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On June 30 2015 06:14 3point14 wrote:btw, didnt you want to post some thoughts about symmetries/asymmetries in Wc3? 
So, what I wanted to investigate was why it seems like there is a higher level of asymmetry in Starcraft than in Warcraft 3. I don't know where I read this, but there is a quote from Dustin Browder where he talks about how by limiting themselves to three races they are capable of crafting unique mechanics and experiences for each race. That's for the sequel, but I think it's clearly already there in vanilla Starcraft and for a first attempt by the studio that stands out as quite an accomplishment. It was received very well too, the successful asymmetric design was perceived as a major step forwards for both Blizzard and the RTS genre. I find it interesting that by contrast the asymmetry in Warcraft 3 seems more perfunctory at first glance and is arguably actually worse in the expansion.
My theory is that this partly relates to the addition of a fourth race. If you have some variable that you can turn on or off it allows one to differentiate between two races. Add a third race and high/middle/low is a still a diverse enough set of choices to delineate where one ends and the other starts. If you keep adding races eventually the differences become too fuzzy. A second effect is you can more clearly see how units or mechanics are an instance of a pattern when you have more examples available. The creation of a fourth set of units illuminates some things about the design of the other three sets.
To illustrate this, compare the pair of zergling and marine to the quadruple of ghoul, footman, archer and grunt. Where the first two look like wholly unique conceptions, the latter four seem to have more overlap. Not only does the footman seem like a combination of the ghoul and the grunt, but you can also see the grunt as a stronger footman, or the ghoul as a faster footman, and so on. Because there are more variations the pattern jumps out at you. If instead of the zergling and marine you added not just the zealot but the tougher medium-ranged unit of a hypothetical fourth race, the level of asymmetry in Starcraft would seem less impressive.
You can find similar symptoms for other aspects of the game. The dichotomy of wisp versus ghoul for lumber gathering is replaced by the pantheon of peasant, peon, ghoul, wisp all standing out slightly. The existence of the haunted gold mine makes the entangled gold mine less original. The ability of night elf buildings to uproot challenges you to consider the strong symmetry in building mechanics for the other three races as less inspired, because more could have been done.
I think in that sense Blizzard did an admirable job. While superficially all races in Warcraft 3 are very similar in structure and execution, this is on some level a side effect of the addition of a fourth race and it does not and should not detract from appreciating the diverse experiences Blizzard did manage to create. You can see the races as similar, but they don't feel that similar, each one still has its own identity. The orcs stand out as strong, the humans as sturdy, the night elves as sneaky and so on. By identifying thematic aspects of the races Blizzard managed to create unique identities despite overlap in race mechanics.
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On July 05 2015 00:05 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2015 06:14 3point14 wrote:btw, didnt you want to post some thoughts about symmetries/asymmetries in Wc3? So, what I wanted to investigate was why it seems like there is a higher level of asymmetry in Starcraft than in Warcraft 3. I don't know where I read this, but there is a quote from Dustin Browder where he talks about how by limiting themselves to three races they are capable of crafting unique mechanics and experiences for each race. That's for the sequel, but I think it's clearly already there in vanilla Starcraft and for a first attempt by the studio that stands out as quite an accomplishment. It was received very well too, the successful asymmetric design was perceived as a major step forwards for both Blizzard and the RTS genre. I find it interesting that by contrast the asymmetry in Warcraft 3 seems more perfunctory at first glance and is arguably actually worse in the expansion. My theory is that this partly relates to the addition of a fourth race. If you have some variable that you can turn on or off it allows one to clearly differentiate between two races. Add a third race and high/middle/low is a still a diverse enough set of choices to clearly delineate where one ends and the other starts. If you keep adding races eventually the differences become too fuzzy. A second effect is you can more clearly see how units or mechanics are an instance of a pattern when you have more examples available. The creation of a fourth set of units illuminates some things about the design of the other three sets. To illustrate this, compare the pair of zergling and marine to the quadruple of ghoul, footman, archer and grunt. Where the first two look like wholly unique conceptions, the latter four seem to have more overlap. Not only does the footman seem like a combination of the ghoul and the grunt, but you can also see the grunt as a stronger footman, or the ghoul as a faster footman, and so on. Because there are more variations the pattern jumps out at you. If instead of the zergling and marine you added not just the zealot but the tougher medium-ranged unit of a hypothetical fourth race, the level of asymmetry in Starcraft would seem less impressive. You can find similar symptoms for other aspects of the game. The dichotomy of wisp versus ghoul is replaced by the pantheon of peasant, peon, ghoul, wisp all standing out slightly. The existence of the haunted gold mine makes the entangled gold mine less original. The ability of night elf buildings to uproot challenges you to consider the strong symmetry in building mechanics for the other three races as less inspired, because more could have been done. I think in that sense Blizzard did an admirable job. While superficially all races in Warcraft 3 are very similar in structure and execution, this is on some level a side effect of the addition of a fourth race and it does not and should not detract from appreciating the diverse experiences Blizzard did manage to create. You can see the races as similar, but they don't feel that similar, each one still has its own identity. The orcs stand out as strong, the humans as sturdy, the night elves as sneaky and so on. By identifying thematic aspects of the races Blizzard managed to create unique identities despite overlap in race mechanics.
