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Northern Ireland27335 Posts
On May 26 2023 05:14 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2023 03:07 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2023 00:55 BisuDagger wrote:
What kind of competitive/eSport features are you guys hoping will be included in a successor to SC2 (automated tournaments, clan wars, lan, improved casting features etc.)? SC2 in its current/end state pretty much has most one would want. LAN would be nice, but it’s less critical than ever. In an unrelated note, keeping casuals engaged, having modes to play that aren’t competitive go a long way. Keep a vibrant ecosystem going. Clans were excellent in how they worked in WC3, it’s a completely different landscape and many just use third party tools like Discord, but WC3 felt a much more social experience, somewhere I’d pop in and play, but also just hang out. Maybe even include rankings for clans, based on member ranks and whatnot, where clan wars would also count. Automated tournaments are fun, they just feel different than queuing another ladder game, and if you’ve got friends in the same bracket it’s great hyping up a potential showdown, cheering on a buddy or alternatively bantering when they get knocked out I’d like to see in-client broadcasting, as other games have done. There are so many SC2 moments I’d have loved to have been following a particular player’s camera, watch someone at the peak of their craft under pressure. I had brief moments during I think some MLG and Afreeca offered it for GSL for a while. Or I could do my own observing which would be nice, look into the kind of things I want to look at The number one addition I want to see, that’s not been done properly before that I’ve seen are guides and tutorials for actual competitive play, embedded in the game and kept somewhat up to date. I’m sure if the game hits the spot community can help out. I don’t think I could learn SC2, much less BW and WC3 coming in now blind without putting a fair bit of work in, hunting down various sources. Which I’m only likely going to do if I’m already pretty hooked on RTS to begin with. Whereas some content in game explaining basic hotkeys, micro techniques, other concepts and some standard solid builds, and you can do a few challenges in the client and get ready for the competitive game faster. I personally think lan is very important. We accept a mostly online platform for sc2 because we understand the game is in a state of decline and tournament organizers are doing what they can, but nothing beats the good old offline days. Proleague, kespa, mlg, seeing the players giving on stage interviews, crowd reactions. IdrA slamming his keyboard and losing his f4 key. people flying in from around the world. It makes everything feel more "alive"
This is true, I was talking more about actually having a LAN capability in the game itself, rather than in-person events per se.
Realistically unless the game is absolutely insanely good out the box and markets well, I don’t think it’ll be as big as SC2 was. Sequel to maybe the best competitive RTS ever made, bankrolled by Blizzard.
Versus new IP from a new studio. I think it can be very successful but we do have to be vaguely realistic
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On May 26 2023 06:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2023 05:14 CicadaSC wrote:On May 26 2023 03:07 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2023 00:55 BisuDagger wrote:
What kind of competitive/eSport features are you guys hoping will be included in a successor to SC2 (automated tournaments, clan wars, lan, improved casting features etc.)? SC2 in its current/end state pretty much has most one would want. LAN would be nice, but it’s less critical than ever. In an unrelated note, keeping casuals engaged, having modes to play that aren’t competitive go a long way. Keep a vibrant ecosystem going. Clans were excellent in how they worked in WC3, it’s a completely different landscape and many just use third party tools like Discord, but WC3 felt a much more social experience, somewhere I’d pop in and play, but also just hang out. Maybe even include rankings for clans, based on member ranks and whatnot, where clan wars would also count. Automated tournaments are fun, they just feel different than queuing another ladder game, and if you’ve got friends in the same bracket it’s great hyping up a potential showdown, cheering on a buddy or alternatively bantering when they get knocked out I’d like to see in-client broadcasting, as other games have done. There are so many SC2 moments I’d have loved to have been following a particular player’s camera, watch someone at the peak of their craft under pressure. I had brief moments during I think some MLG and Afreeca offered it for GSL for a while. Or I could do my own observing which would be nice, look into the kind of things I want to look at The number one addition I want to see, that’s not been done properly before that I’ve seen are guides and tutorials for actual competitive play, embedded in the game and kept somewhat up to date. I’m sure if the game hits the spot community can help out. I don’t think I could learn SC2, much less BW and WC3 coming in now blind without putting a fair bit of work in, hunting down various sources. Which I’m only likely going to do if I’m already pretty hooked on RTS to begin with. Whereas some content in game explaining basic hotkeys, micro techniques, other concepts and some standard solid builds, and you can do a few challenges in the client and get ready for the competitive game faster. I personally think lan is very important. We accept a mostly online platform for sc2 because we understand the game is in a state of decline and tournament organizers are doing what they can, but nothing beats the good old offline days. Proleague, kespa, mlg, seeing the players giving on stage interviews, crowd reactions. IdrA slamming his keyboard and losing his f4 key. people flying in from around the world. It makes everything feel more "alive" This is true, I was talking more about actually having a LAN capability in the game itself, rather than in-person events per se. Realistically unless the game is absolutely insanely good out the box and markets well, I don’t think it’ll be as big as SC2 was. Sequel to maybe the best competitive RTS ever made, bankrolled by Blizzard. Versus new IP from a new studio. I think it can be very successful but we do have to be vaguely realistic
how big is as big as peak sc2 was? 100k viewers for the biggest tournament of the year is roughly what we would get in the past iirc. i think that is entirely possible.
