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On April 21 2024 19:51 Crimthand wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2024 19:39 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 19:36 Crimthand wrote:On April 21 2024 19:13 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 18:54 Crimthand wrote:On April 21 2024 18:36 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 14:59 Crimthand wrote:
As for singleplayer RTS vs multiplayer RTS, I am not saying one would be more popular than the other. But so far, all RTS games have been made to be single player games, with a multiplayer mode tucked on. No game was designed from the ground to be multiplayer only. At least no game I am aware of. I am sure there could be some niche indie game that did.
Of course less people are going to play the multiplayer mode if multiplayer is just a secondary game mode that is just spun off from the single player game mode.
But we have these devs talking about how it is their ambition to make a multiplayer 1vs1 RTS game. But then they just copy a single player RTS game, like SC BW, and strip away a bunch of stuff they call 'mundane', add QoL that reduce mass clicking because 'mass clicking isn't fun' and 'to free up more time for strategy'. While also adding no new innovations to gameplay. And then they say it is the next iteration of RTS.
To David Kim's credit though, he is literally the first person to at least talk about thinking about how game design affects multiplayer game states. And therefore strategy and decision making. This seems like the most basic idea, but I have never heard anyone in the SC2 development talk about this. And no one either for Stormgate. I don't think it is necessary to have a complete different design for multiplayer focused RTS. Of course it isn't necessary. You could copy SC BW as much as possible. Which by chance got a very good formula. But why not use the knowledge learned in 25 years of SC BW RTS about what makes 1vs1 multiplayer RTS fun to play or watch? Why not re-evaluate core gameplay design features that were decided upon for lore/setting/immersion reasons, and ask yourself if they are actually the best choice for getting the best 1vs1 RTS possible. You could also just test it out. Make a simple RTS. And change some core elements about it, trying to find the best choice for 1vs1 play. For example, is having 2 resources the best choice? With one being used more often, and each race having a few buildings and 1 unit which only uses resource A? Is that really the best? Is it better to have just 1 resource? Or should you have 2 resources that are not tiered, but work in parallel? Should there be transmutation between different resources? Or not at all. All these things were originally picked in C&C and WC & SC for lore reasons. Not even for single player gameplay reasons. How these choices would affect multiplayer was not even thought about. I don't see Stormgate devs come out and say this "Hey, we have 150 combined years of RTS experience on our dev team. At the start, we had a brainstorm session about resource systems. And we specifically picked a system to give rich gameplay, multiple strategies. This is our system, so since we explained it, you can now appreciate how it can be superior to SC BW. But also mathematically validated this model to be superior with our game theory expert. We even put out a research paper on it. And we proved to ourselves by just playing our games internally that indeed this resource system is more fun. This is our competitive advantage and why our game will be the a quantum leap for RTS. And we also plan to apply this same design philosophy to other elements of the game. these already exists. AOE has multiple resources type, tradable and resources nodes are all over the map, and have multiple winning conditions. You literally aren't even reading. Why even respond? AoE were completely lore-based single player games. Who learned nothing from SC BW or competitive 1vs1. AoE is literally the opposite of what I am talking about. Just stop! i won't disagree, I don't understand why we need to be concerned about whether the resources are tied to lore or not. Like what's your concerned about it. why we should care if the engine in f-zero is lore accurate or not. What?! How can you just not get this. You are designing a game. You either design a game based on what makes sense inside your lore. Or you design a game based on what gives the best gameplay.
...imma stop the quote there because, already, no. This is a false dichotomy.
You design both in tandem because you have multiple designers all working on the same thing as a team toward a specific vision for the game.
Take some of the dumb units in the Red Alert series, like war bears or laser dolphins. These weren't put into the game because Red Alert 3 was designed either as a 'lore-based' game (this isn't a thing) or as a 'best gameplay' game. They were put into the game because at some point some designer had them as ideas, and then other designers along the way did shit like make them balanced and/or fit the 'lore' and/or fit the game's themes etc etc etc. They're in that game because a bunch of designers decided the idea -could- work, and then a bunch of designers worked on and directly signed off on it. There's (ideally) a singular vision that the game was going for, and a bunch of minds teamed up to fit ideas to that vision and prune ideas that didn't.
