The Legacy of the Void beta has just been released, and most of TL Strategy dove right in to test it. The full list of changes (which you can find here) is absolutely massive; the beta truly feels like playing a whole different game. We recommend you read the changes carefully before reading the rest of this article. This is just a brief recap of the initial thoughts and impressions of our members and several known players of all three races. While reading, please keep in mind that none of this is conclusive, since it's so early in the testing processs and Starcraft is constantly evolving.
General Changes
The biggest change is perhaps the new economy. Both the extra workers at the start and the reduced resources massively impact the game in deep ways that likely hadn't even been predicted by Blizzard; in fact, both changes are so big we will focus on them in greater detail in our next article, coming out soon (tm).
In general, the fewer resources per base make the game feel completely different from anything we've played before, including Brood War. Currently, bases mine out incredibly quickly, to the point where you absolutely must take at least a third, and potentially a fourth, as soon as humanly possible. It's almost as if the game was a race against your own workers. This is such an extreme feeling that it defines the entire game: are actually punished for not expanding, rather than rewarded for expanding. To a certain extent, this is similar to Starcraft 1 (you do need extra bases to have more income), but the way the games play out is very different. It feels like there just isn't enough time to do anything but secure extra bases, particularly with slow and immobile armies. This is a very different feel from BW, when it was possible for mech, terran bio (vs zerg) and protoss (vs zerg) to stay on two bases looking for openings and opportunities for a while before needing to take a third and/or fourth. Many of us are even starting to theorize that going above twelve mineral workers per base might actually be a bad move, as you will mine out quicker for little benefit in return. Currently, we think this might result in one of two outcomes: either the games will stabilize in long games with really fast four base builds, or they will become similar to the scrappier HotS and WoL games in which both sides are at about two base economy as a base mines out as soon as another one is secured, with the builds used also resembing HotS styles.
The extra workers are perhaps an even bigger change, even though it doesn't appear to be so on the surface. The basic idea is simply to get in the game and do things faster than in the past; whether you will enjoy this or not is entirely subjective, but it's undeniable that for broadcasted games it's nice to cut out the early game "boredom". However, this isn't all the extra workers bring. The higher early game income impacts the growth of economy, compared to the growth of tech, extremely quickly. Players have far more resources to set up an expansion and infrastructure, but important research timings such as stim, lair or warpgate are unchanged. The end result is that when these researches end, the opponent's build is much more developed than it would be with a 6 worker start, making any build relying on such a research - like a basic stim timing - considerably weaker. Again, this is a massive change and we will go more in depth on it in a future article, but it's easy to see how completing stim when the Zerg has full saturation is weaker than when he has 50 drones for example. This also shifts the focus of the game away from key tech to just massing easily accessible units that don't require good upgrades to be effective. We believe this is a huge reason why cyclones and ravagers in particular (more on them later) appear to be so strong in many situations - they both require very little tech (roach warren and factory, respectively), meaning their power is easily acquired early on.
Finally, the quicker growth also changes the pacing of scouting and reacting very drastically, which is particularly noticeable with Zerg overlord scouting. Because builds develop quicker than before, it feels harder to scout and deviate, with many builds hitting very shortly after they are scouted. Whether this allows players to branch and react in time to various threats, or increases the elements of build order luck that are always present in any version of Starcraft, remains to be seen.
There are also a few other, comparatively minor changes, that are worth discussing. The look on units and buildings on the minimap is more "transparent" and less saturated, making it very hard to spot movement, especially over a clear background like a desert map. The map pool itself is quite unsatisfying: some maps are plagued by bugs like mineral nodes being ignored by workers and ramps having disappeared from the original version of the map, while other maps are simply universally disliked, like Inferno Pools. One of the new Blizzard maps, called Lerilak Crest, features a natural with two very large chokes that can't possibly be walled, creating extremely annoying gameplay for both Terran and Protoss.
Protoss
The changes to the early and mid game timings discussed earlier impacted Protoss the most, because now the mothership core and any early game sentries just do not have enough energy to be an effective defense, to the point where it's very easy to get completely destroyed by the first few cyclones or ravagers that hit the field. It's also harder to be on the map with any kind of army, as both the immortal and colosuss are weaker, and key researches like forge upgrades, Warpgate and Blink are just so much slower compared to the past. Our Zergs, Terrans and Protoss all agree that the race doesn't have the power of the other two at the moment, in part because of the nerfs or new units and in part because the economy model just doesn't fit the research-based Protoss playstyle.
