not mistaken, macro implies much more than being able to click on seven gateways to produce seven zealots.
Its build orders, knowing which build orders produce your optimized strategy the fastest, using effective building placement, employing the best economy management, knowing when to make units vs miners, making the right amount of miners at a certain time, knowing when to expand, knowing how many expansions you must take to maximize your build, knowing how to gain the most from expansions, knowing when to kill economy for a timing push, and if so, how much economy to sacrifice,(etc etc) and, on top of that, being able to produce the desired units by repetitively clicking on all your production buildings.
MBS only reduces the last part of that. How does that have any significant effect on macro as a while?
You anti MBS'ers need to learn what macro truly is. Macro is very deep. MBS only removes the clicking aspect of it. As Tasteless has pointed out, it reduces the hotkeying and momentum aspect of StarCraft. In addition, it makes micro-to-macro multitasking almost nonexistent - it actually makes the game MORE of a "clickfest" since now the most efficient way to macro is not having macro cycles but rather producing units as you go, i.e. whenever you have enough resources for one units, you queue it. E.g. you want to produce Siege Tanks (mid/late game) from your Factories. Instead of going back to base every 20-30 seconds to produce more Tanks (SBS system), you'll queue one more Tank as soon as you get 100 mins and 150 gas (or whatever the cost now is). In mid/late game you'd have to do that like every other second, seeing as you have so many production buildings. In conclusion, MBS leads to opposite results when it comes to the emphasis on "clicking"...
AFAIK, MBS doesn't work like that. MBS lets you shift-click buildings and then group the shift-clicked buildings under a hotkey. Then, doing "1z" (using gateways and zealots) builds a single zealot in every gateway in the group only if you have the resources to pay for all those zealots and none of the gateways in the group are producing units. Otherwise, pressing "1z" simply queues a zealot in the first gateway in the group.
Did that change recently?
On March 21 2008 01:13 Unentschieden wrote:Show nested quote +On March 21 2008 00:32 Fen wrote:On March 21 2008 00:15 Unentschieden wrote:
One argument that sort of came up before but somehow vanished is the ongoing erroding to efficiency. More a old UI/ new UI issue it incorporates SBS and MBS.
How many expansions show up in a competative game? Or more specifficately, why don´t we expand untill all "spots" are taken? Simple, for a number of reasons each successive expansion is less attractive than the one before it. And I think that the old UI has a mayor hand in that.
But I also think that more expansions increase "attractivness" (is that even a word?) of a match, it increases need for map awareness, defense strategies, unit spreading (static defenses alone just don´t cut it) and creative ways to exploit the above. Increased expansions also comes with a need for more drones for the expansion to be worthwhile. When you start reaching the 200 limit, you dont want to be building any more drones, you want units. By this stage of the game, you already have enough to support your army, so more expansions arent really a need. That being said, its a good thing that expansions have diminishing returns. Without this, the person with more expansions has too much of an advantage over his opponent. It simply becomes a game of, this guy has more expansions and therefore he will win. The diminishing returns means that one player has more expansions and therefore has an advantage, but the advantage of having 1 more expo wont be enough to seal a victory. Well as I pointed out, that is not only a MBS/SBS issue. Do workers have to cost ANY supply? Isn´t it shizophrenic when you argue for more skill differination yet want to encourage comebacks and dimish advantages ingame? Blizzard encourages a steep "slippery slope", that put´s a lot of pressure on players, more than macro circles ever could. Even today matches don´t last until the "official" win condition, very often you see a "GG" long before all buildings are razed. There is no need or point to drag out the inevitable. "Skilled players need to be able to defeat "inferiors" quickly.