The idea that you're arguing that anyone else is stupid with this as your line of reasoning is pretty special. Given your last bunch of posts, I feel strongly that you have no idea what you're talking about most of the time, and are pulling a lot of it straight out of your ass. Do better!
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On April 20 2024 03:13 NonY wrote:
Actually looking forward to this game a lot. As much as I want to just have a remix of StarCraft to kinda relive the things I enjoyed, I think there’s a huge opportunity to make a new kind of strategy game that is gonna be really fun. And probably my biggest concern for stormgate is that if you try to be like StarCraft but stretch it too much into something else, you end up in a weird spot. So I’m getting excited about games that are changing more drastically and not trying to be a spiritual successor to StarCraft. Of course I hope stormgate pulls it off but I’ve come around to being more excited about more experimental and fresh designs.
Same, I believe in my man David Kim!! This was the RTS I had the most faith for and have been waiting to see.
RTS is still young and underdeveloped as a genre. Blizzard RTS defined the genre for a long time, but there are surely other kinds of RTS that can work and be even more fun.
This new game sounds exciting.
Also i was wondering if the UI shown in the documentary was from the game itself.
It probably is, though it still looks overly simplistic. Maybe they removed the text and some other stuff?
What is the Battle Overview for, for example? Are you deciding how to position troops even before the game starts?
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On April 22 2024 12:33 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2024 19:51 Crimthand wrote:On April 21 2024 19:39 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 19:36 Crimthand wrote:On April 21 2024 19:13 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 18:54 Crimthand wrote:On April 21 2024 18:36 ETisME wrote:On April 21 2024 14:59 Crimthand wrote:
As for singleplayer RTS vs multiplayer RTS, I am not saying one would be more popular than the other. But so far, all RTS games have been made to be single player games, with a multiplayer mode tucked on. No game was designed from the ground to be multiplayer only. At least no game I am aware of. I am sure there could be some niche indie game that did.
Of course less people are going to play the multiplayer mode if multiplayer is just a secondary game mode that is just spun off from the single player game mode.
But we have these devs talking about how it is their ambition to make a multiplayer 1vs1 RTS game. But then they just copy a single player RTS game, like SC BW, and strip away a bunch of stuff they call 'mundane', add QoL that reduce mass clicking because 'mass clicking isn't fun' and 'to free up more time for strategy'. While also adding no new innovations to gameplay. And then they say it is the next iteration of RTS.
To David Kim's credit though, he is literally the first person to at least talk about thinking about how game design affects multiplayer game states. And therefore strategy and decision making. This seems like the most basic idea, but I have never heard anyone in the SC2 development talk about this. And no one either for Stormgate. I don't think it is necessary to have a complete different design for multiplayer focused RTS. Of course it isn't necessary. You could copy SC BW as much as possible. Which by chance got a very good formula. But why not use the knowledge learned in 25 years of SC BW RTS about what makes 1vs1 multiplayer RTS fun to play or watch? Why not re-evaluate core gameplay design features that were decided upon for lore/setting/immersion reasons, and ask yourself if they are actually the best choice for getting the best 1vs1 RTS possible. You could also just test it out. Make a simple RTS. And change some core elements about it, trying to find the best choice for 1vs1 play. For example, is having 2 resources the best choice? With one being used more often, and each race having a few buildings and 1 unit which only uses resource A? Is that really the best? Is it better to have just 1 resource? Or should you have 2 resources that are not tiered, but work in parallel? Should there be transmutation between different resources? Or not at all. All these things were originally picked in C&C and WC & SC for lore reasons. Not even for single player gameplay reasons. How these choices would affect multiplayer was not even thought about. I don't see Stormgate devs come out and say this "Hey, we have 150 combined years of RTS experience on our dev team. At the start, we had a brainstorm session about resource