That said, we feel that both the new Protoss units are designed very well, and even though they both might need number tweaking, they seem to be very interesting gameplay-wise.
The adept's concept of a core unit that can quickly jump between locations is very unique, and it's easy to imagine many strategical situations in which they can be used to outplay and outposition an opponent. That said, with their current stats they can't fight anything straight up, including the light units they are meant to be strong against. Against marines, all that is needed is a bunker or wall, and against slow lings they are too slow to march onto creep and harass, or trade effectively once speed is done. Furthermore, they can't bypass walls, and their upgrade is so far up the tech tree it appears next to impossible to fit it into a build. As long as their numbers are so low, they are just a reaper that isn't capable of jumping up cliffs. The only use we found so far is an early game two gate adept rush in pvp, hoping that an opponent will have fast expanded and/or cut stalkers.
The disruptor fits a unit design that has been asked by Protoss players for a very long time - a strong robotics unit that is meant to work together with a warp prism for both harassment and straight up fights. The parallels with the Brood War reaver are obvious. They currently are the strongest Protoss unit, as their 150 damage easily one-shots the vast majority of units in the game; they are absolutely devastating against clumped group of units. Their presence puts immense pressure on the opponent to split his army correctly, but also on the Protoss to micro the warp prism perfectly - each disruptor costs 200 minerals and 300 gas, and losing one or two of them is pretty much game ending. The main difference from the reaver is that their movement speed without a warp prism and before activating their purification nova is quite quick, so they are capable of following an army of their own without any external transport. While they currently aren't massable because of their cost, this could have lategame implications once the game is more figured out.
On the bright side, carrier has arrived! This has probably been the most pleasant surprise for Protoss so far. The fact that the ridiculed carrier of all units appears to finally have a strong place in the protoss arsenal is a testament to just how different the game is, and how unpredictable the beta testing process is. Their reduced build time makes them much more accessible than before, and the ability to sacrifice all of the interceptors to deploy them instantly in an area is very strong, as it's possible to lay waste to entire bases and recall out, or simply zone out opposing armies trying to push into a base. They are still expensive and hard to tech to, as they rightfully should be, but finally it feels like that expense is worth it. Ironically enough, they even feel strong enough to replace the tempest in the lategame. The ability to release interceptors could use some quality of life changes, like the ability to target fire interceptors. Either way, the new carrier definitely looks like a major step up from the old one.
As a final and entirely minor note, there seem to be some small inconsistencies in the current build regarding the behavior of some units. While large units like archons, tanks and now disruptors are incapable of getting through a typical 1-hex gap, ravagers, whose model is just as large, can fit through perfectly. Also, blink stalkers have some inconsistencies in their behavior, as large groups of them sometimes just refuse to blink to a spot when ordered to do it. We believe this is likely tied to the scan range update, and possibly caused by the fac that it's impossible for a stalker to blink near a spot that is already occupied by a unit, like another stalker, before blinking, but while noticable it's hard to reproduce.
Terran
While the Terran race itself seems relatively unchanged, having gained only one unit, the different economy and new units from the other races, along with the sheer power of the cyclone in some situations, actually make a massive difference in how the race plays. The economy in particular also feels particularly punishing, as mules mine out bases extremely quickly; it's actually somewhat common to not start a third cc, but to simply float the main cc to the third.
Cyclones early on make a big impact in both TvP and TvT. They only require a tech lab factory to build, making them very accessible, and their range, movement speed and lock on ability easily shuts down any flying harassment unit completely no matter the race, from early mutas, to oracles, warp prisms, and even banshees. Additionally, the lock on allows them to trade effectively against protoss in the early game. While many people are already claiming they are as broken as the warhound used to be, they actually function quite differently. The warhound was criticized because it essentially didn't have any weak points, and during the entire game there was no reason not to simply mass them with minor support. Cyclones aren't like that, at all. In fact, they lose much of their worth in large engagements, as they are much more easily swarmed by zealots or bio, and their lock on tends to fixate on mediocre targets. Currently the best description for the cyclone is more or less an early game, ground based carrier, meant to take out key targets without scaling well in larger engagements against many units. It's a very odd design, and we generally feel like some changes will be required to make it a truly interesting and unique unit that benefits the Terran arsenal in a healthy way.