Yes, SC gameplay does involve a steep "slippery slope" or an emphasis on positive feedback, in that advantages tend to lead to more advantages. The problem is that having too steep a slippery slope leads to uninteresting gameplay, as the first player to gain an advantage essentially gets an autowin. One of the balance issues with MBS (that I first pointed out, actually  ) is that it removes the negative feedback loop associated with having an economic advantage. In SC, the larger your economy, the more time you have to devote to managing it, which gives the player at an economic disadvantage the opportunity to come back. Since MBS reduces the difficulty in managing larger bases, it's possible that if uncompensated the slippery slope will become too steep.
However, if MBS still works like I mentioned above, then the flexibility and timing penalties associated with abusing MBS should give high-level players the incentive to keep groups small and go back from time to time to reassign them for maximum efficiency, which would make managing larger bases more difficult again.
Also, the feasibility of building unit-producing buildings in expansions, the design emphasis on base-raiding/drop possibilities, reduced effectiveness of static defense, and increased damage of worker loss due to easier basic unit production is likely to create a new negative feedback loop where getting more bases makes it harder to defend individual bases, allowing the player at an economic disadvantage to more easily take out an individual base and reduce the economic advantage.
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Do we really think that these "mistakes" won't be made in Starcraft 2? At least in one form or another? A game must be incredibly shallow if it were to so easily be played "perfectly" don't you think? I'll make the assumption and say that Starcraft 2 will offer plunty of challenges that push players to their limit and offer plunty of opportunities for mistakes.
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I don't think that method has actually been confirmed by anyone, 1esu, though.
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Nice answer 1esu, that´s what I wanted to convey. The disatvantage in expanding should be the increased vulnerability of you "empire". That is how the nuke worked - against a single base that thing was worthless. But try to look for that dot in 4 Bases.
That encourages and requires the disatvantaged player to activly exploit his enemys weaknesses. And isn´t that what RTSes are all about?
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On March 20 2008 22:10 eugen1225 wrote:God these MBS threads are long, takes quite a while to read them. While i understand the anti-MBS arguments, i feel that they are over rated. While it will make the game simpler, it wont be that much easier.
It will significantly reduce a game defining element of the game.
However, i consider it unfair to a lot of people, to have them learn a particular basic skill for months just so they can compete with semi descent SC1 players in SC2,
I think this is totally irrelevant. SC2 has to be made as such so that it is the best competitive game possible.
If this is unfair, how is it fair that SC1 skills a lot of people worked for for a long period of time don't carry over?
No, this is nonsense. It's like complaining about chess960 since normal chess skills carry over.
i see MBS just as a way of facilitating the introduction of new players to SC2, and to creating a fresh community.
Noobs don't use hotkeys. How will MBS help them?
I know many of you will disagree, but most of us are "old". We are in the mid twenties, a lot of us will probably stop playing games in a few years because of real life (job, wife==>family), we need to face the fact that we are not the future of eSports nor its community/fan base,
You are right. We are followed by the McDonalds/MTV generation of people who expect an easy fix. The nature of esports and of SC or even RTS in general goes against that. They will just have to adapt. Not because they have to adapt to us. But because they have to adapt to what it means to have an esports game.
...this will be the part to play of a new generation, new kids, new fans and new players. Just because a bunch of "old" guys disagrees on a "modern" RTS feature claiming it to be less "pro",its not justified, its more selfish.
What is 'modern' about MBS? Do you mean in the sense of McDonalds/MTV generation? If so, esports is dead.
Imagine a teenager who played other games start playing SC2 without MBS. It will be more frustrating than entertaining, and soon he will stop playing. Imagine this on a larger scale, it will spell the doom of SC2, and its fresh fanbase.
Yes. It's an attitute problem. People aren't willing to practice and train for an esports game because they except a game where the game gives them the illusion that they are extremely skilled while in fact they aren't. That's how most games work.
There is an inherent conflict between an esports game and a normal 'fun' game.
Another thing, a guy said once: "You can't lower the skill cap in SC because the level of how good you can be is limitless, players keep raising this skill level constantly, and having MBS will only lower the already infinite skill cap a bit lower (still infinite)."
