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Sweden33719 Posts
On February 22 2008 22:58 BluzMan wrote:
Just to add 2 cents since there's a talk about Dawn of War balance.
This game was dominated by Eldar from it's start to the release of two expansion. Right now, with ridiculous 7 races (and 2 more to come with the THIRD expansion pack) balance isn't really an issue anymore, but back then when it was only four of them, it was Eldar > SM ~ CSM > Ork and an alternate balance pattern of CSM Defiler tech > SM & Eldar & Ork. I've kinda played DoW ladder and I must say the balance issues with it were SO evident that I had no idea why nobody was doing anything. Eldar had close to 60% global winrate on ladder, Orks had < 45%. Basically, there was a thread about Warp Spider unit spawned every single day on the strat forums and another one about Defilers with some minor rants on Word of the Emperor/plasmarines since people at least had ideas of how to counter it. Seriously, balance in DoW was abysmal.
So, funnily enough, I can't say that "Dawn of War balance team leader" is a good resume point, their balance team had quite a bad reputation. Nevertheless, it might have to do something with the game's core mechanics, being close to impossible to balance "the right way", so that guy might do better at Blizzard. Otherwise, dunno, I can't probably be considered a StarCraft expert, but I'm one of those few who do understand something about the game and are content with MBS at the same time.
I seriously think that there are much more time-consuming tasks at SC than clicking buildings (it seriously takes like 1-2 seconds to click them all and order units), and warpgates simply won't work without MBS. Autoclone, at the same time, is a terrible feature, and if not limited to workers, it WILL ruin the game.
Someone needs to take a test and analyze a pro FPVOD to see how much time is being devoted to different tasks. I won't be surprised if actual production takes a little time and most of it is invested into micro, rebinding (seriously, I was amazed when I saw a Reach's FPVOD at how much time he spends to proprely assemble his control groups) and constructing buildings.
For your information, David Kim only worked on the last game, Dark Crusade, which you say is pretty balanced :-)
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These are all good high level arguments, but I have a simple one. It's been addressed before, but not in a satisfactory way I think.
Why does the discussion stop at MBS and Automine? It's easy to imagine features like "ctrl+b+click rallies all barracks to this point" or "ctrl+c selects all command centers" or "ctrl+d causes all of your defilers to go eat a few zerglings until they have full energy." The automations would get laughed at, but MBS and automine aren't. The thing is, UI automation is arbitrary. There is no absolute standard, so people are just basing it on what they've experience. StarCraft's UI is extremely good, otherwise people wouldn't still player it. It's clean and simple. No one that still plays StarCraft says "man I wish this had Automine and MBS!"
So since UI automation is an arbitrary scale, why not just arbitrarily choose the level of automation that has already worked very well? And on a side note, something else that has already been mentioned is assigning hotkeys to characters other than 0-9, say just reserve the top row of letters for hotkeys and utilize the other ones for command hotkeys (or whatever, the implication doesn't matter). But that again is arbitrary, something that just seems reasonable to me. Even without it, who cares?
The argument for MBS seems to be self defeating: Reducing skill differentiation is bad so if it does that it's out, but if it doesn't reduce skill differentiation, it just changes the fundamental gameplay, which is also bad. No one has to "fight the interface" anyway, that's just silly. Learn it, maybe but not fight. Gameplay changes can come in the form of new units = new strategies etc.
Edit: WTF I'm a zealot now! Oh change~.
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On February 23 2008 03:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2008 22:58 BluzMan wrote:
Just to add 2 cents since there's a talk about Dawn of War balance.
This game was dominated by Eldar from it's start to the release of two expansion. Right now, with ridiculous 7 races (and 2 more to come with the THIRD expansion pack) balance isn't really an issue anymore, but back then when it was only four of them, it was Eldar > SM ~ CSM > Ork and an alternate balance pattern of CSM Defiler tech > SM & Eldar & Ork. I've kinda played DoW ladder and I must say the balance issues with it were SO evident that I had no idea why nobody was doing anything. Eldar had close to 60% global winrate on ladder, Orks had < 45%. Basically, there was a thread about Warp Spider unit spawned every single day on the strat forums and another one about Defilers with some minor rants on Word of the Emperor/plasmarines since people at least had ideas of how to counter it. Seriously, balance in DoW was abysmal.
So, funnily enough, I can't say that "Dawn of War balance team leader" is a good resume point, their balance team had quite a bad reputation. Nevertheless, it might have to do something with the game's core mechanics, being close to impossible to balance "the right way", so that guy might do better at Blizzard. Otherwise, dunno, I can't probably be considered a StarCraft expert, but I'm one of those few who do understand something about the game and are content with MBS at the same time.
I seriously think that there are much more time-consuming tasks at SC than clicking buildings (it seriously takes like 1-2 seconds to click them all and order units), and warpgates simply won't work without MBS. Autoclone, at the same time, is a terrible feature, and if not limited to workers, it WILL ruin the game.