Makes sense.
I think a part of it too is that it's not just about what units you have available; its also about what units actually get built. (Admission: my understanding of high-level WC3 is limited at best.) My understanding of WC3 is that those first tier units aren't terribly similar in usage... Grunts are good, archers are kinda weak, crypt fiends are probably more reliable than ghouls (again, someone with more knowledge please correct me if I'm wrong). This helps to make the armies begin to look and play more differently.
I think another important aspect is heroes. The heroes are very different from one another, and adds a level of difference in how the armies engage, fight, and disengage. The units are allowed to be a little more similar if the heroes are adding the difference and the armies are mostly tools for the heroes to do the things they need to.
I've also been giving a lot of thought lately to what a WC4 would look like. Looking over the lore (and replaying WC2/3 campaigns) has helped to continue to convince me that a Old Gods vs. Burning Legion vs. Alliance vs. Horde could be a really cool dynamic that would get to explain and tie into a lot of the existing lore while actually setting up a world-shattering event the way that WC3 really did completely rearrange the existing Warcraft lore.
Even if I think Heroes of the Storm is probably the closest we are getting to WC4 (It helps that the WC3 characters are lovingly done, and very unlike their WoW equivalents as a rule... and the game will continue to be majority WC3 heroes for a long time, even if there's a blip around LotV launch with a Starcraft event pushing them into a plurality short of a majority.)
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thanks for the interesting post!
there are some things about Sc that are suprisingly the same for all races (in relation to Wc3).
Workers mine minerals and gas the same way. Even every race has extractors. No race has a building that can produce units and research upgrades. All use towers for detection. All have a building for only air units. All have a flying transporter unit.
but of course it is much more diverse than Wc3. still, wc3 is so complex, that small changes feel rather big. when you play a different race, you have to get used to the new: Heroes, buildings like supplybuilding and buildorders, workers, shop and all the implications that arise, like the new timings and fighting mechanics.
So it can be nice to have some stability and its not like Sc2 doesnt have its standart units aswell.
if you go by unitabilities, Wc3 has more, which would then create higher racediversity in that department.
@ Kalevi : Sure we can play! 2on2 would be nice. but I cant whisper to you and I dont know why
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On July 05 2015 05:53 3point14 wrote:
thanks for the interesting post!
there are some things about Sc that are suprisingly the same for all races (in relation to Wc3).
Workers mine minerals and gas the same way. Even every race has extractors. No race has a building that can produce units and research upgrades. All use towers for detection. All have a building for only air units. All have a flying transporter unit.
but of course it is much more diverse than Wc3. still, wc3 is so complex, that small changes feel rather big. when you play a different race, you have to get used to the new: Heroes, buildings like supplybuilding and buildorders, workers, shop and all the implications that arise, like the new timings and fighting mechanics.
So it can be nice to have some stability and its not like Sc2 doesnt have its standart units aswell.
if you go by unitabilities, Wc3 has more, which would then create higher racediversity in that department.
@ Kalevi : Sure we can play! 2on2 would be nice. but I cant whisper to you and I dont know why
I figured out why, because I put myself on dnd! (sorry but most people on w3arena are complete jerks, that have nothing better to do than harrassing me via pm)
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On July 05 2015 05:53 3point14 wrote:
thanks for the interesting post!
there are some things about Sc that are suprisingly the same for all races (in relation to Wc3).