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On May 24 2023 04:46 Waxangel wrote:
Right now I think making a separate section MIGHT be putting the cart ahead of the horse, given the level of activity in this current megathread. Ideally, we'd have a situation like the Dota or LoL megathreads of the past, where there's so much obvious interest that it becomes necessary to make a new forum (or even a new site).
Granted, there's a possibility that creating a new forum would help kickstart the discourse.
For now, I'll think we'll be monitoring interest on TL, especially as it may ramp up with the upcoming closed beta.
Hard to gauge interest from a megathread.
I agree that creating a new forum will kickstart the discourse.
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Asking for a subforum now is asking for TL to put effort into a game that has no content to discuss and is more likely to fail than to succeed like sc2. The discussion about a subforum will start to make sense when people can actually play the game as there will be much more information and we have a sense of how good it will be.
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Yeah, this totally feels like putting the carriage before the horse. I know people want a new, great RTS. I also want this game to succeed based on the devs' previous affiliation but giving a game that has only been in alpha so far, a dedicated forum or a place on the right side streaming section is just insanity at this point.
Let's cool our jets a bit and wait for actual gameplay footage and youtube vids or streams of the actual game before making any changes to the whole site...
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On May 26 2023 01:57 CicadaSC wrote:
Regional tournaments with equal prizing regardless of skill.
NA should have a 25k tournament, and so should EU for example Then these regional tournaments should not be region-locked, right?
Otherwise it would be very unfair if
- Maru, Rogue, Dark, Hero fight for 25k
- Serral, Reynor and Clem fight for 25k
- Astrea and Scarlett, who are most probably weaker than top-5 in EU, fight for 25k
- and in Oceania players who wouldn't be even top-20 in EU or top-40 in Korea also fight for 25k
It doesn't make sense unless there's no region lock and everyone can play anywhere.
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Northern Ireland27335 Posts
On May 26 2023 12:10 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2023 06:36 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2023 05:14 CicadaSC wrote:On May 26 2023 03:07 WombaT wrote:On May 26 2023 00:55 BisuDagger wrote:
What kind of competitive/eSport features are you guys hoping will be included in a successor to SC2 (automated tournaments, clan wars, lan, improved casting features etc.)? SC2 in its current/end state pretty much has most one would want. LAN would be nice, but it’s less critical than ever. In an unrelated note, keeping casuals engaged, having modes to play that aren’t competitive go a long way. Keep a vibrant ecosystem going. Clans were excellent in how they worked in WC3, it’s a completely different landscape and many just use third party tools like Discord, but WC3 felt a much more social experience, somewhere I’d pop in and play, but also just hang out. Maybe even include rankings for clans, based on member ranks and whatnot, where clan wars would also count. Automated tournaments are fun, they just feel different than queuing another ladder game, and if you’ve got friends in the same bracket it’s great hyping up a potential showdown, cheering on a buddy or alternatively bantering when they get knocked out I’d like to see in-client broadcasting, as other games have done. There are so many SC2 moments I’d have loved to have been following a particular player’s camera, watch someone at the peak of their craft under pressure. I had brief moments during I think some MLG and Afreeca offered it for GSL for a while. Or I could do my own observing which would be nice, look into the kind of things I want to look at The number one addition I want to see, that’s not been done properly before that I’ve seen are guides and tutorials for actual competitive play, embedded in the game and kept somewhat up to date. I’m sure if the game hits the spot community can help out. I don’t think I could learn SC2, much less BW and WC3 coming in now blind without putting a fair bit of work in, hunting down various sources. Which I’m only likely going to do if I’m already pretty hooked on RTS to begin with. Whereas some content in game explaining basic hotkeys, micro techniques, other concepts and some standard solid builds, and you can do a few challenges in the client and get ready for the competitive game faster. I personally think lan is very important. We accept a mostly online platform for sc2 because we understand the game is in a state of decline and tournament organizers are doing what they can, but nothing beats the good old offline days. Proleague, kespa, mlg, seeing the players giving on stage interviews, crowd reactions. IdrA slamming his keyboard and losing his f4 key. people flying in from around the world. It makes everything feel more "alive" This is true, I was talking more about actually having a LAN capability in the game itself, rather than in-person events per se. Realistically unless the game is absolutely insanely good out the box and markets well, I don’t think it’ll be as big as SC2 was. Sequel to maybe the best competitive RTS ever made, bankrolled by Blizzard. Versus new IP from a new studio. I think it can be very successful but we do have to be vaguely realistic how big is as big as peak sc2 was? 100k viewers for the biggest tournament of the year is roughly what we would get in the past iirc. i think that is entirely possible.