Someone needs to take a test and analyze a pro FPVOD to see how much time is being devoted to different tasks. I won't be surprised if actual production takes a little time and most of it is invested into micro, rebinding (seriously, I was amazed when I saw a Reach's FPVOD at how much time he spends to proprely assemble his control groups) and constructing buildings. For your information, David Kim only worked on the last game, Dark Crusade, which you say is pretty balanced :-)
i would like to further add that none of the balancers who worked on DoW or WA worked on DC. DC had newly recruited talent in Stefan Haines (#1 on WA ladder), the Felhand (2 or 3 year WCG finalist), and 4 months later, a recruited David Kim. David Kim had no prior experience with DoW whatsoever, and within two months became the best Necron player on the team.
you must also understand that the balance process is extremely difficult. It's not just a matter of playing the game and figuring out what's imbalanced, putting in changes, and having a finished/polished game. It takes extensive testing, particularly in stages of pre-release where gigantic bugs hinder the testing. Invincible unit bugs, game crashing after 6 minute bugs, the UI disappearing for a half-day bugs, all these influence efficiency we can balance. The general reaction to DC balance was phenomonally good - much better than any other RTS relic has put out. It is an extreme testament to the balance team for achieving such balance, especially considering the low manpower and challenging work conditions.
I would like to put forward again: David Kim is an extremely apt, dedicated individual who loves the e-sport that is Starcraft. I believe that SC2 is in good hands (as far as balance is concerned, as i have not worked with any of the other developers).
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Sweden33719 Posts
On February 23 2008 03:53 Ancestral wrote:
These are all good high level arguments, but I have a simple one. It's been addressed before, but not in a satisfactory way I think.
Why does the discussion stop at MBS and Automine? It's easy to imagine features like "ctrl+b+click rallies all barracks to this point" or "ctrl+c selects all command centers" or "ctrl+d causes all of your defilers to go eat a few zerglings until they have full energy." The automations would get laughed at, but MBS and automine aren't. The thing is, UI automation is arbitrary. There is no absolute standard, so people are just basing it on what they've experience. StarCraft's UI is extremely good, otherwise people wouldn't still player it. It's clean and simple. No one that still plays StarCraft says "man I wish this had Automine and MBS!"
So since UI automation is an arbitrary scale, why not just arbitrarily choose the level of automation that has already worked very well? And on a side note, something else that has already been mentioned is assigning hotkeys to characters other than 0-9, say just reserve the top row of letters for hotkeys and utilize the other ones for command hotkeys (or whatever, the implication doesn't matter). But that again is arbitrary, something that just seems reasonable to me. Even without it, who cares?
The argument for MBS seems to be self defeating: Reducing skill differentiation is bad so if it does that it's out, but if it doesn't reduce skill differentiation, it just changes the fundamental gameplay, which is also bad. No one has to "fight the interface" anyway, that's just silly. Learn it, maybe but not fight. Gameplay changes can come in the form of new units = new strategies etc.
Edit: WTF I'm a zealot now! Oh change~.
Not a good way of thinking, you should ALWAYS consider ways you can improve something. MBS should for sure be considered, probably even needs a beta test (I don't think the impact MBS has is big enough to totally change the game when you remove/add it).
Since warpgates pretty much only work with MBS, if MBS should ever be removed, you can just make an exception for gates in warp mode (I believe you should always be able to select multiple buildings for things like rally points anyway, maybe lift off too, not sure).
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Arbitary is fine unless it annoys the Players. Once they get the feeling that they have to conquer a "skill" not because their enemy is better but because the developers said so is frustrating. That would feel artificial. Why would you want to do something just for the sake of doing it?
Even anti-MBSers argue that SBS serves simply to distract and eat your time. It is Blizzards job to come up with something that feels less redundant ("Why can´t SC2 do that? Every other RTS does!").
Imagine it wasn´t SC2 but a completely new RTS Franchise. How important is SBS if we take away the "It should be like SC" factor?
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On February 23 2008 04:36 Unentschieden wrote:
Arbitary is fine unless it annoys the Players. Once they get the feeling that they have to conquer a "skill" not because their enemy is better but because the developers said so is frustrating. That would feel artificial. Why would you want to do something just for the sake of doing it?
Even anti-MBSers argue that SBS serves simply to distract and eat your time. It is Blizzards job to come up with something that feels less redundant ("Why can´t SC2 do that? Every other RTS does!").
Imagine it wasn´t SC2 but a completely new RTS Franchise. How important is SBS if we take away the "It should be like SC" factor?
Then why not add those other features I mentioned? No one is even considering it. I'm just saying I don't understand the difference between saying on certain automation is good and another is not. Hence, in WC you could select 4 units, no hotkeys, and had to hold ctrl to drag. That is arbitrary and everyone would hate it. Everyone seems to like SC interface.
@Frozen arbiter, I don't know why Warpgates are only possible with MBS. I'm sure there's some way they could accommodate them without MBS (along the lines of, like you said an "exception" for them, because of the way they inherently work).