While cyclones rule the early game in the other two matchups, early game TvZ feels very changed and potentially troublesome. Ravager pushes are devastating for anything that doesn't include a tank drop or maybe quick banshees, seemingly reducing the number of viable builds; ravagers just feel incredibly powerful compared to how early on they are available. However, tank drops shut them down convincingly, and seem to force the Zerg into quick two base muta builds with extra queens. While powerful, this mechanic currently feels reasonably balanced, and possibly even enough to make marine/tank the go to TvZ composition again. The mentioned difference in economy vs tech is very easily felt in TvZ early game. While tank drops are quick enough that they pose a decent threat, the traditional hellion/banshee pressure comes out at a much later timing, to the point where it can't pressure nearly as effectively as in the past. Finally, when playing TvZ bio the combination of buffed cracklings and ultras with nerfed marauders effectively puts the Terran on a clock. Bio can't really transition into the lategame, and now can't beat ultralisks at all.
Before this timing and in the other two matchups, bio feels stronger than in HotS. This is likely to its ability to be on the map and pressure with cheap units while expanding; bio vs mech and bio vs protoss feel significantly easier than in HotS in the midgame, when the power of bio already peaked. The changes to the economy are so drastic that TvP feels much too easy even without building a single cyclone.
As a final quality of life note, many of the maps have weirdly shaped ramps that can't be walled with 2 depots and a rax; this is also happening on the TLMC maps that were previously wallable normally.
Zerg
Zerg is probably the race that benefits the most from the economic changes. They are designed to make many cheap units quickly, and the ability to get the extra third hatchery so much faster than the other races means they don't mine out as quickly as either Protoss or Terran. All in all, the focus on raw unit numbers rather than tech also make the race feel very strong. The new timings and economy aren't entirely positive however. Overlord scouting in particular is much weaker - an overlord takes longer to cross the map compared to how quickly builds develop, meaning you can get at most one scout off before the opponent has enough units to deny any further attempt, or a build is already fully developed and there isn't time to react to it.
The new units drastically change the way every Zerg matchup is played. Ravagers are incredibly powerful, especially as part of rushes, and they also drastically change the dynamics of ZvZ in particular: both sides are forced to split and reposition correctly to avoid the artillery shots, making roach wars more interesting and micro intensive than ever. Because the ravager shot is so slow, mutalisk switches also seem to have potential in the matchup. Finally, the buff to burrowed roaches is absolutely massive: the tech is very accessible, as it comes online very quickly and roaches are as easily massable as ever. Other than for early game rushes, Ravagers are incredibly devastating in PvZ. Their dps is higher than that of a hydralisk, and they are available much earlier on. The ability to destroy forcefields also appears incredibly powerful, possibly too much so early on in the game. A lair requirement along with a roach warren morph, like for Lurkers, might be necessary.
Lurkers are a fairly straight up units, as their design is essentially unchanged from bw. Their aoe appears to be very effective against most kinds of infantry units, and getting an iconic Zerg unit in the game just feels right. The only complaint we found so far about them is regarding their attack animation: it's extremely hard to see, especially in big battles, and often times it's really hard to realize that the reason an army is getting shredded is because there's lurkers underneath the roach/hydra/ravager forces.
After our first look, the most problematic issue for Zerg currently is their ability to mass units or drones through inject larva, while having a mobile army capable of securing a large number of expansions. The lack of photon overcharge (and possibly the buffed nydus worm) very early in the game makes one base cheeses incredibly powerful, and the Zerg ability to massively drone or make units through inject larva greatly favours them over the slower Protoss. The basic roach/ravager/zergling army currently appears to be so strong that the tech switches that have defined PvZ since the nerf to infestor/broodlord - and that are still very possible - aren't even necessary. Mutalisk/viper in particular appears to be incredibly powerful on paper against phoenix flocks, but it's hard to find situations in which the game develops that far. At this point, the game is so new that any kind of lategame consideration like that is too premature.
TvZ is also very changed. The midgame of muta/ling/bling against bio seems reasonably close to the current situation, minus the fact that hellion/banshee pressure is replaced by tank drop pressure, and that upgrades are harder to get and thus play a lesser role. It's hard to say just how much that changes the matchup. However, the sheer power of ultras completely appears to nullify any kind of bio play in the lategame, and many Terran players are trying to mech instead; however, it's hard to say wether the style truly is viable in the current economy model. As a final note, proxy rax bunker rushes seem to be destined to disappear: by the time they hit any hatch first build will already have at least completely the spawning pool, making defense much more comfortable and thus giving Zerg more room to breathe in the early game.