systems. And we specifically picked a system to give rich gameplay, multiple strategies. This is our system, so since we explained it, you can now appreciate how it can be superior to SC BW. But also mathematically validated this model to be superior with our game theory expert. We even put out a research paper on it. And we proved to ourselves by just playing our games internally that indeed this resource system is more fun. This is our competitive advantage and why our game will be the a quantum leap for RTS. And we also plan to apply this same design philosophy to other elements of the game. these already exists. AOE has multiple resources type, tradable and resources nodes are all over the map, and have multiple winning conditions. You literally aren't even reading. Why even respond? AoE were completely lore-based single player games. Who learned nothing from SC BW or competitive 1vs1. AoE is literally the opposite of what I am talking about. Just stop! i won't disagree, I don't understand why we need to be concerned about whether the resources are tied to lore or not. Like what's your concerned about it. why we should care if the engine in f-zero is lore accurate or not. What?! How can you just not get this. You are designing a game. You either design a game based on what makes sense inside your lore. Or you design a game based on what gives the best gameplay. ...imma stop the quote there because, already, no. This is a false dichotomy. You design both in tandem because you have multiple designers all working on the same thing as a team toward a specific vision for the game. Take some of the dumb units in the Red Alert series, like war bears or laser dolphins. These weren't put into the game because Red Alert 3 was designed either as a 'lore-based' game (this isn't a thing) or as a 'best gameplay' game. They were put into the game because at some point some designer had them as ideas, and then other designers along the way did shit like make them balanced and/or fit the 'lore' and/or fit the game's themes etc etc etc. They're in that game because a bunch of designers decided the idea -could- work, and then a bunch of designers worked on and directly signed off on it. There's (ideally) a singular vision that the game was going for, and a bunch of minds teamed up to fit ideas to that vision and prune ideas that didn't. The idea that you're arguing that anyone else is stupid with this as your line of reasoning is pretty special. Given your last bunch of posts, I feel strongly that you have no idea what you're talking about most of the time, and are pulling a lot of it straight out of your ass. Do better!
Oh My Fucking God. The sheer audacity, flaunting stupidity, and arrogance from someone who registered here in 2014 to talk about Dota2. This Is Shocking.
Yes, dolphins with lasers are completely lore-based. And it can't have been a tandem because competitive 1vs1 play wasn't really a thing. It only evolved into that years later with SC BW in South Korea.
Yes, developers are that stupid. I was here during SC2 development. Which is when you probably were still shitting your diapers. And people on the SC2 dev team were utter idiots when it came to competitive RTS. They tried to get it. They were smart and competent otherwise. But they just didn't understand. The best example is when they changed the Phoenix to make it kite more, after player feedback.
Things couldn't have been designed in tandem because even on the SC2 dev team, there was compete ignorance.
User was temp banned for this post.
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the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity
there are no absolutes in game design
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lol that guy went way too far with the insults. But to be fair, he was insulted first
and he has a point in his arguments. And no one was really engaging with them seriously
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When someone repeats "we talked about it here on TL in 2006!" as if this means anything at all, as if opinions of one player group on a forum have anything to do with how games are made or should be made - you know this person better be ignored, as they're full of themselves, full of feeling of self-importance.
It's just a bunch of opinions from a bunch of dudes (and dudettes) on a forum from 18 years ago, nothing more. Nobody outside of this specific group cares - or had ever cared. Really.
I.e. when someone claims their opinion is a fact - you know this person better be ignored.
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Relatedly, and amusingly enoughy, the uncapped games website doesn't have a lot of content, but they highlight the 'no-ego' team culture.