But I completely agree that Beta Testing is the best answer to almost any question. If it turns out all the pros and all the unwashed masses like MBS, then more power to it. My instinct is to think they won't, but who knows? Maybe someone else, not me.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On February 23 2008 02:55 0xDEADBEEF wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2008 02:02 Fen wrote:On February 22 2008 18:49 WolfStar wrote:I'm new here and while I understand what you guys are saying about MBS (after reading a lot of posts!) I should like to give another point of view. I've been playing SC/BW since it came out and I love it, it is still by far my favourate game. However I'm far from pro. I'm not even a good amature. The reason being not my understanding of the game but my ability to macro/micro/multitask. For that reason I can't wait for MBS and smartcast and automine, why? Because I might stand a chance of winning again  I have an 8-5 job a misses and a house. I, like an ever growing percentage of the game playing population of the world, just don't have time to practice to reach that sort of level. I understand that MBS, as thats what the thread is about, may ruin the competative side of the game and as someone has previously suggested there should deffinatly be an option to dissable it. But guys you can't expect them to cut it, there are too many old codgers (27 lol) like me who can't wait to get the chance of play a match and not just getting totally out produced in 5 mins! To end I would seriously suggest everyone stops moaning and just concentrates on making sure there is an option to turn these features off which is much more achievable as there is no way they will cut them from the game propper. EDIT: Oh and all you guys who think you could do a better job than Blizzard, you love starcraft yeah? Guess what they made it without you last time I'm sure they will do just fine this time. Thanks. Well here is the problem. You are exactly the type of gamer that destroys competative game. You want to be good without getting good. You want an advantage that makes it harder for someone who is better than you to win. Why should you rightfully beat a person who has had more experience and spent more time training than you? Also I challenge you to post a replay of a game if you think "The reason being not my understanding of the game but my ability to macro/micro/multitask." 99% of all people who claim this have really poor understanding of the game. See, there is a very large group of people in this world who believe that they are the shit when it comes to everything. No matter what it is, they think that they possess natural skillz that will mean they will always succeed. The problem arises when they come across something that you cannot just pick up and be good at. Instead of admitting, ok im not capable of this and will need time to practice, they delude themselves and make up excuses so their self perception of being the best is not harmed. "The reason being not my understanding of the game but my ability to macro/micro/multitask." is a common example of this. We see it time and time again. People complaining that the only reason they cant win is because of a UI. Its generally completely wrong and these people have AWFUL game sense, but seeing as such a large number of people fall into this group, its often beleived that the aspect that they bitch about is actually the problem. I mean how couldn't it be, so many people are complaining about it. Dont worry, when starcraft 2 comes out, you'll be bitching about an imbalance which means you cant win, or there will be something wrong with the map/game/computer. You'll just be having a bad day etc. If you've played the game for approx. 10 years and also watch a lot of replays and VODs, you will have a pretty good understanding of the game, but if you only have like up to 150 APM you will get crushed at some point by a faster player no matter what. Time will become your enemy, you might be able to survive quite some time vs. a better player but in mid or late game you will get overwhelmed quickly, even if you two have the same amount of expansions and a comparable economy. This is also how I lose every game vs. a better player: in late game, being outproduced. Sure, sometimes I can see a weakness and exploit it and win earlier, sometimes I win because he makes a big micro mistake, or I'm able to deal heavy damage to him while his army is somewhere else, things like that, but it's often impossible, in which case you can count on me losing. And this is frustrating, in a way.
Ok question: Did you mean to write faster player, or was this just a freudian slip or something? Anyway, speed is ridiculously overrated by you it seems. Testie was one of the best non-korean players for years, and while he is probably faster than his APM would indicate he usually cruised around at 150. And you know what? The longer the game went, the harder he got to beat. Late game PvZ vs him is fucking hell.
There are a plethora of other players, who while fast, are not the speed monsters that NaDa or Chojja are. I expect SC2 progamers to be these same speed monsters in the end regardless, because 1) speed will always be good 2) it's a sign of practice 3) in the final stages, when the game is mostly figured out, having better execution than ingenuity will still be rewarded (like, on an average pro-level, I'm pretty sure the very, very best will always be the talented ones).
The main problem here is that SC has a very high speed/APM base requirement, and this is only because of UI "obstacles" like SBS.
If you don't fulfill this high requirement (it's way too high for players just starting out):
- you won't have much success
- you won't be able to use some of the more fun or advanced units at all because you're almost 100% busy with the basics
- as a result: you won't have fun with the game
- You shouldn't have much success. New players, unless playing other new players, never will.
- "You must walk before you run". You can't pull flying armbars in judo before you know how to perform a normal armbar. You can't do half the stuff a good soccer player does before you have the basics down.
- Learning is fun. Improving is fun. And it's bullshit that you can't use any advanced units, just use them if you want to, maybe you'll lose, but maybe you'll learn something while doing so. Maybe next time you use them, it will be easier.
Learning and losing are pretty much one and the same in the beginning.
EDIT: Playing starcraft is un-natural. Playing starcraft 2 will be un-natural (except to RTS players).
4z5z6z7d8d9d0d is not something that comes without practice. But you know what? 4z5d then pulling off a bazillion extra micro maneuvers with the free time won't come easy either (I was thinking of something specific to put in here but I don't really know how the game will play, so from where we are now it feels a little scary, maybe there will be something tho).