I think he was right, there is no limit to how good you can be.
Obviously, there is a limit. There is in any game.
MBS lowers that limit, but its still very high, and no human will be able to pull out perfect plays MBS or no MBS,
This is just a pure assumption. First off, not every game will be difficult enough. WC3 was not difficult enough. Inactive players beat players who practiced like SC players. SC2 will be made for esports. It has to be even more difficult to master. There are already pro's waiting. I think top players still lose too often against lesser players because of bad shape of the day or bad luck, eventhough clearly they are more skilled. Compare the wining percentages of top SC players with top chess players.
And even if the above is not a problem on any level of play, why do a step in the wrong direction? Why purposely imbalance the balance between macro and micro to appeal to new players who aren't even willing to learn how to play the game anyway, you claim? Starcraft is so great because it has 3d gameplay; macro, micro and strategy. Now, we need 4d gameplay to make it even more exiting. All other games lack in at least one area. WC3 is a 2d game. You want SC2 to be a 2.5d game? Rather than reducing the dimensions of play, it should be increased.
We don't even need those people you describe. There was once a post by orangeguy who made the same claim. How will people that are unwilling to learn to play SC because of lack of MBS be able to beat Flash if he were to switch to SC2?
I will stress this out again, keeping MBS out of the game, will only frustrate a lot of new players, and without this new blood (more than half of ppl that will play SC2, maybe even more) SC2 cannot survive.
It's not a game for those people in the first place. Sad but true. There is nothing that can be done about this. Either Blizzard abandons the idea of replacing SC with SC2 and makes it a fun game for the market/majority. And then they make a new game totally based on esports to replace SC. Or they do what they want now; make SC2 that game.
edit: We forget that SC1 spoiled us as well, it had the best UI back then, and a lot of UI features other RTS' didn't have, why should the new generations have to suffer?
This is false. SC was slammed for it's interface and rush heavy-ness. SC was slammed for all kinds of features that we know now made it a progaming-capable esports, drawing many spectators. All other games had 'better' interfaces. Reviewers even said that Blizzard had to artificially limit this because otherwise rushing would be too strong as you could easily attack move all your unit towards the opponent.
Yes, SC was slammed for one sided multiplayer, bad UI, not so great gameplay and praised for the great graphics.
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On March 21 2008 02:11 yangstuh wrote:
At least in one form or another? A game must be incredibly shallow if it were to so easily be played "perfectly" don't you think?
No. It happens quite easily, actually. If you want a game that is played competitively by people that practice hours and hours a day in professional teams, you better make sure the game is very difficult.
Even chess is too easy, actually. Of course computers play a role. But even without those humans with a lot of hard study can solve the game.
Why do we all use certain set build orders? Because it is very easy to learn which build orders are good in which situations. We know because people figured all that out long ago. That was somewhat difficult. But once that's done it's easy.
Just one example about a feature of gameplay that is actually dead in SC because it was too easy in that respect.
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Germany1302 Posts
I hope this does not get OT but i posted an idea on Page 22 and since someone said something stupid on the same page everyone chose to respond to him telling him how invalid the argument is. If my Idea is crap or has been discussed before (and I did not read it) I'm sorry, but it looks like it was simply overlooked. If it is not demanded too much i would be happy about any kind of response.
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To blackstar.
I think this is totally irrelevant. SC2 has to be made as such so that it is the best competitive game possible.
Its most relevant actually. In order for a sport to be competitive, it needs to have players who are payed to play it(pro= makes money from playing), in order for someone to pay these guys, they need to have a fanbase. If a game is fun and cool, it generates fans. In order to like a game, you need to play it, and like it, if you don't like it, who cares who is good at it. A lot of ppl who watch Starcraft are chobos. They sucked before, and they wil always be bad at it. But they like the game, and enjoy watching people that a re good at it.
Noobs don't use hotkeys. How will MBS help them?