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 22 2024 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 03:13 NonY wrote:
Actually looking forward to this game a lot. As much as I want to just have a remix of StarCraft to kinda relive the things I enjoyed, I think there’s a huge opportunity to make a new kind of strategy game that is gonna be really fun. And probably my biggest concern for stormgate is that if you try to be like StarCraft but stretch it too much into something else, you end up in a weird spot. So I’m getting excited about games that are changing more drastically and not trying to be a spiritual successor to StarCraft. Of course I hope stormgate pulls it off but I’ve come around to being more excited about more experimental and fresh designs. Same, I believe in my man David Kim!! This was the RTS I had the most faith for and have been waiting to see. RTS is still young and underdeveloped as a genre. Blizzard RTS defined the genre for a long time, but there are surely other kinds of RTS that can work and be even more fun. This new game sounds exciting. Also i was wondering if the UI shown in the documentary was from the game itself. It probably is, though it still looks overly simplistic. Maybe they removed the text and some other stuff? What is the Battle Overview for, for example? Are you deciding how to position troops even before the game starts?
He gets a load of shit but honestly I think David Kim and the team did a pretty tremendous job improving SC2 and balancing it off a base that was always fundamentally flawed IMO (and many others). SC2 may be the best game I’ve ever played where I consider so much of its core design calls to be misjudged, to an almost miraculous degree.
Unless I’m very much mistaken, but I don’t think it was David Kim who gave us Warpgate, or terrible terrible damage or any of those things. Intrigued to see what the team he’s with now can do if they avoid some of those core pitfalls.
On April 22 2024 15:52 uummpaa wrote:
the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity
there are no absolutes in game design
This. It would be nice if folks could argue on the basis of personal preference rather than ‘these are the immutable laws of RTS you’re an idiot if you disagree’
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Yes, developers are that stupid. I was here during SC2 development. Which is when you probably were still shitting your diapers.
That guy was here during sc2 development while y'all were "shittin ya diapas", but only made an account this month. That's some real credibility right there.
the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity
Most threads seem to degenerate into a pointless argument between 2 or more people instead of any meaningful discussion about the content at hand. Could this POSSIBLY be why forums were phased out as the primary source of engagement between interneters?!! I'm beginning to think...maybe.
Sorry, I forget what we were talking about. Is this the US politics thread or the ESL spring regionals thread?
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Northern Ireland25372 Posts
On April 22 2024 19:38 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +Yes, developers are that stupid. I was here during SC2 development. Which is when you probably were still shitting your diapers. That guy was here during sc2 development while y'all were "shittin ya diapas", but only made an account this month. That's some real credibility right there. Show nested quote +the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity Most threads seem to degenerate into a pointless argument between 2 or more people instead of any meaningful discussion about the content at hand. Could this POSSIBLY be why forums were phased out as the primary source of engagement between interneters?!! I'm beginning to think...maybe. Sorry, I forget what we were talking about. Is this the US politics thread or the ESL spring regionals thread?
Ah yes, the successors to forums are much more harmonious and productive places eh?
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On April 22 2024 19:48 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2024 19:38 RogerChillingworth wrote:Yes, developers are that stupid. I was here during SC2 development. Which is when you probably were still shitting your diapers. That guy was here during sc2 development while y'all were "shittin ya diapas", but only made an account this month. That's some real credibility right there. the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity Most threads seem to degenerate into a pointless argument between 2 or more people instead of any meaningful discussion about the content at hand. Could this POSSIBLY be why forums were phased out as the primary source of engagement between interneters?!! I'm beginning to think...maybe. Sorry, I forget what we were talking about. Is this the US politics thread or the ESL spring regionals thread? Ah yes, the successors to forums are much more harmonious and productive places eh?
Yeah reddit is all cute flying pigs and butterflies everywhere <3
There were some interesting points in Crimthands posts ealier. But they got down a rabbithole with no coming back rather quick
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Other than personal preferences and definitons of vague concepts there's not much to talk about at the moment, so far we only know the game is marketed as requiring less mechanical skill and memorization to play at a reasonable level.
It remains to be seen whether there is much of an unexplored market for RTS with lower mechanical demand than mainstream ones like StarCraft and Age of Empires. Previous attempts in this direction such as Eugen Systems' R.U.S.E. didn't take off and only got some cult following at best, but commercial performance of a game is depend on far more factors than just general design direction. Uncapped Games' RTS seems to be at least well-funded by Tencent, which is an advantage over other RTSs in development.