My point is, playing good starcraft will always take time, MBS or no MBS you will be outclassed in the beginning, and for a long time forward as long as you continue to challenge yourself by playing better and better players.
Now keep in mind that I'm not advocating that all players should stand a chance against a better player. No. It's just about the feeling they get during the game. If all they do is take care of the basics (macro mechanics, base layout, reproducing workers etc.), because the game is so fast and their APM is too low, it means they maybe never have real fun because they don't have access to many features of the game.
In SC1, the speed requirement for doing the most basic things is so high that you can't really pay enough attention to the more fun things. And for a ton of players, having to spend so much time for producing units and workers is much less much fun than controlling their army (i.e. micro).
If you spend most of your attention microing stuff, you'll find yourself winning games vs people who spend all their time macroing, provided he's not much better than you (or your macro is completely useless). And here is one of the problems I see with MBS; when everyone already macros the same, there won't be the same kind of incentive for the micro happy player.
Yes, the same thing happened in starcraft, the players that were macro only or micro only are no longer succesful, probably because everyone at the top has gotten so good you need a well-rounded game to succeed, since you can't out-pace them in that one area enough to win you the game. I guess this happens in a lot of sports tho (ie MMA, it used to be a lot more grappler vs striker, while now it's much harder for anyone who's not well-rounded to win).
But I feel that by adding MBS you might reduce this further, and even make it an issue at lower levels.
This is the core of the problem.
And yes, this is really mainly about newbies and average players. The goal is to try to keep a high skill ceiling even with MBS, so that the competitiveness at the progamer level is not affected. But we really need to have this stuff for the lower skill regions.
I'm pretty sure that almost every low-skilled player in the world will be happy (i.e. will know that you're truly better) if you "outmicro" or "outsmart" him, but he won't be so happy if you play exactly like him but have a few more units leading to his death because he couldn't click buildings as fast.
While this is also some form of skill differentiation, it is not a good one. Just because it takes skill to do so, doesn't mean that it should be in the game, because the skill itself is a "boring" and non-dynamic one. It always is the same, it doesn't change according to the situation. Yes, it works in SC1, and it can also work in SC2, but it's a skill many players aren't fond of. It should be replaced by something else, something better. It's one area of SC1 which should be improved.
Argh, I really disagree with you here. Like, ugh. No, they won't be happy. You'll be cheap for tanking his cliff. You'll be cheap for doing that ling speed rush. Your reaver drop will be cheap. Your dark templar drop will be cheap, even if you wade through a field of mines using awesome micro.
Your bunker rush will also be cheap (damn no good bunker rushing terrans  !).
And if it isn't cheap, the game is gonna be "clearly imbalanced". I mean somehow you won, and they didn't. This can't happen.
Maybe I've always understood the game well enough to appreciate macro (since I was introduced to pro BW vey very shortly after I started BW, after playing vanilla hunters, bgh etc for a while, although even then good production wasn't something I'd consider to be an invalid way of winning), I dunno.
All I know is I've felt equally helpless and frustrated when losing to someone's better macro as when I get pounded by a gang of invincible flying imbalisks (mutalisks, god damn them all), and frequently the latter is what leads to the former.
Finally, I, and many others, are fond of macro. While I think there are valid points of MBS, namely that the effect is hopefully not big enough to hurt anyone, it would seem you simply don't like macro and expect MBS to change this. Well, you can't really have it both ways.
Either it will have a tiny impact, making life a little bit easier perhaps, but not hurting anyone. And certainly not preventing a weak player from getting face trounced by superior production (as this is as much a case of faster hands as it is a case of him using an ineffecient, inferior opening, forgetting pylons, needlessly making too many units before expanding or carelessly letting said units die). Or it will have a big impact, and thusly hurt the competitive aspect.
This last bit might leave you wondering; why the heck did he not say this right off the bat? Because I think your other points needed addressing, regardless of the impact MBS has on them.
Now, if the only way to get SC2 to become HUGE and universally accepted as the RTS to play if you are a serious player, is to include MBS then alright, I'm willing to take a slight loss in gameplay (I should say perceived loss, as with testing it might prove to be fine) for that.
So, anti-mbs in theory, but don't mind too much in practice (theoritcally!).
EDIT2: To expand a little on the "something specific" comment up above; I think a lot of you are thinking "Well, I'll have the time to *insert nydus worm sneak/warpgate to X location/perform some slick drop pod harass" but you have to take into consideration more than time requirements here. It may be that the way the game plays doesn't allow for these tactics to be used in mass at all.
Indeed, some of them are probably reasonably high-tech (or if they aren't, either risk becoming too powerful or un-utilizeable due to not having the economy to get effective usage out of them, ie keeping up wargate production). Maybe you won't even build ghosts in TvZ/TvT. Maybe marines won't be useful in TvT as a drop-pod unit. Maybe the way the matchup plays out, you won't be able to get all fancy all the time.
4z5z6z7z8z8z9z0z will always be there, and the time/attention that you "save" from having MBS won't build up, you can't put it in the bank for later usage.