SC2 is one of the biggest PC games ever made by sales. People forget quite how big it was on Twitch too, guys like Idra were pulling thousands or 5 figure viewers just streaming ladder, other games took the ball and ran with it but SC2 was one of the first big games pushing eSports on Twitch. A hell of a lot of players over that time and the ladder is still very active
You’ve got 10 plus years of that, it’s quite easy to get even inactive players to pop back on and check the world champs out, because the ecosystem had so many in it
And ultimately eyes on the big, big blue ribbon event are to me less relevant than eyes across the regular tournaments in a scene.
I mean AoE4 had the AoE brand, its scene veterans and general RTS fans looking a new game, the latter not unlike Stormgate. It pulled big numbers on big tournaments too initially, but they did drop off pretty quickly too.
I’m not being negative, but Frost Giant are going to have to absolutely knock it out of the park to have anything like the scene SC2 is kept up. In relative terms, I guess many of us think of RTS as a niche genre but SC2 was a huge mainstream game
I’m not being negative, I think there is that itch for a new game for RTS vets to get their hands on, I think there is a new audience who’ll come to love RTS if they can be tapped. But they really have to absolutely nail it, a merely decent RTS isn’t going to do it.
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Northern Ireland27335 Posts
On May 26 2023 20:13 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2023 01:57 CicadaSC wrote:
Regional tournaments with equal prizing regardless of skill.
NA should have a 25k tournament, and so should EU for example Then these regional tournaments should not be region-locked, right? Otherwise it would be very unfair if - Maru, Rogue, Dark, Hero fight for 25k - Serral, Reynor and Clem fight for 25k - Astrea and Scarlett, who are most probably weaker than top-5 in EU, fight for 25k - and in Oceania players who wouldn't be even top-20 in EU or top-40 in Korea also fight for 25k It doesn't make sense unless there's no region lock and everyone can play anywhere.
Equal prize money, nah I mean I don’t know how you calculate it for a new game where the relative strengths of regions will take a while to be established.
100% I think there should be some kind of region locked tournament circuit though. Maybe as a secondary kind of tournament.
I’d love to see a kind of WCG/regional hybrid where there’s a tournament to represent your nation at the respective regional and go from there.
Aside from kudos there’s not much in say, SC in being the best Irish or British player, and I’ve casted enough de facto Irish championships to have some first-hand experience there.
But if being the best Irish player earns you a little coin and you have to step up to the European level, maybe post a few results you’re 16/17, hey you might consider trying to play the game full time. There’s an intermediate step, something to aim for and something to incentivise smaller scenes to get better, whereas in SC you’re a gifted amateur or one of the top 40/50 players in Europe and can go pro, with little in between.
We’ve already seen the jump European players made when they had an intermediate tournament and had something to aim for that was short of being competitive with the world’s top Korean talent.
I’d love to see some kind of pipeline from grass roots to the tip top level, as I think it just works in terms of developing talent in a scene.
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I agree that it might be not easy to gauge the relative strength of each region now.
Buta lot of SG players will be former - or even still active, playing two games? - SC2 players, both pro and amateurs.
And that post said "regardless of skill".
So even after it becomes obvious that region A is much stronger than region B, if I understood it correctly.
In general what I meant is that now the prize pool for each region is more or less a logical consequence of the region's strength.
Would you vote for NA or Oceania to have the same prize pool as EU in SC2, when there're clearly not as many top-level players? Probably not.
SG won't have endless money for prize pools, so they will have to prioritize them somehow, probably depending on game's popularity in regions or somehow else.
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Northern Ireland27335 Posts
On May 26 2023 23:10 ZeroByte13 wrote:
I agree that it might be not easy to gauge the relative strength of each region now.
Buta lot of SG players will be former - or even still active, playing two games? - SC2 players, both pro and amateurs.