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On April 22 2024 19:38 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Sorry, I forget what we were talking about. Is this the US politics thread or the ESL spring regionals thread?
Ahahaha 10/10
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On April 22 2024 18:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2024 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On April 20 2024 03:13 NonY wrote:
Actually looking forward to this game a lot. As much as I want to just have a remix of StarCraft to kinda relive the things I enjoyed, I think there’s a huge opportunity to make a new kind of strategy game that is gonna be really fun. And probably my biggest concern for stormgate is that if you try to be like StarCraft but stretch it too much into something else, you end up in a weird spot. So I’m getting excited about games that are changing more drastically and not trying to be a spiritual successor to StarCraft. Of course I hope stormgate pulls it off but I’ve come around to being more excited about more experimental and fresh designs. Same, I believe in my man David Kim!! This was the RTS I had the most faith for and have been waiting to see. RTS is still young and underdeveloped as a genre. Blizzard RTS defined the genre for a long time, but there are surely other kinds of RTS that can work and be even more fun. This new game sounds exciting. Also i was wondering if the UI shown in the documentary was from the game itself. It probably is, though it still looks overly simplistic. Maybe they removed the text and some other stuff? What is the Battle Overview for, for example? Are you deciding how to position troops even before the game starts? He gets a load of shit but honestly I think David Kim and the team did a pretty tremendous job improving SC2 and balancing it off a base that was always fundamentally flawed IMO (and many others). SC2 may be the best game I’ve ever played where I consider so much of its core design calls to be misjudged, to an almost miraculous degree. Unless I’m very much mistaken, but I don’t think it was David Kim who gave us Warpgate, or terrible terrible damage or any of those things. Intrigued to see what the team he’s with now can do if they avoid some of those core pitfalls.
I'm pretty sure he had at least his hand in "terrible, terrible damage" and warp gates. His Linkedin profile states he worked on SC2 since 2007:
Game DesignerGame Designer
Nov. 2007–Juli 2010 · 2 Jahre 9 MonateNov. 2007–Juli 2010 · 2 Jahre 9 Monate
Game Designer on Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty
- Game balance before and after the release of the game.
- Units, abilities, structures design
- Designed majority of the melee maps released in Wings of Liberty
Likely didn't have the last say of course but he definitely worked on this stuff and considering his position around and after launch, I think it's likely he had quite some impact internally before launch.
On April 22 2024 19:38 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +Yes, developers are that stupid. I was here during SC2 development. Which is when you probably were still shitting your diapers. That guy was here during sc2 development while y'all were "shittin ya diapas", but only made an account this month. That's some real credibility right there. Show nested quote +the amount of folks in here that cant distinguish their opinion from solid facts, and even worse keep insulting everyone that doesnt share their takes makes it really hard to have a nice discussion in here.
its not like you can convince anyone by yelling in any capacity Most threads seem to degenerate into a pointless argument between 2 or more people instead of any meaningful discussion about the content at hand. Could this POSSIBLY be why forums were phased out as the primary source of engagement between interneters?!! I'm beginning to think...maybe. Sorry, I forget what we were talking about. Is this the US politics thread or the ESL spring regionals thread?
Completely off-opic: Forums are not "out". The "discussions" were just moved to other plattforms which emphasize the problems you describe. Reddit is huge but all it does is to create badly moderated echo-chambers. I would argue the way reddit sorts posts alone makes a good discussion almost impossible.
I think TL does a fairly good job moderating. It's hard to do, especially when you don't exactly have the man-power in relation to the amount of posts created nor a community which values a good discussion culture very highly.
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My thoughts:
I don't watch any e-sport that I don't play myself, or have at least played in the past. I've tried to watch League and DOTA2 and can't really appreciate anything. I played a lot of CS beta to 1.6 when it was new and a little of CS Source, and I can't even really watch CS:GO, personally.
I don't think I'd be interested in ever watching an esport of a game I don't play. But, if a game is really good I'd likely be playing it, right?