Ahhh I haven't had this much fun writing in a long time
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Thanks for your replies gents, some interesting points well made and also some presumptions not so well made.
In response I would say a few things;
Firstly I wouldn't want to play with pros and win I would never expect to. I would like to play against other people who agree to play with MBS ect. and I feel I would have a more even playing field because of the lower skill ceiling you all fear.
Secondly I take the point about buckets however with all the SC players out there I don't believe this would seriously hurt peoples chances to get a game.
FrozenArbiter your points on balancing issues are fine ones and lets face it if there was no MBS ect. I'd still buy it and play and love it!
I am also very much looking forward to an auto match up system providing it actually works MBS or not.
As for my destroying the competative game, frankly thats just arse, I don't even want to play ladder games let alone pro games why should casual players such as my self not even involved in the ladder not be allowed to enjoy a more streamlined version of the game when they both agree to play it that way?
This issue clearly means a great deal to you guys and I wish you the best of luck but to be honest I am predicting some sort of "clasic mode" option being the best that you are going to get.
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Has anyone actually thought about how much the game would change due to MBS if you think in relation to expos?
Often it seems it's a good idea to place barracks in different expos cos then you can't have all your production cut by one attack, but it's hard to manage and multitask that. 2 barracks in 3 expansions is hard work to keep producing. But it would be embarrassingly easy with MBS. So would selecting rally points.
There are SO many things that MBS + automine would make easier, players would have more time to focus on the actual action in the game:
THAT'S A BAD THING!
Because you are LESS vulnerable to being caught off guard by drops and sneak attacks etc...because you are focusing more on that...which means people will do it less!
Which means imo you'll get less special strategies and interesting plays, and just more SINGLE ARMY massing and running into their base = gg.
Imo players NEED to have a lot of difficulty in just playing the game basically (like starcraft as opposed to aoe3) in order for great strategies which take advantage of this (which are usually the best anyway) to work.
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Well, if noMBS is implemented, it will be VERY easy to make a map with MBS triggers on. The reverse is much harder.
Assuming casual players only want to play casual, then ladder will mean nothing to them, and this should be fine. Just like casual players play Fastest map. They dont care about iccup, they care about having fun in a simple environment, which can easily be done with triggers.
EDIT: Completely unrelated. Difficulty of execution is VERY important for longevity of a game.
Lets say that anyone can perform the advanced tactics, then the game will be 'solved' very fast. The best strategies will be found and used and the game will become stale. (how often do u see humans not going for archmage first)
With difficulty of execution, new strategies open up as players become better at handling the game. For example, Defilers werent used all that much in the older days of starcraft progaming. However as players got better, they became stronger at using defilers effectively. The defiler is now staple of ZvT
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FA, you hit the nail right on the head. It's an attitude problem. People want to be able to pick up this game called SC2 and then play just as awesome as they think they should.
Right now they think they will be great players with MBS. But when they realize they still need to train and practice, just a lot less. they will still complain. When they realize learning to play with 120 APM is actually one of the easiest parts of SC, they will complain about strategy being too difficult. Or micro being too difficult, or scouting being too difficult, etc etc.
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Solution: Scaled MBS
With eight gateways hotkeyed to 5, we have three options:
5,z,z,z,z,d,d,t,t ..... to make 4 zealots, 2 dragoons, 2 high templars -- (allows unit diversity)
5,z,z,z,z,z,z,z,z ..... to make 8 zealots -- (faster production of one unit)
hold5,z ..... to make 8 zealots -- (fastest production of one unit)
Holding the hotkey centers your screen onto your hotkeyed buildings forcing your attention away from the battlefield.
If each building gets highlighted for 0.25 seconds, then with 8 buildings, that is 0.25s x 8 = 2.0 seconds of animation time. Did you say Midas took 3 seconds to build from ten barracks? So that's a rate of 0.30 seconds per building, a slower production rate!
+ Show Spoiler +
Repercussions:
Inclusive: No need for dividing players further; we already have Fastest Players, BGH, low-money, Bound, RPG, Pro, and other communities.
Intuitive: If you can select multiple units, now you can for buildings. The tedium of massproducing a unit reduced to pressing two buttons. It would be counter-intuitive to remove the time/attention cost, however.
Logical: Unscaled MBS reduces attention/time cost to almost zero, whether you have 10 buildings or 1. But with scaled MBS, it should take you longer to build 10 units over 1! Why should Player A with 10 gateways have the additional advantage of having the same time/attention cost as Player B with 1 gateway? Yes, Player A already has a +9 unit advantage, but this is logically the reward for the inherent higher mineral cost.
Balanced: Pros will almost never use option 3, but it's there for newbs.
Pro-variety: If this scaled MBS is applied to SC1, it could make using ghosts a viable micro counter versus carriers, as opposed to just macro counters, goliaths and wraiths. (Note: this is Blizzard's goal with SC2, move from macro to micro slightly. Unscaled MBS is extreme; scaled MBS is middleground).
