Watching Mixu, Parting and other pros micro their heart out with these fun units like atlas drops, weaver micro, imp suiciding or a big ass dragon is very pleasing to watch and play for yourself.
Can you link me to any micro engagements that required more than 200 APM?
Honestly, this is the kind of complaint that reminds me of BW vs War3 or BW vs SC2 discussions on TL from decades ago.
People can rightfully think something is off about the game, but I think some people just throw random RTS-isms at it because they can't specifically articulate the problem. Randomly injecting "APM" as a reason for why you think the micro in the game isn't as impactful or impressive as SC2 isn't particularly accurate.
Granted, a lot of people saying the game feels off is still useful feedback, at least up to a point.
APM (+ mouse precision/reaction speed) is what determines mechanics in an RTS game. You need a high mechanical skillcap for a competitive RTS game - just as much as aiming needs to matter in an FPS game.
How exactly that mechanical skillcap is created - whether it comes through micro/macro/multitasking etc. - is a different discussion. If you make macro is easier, micro skillcap needs to be increased to compensate.
Even god tier blink micro by its nature isn’t crazy high in an APM sense, it’s all precision and targeting the weak stalkers accurately
Your point is true. Precision * APM is a better indicator of mechanics. But I also set the bar quite low. 200 APM isn't a lot and you should hit this in a normal protoss game with blink stalker micro (+ likely building probes or other macro). Generally 150 APM players (over an entire) game can get 200-300 APM over a 20 second battle.
It is without a question a massive reduction in the skillcap relative to Sc2 if Sc2 players can benefit from 500+battle APM and in Stormgate there is no point in any more than 200APM.
What is gonna make micro impressive if players don't have to do a lot of clicks in a short time? Precision is gonna be easier when you have more time to do it.
You can sink in basically unlimited APM when micro'ing individual units (think Marines or Stalkers) for a marginal advantage in SC2. Should be the same in SG. I remember a game vs AI with unlimited APM, Blink Stalker all-in and Marine stim all-in every game. Amazing to look at what can be achieved with 3000+ APM
another option would be to have the equivalent of the warcraft 3 upkeep mechanics but for micro instead of macro.
What I mean is, imagine that if your deathball has more than x units (or supply, w/e) it loses effectiveness. Now you d be forced to split your army, attack multiple places. Each fight would be low apm, but you d have more tactical decisions and strategic depth.
Even without this mechanic it could be through map design or some other thing, the beauty of BW (to me) was having action all over whereas sc2 (esp early on) was mostly 1)super potent harass and 2) gigantic army movement because the units move so well together. Now maps and players made it that there is more tactical play going now, but hopefully you get the idea. Obviously a solid defender s advantage kinda helps splitting units in groups. Also BW achieved this since you gotta fight the UI and the units themselves to get them to do more or less what you want them to do. Cant have that in a modern game so something else needs to be done.
On February 13 2024 22:59 WGT-Baal wrote: another option would be to have the equivalent of the warcraft 3 upkeep mechanics but for micro instead of macro.
What I mean is, imagine that if your deathball has more than x units (or supply, w/e) it loses effectiveness. Now you d be forced to split your army, attack multiple places. Each fight would be low apm, but you d have more tactical decisions and strategic depth.
Even without this mechanic it could be through map design or some other thing, the beauty of BW (to me) was having action all over whereas sc2 (esp early on) was mostly 1)super potent harass and 2) gigantic army movement because the units move so well together. Now maps and players made it that there is more tactical play going now, but hopefully you get the idea. Obviously a solid defender s advantage kinda helps splitting units in groups. Also BW achieved this since you gotta fight the UI and the units themselves to get them to do more or less what you want them to do. Cant have that in a modern game so something else needs to be done.
I agree about the goal about rewarding more multitasking (by other means than just harass).
Although, if possible, I prefer making accomplishing it in a more "natural" way, that's slightly more intuitive.
As I see it, devs have two tools on their hands to accomplish this:
1. Units that perform better against larger groups of enemy units (very cost effectively when outnumbered).
2. Escape-mechanics.
Starcraft 2 primarily has the latter. It has very few of the former, perhaps HIgh Templars are the closest we get, or something like Widow mines with a few libs. In BW Dark Swarm is incredibly powerful against any number of opponent units.