SC2: as someone who has been around on TL.net since I think 2003, I do in fact remember people being generally happy here that SC2 was getting "macro mechanics". MBS and automine were thought to negatively impact the game by making it too easy, and "we" basically did ask Blizz for some way for players to differentiate their macro, which is how those mechanics made it in. I remember the feedback was mostly positive.
A few pages ago someone was saying how no one was asking for them (I'm paraphrasing) but that isn't how I remember it.
I could be wrong or mis-remembering, or maybe didn't get the full feel of everyone here, but if you asked me, that's how I would say I remember it. I've consistently visited TL.net for over 20 years straight. (Doesn't make me an expert or anything  )
Just thought I'd chime in there... happy to be proven wrong, memory is a funny thing anyway.
On the game itself: the player feedback seems positive and the documentary was cool. In a game against a live opponent, there should always be a level of skill involved in determining who wins. If some "traditional RTS mechanics" are removed, I'm happy to keep an open mind and see what that looks like. (I note what Wax said, that he found his APM was just re-allocated, not that there wasn't anything to do).
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On April 22 2024 18:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 22 2024 13:14 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:On April 20 2024 03:13 NonY wrote:
Actually looking forward to this game a lot. As much as I want to just have a remix of StarCraft to kinda relive the things I enjoyed, I think there’s a huge opportunity to make a new kind of strategy game that is gonna be really fun. And probably my biggest concern for stormgate is that if you try to be like StarCraft but stretch it too much into something else, you end up in a weird spot. So I’m getting excited about games that are changing more drastically and not trying to be a spiritual successor to StarCraft. Of course I hope stormgate pulls it off but I’ve come around to being more excited about more experimental and fresh designs. Same, I believe in my man David Kim!! This was the RTS I had the most faith for and have been waiting to see. RTS is still young and underdeveloped as a genre. Blizzard RTS defined the genre for a long time, but there are surely other kinds of RTS that can work and be even more fun. This new game sounds exciting. Also i was wondering if the UI shown in the documentary was from the game itself. It probably is, though it still looks overly simplistic. Maybe they removed the text and some other stuff? What is the Battle Overview for, for example? Are you deciding how to position troops even before the game starts? He gets a load of shit but honestly I think David Kim and the team did a pretty tremendous job improving SC2 and balancing it off a base that was always fundamentally flawed IMO (and many others). SC2 may be the best game I’ve ever played where I consider so much of its core design calls to be misjudged, to an almost miraculous degree. Unless I’m very much mistaken, but I don’t think it was David Kim who gave us Warpgate, or terrible terrible damage or any of those things. Intrigued to see what the team he’s with now can do if they avoid some of those core pitfalls.
Well he definitely gave us swarm hosts, and was somehow a rampant defender of them during HoTS when the community was begging for a rework (2 hour Swarmhost game era).
SC2's multiplayer state was atrocious towards the end of WoL and his response was to give us more free unit generators. All the units added during HotS and LotV under his lead were bad for the game, with the exception of ravagers I'd say. Oracles, liberators, and tempests are cool now but didn't end up in a good state until he was gone.
DK had a tough job having to wake up to thousands of raging gamers screaming his name in the bnet forums, he didn't deserve such hatred at all. But looking back, the game improved after he left. He really wasn't a good lead to balance the game, either he was clueless to what the game needed, or simply wasn't brave enough to make big changes and admit where things went wrong.