Simple: Not a lot of alternative "macro" tasks to compensate. Warping, upkeep, a third resource... anything else? Holding the hotkey already operates on the existing function of pressing it twice to center screen on the hotkeyed unit/building. There were other ideas on ways to moderate MBS such as increased build times or higher resource costs, but it's simpler to just preserve the crucial element of time/attention cost.
(I got replies back from pro-MBS players, calling the scaling down of MBS a "weird compromise", "illogical", and "gimped". What if I say unscaled MBS is overpowered? Though, I've got even fewer replies from those who understand the competitive side of Starcraft, the anti-MBS people. I'd like to submit this idea on behalf of TeamLiquid, and get TL recognized, just like "Operation AWOL".)
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On February 23 2008 03:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2008 22:58 BluzMan wrote:
Just to add 2 cents since there's a talk about Dawn of War balance.
This game was dominated by Eldar from it's start to the release of two expansion. Right now, with ridiculous 7 races (and 2 more to come with the THIRD expansion pack) balance isn't really an issue anymore, but back then when it was only four of them, it was Eldar > SM ~ CSM > Ork and an alternate balance pattern of CSM Defiler tech > SM & Eldar & Ork. I've kinda played DoW ladder and I must say the balance issues with it were SO evident that I had no idea why nobody was doing anything. Eldar had close to 60% global winrate on ladder, Orks had < 45%. Basically, there was a thread about Warp Spider unit spawned every single day on the strat forums and another one about Defilers with some minor rants on Word of the Emperor/plasmarines since people at least had ideas of how to counter it. Seriously, balance in DoW was abysmal.
So, funnily enough, I can't say that "Dawn of War balance team leader" is a good resume point, their balance team had quite a bad reputation. Nevertheless, it might have to do something with the game's core mechanics, being close to impossible to balance "the right way", so that guy might do better at Blizzard. Otherwise, dunno, I can't probably be considered a StarCraft expert, but I'm one of those few who do understand something about the game and are content with MBS at the same time.
I seriously think that there are much more time-consuming tasks at SC than clicking buildings (it seriously takes like 1-2 seconds to click them all and order units), and warpgates simply won't work without MBS. Autoclone, at the same time, is a terrible feature, and if not limited to workers, it WILL ruin the game.
Someone needs to take a test and analyze a pro FPVOD to see how much time is being devoted to different tasks. I won't be surprised if actual production takes a little time and most of it is invested into micro, rebinding (seriously, I was amazed when I saw a Reach's FPVOD at how much time he spends to proprely assemble his control groups) and constructing buildings. For your information, David Kim only worked on the last game, Dark Crusade, which you say is pretty balanced :-)
Yes, but they had about 4 other top former starcraft players on the team before him I'm pretty sure
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On February 23 2008 03:53 Ancestral wrote:
Why does the discussion stop at MBS and Automine? It's easy to imagine features like "ctrl+b+click rallies all barracks to this point" or "ctrl+c selects all command centers" or "ctrl+d causes all of your defilers to go eat a few zerglings until they have full energy." The automations would get laughed at, but MBS and automine aren't. The thing is, UI automation is arbitrary. There is no absolute standard, so people are just basing it on what they've experience. StarCraft's UI is extremely good, otherwise people wouldn't still player it. It's clean and simple. No one that still plays StarCraft says "man I wish this had Automine and MBS!"
Heres the reason MBS is bad (which you apperar to agree with). Its not about the time it takes to click on each barracks. Like most people have said, with practice, you can do about 8 barracks in 1-2 seconds.
If you want to keep up with your macro, you have to go back to your base to:
-build marines/attack units (every cycle)
-build scvs (every cycle)
-build buildings
-do upgrades
-tell scvs to mine (every cycle)
Any reasonable player will do that cycle constantly, even in battle. If you watch the battle, and control individual units, your macro will suffer. If you go back to do the macro cycle, you won't be microing your units, and you will lose units unnecessarily.
This gives rise to macro style players and micro style players.
The reason MBS is bad is because instead of choosing between macro cycles and micro, the two most important parts - building marines/scvs and telling them to mine - are accomplished with 1s2m. With auto mining, you only have to go back to your base very occasionally.
This means that is entirely possible to spend an entire long drawn out battle with out ever taking your eyes off the battle. This means there is no micro advantage, no macro advantage, and progamers play like robots.
This is bad for competitive players, and its bad for spectators.
I think, and I hope that most people would agree with me, that multitasking is one of the reasons starcraft is so fun to play watch. Adding mbs essentially lowers the speed of the game as far as the player is concerned: he is no longer distracted, no longer forced to multitask, and no longer forced to play reflexively.
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The playing basketball with trampolines analogy is perfect here.
You could claim that you know everything about basketball - you watch it a lot and play it leisurely with your friends. Now there's a new basketball being played with trampolines that is up and coming - it looks good: after all, why should people have to practice, work out, have the genetic height, etc. to slam dunk and/or play original basketball effectively? Besides, you already know how basketball works - and now you can just focus on slam dunking.