I guess you could argue the 3rd option is "terrible pathing", but I must rather tweak the former two options.
Watching Mixu, Parting and other pros micro their heart out with these fun units like atlas drops, weaver micro, imp suiciding or a big ass dragon is very pleasing to watch and play for yourself.
Can you link me to any micro engagements that required more than 200 APM?
Honestly, this is the kind of complaint that reminds me of BW vs War3 or BW vs SC2 discussions on TL from decades ago.
People can rightfully think something is off about the game, but I think some people just throw random RTS-isms at it because they can't specifically articulate the problem. Randomly injecting "APM" as a reason for why you think the micro in the game isn't as impactful or impressive as SC2 isn't particularly accurate.
Granted, a lot of people saying the game feels off is still useful feedback, at least up to a point.
APM (+ mouse precision/reaction speed) is what determines mechanics in an RTS game. You need a high mechanical skillcap for a competitive RTS game - just as much as aiming needs to matter in an FPS game.
How exactly that mechanical skillcap is created - whether it comes through micro/macro/multitasking etc. - is a different discussion. If you make macro is easier, micro skillcap needs to be increased to compensate.
Even god tier blink micro by its nature isn’t crazy high in an APM sense, it’s all precision and targeting the weak stalkers accurately
Your point is true. Precision * APM is a better indicator of mechanics. But I also set the bar quite low. 200 APM isn't a lot and you should hit this in a normal protoss game with blink stalker micro (+ likely building probes or other macro). Generally 150 APM players (over an entire) game can get 200-300 APM over a 20 second battle.
It is without a question a massive reduction in the skillcap relative to Sc2 if Sc2 players can benefit from 500+battle APM and in Stormgate there is no point in any more than 200APM.
What is gonna make micro impressive if players don't have to do a lot of clicks in a short time? Precision is gonna be easier when you have more time to do it.
Players don’t really have APM that high, a ton of that is redundancy. And certain micro spikes APM more than others, stutter-step being more be such example.
And having a huge APM ceiling doesn’t necessarily mean more skill, it just means there’s more to do, and in one game you happen to not be looking elsewhere when a doom drop hits, and in another you just happen to be looking at the right time. SC2 you lose (and win) as many games from your screen being in the wrong spot as you do from outmacroing your opponent, or convincingly outmicroing them in the crucial engagement. And dealing with low APM moves from your opppnent like zealot/ling runbys or queued Libs that require a lot more scrambling on your end to defend.
I’m reasonably quick, 200-220 APM through a whole game with quite an optimised hotkey setup, not too much spam etc. My hands and wrists just can’t handle playing the game for hours at that pace. And hell I’ve near 20k posts here it’s clearly a genre I love
Spiking is one thing, but another game where I’m having to physically hurt my hands I can give a miss, and I’m very much the target audience here.
The hope from my end is that the slower TTK and combat enables more opportunities for micro, I just don’t think it has to be particularly tied to APM. WC3 has great micro IMO but fewer actions due to the pace.
For example let’s just assume a slower SC2, be it game speed, or TTK. A Terran has got a pretty nasty siege position going. I send a sacrificial zealot in to trigger a mine or two and I jump, I split my zealots up pre-charge so they more reliably go where I want, I target fire my Collosus on marines to maximise bonus damage, and my immortals onto the tanks. Plus pull various units back out of danger, maybe do some lifts with a prism.
In this hypothetical slower game I could easily do this with sub-200 APM and precision, in SC2 as it is I can’t engage optimally even with 350 because it’s so damn fast. Even pros can’t.
So my hope is that Stormgate enables more optimal micro being possible and beneficial, it just remains to be seen if they can pull it off. But I don’t think tethering it too closely to APM is the metric I’d go with.
Arbitrarily I think a game where a GM equivalent is rocking 150-200 APM is fine, provided precision in micro and tactical decision-making is important.