Conclusions
As we said in the introduction, the changes to the economic model are so massive that they warrant an in-depth article of their own; so far all we can say confidently is that while the basic premises of expanding more aggressively and getting in the game faster are valid goals, this first iteration appears problematic, and a lot more testing will be required to find a truly satisfying model.
The unit design overall seems valid on the other hand. While the numbers themselves are all over the place as expected, the basic mechanics of most units are convincing. The only unit that gets a question mark from us is potentially the cyclone, but we feel like with some retooling - like shifting its power away from the early game into a lategame "key unit" sniper, or removing some of its early power against air units - it could find a place in the Terran arsenal.
I second the question mark about the cyclone, and I like the suggestion to make it more of a lategame unit than an early game unit with little to no counterplay.
Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
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.
This is what happens to skill when you contract time.
“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?
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
I hope they hear this concern. Rewarding expanding is NOT punishing not expanding.
Dwf man have you ever thought about a career in politcs? Good post though, i agree and as we wrote in the post we're going to analyze the economy really in depth in our next article because it's absolutely crazy
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
I think it's too early to draw conclusions on that. People have yet to figure out how to make timings/all ins work with the new economy and units. Once that will happen, people will stop doing crazy greedy stuff all the time.
Sure, but the key is that there is strictly less time to do anything at all, which is just different from how BW in particular played. In fact, it's the opposite.
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Give us another day or two and we will have part 1 of an article on the LotV economy examining this issue specifically with some in game numbers to support it.
Part 2 will examine the 12 worker start.
I personally believe that there is a viable alternative economic model that supports rewarding expansion based play and offering deeper strategic choices while also speeding up the early game without artificially cutting out the extreme early game. (The 6-12 worker period of time).
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Give us another day or two and we will have part 1 of an article on the LotV economy examining this issue specifically with some in game numbers to support it.
Part 2 will examine the 12 worker start.
I personally believe that there is a viable alternative economic model that supports rewarding expansion based play and offering deeper strategic choices while also speeding up the early game without artificially cutting out the extreme early game. (The 6-12 worker period of time).
Thanks for taking all that time in the hope that it'll be beneficial for SC2. Hell, it's depressing to have to concede I'd be far more confident for the future of SC2 if TL was in charge of LotV instead of Blizzard...
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.
This is what happens to skill when you contract time.
“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?
This is the greatest post I ever read on TL. It is truth, and it is written beautifully. I wish TL would make an article out of it to put it on the front page and maybe, hopefully, have it reach Blizzard's ears.
On April 05 2015 04:17 Teoita wrote: Dwf man have you ever thought about a career in politcs? Good post though, i agree and as we wrote in the post we're going to analyze the economy really in depth in our next article because it's absolutely crazy
I think the most important takeaway from dwf's post is that we need to be critical of the beta.
Not necessarily negative but we need to try and look at the impacts of decisions have in the beta. Luckily its so early in the beta big drastic changes can be made.
Everyone rallies against the HotS economic model and I get that. The question is whether or not we enjoy the LotV model. Rather we should be asking what kind of strategic options does it provide AND exactly what do we like about the model?
Is it different that the game starts quickly? With 12 workers yes its different. Is it better? Who knows as is always the case in Starcraft we will adapt.
But are the strategic options s expanded by it? I'm not so sure. And if the issue is the first 3 real time minutes of hots being slow then do 12 workers change that? What if a build was 8 pylon 11 gate instead of 9 pylon 13? Is that speeding up the early game quick enough or do we really need a full 12 workers to achieve the effect we desire?
Although I do understand the stance Dwf has taken, for me personally, the game has become stale with its passivity, legacy has changed that. I will agree strategy is not as prevalent in beta as in hots, yet I believe this will change as time goes on and the game gets more and more balanced.
On April 05 2015 04:42 Cricketer12 wrote: Although I do understand the stance Dwf has taken, for me personally, the game has become stale with its passivity, legacy has changed that.
Any change would have be refreshing, the beta is only around for 3 days. What matters most is the strategic depth and level of competition LotV will be able to have since it's, no pun intended, the legacy of SC2.
On April 05 2015 04:42 Cricketer12 wrote: Although I do understand the stance Dwf has taken, for me personally, the game has become stale with its passivity, legacy has changed that. I will agree strategy is not as prevalent in beta as in hots, yet I believe this will change as time goes on and the game gets more and more balanced.
It is important to note that passivity and a timer forcing you tonexpand are two different things.