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On April 23 2024 03:26 SoleSteeler wrote:My thoughts: I don't watch any e-sport that I don't play myself, or have at least played in the past. I've tried to watch League and DOTA2 and can't really appreciate anything. I played a lot of CS beta to 1.6 when it was new and a little of CS Source, and I can't even really watch CS:GO, personally. I don't think I'd be interested in ever watching an esport of a game I don't play. But, if a game is really good I'd likely be playing it, right? SC2: as someone who has been around on TL.net since I think 2003, I do in fact remember people being generally happy here that SC2 was getting "macro mechanics". MBS and automine were thought to negatively impact the game by making it too easy, and "we" basically did ask Blizz for some way for players to differentiate their macro, which is how those mechanics made it in. I remember the feedback was mostly positive. A few pages ago someone was saying how no one was asking for them (I'm paraphrasing) but that isn't how I remember it. I could be wrong or mis-remembering, or maybe didn't get the full feel of everyone here, but if you asked me, that's how I would say I remember it. I've consistently visited TL.net for over 20 years straight. (Doesn't make me an expert or anything ) Just thought I'd chime in there... happy to be proven wrong, memory is a funny thing anyway. On the game itself: the player feedback seems positive and the documentary was cool. In a game against a live opponent, there should always be a level of skill involved in determining who wins. If some "traditional RTS mechanics" are removed, I'm happy to keep an open mind and see what that looks like. (I note what Wax said, that he found his APM was just re-allocated, not that there wasn't anything to do).
I think Blizzard missed the point with MBS, automine and macromechanics. In BW, the more ahead you get economically, the harder things get to manage. This leaves you more vulnerable. The difficulty is in making this dynamic feel organic. The macromechanics were just slapped on top of a game that was designed without this philosophy in mind.
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Yeah, the fans never asked for macro mechanics. Those are things Blizzard cane up with all by themselves. Yes, in response to criticism because of MBS, unlimited selection, smart cast, etc. It was their attempt to compromise.
So it is ironic that now David Kim points to those in saying they need to be removed to 'free up more time for decision making'.
More importantly, this discussion came after people like Testie played the SC2 beta at some Blizzcon and the second or third thing he said was "they kinda ruined the game, it is all automated. They took away the fun." I wish someone had that interview. Before that, those issues were already raised by some on TL and battle.net. But when top players immediate reaction to first playing SC2 was exactly that, we knew those predictions we were making about SC2 were correct. Yeah Testie went kinda neonazi later on, but that's a different discussion.
And in this discussion, Tasteless also went to the higher ups like Dustin Browder to talk about this. That's why macro mechanics happened.
This was also way before David Kim was hired. Back then, Pillars was the lead balance designer. There is also a post on there by CowGoMoo explaining that basically no one on the SC2 dev team was able to play RTS games, except him and Pillars. And he was a SC BW player who worked mostly on WoW and didn't have any influence. But he and Pillars were beating everyone in their SC2 alpha builds.
Dayvie/David Kim was hired much later. Near the release date. Don't forget that Blizzard had been working on SC2 since 2003. Most things about the game, like the engine that is fundamentally not usable for RTS games, was made in those years. I am pretty sure no one on the dev team considered death balls at that point.
Look, this whole macro thing can be solved rather easily. The problem is that the perception is that at the lower levels, becoming better just means becoming better at macro. And that decision making like when to fight, when to expand, what build order to use, and which engagements to take is less important. This is somewhat true, but not completely.
Generally, an army twice the size is twice the strength. So if you are really better at macroing, your army is just going to be bigger and you can just win. And if you have a SC BW style interface, you need to be a top player to macro well.
Al you need to do is make very large armies weaker. That way, outmacroing your opponent is always giving you an edge. And you also don't remove it. It requires the same amount of clicks. And if you are a really good game dev, you can also make those clicks feel meaningful as well. But you aren't able to just mass scout and make a fool out of your opponent.
Which means that if two players have a big difference in skill level, they still both need to consider more decision making game elements like army composition, when to expand, when to attack, how to take engagements, etc.
The argument that when going from D- to say C+, the most important thing to focus on is 'just keep your mineral low and don't get supply blocked' makes the game not so rewarding is fair. But this argument wasn't made like that by the pro MBS crowd or by Blizzard back in 2007-2010. And it does have solutions. But they are not adding macro mechanics. It took people like Blizzard and David Kim almost 15 years to realize that, though.