And that post said "regardless of skill".
So even after it becomes obvious that region A is much stronger than region B, if I understood it correctly.
In general what I meant is that now the prize pool for each region is more or less a logical consequence of the region's strength.
Would you vote for NA or Oceania to have the same prize pool as EU in SC2, when there're clearly not as many top-level players? Probably not.
SG won't have endless money for prize pools, so they will have to prioritize them somehow, probably depending on game's popularity in regions or somehow else.
Yeah I think completely equalising prize pools is a bit much, but having that kind of structure is something I’d be behind.
The Olympics is the biggest sporting event out there and it isn’t structured around just having the best of the best in every field.
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On May 27 2023 00:05 WombaT wrote:
The Olympics is the biggest sporting event out there and it isn’t structured around just having the best of the best in every
field. The Olympics might be not the best example, tbh.
Yes, there are cross-country skiing championships in both Norway and, say, Turkey.
And let's say both Norwegian and Turkish champions will get tickets to next Olympics.
But Norwegian athletes have both 10x bigger prize pools in Norway's local tournaments (because the sport is much more popular there) and 10-100x higher chance to win the Olympics.
Turkish champion will get a ticket to Olympics even though he's probably worse than #10 of Norway's team. But his earnings will be much, much lower in general.
So it's more or less the same as WCS / ESL Circuit of 2022.
Leaders of EU had a high price to fight for in EU region-locked competition and then a high chance to win good money in the Finals.
Leaders of Oceania had a significantly lower prize pool in their local competition and almost zero chance to win something significant in the Finals.
Or did I misunderstand you?
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Northern Ireland27335 Posts
On May 27 2023 00:13 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2023 00:05 WombaT wrote:
The Olympics is the biggest sporting event out there and it isn’t structured around just having the best of the best in every
field. The Olympics might be not the best example, tbh. Yes, there are cross-country skiing championships in both Norway and, say, Turkey. And let's say both Norwegian and Turkish champions will get tickets to next Olympics. But Norwegian athletes have both 10x bigger prize pools in Norway's local tournaments (because the sport is much more popular there) and 10-100x higher chance to win the Olympics. Turkish champion will get a ticket to Olympics even though he's probably worse than #10 of Norway's team. But his earnings will be much, much lower in general. So it's more or less the same as WCS / ESL Circuit of 2022. Leaders of EU had a high price to fight for in EU region-locked competition and then a high chance to win good money in the Finals. Leaders of Oceania had a significantly lower prize pool in their local competition and almost zero chance to win something significant in the Finals. Or did I misunderstand you?
The best in Oceania have something to play for. As per your example this hypothetical Turkish skier can have the Olympics to aim for. If the Olympics was just the best of the best, you’d have cross country skiing being mostly Norwegians, or sprinting being Jamaica/US dominated to take two examples.
I think premier tournaments should be just the preserve of the best of the best.
Equally I think an overall ecosystem that incentivises players to excel at lower levels and progress is crucial to developing talent, and keeping things vibrant. Most regular sports have this to some degree.
WCG used to do this in an era where Korean BW players were realistically the top 100 players on Earth. It was still a huge deal to be your country/regional representative, it enthused people, it got them playing and following. People still talk about White-Ra’s ‘special tactics’ against Boxer decades later.
I think such a thing can coexist with tournaments that are just the best of the best.
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Thanks!
Of the things i read and heard so far, this seems to be the one most concerning to me right now:
A 3rd/4th race is likely to have a low number of very elite units, as the devs have mentioned they want to have higher highs and lower lows than Starcraft 2 in terms of faction army sizes (with a faction having even lower numbers than Protoss, and a faction having even more units than Zerg). 7
Imo this is the completely wrong direction to go in. Having more units than zerg, and having fewer than protoss will basically always lead to a too huge disparity between what one faction has to do, how much attention they have to pay, how much micro has to be invested IF you wanna make the game interactive in the first place (like ofc i could see a world where the balance numbers are so loopsided for that to not be true, but then it's not interesting to begin with).
So yeah, that kind of thought worries me quite a bit. I think it is also one of the problems of sc2, "balance" has to be on some level about what is even required of the player, not just outcomes.
