LotV Beta - TL Strategy first impressions - Page 4

Contracting time = less control from the user, always. Contracting time = less control = more forced mistakes = increased randomness. Strategy relies on planning, which means enough time to think. If the RT part of RTS is violently compressed then the S withers away too by force. Where the delicate balance and tangle between “mechanics” and “strategy” relies on making sure that mistakes occur both from the user (reasonably) and his opponent (whose main job is to actively try to force more mistakes from his second nemesis), the current direction LotV is taking is very dangerous. The new environment skews the original allocation to the point that players will essentially defeat themselves by their simple activity… of playing (here, during the explosive development phase). The interaction between players that creates the game and its tension is at an active risk of being laminated. With the current LotV rhythm Blizzard is actually killing the very genre of Starcraft.

All of this stems from the fact that Blizzard has still not understood at all the dual root of all the current issues. How ironic considering they had every material needed within the SC1 experience. All they had to do was to load one of those things called “fast maps” and think. Actually, I'm now almost sure that's what they did, but they forgot that in RTS “time” is interconnected with “strategy”. The oldest of us may remember that the SC1 official ladder was originally set on “fast” instead of “fastest,” making it unbearably slow and sluggish (yet, in a pleasant way, with more control in the advanced phases of the game). That is, before bots and cheating completely ruined it.

The SC2 user economy only revolves around three aspects, which are Accuracy, Attention and Knowledge. All of them are tested through the trial of Time. Metagaming is the manipulative application of one's reflection about this economy (not “the current standardization of the Knowledge,” despite the confusion of the common sense).

Multitasking is the primary and highest “skill stretcher” because of the time constraint combining those elements. This is why camping into 1a out of zero attention tools is universally despised. But the fundamental problem is neither “aggression” nor “defense”. Blizzard has understood nothing of why aggression can be good or defence can turn bad, which is why they have given birth to various horrors that mutilate the game because of their unbeatable operational effectiveness in either of those sides. Similarly, they have not understood that over-contracting time can only disfigure the necessary RTS equilibrium between “total control” (pure strategy) and “zero control” (pure luck).

SC2 already suffered a lot because of the wildness of the increased rhythm. The “excitement doctrina” ended up trying to artificially conceal the shallowness of its new strategic conceptions with a violent contraction of time, just like the immense plot holes of all the bad blockbusters of today are partially hidden by shiny “new” special effects and sheer propaganda. They call this bogus approach “innovation”. In their fantasy, it's probably supposed to look flash. LotV is currently going even further this way, with the consequence that the competition will further collapse thanks to the narrowing of the array of skill. The theoretical skill ceiling shall be higher than ever, yet of course absolutely unreachable; thus the practical skill gap, i.e. what humans can achieve best in reality, will crumble.


“Skill gap” is the height of the area between the “skill floor” and the “practical skill ceiling”. The theoretical skill ceiling is considered infinite and unreachable, and thus does not matter at all; you could indeed always micro each of your individual Zealots but the absolutely massive diminishing returns make it worthless in practice. What matters is thus the practical skill ceiling, i.e. how much you get for what you invest. Contracting time does raise the skill floor but it decreases the practical skill ceiling too. Therefore, it contracts the skill gap itself.

Think about driving a car. What happens at 30 km/h? You're still in control. Now increase to 50? Still fully doable, but your margin of error does decrease. Now increase to 70, 100, 150, 300, 500—at some point the accident can no longer be avoided and even the best drivers enter the realm of the “unforgivable”. The simple fact that you maintain your driving activity makes the crash unavoidable. This mechanism is “the contraction of time”. Blitz chess is a dazzling example of that: pressured by time, world-caliber players start making absolutely grotesque, newbie-like blunders. Contracting time decreases the quality of play, even if the competition can somewhat stand for a while (though increasingly turned inwards, towards oneself). Should you proceed for too long in that direction, skill itself would start to disappear, replaced with the functional equivalent of luck. Since SC2 is already an RTS, the “time factor” is retroceded elsewhere. Speed of development is the name of the game. In LotV, the primary banner of this mechanism is embodied in economy.

I hope people don't get dumb and the crude attempts at diverting users from the potential massive decrease in the quality of the game with shiny gimmicks don't succeed. The classic balance debates between Protoss, Terran, and Zerg are, for instance, absolutely irrelevant regarding this general movement. Dumb users shall be jealous of “the shiny tools others get” and will ask Blizzard the same for “their camp,” failing to realize that they're completely falling into the oldest trap on Earth called “divide and rule”. People should instead unite and camp Blizzard's door so they have a playable RTS first. Otherwise, they will only get (1) an even worse game, (2) an even worse competitive scene, (3) an even worse balance.

Playability and thus “enjoyability” come from control over various aspects. This is why people involved in games of pure chance systematically develop absurd habits and beliefs in order to recreate the control they no longer have.

Contracting time = less control. Always, everywhere. Sometimes it is needed, sometimes not. Control doesn't have to be absolute, but there are thresholds to respect. There are different temporalities within the game and Blizzard has apparently failed to identify them. The quality of the game flows from its “control architecture”.

May I kindly mention that there were people who warned people from this all along? They were deliberately confused with “elitists” and mocked for being “neophobic” or “nostalgic”. Yet we see who was right at the end of the journey. But the journey is not completely done. Therefore, some people will find it smart to fall again and again into the old traps of “one game vs the other” or the very fruitful “give them time, it's only beta” attitude which sows expectations to inevitably reap disappointment. Delighted with the delicate scent of novelty, some will perhaps be naive enough to trust again the holy name of the Brand, as if those topics weren't years old, as if similar problems hadn't arisen before in other games, as if other sectors weren't concerned, as if those issues weren't significant of a more global movement.

At any rate, what do users have to lose in making their voices heard?

Since when do words kill?