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On April 23 2024 04:41 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2024 03:26 SoleSteeler wrote:My thoughts: I don't watch any e-sport that I don't play myself, or have at least played in the past. I've tried to watch League and DOTA2 and can't really appreciate anything. I played a lot of CS beta to 1.6 when it was new and a little of CS Source, and I can't even really watch CS:GO, personally. I don't think I'd be interested in ever watching an esport of a game I don't play. But, if a game is really good I'd likely be playing it, right? SC2: as someone who has been around on TL.net since I think 2003, I do in fact remember people being generally happy here that SC2 was getting "macro mechanics". MBS and automine were thought to negatively impact the game by making it too easy, and "we" basically did ask Blizz for some way for players to differentiate their macro, which is how those mechanics made it in. I remember the feedback was mostly positive. A few pages ago someone was saying how no one was asking for them (I'm paraphrasing) but that isn't how I remember it. I could be wrong or mis-remembering, or maybe didn't get the full feel of everyone here, but if you asked me, that's how I would say I remember it. I've consistently visited TL.net for over 20 years straight. (Doesn't make me an expert or anything ) Just thought I'd chime in there... happy to be proven wrong, memory is a funny thing anyway. On the game itself: the player feedback seems positive and the documentary was cool. In a game against a live opponent, there should always be a level of skill involved in determining who wins. If some "traditional RTS mechanics" are removed, I'm happy to keep an open mind and see what that looks like. (I note what Wax said, that he found his APM was just re-allocated, not that there wasn't anything to do). I think Blizzard missed the point with MBS, automine and macromechanics. In BW, the more ahead you get economically, the harder things get to manage. This leaves you more vulnerable. The difficulty is in making this dynamic feel organic. The macromechanics were just slapped on top of a game that was designed without this philosophy in mind.
very well said
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United States12235 Posts
On April 23 2024 03:26 SoleSteeler wrote:My thoughts: I don't watch any e-sport that I don't play myself, or have at least played in the past. I've tried to watch League and DOTA2 and can't really appreciate anything. I played a lot of CS beta to 1.6 when it was new and a little of CS Source, and I can't even really watch CS:GO, personally. I don't think I'd be interested in ever watching an esport of a game I don't play. But, if a game is really good I'd likely be playing it, right? SC2: as someone who has been around on TL.net since I think 2003, I do in fact remember people being generally happy here that SC2 was getting "macro mechanics". MBS and automine were thought to negatively impact the game by making it too easy, and "we" basically did ask Blizz for some way for players to differentiate their macro, which is how those mechanics made it in. I remember the feedback was mostly positive. A few pages ago someone was saying how no one was asking for them (I'm paraphrasing) but that isn't how I remember it. I could be wrong or mis-remembering, or maybe didn't get the full feel of everyone here, but if you asked me, that's how I would say I remember it. I've consistently visited TL.net for over 20 years straight. (Doesn't make me an expert or anything ) Just thought I'd chime in there... happy to be proven wrong, memory is a funny thing anyway. On the game itself: the player feedback seems positive and the documentary was cool. In a game against a live opponent, there should always be a level of skill involved in determining who wins. If some "traditional RTS mechanics" are removed, I'm happy to keep an open mind and see what that looks like. (I note what Wax said, that he found his APM was just re-allocated, not that there wasn't anything to do).
Players' early impressions were that the game was too easy and too streamlined, yes. Browder's vision for SC2 was more about limitations being placed on units rather than players - stuff like the original Thor having a turn rate that was too slow to handle 4 Diamondbacks circling around it. But I think coming from Red Alert 2, he probably didn't have a complete grasp of what made BW so challenging in the macro department. David Kim, having worked at Relic with Mora who posts here, likely did. I remember players asking for additional macro complexity (usually proposing the removal of multiple building selection), and that was when "APM sinks" in the form of macro mechanics appeared. I think this pacified some posters since "Blizzard is listening!" but others expected that it wouldn't be enough because it was such a band-aid solution.
So in a way, I think that David Kim was sort of put in an impossible situation, having to simultaneously adhere to the director's vision of a very different style of SC game along with the players' expectation of tradition. Through that lens, I think the decisions that came with the expansions make more sense.
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