This is the same thing that all the newbs on this forum don't get. Basketball with trampolines is a terrible game and devoid of the magic and complexity in the original game. Here, newbs argue that they are afraid of losing, afraid of playing someone that, god forbid, might be more skilled and smarter than them. Therefore, let's just give everyone trampolines so they can slam dunk. Let's give all the players MBS, so we can watch them micro zeals and focus fire their units instead for 20 minutes (see WC3).
Take your trash somewhere else.
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I just love the "everyone anti-mbs is a retarded noob" angle. It´s a killall argument, we can stop the discussion now-anyone who is for the change is an idiot and doesn´t count.
Where is the line if I may ask? At what point does a noob subhuman turn into the Pro-Masterrace? When he changes his mind about the UI? When he reaches >80APM regulary?
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Sweden33719 Posts
On February 24 2008 03:09 fusionsdf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2008 03:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:On February 22 2008 22:58 BluzMan wrote:
Just to add 2 cents since there's a talk about Dawn of War balance.
This game was dominated by Eldar from it's start to the release of two expansion. Right now, with ridiculous 7 races (and 2 more to come with the THIRD expansion pack) balance isn't really an issue anymore, but back then when it was only four of them, it was Eldar > SM ~ CSM > Ork and an alternate balance pattern of CSM Defiler tech > SM & Eldar & Ork. I've kinda played DoW ladder and I must say the balance issues with it were SO evident that I had no idea why nobody was doing anything. Eldar had close to 60% global winrate on ladder, Orks had < 45%. Basically, there was a thread about Warp Spider unit spawned every single day on the strat forums and another one about Defilers with some minor rants on Word of the Emperor/plasmarines since people at least had ideas of how to counter it. Seriously, balance in DoW was abysmal.
So, funnily enough, I can't say that "Dawn of War balance team leader" is a good resume point, their balance team had quite a bad reputation. Nevertheless, it might have to do something with the game's core mechanics, being close to impossible to balance "the right way", so that guy might do better at Blizzard. Otherwise, dunno, I can't probably be considered a StarCraft expert, but I'm one of those few who do understand something about the game and are content with MBS at the same time.
I seriously think that there are much more time-consuming tasks at SC than clicking buildings (it seriously takes like 1-2 seconds to click them all and order units), and warpgates simply won't work without MBS. Autoclone, at the same time, is a terrible feature, and if not limited to workers, it WILL ruin the game.
Someone needs to take a test and analyze a pro FPVOD to see how much time is being devoted to different tasks. I won't be surprised if actual production takes a little time and most of it is invested into micro, rebinding (seriously, I was amazed when I saw a Reach's FPVOD at how much time he spends to proprely assemble his control groups) and constructing buildings. For your information, David Kim only worked on the last game, Dark Crusade, which you say is pretty balanced :-) Yes, but they had about 4 other top former starcraft players on the team before him I'm pretty sure
They being blizzard? And 4? As far as I know he's replacing Pillars, that's the only other person we've been told about.
What I can't understand is the negativity towards him when his credentials are absolutely AMAZING, and he's even vouched for by someone as respectable as Mora. I mean this guy loves SC, plays it at a very high level and has a ton of balance experience - sure, Pillars is an RTS genius and would have done a good job, but this was a great replacement.
Maybe I don't get your post, which is very possible since I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm just sort of surprised that nobody else is as excited about having someone like him working on SC2 as I am.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
On February 23 2008 03:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2008 22:58 BluzMan wrote:
Just to add 2 cents since there's a talk about Dawn of War balance.
This game was dominated by Eldar from it's start to the release of two expansion. Right now, with ridiculous 7 races (and 2 more to come with the THIRD expansion pack) balance isn't really an issue anymore, but back then when it was only four of them, it was Eldar > SM ~ CSM > Ork and an alternate balance pattern of CSM Defiler tech > SM & Eldar & Ork. I've kinda played DoW ladder and I must say the balance issues with it were SO evident that I had no idea why nobody was doing anything. Eldar had close to 60% global winrate on ladder, Orks had < 45%. Basically, there was a thread about Warp Spider unit spawned every single day on the strat forums and another one about Defilers with some minor rants on Word of the Emperor/plasmarines since people at least had ideas of how to counter it. Seriously, balance in DoW was abysmal.
So, funnily enough, I can't say that "Dawn of War balance team leader" is a good resume point, their balance team had quite a bad reputation. Nevertheless, it might have to do something with the game's core mechanics, being close to impossible to balance "the right way", so that guy might do better at Blizzard. Otherwise, dunno, I can't probably be considered a StarCraft expert, but I'm one of those few who do understand something about the game and are content with MBS at the same time.
I seriously think that there are much more time-consuming tasks at SC than clicking buildings (it seriously takes like 1-2 seconds to click them all and order units), and warpgates simply won't work without MBS. Autoclone, at the same time, is a terrible feature, and if not limited to workers, it WILL ruin the game.