Players don’t really have APM that high, a ton of that is redundancy. And certain micro spikes APM more than others, stutter-step being more be such example.
And having a huge APM ceiling doesn’t necessarily mean more skill, it just means there’s more to do, and in one game you happen to not be looking elsewhere when a doom drop hits, and in another you just happen to be looking at the right time. SC2 you lose (and win) as many games from your screen being in the wrong spot as you do from outmacroing your opponent, or convincingly outmicroing them in the crucial engagement. And dealing with low APM moves from your opppnent like zealot/ling runbys or queued Libs that require a lot more scrambling on your end to defend.
I thought it was fairly clear by my post that by me referencing battle APM I was implying peak/spike APM.
(as a sidepoint, I don't agree there is that much spam in top pro's today. At least not compared to early WOL. That game had a much lower skillcap with mess less action causing players to not know what to do with their actions.)
I’m reasonably quick, 200-220 APM through a whole game with quite an optimised hotkey setup, not too much spam etc. My hands and wrists just can’t handle playing the game for hours at that pace. And hell I’ve near 20k posts here it’s clearly a genre I love
Yeh, it's interesting, and I think MOBA's have some advantage here. In MOBA's you can argue there are more periods in which players have breaks/low-activity periods which makes it easier for players to have longer sessions.
I don't think an RTS game needs to have high APM throughout the entire game. However, the big micro battles needs to be APM intensive - because ultimately that is the skill cap of RTS games. The combination of high speed + accuracy is what makes the great players stand out from the good players. (it can't just be "strategic thinking" - mechanics needs to be the primary differentiator).
If there is no target audience for high APM games. However, I believe it is possible and I think the primary reason for the decline in RTS games has been related to high knowledge entrance barrier, low forgivingness/poorly designed micro interactions and APM being split between two many different tasks.
Brutal. That explains why the charge system felt really off to me. The designers made a race incentivized to be hyper aggressive, has huge momentum, uses that to take over the map, and then pumps all those resources into instantly producing units. It's cool as a concept and feel free to experiment in beta but also it's interesting they weren't able just look at their mechanics and realize the Infernals production engine is missing an entire limiting mechanism: build time. They wholesale removed an entire balancing knob for them to turn.
man I thought it was just me hating this mechanic, glad gypsy explains it way better than I would
Yeah, I’m getting real warpgate vibes here, something the naysayers were obviously proven right on in time
For me, the real issue with warpgate was the lack of defenders advantage. I think warpgates are actually interesting as a mechanic for some types of units. - with the brute force of the army strenght being in robotics units. I don't think the balance is 100% there in Sc2 atm, but I think today's protoss state is fundamentally much sounder than in WOL.
However, for Infernals, I just don't get the devs here, it seems like attempt at innovation for the sake of innovation. What exact problems are they trying to solve here? It's a design choice that will make balance extremely difficult.
What is with these "content creators" and their inability to make concise videos? The first video is 11.5 minutes long for something he could have explained in 1 minute if he was at all cohesive. Not going to watch another video despite agreeing with the point he is making.
What is with these "content creators" and their inability to make concise videos? The first video is 11.5 minutes long for something he could have explained in 1 minute if he was at all cohesive. Not going to watch another video despite agreeing with the point he is making.
Youtube algorithm prefers videos to be at least 10 min long. Or at least it used to.
What is with these "content creators" and their inability to make concise videos? The first video is 11.5 minutes long for something he could have explained in 1 minute if he was at all cohesive. Not going to watch another video despite agreeing with the point he is making.
Youtube algorithm prefers videos to be at least 10 min long. Or at least it used to.
I think monetization on a video for most youtube creators also requires 10minutes or something like that no?
man I thought it was just me hating this mechanic, glad gypsy explains it way better than I would
Yeah, I’m getting real warpgate vibes here, something the naysayers were obviously proven right on in time
For me, the real issue with warpgate was the lack of defenders advantage. I think warpgates are actually interesting as a mechanic for some types of units. - with the brute force of the army strenght being in robotics units. I don't think the balance is 100% there in Sc2 atm, but I think today's protoss state is fundamentally much sounder than in WOL.