Workers mine minerals and gas the same way. Even every race has extractors. No race has a building that can produce units and research upgrades. All use towers for detection. All have a building for only air units. All have a flying transporter unit.
but of course it is much more diverse than Wc3. still, wc3 is so complex, that small changes feel rather big. when you play a different race, you have to get used to the new: Heroes, buildings like supplybuilding and buildorders, workers, shop and all the implications that arise, like the new timings and fighting mechanics.
So it can be nice to have some stability and its not like Sc2 doesnt have its standart units aswell.
if you go by unitabilities, Wc3 has more, which would then create higher racediversity in that department.
I think the similarity of resourcing in Starcraft is a clue to the structural necessity of symmetry. The most extreme form of asymmetry in production capability was the zerg larva mechanic and that was carefully balanced through various methods I won't go into. And look what happened when Blizzard introduced poorly tuned macro mechanics into Starcraft 2.
In Warcraft 3 each race needs to have heroes and staple early game units to interact with. Each hero needs to be able to deal with those units and with creeps. That's a structural reason to have the mirroring in production. You can't have a larva-esque mechanic that gives plentiful production, because heroes would get overwhelmed. For similar reasons you can't go too far in having asymmetrical economy design.
These reasons don't apply to Starcraft as much, because in that game a very powerful army can be defeated by a very powerful economy, so in that sense you can allow both. I think in WC3 you can really allow neither, which is a constraint that heroes place on the game.
There is also a sense that you can't allow race design to force players to concede core strategic objectives by default. Each race needs to be able to fight for map control, have a sufficient late-game army, heal their units, break sieged positions and so on. An inability to do any of this makes the game strategically rote, creating default win conditions as long as one player can, say, reach end-game.
There are lore reasons to have diverse sets of heroes too, you can't give orc just strength heroes not only because of balance concerns but also because players are a priori attracted to races and desire a complete experience. The design of each race needs to be total, they are not content with playing orc for melee based gameplay, they want the option of ranged units too and so on. (I don't know why this reason wouldn't also apply to SC though)
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Tournament with 8 players including Grubby!
1. place: 4500 Euro ~ 5000 $
2. 3000 Euro
3. 1500 Euro
date: 15-17.07.15
http://war3.replays.net/news/page/20150708/1945646.html
There was allready a qualifier for WCA this month with 7000$ for first place.
Infi and Th000 are still making lots of cash with Wc3
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I just rewatch right now game were InToX create AOW rush
@2002
o m g
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I really wish there was more English coverage of the game. The B2W guys are cool but it's depressing that there's a $5k tournament featuring guys like Grubby and I can't find readable information anywhere (but here).
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yeah its all about german, russian and chinese coverage now :/
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On July 08 2015 19:21 3point14 wrote:Tournament with 8 players including Grubby! 1. place: 4500 Euro ~ 5000 $ 2. 3000 Euro 3. 1500 Euro date: 15-17.07.15 http://war3.replays.net/news/page/20150708/1945646.htmlThere was allready a qualifier for WCA this month with 7000$ for first place. Infi and Th000 are still making lots of cash with Wc3
OMG ! this line up
TH000
VG.Infi
Yumiko
Fly100%
Lucifer
Check
ReMinD
Grubby
Please !!! and English stream ! D:
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I'm really interested to see if Grubby's still got it. My instinct tells me he'll be slower/out of shape but I'd love to see him just beast the whole thing. Show these new kids who's the real man in WC3.
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51589 Posts
Moon's still in the military right?
and Sky is still coaching WE's LoL team?
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On July 14 2015 12:44 GTR wrote:
Moon's still in the military right?
and Sky is still coaching WE's LoL team?
I think Moon is still in the military, but sky is doing what now ???? D:
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On July 15 2015 15:33 3point14 wrote:Grubby will be playing Th000 now!! http://www.douyutv.com/264421sure, it's gonna be a beatdown, but who cares
Ah, have to leave for work. Thanks for posting it through.
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100k+ viewers, China still loves their war3
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51589 Posts
douyu is known for inflating viewer numbers so dont take it for face value
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live event doesnt look too packed either
grubby died to th000 towers...out of shape as expected..
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TH000 2-0 Grubby
Quick attack on Grubby's Burrows with a lvl 3 AM (vs lvl 2 BM) followed up with towers + Firelord was too much for Grubby to handle.
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let's see if he can beat check. and Infi vs Th000 will be nice too
edit: thats tomorrow
edit2: Remind, who just returned from the army, beat Yumiko 2:0
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EPT