Someone needs to take a test and analyze a pro FPVOD to see how much time is being devoted to different tasks. I won't be surprised if actual production takes a little time and most of it is invested into micro, rebinding (seriously, I was amazed when I saw a Reach's FPVOD at how much time he spends to proprely assemble his control groups) and constructing buildings. For your information, David Kim only worked on the last game, Dark Crusade, which you say is pretty balanced :-)
Nah, what I meant is that 7 races are absolutely impossible to balance, so noone even bothers doing that now, so, really balance isn't an isuue in a twisted way. =))) I didn't delve deep, but Tau pwn everyone early game and Necrons pwn Eldar. Relic tries to patch the game, but it's gotten too big. The main point of multiplayer DC now is showing off your cool color schemes for your favourite tabletop armies (and I must admit, here is where the game really delivers). But that has nothing to do with the balancing, so, if he didn't work on the vanilla, he probably deserves credit for the fact that the game doesn't at least fall apart.
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I'm definitely negative towards him. I was confused and thought he worked on DoW an WA and left before DC. ;p
I wish him good luck!:D
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How much MBS is too much MBS?
Should buildings be selected only individually ?
How about Protoss Phase Cannons ? Should you be allowed to select them in groups for easier undeployement movement and redeployment ? Should you be allowed to select them in groups for easier focus fire ?
How about other defensive structures such as Terran Bunkers ? Should you be allowed to select them in groups for easier focus fire ?
How about non defensive non production buildings ? Such as Terran Supply Depots ? Should you be allowed to select them in groups to easily submerge them ?
If you can't select more than one production building at a time won't Terrans benefit from that ? Their production buildings with the Reactor add on can produce 2 units simultaneously.
If you can't select more than one production building at a time won't Zerg benefit from that ? Their production buildings can produce up to 3 units simultaneously. Persuming it stays the same as SC 1.
If you can't select more than one production building at a time won't Protoss suffer from that ? Their Warp In mechanics will require either having all their Warpgates assigned to separate hotkeys or rapid travelling many times in a row between the Warpgates's location on the map and the desired Warp in location depending on the amount of Warpgates you have. Since they do not have production queues won't single building selection further diminish their pottential efficiency?
How about building placement? Do you have to place or your production buildings in close proximity to each other for faster accessibility or do you spread them all over the map ?
Here's an example of *theorycraft* production with MBS:
Lets say we are in a situation where player A player B player C and player D are playing Terran and all have 12 barracks and an O.K. economy.
Player A is the that anti-MBS example guy, who has put all 12 barracks in group 4 and presses 4m every time he has 600 or more minerals to produce a group of 12 marines.
Player B is the guy who has 9 barracks in group 4 and 3 barracks with tech lab in group 5 and presses 4m5e/or whatever the button for medic will be in SC2 every time he has 600 minerals and 100 gas.
Player C wants more units in the mix. So he has 6 barracks in group 4, 4 barracks with tech lab in group 5 and 2 more barracks with tech lab in group 6 so he presses 4m6e5r/or whatever the button is for marauder in SC2 every time he has 600-700 minerals and some gas.
Player D is the one devoting the most time to macro properly. He has 6 barracks with reactor assigned to 4 and 6 barracks with tech lab assigned to 5. Every time he has 50-70 minerals he presses 4m or 5e or 5r.
Lets say it takes them 60 seconds to get 1200 minerals and they currently have 0 and arent producing anything, also it takes about 20 seconds for a unit to be produced. So after 70 seconds:
Player A has 12 marines ready and he is waiting for another 10 seconds for the next batch to finish.
4m4m for player A in 70 seconds.
Player B has 9 marines ready 3 medics ready and is as well waiting another 10 seconds for another 9-3.
4m5e4m5e for player B in 70 seconds.
Player C has 6 marines 4 marauders and 2 medics. And is waiting for another 10 seconds for another 6-4-2.
4m5r6e4m5r6e for player C in 70 seconds.
Player D has 20 units of his choice in whatever analogy he wishes. And is currently producing another 8 units.Lets say he wishes a 3marines-2marauders-1medic analogy. So he now has 10 marines 7 marauders and 3 medics.
In that case he has pressed until now:
4m5r4m5e4m5r4m5r4m5e4m5r4m5r4m5e4m5r4m5r4m5e4m5r4m5r4m5e
Thats exactly the same amount of clicks or button presses you would have to do if there was no MBS. The only difference is that for player D to achieve that perfect production he has to press 4m or 5e or 5r exactly every 2.5 seconds. If he slips up he will probably overproduce some units and screw up his analogy, or they will be created later than they could. Therefore he is probably spamming 4m 5e 5r a bit more just to make sure.
So he has probably pressed until now:
4mmm5rrr4mmm5ee4mmm5rr4mmm5r4mmm5ee4mmm5rr4mmm
5rr4mmm5ee4mm5rr4mm5rr4mmm5e4mm5rrr4mm5r4mm5ee4m
Notice that the more his economy grows the smaller that time limit will grow. And he has to micro all that army, expand, produce buildings and counter whatever his opponent will do.
And a final example. Lets say you play Protoss, the game has got pretty hectic, you have all your 6 gates linked to 4, you just finished a micro intensive battle so your resources have pilled up to 500 minerals 700 gas and you just NEED two extra high templars for that Archon, before round two of the fight begins in a split second. What do you do ?
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