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On May 27 2023 02:45 The_Red_Viper wrote:Thanks! Of the things i read and heard so far, this seems to be the one most concerning to me right now: Show nested quote +A 3rd/4th race is likely to have a low number of very elite units, as the devs have mentioned they want to have higher highs and lower lows than Starcraft 2 in terms of faction army sizes (with a faction having even lower numbers than Protoss, and a faction having even more units than Zerg). 7
Imo this is the completely wrong direction to go in. Having more units than zerg, and having fewer than protoss will basically always lead to a too huge disparity between what one faction has to do, how much attention they have to pay, how much micro has to be invested IF you wanna make the game interactive in the first place (like ofc i could see a world where the balance numbers are so loopsided for that to not be true, but then it's not interesting to begin with). So yeah, that kind of thought worries me quite a bit. I think it is also one of the problems of sc2, "balance" has to be on some level about what is even required of the player, not just outcomes.
Understand your argument but I also really really like the idea of higher highs and lower lows than Z or P from Starcraft. I think they can still balance the overall difficulty to play it by the players not just on the "outcomes" level, if for example the lower count units have a many bunch of abilities to use in micro compared to the higher counts armies. They could also have the more complicated base building/economics/teching/macro etc side.
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On May 27 2023 04:07 ProMeTheus112 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2023 02:45 The_Red_Viper wrote:Thanks! Of the things i read and heard so far, this seems to be the one most concerning to me right now: A 3rd/4th race is likely to have a low number of very elite units, as the devs have mentioned they want to have higher highs and lower lows than Starcraft 2 in terms of faction army sizes (with a faction having even lower numbers than Protoss, and a faction having even more units than Zerg). 7
Imo this is the completely wrong direction to go in. Having more units than zerg, and having fewer than protoss will basically always lead to a too huge disparity between what one faction has to do, how much attention they have to pay, how much micro has to be invested IF you wanna make the game interactive in the first place (like ofc i could see a world where the balance numbers are so loopsided for that to not be true, but then it's not interesting to begin with). So yeah, that kind of thought worries me quite a bit. I think it is also one of the problems of sc2, "balance" has to be on some level about what is even required of the player, not just outcomes. Understand your argument but I also really really like the idea of higher highs and lower lows than Z or P from Starcraft. I think they can still balance the overall difficulty to play it by the players not just on the "outcomes" level, if for example the lower count units have a many bunch of abilities to use in micro compared to the higher counts armies. They could also have the more complicated base building/economics/teching/macro etc side.
Maybe it wasn't that clear, because i thought the other way around, actually. The army with the extremely high unit count will be the one easier to control, with generally less downsides to losing units (so less attention required / less pressure).
More units means one cannot control them individually all that well, it is mostly 'a moving' while making sure the engagement shapes work out. This usually gets balanced because the units obviously are faster to kill and aoe is strong. (the caveat i mention would be units which simply are very strong in an a move, old colossus comes to mind, definitely not a unit which created interesting dynamics).
But fundamentally, if this game wants to be even more extreme than sc2, i have a hard time imagining how that would create gameplay interactions which are fair, interesting and fun.
And yes, while one can design the game around other factors, making macro harder for one than the other, i think games tend to be mostly about unit interactions, that is where the game has to nail it the most, that is where imo most of the fun comes from. Everything else is moreso a means to get there.
So while it sounds like exactly what one should want in a game with multiple races, clearer 'identities' with a lot of differences, i'd argue that this has to be handled incredibly carefully, the line is thin, and going for too much variance is a clear way to mess things up.
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On May 26 2023 20:13 ZeroByte13 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 26 2023 01:57 CicadaSC wrote:
Regional tournaments with equal prizing regardless of skill.
NA should have a 25k tournament, and so should EU for example Then these regional tournaments should not be region-locked, right? Otherwise it would be very unfair if - Maru, Rogue, Dark, Hero fight for 25k - Serral, Reynor and Clem fight for 25k - Astrea and Scarlett, who are most probably weaker than top-5 in EU, fight for 25k - and in Oceania players who wouldn't be even top-20 in EU or top-40 in Korea also fight for 25k It doesn't make sense unless there's no region lock and everyone can play anywhere.
It's not about being 100% fair 100% of the time. Money does not just move to wherever the best player(s) are. If Astrea suddenly became the best player in the world would you argue NA should have the highest prize pool, 25k, and Kr have like 20k, and eu 15? Then a year later Maru proves he is the best again so KR gets 25k, and NA is bumped down to 20. Or maybe you think they need more top players, and it just so happens Scarlett is the 2nd best player. but EU actually has the next best 3 etc etc. See how it can get confusing? But luckily none of that matters. You put money where the most interest in the game is, where the biggest market for the game is. Where you think there is potential for it to grow. Region Locking has already been tested and every major esport participates in it.
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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW!
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Then let's talk about it tomorrow.
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On May 29 2023 15:53 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
Then let's talk about it tomorrow.
sorry for letting people know to be on the lookout?
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EPT