I have yet to see a RTS player (and i know quite a few) who doesn't use hotkeys. Even suck players use them, at least to put theyr army under "1". Either way, this isn't a real argument.
Obviously, there is a limit. There is in any game.
Ofc there is, but even with MBS humans can't achieve it. Perfection is something humans are inherently bad at. As a species we aren't perfect at anything we do, this is a scientific fact.
WC3 was not difficult enough. Inactive players beat players who practiced like SC players.
This is a quote mine. You have read this and copy pasted it here. When they say inactive in WC3, it means he was pro before, he stopped playing for a few months, then got back, trained hard like before for a couple of months, and then beat a guy who was weaker than him before. This doesn't mean he woke up today, decided to play wc3 again and owned all on the ladder the same morning.
Yes, SC was slammed for one sided multiplayer, bad UI, not so great gameplay and praised for the great graphics.
Name one game that has a better UI that appeared before SC did. I was in 8th grade when SC showed up, and i remember being very happy with the UI then. The only RTS back then that i maybe liked better than SC was TA, but these two games are not even remotely similar.
And CnC:RA didn't have a better UI, up to CnC3 the CnC games didn't even have an attack move command.
t's not a game for those people in the first place. Sad but true. There is nothing that can be done about this. Either Blizzard abandons the idea of replacing SC with SC2 and makes it a fun game for the market/majority. And then they make a new game totally based on esports to replace SC. Or they do what they want now; make SC2 that game.
I can't even discuss this, its totally deluded. Go to my response no1, and check that. If you still don't get it, theres nothing i can do, not all people can understand some things.
Just look at any NES game that has existing sequels today. Take for example Castlevania. The first couple were insanely hard, and ive played them as a 11 year old kid, wasted hundreds of hours playing it, and eventually beat it. Now look at the castlevania games today. Game mechanics are better, but the char is a lot easyer to control. The games are easier, but its something necessary. I gave a young relative of mine to play CV1. He died so many times only on the first level, he started bashing the keyboard, and said "THIS GAME IS SHIT!!!".
Imagine a guy that played some RTS' that have facilitated macro (either thru MBS, or some sort of popup build menu) play SC2 with SBS. The first impression will be, it looks cool, the second would be frustration. Who will play it in a couple of years?? 30 year olds that have failed in life and the only thing they have is the "competitive" SC2? How many of these can you envision? Is this the future of eSports?
Some things just come with time, and its on every one to adapt. MBS is sadly one of those things, it just has to happen.
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On March 21 2008 02:45 BlackStar wrote:
There is an inherent conflict between an esports game and a normal 'fun' game.
I think that sums up your position. Yet I and many others disagree with that. Do you say that Starcraft isn´t fun?
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Popularity is extremely important. I laughed when I heard that World of Warcraft is actually being played competitively in some kind of arenas with a team of 5 vs. 5 or similar. The thought of a competitive MMORPG (i.e. not just for fun) is just ridiculous to me, but it just shows the power and influence of a huge fanbase.
In the end, everything is secondary to that. Blizzard has to cater to the whole market, not just one small portion of it which demands certain things.
Everything is about balance. You could bring out a ridiculously difficult game to the market (far more difficult to play than SC1), but then almost no one would bother trying to play it.
So you have to make it easy for the low skill region to make them get started with that game (it's important that these demands change over time. Remember that easy to play also means fun to play, and no one will start a GAME if it isn't fun to begin with. SC1's UI was OK for newbies (i.e. all players starting it) back in 1998, but it isn't quite OK anymore nowadays), and then you try your best to make gameplay deep enough so that progamers can emerge, and so that the game can also become highly competitive.
Now you could say "where will this end? The newer generations will only want it even more easier than before". The answer is no one knows. We just know that SC1 is too hard for low skilled players, and we also know that a UI like WC3 has it is being considered BETTER than SC1's for the majority of all players.