However, for Infernals, I just don't get the devs here, it seems like attempt at innovation for the sake of innovation. What exact problems are they trying to solve here? It's a design choice that will make balance extremely difficult.
If anything I think Protoss is in an even worse spot in Legacy, as a legacy of the warp gate, but hey agree to disagree!
I don’t dislike the core idea, just implementation. Either have it be a warp prism thing, or at least make warp gates produce slower than gateways, have some kind of trade-off versus quicker production versus quicker reinforcement and mobility, or something like that.
I imagine the Stormgate devs will make some tweaks, it seems a nightmare to balance. It’s all the flexibility of Zerg tech switches, but also with the added ability to do that with power units, instantly. A Zerg can be sitting on a giant bank, but at least at the top level they can’t trade and remax on an ultimate super army because production times will just see them die.
This mechanic, albeit in a different game with different mechanics doesn’t seem to have a particular drawback, and a ton of upswing. I imagine it will be tweaked but hey I’ve been wrong before on many things.
In a positive note, although I was initially opposed to removing upgrades, I do concede that it does open up more fluidity to change comps and tech switch, that is definitely one in the plus column.
Yes Infernal's macro ability is reverse SC2 warpgate + Z reactionary macro on crack, u can't spawn units wherever u want but in exchange u get to have a reactionary army whenever u want (having the same production time for all units + resetting unit charges compounds this problem even more).
You're harassing (dropping mainly) and ur oppo's army is back defending so u can macro/eco up, ur harassing and catch ur oppo out on the map so u mass units (if he counters you) with ur saved charges, u fight and lose important units that breaks ur army comp up vs oppos comp.. u instantly remake w/e u need and complete ur comp again.
They can always react and optimize their macro perfectly for every scenario. The scale up potential for this mechanic is gonna be massive as players keep improving, it's similar to SC2 Z's macro mechanics (creep defenders adv with vis/speed boost + larva inject) in that way.
Down the line as the game gets discovered/figured out more this will become an even bigger problem, when u give a race instant macro/reaction ability it'll push things to the extreme. There won't be a lot of room to play around, games will become super timing based imo. If they wanna keep Infernal's macro as is they'll have to balance around it by making the units weaker, personally I think this is gonna end up becoming a huge headache to balance.
Vanguard on the other hand has pretty satisfying macro mechanics, it feels very RTS'ey. They have to optimize b.os around overcharge, sentry post (they really nailed the bunk design) adds a different macro element to bos as well, habitat adds another element to it etc. Vanguard macro just makes sense and flows well, it's fun and adds b.o/macro decision making to the race.
man I thought it was just me hating this mechanic, glad gypsy explains it way better than I would
Yeah, I’m getting real warpgate vibes here, something the naysayers were obviously proven right on in time
For me, the real issue with warpgate was the lack of defenders advantage. I think warpgates are actually interesting as a mechanic for some types of units. - with the brute force of the army strenght being in robotics units. I don't think the balance is 100% there in Sc2 atm, but I think today's protoss state is fundamentally much sounder than in WOL.
However, for Infernals, I just don't get the devs here, it seems like attempt at innovation for the sake of innovation. What exact problems are they trying to solve here? It's a design choice that will make balance extremely difficult.
I don’t dislike the core idea, just implementation. Either have it be a warp prism thing, or at least make warp gates produce slower than gateways, have some kind of trade-off versus quicker production versus quicker reinforcement and mobility, or something like that.
Wow I remember pointing this out and suggesting exactly this all the way back during the SC2 WOL beta on tl.net.
I think warpgates also necessitated making Zealots and Stalkers much weaker than their BW counterparts. This kills the fantasy of the Protoss race (a dying race with dwindling numbers but formidable in small numbers).
One point I disagree with from many analysts is the unit responsiveness issue. C&C games have very good unit responsiveness similar to SC2 and Stormgate. The problem, is none of the C&C games have a server infrastructure to negotiate between both players. However, C&C games have the potential and often offer top notch unit responsiveness.
Also, lag is an issue when there are a lot of units on the screen 10+ minutes into a game.
EPT