So Blizzard has to build upon that, use this as the basis for making a competitive game. Obviously it won't play exactly the same as SC1 as a result, but it doesn't have to.
You really have to try finding this balance between an efficient, accessible UI and not adding too many automations (which is why the comparison between MBS and autoaiming in FPS games is just stupid).
If you make it too difficult OR too easy, it won't be as big of a success as it could be, and it won't become an e-sport.
Make it too difficult and the player base will be ridiculously small, rendering the game uninteresting for sponsors and tournament organizers.
Make it too easy and it will be seen as a pure fun game with no competitive qualities.
Both lead to this end: no tournaments, no sponsors, no progamers, no e-sports.
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There are tons of people who will be willing to play SC2 without MBS. And without it it won't be broken or frustrating to play.
It will just be frustrating to lose. And that's the point of a competitive game.
Also, I am not the one who says an esports oriented game is not fun. You are asking me?
Either you fine tune a game for competitive play. Or you make it shallow fun for the majority.
And yes, go join a random 3v3 on USwest. Then watch after the game how they used hotkeys. There will probably be one or two people who never used a single hotkey. There will be one or two that used only a few for their army.
It will be very rare for a player to use hotkeys like player on iccup.
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1st)Competitive game = A game in witch people compete to see witch is better, one wins, one loses.
Features cannot change this. As long as people will strive to be better than others, they will compete, it has nothing to do with MBS. To be competitive is an attitude, sort of spirit, a state of mind. Playing a harder game doesn't make it more competitive, the amount of good players you have to face makes it more competitive. Just so we define some things.
2nd) You are missing the big picture here. eSports are in shatters today, although there are more sponsors than ever before, the amount of games being played competitively in a given genre (FPS etc.) are a lot. This has the fanbase of the genre separated, and no big community exists. SC2 can be so much more than just a game for SC1 fans. It has the potential of creating a huge RTS community, because of the lack of good RTS on the market. A big unified RTS community centered on 1 game will make it very popular, will attract more fans, more fans bring more sponsors, will be a popular eSport, and this all means it will be very competitive. I would hate to see this not happen because some stubborn people can't accept some things, and cry foul all the time. I am very sad if a lot of you can't see the potential SC2 has, and just how big it can be world wide. Also, no big competition will be present to break this one big community, because RTS' need dedicated servers like blizz Bnet. No other game has this. Some use GameSpy (it sux, and people hate it) others use other providers (like Microsoft LIVE, people hate this even more), and its very unlikely that some random company will invest a ton of money to make dedicated servers for a second rate RTS. Analyze this. Think this thru, and see the bigger picture. This is the biggest reason why i object to SBS being in SC2, it will damage SC2s popularity and acceptance, and damage its potential fanbase (witch is very important).
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I think both points are disproved by SKorea. If there is to be popular esports in Europe or the US, it will be in the style of how it is done in SKorea. Either it exists that way, or it doesn't.
Obviously the competitive nature of the game is very important. Some games cannot be played competitive. For example, rock paper scissors or tic tac tou. There are very simple rules to follow in both games that result in perfect play.
Why will people invest in professional teams if the extra practice gains them no advantage over amateurs?
And yes, WC3 is an example of that as well. Several time an inactive player won. Someone said it was quote mining, apparently that term was misunderstood by that person. But it cannot be disputed that this is the case and that this happened because of the limited multitasking in WC3.
I don't see how people refuse to watch SC2 as spectators because they themselves found it too difficult to become skilled in the game. Because that's what the whole MBS discussion is about. People lose and get frustrated. They don't want to put a lot of effort in learning the mechanics of SC. And then they lose always because they get outmacroed.
How is this going to damage esports? I don't get it. Do you really think people will say: "Ooh, this game is a clickfest, it's too difficult to learn. I tried it but I can't catch up with those 10 year SC veterans. I am not going to watch this?"
And battle.net will have no role in esports. It didn't have in Korea, it won't have anywhere else with SC2.
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EPT