Units like the swarmhost previously and tank raven (with long pdd) as well as high numbers of force fields really contribute to passive play. In addition to this the economic cap of 3 mineral mining bases and only needing a 4th for gas also play a huge role.
It doesn't matter in hots if you have 12 bases to 3. If the 3 base army is cost efficient enough it can trade and starve out the opponent through passive play so long as they maintain 3 mining bases.
LotV drops the bases tobhalf efficiency forcing the passive player to acquire more bases sooner as a punishment.
On the flip side, in broodwar mining was not capped at 3 bases and the more bases you took the more efficient your mining (and overall income) became. This means that even if you turtle to a big ball of doom in BW if your opponent has 12 bases no amount of cost effective trades will result in your winning the game because even if you replaced the mined out main you had been outpaced so thoroughly already you may as well GG or hope for an opponent to misplay terribly.
This meant that choosing to stay on 2 or 3 bases was a strategic choice, and your job was not necessarily to take a third or fourth with no map control but rather harass and try to slow the economic advantage of your opponent while you reached some break point in tech or army composition to be able to contest map control and either r expand or try to win the game or do a timing etc.
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Give us another day or two and we will have part 1 of an article on the LotV economy examining this issue specifically with some in game numbers to support it.
Part 2 will examine the 12 worker start.
I personally believe that there is a viable alternative economic model that supports rewarding expansion based play and offering deeper strategic choices while also speeding up the early game without artificially cutting out the extreme early game. (The 6-12 worker period of time).
I would prefer keeping a relatively high starting worker count but keep the HotS resource count, 8-10 worker start maybe? I don't think it is realistic to expect Blizzard to change more fundamental things like mining speed tho.
Under the current model expanding and macro doesn't feel like RTS "resource management", because you only want to expand fast, instead of expand smart and strategically. When expanding becomes a attempt at survival instead of actually "expanding" your economy, the game basically imbalances itself.
That is something we thought; the issue with that idea is it doesn't address the economy difference between 3 or 4 bases. Ultimately, it's Blizzard's job to make the call, all we can do is study the alternatives carefully and give the best feedback we can.
Well Blizzard has shown that if there is a time they are willing to experiment it's now. So hopefully we'll see some different variations of the economy, even if it is only temporary to see how it plays out.
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Give us another day or two and we will have part 1 of an article on the LotV economy examining this issue specifically with some in game numbers to support it.
Part 2 will examine the 12 worker start.
I personally believe that there is a viable alternative economic model that supports rewarding expansion based play and offering deeper strategic choices while also speeding up the early game without artificially cutting out the extreme early game. (The 6-12 worker period of time).
I would prefer keeping a relatively high starting worker count but keep the HotS resource count, 8-10 worker start maybe? I don't think it is realistic to expect Blizzard to change more fundamental things like mining speed tho.
Under the current model expanding and macro doesn't feel like RTS "resource management", because you only want to expand fast, instead of expand smart and strategically. When expanding becomes a attempt at survival instead of actually "expanding" your economy, the game basically imbalances itself.
The biggest problem is that there is no incentive for a 4th base in the HotS economy.
A three base mineral income is the same as 4 base mineral income because of the number of workers you have mining.
16 workers per base and 6 on gas on 3 base is 66 workers. Adding a 4th base you can choose to add 6 more in gas but adding another 16 (optimal mining) results in 88 workers.
The problem here is your army is very small. All one player needs to do is turtle on 3 bases for optimal income and cost effectively trade while maintaining three bases of mining. The other player could have 6 bases but their income rate remains the same as the player on 3 bases if they keep a similar worker count. This means if both players are mining 1000 minerals a minute for example, and the expanding player is trading 600 minerals a minute (of unit value) for 300 minerals a minute (of unit value of the turtler). In this scenario the net income of the player who is harassing is 400 minerals a minute and the other player has a net value of 700 minerals a minute. Now, if you have 1200 minerals a minute mining for the other player and 1000 for the turtler the net values even out! Meaning the turtling player isnt build a better bank than the aggressive player making the trades if not even, more impactful for the player who is expanding with map control. This is why we see protoss starve out in HotS against Swarmhosts (before the locust change). The toss trades inefficiently but their greater base count means nothing as the zerg makes builds a bank at all times whereas the toss player is always eating into his theoretical bank!
Alternatively if you can make 4 bases with the same number of workers on 3 provide better income that would encourage more bases and more harassment to shut down those bases as the 3 base player would be outstripped of his economic even footing so quickly that just holding 3 or 4 bases vs 6 is no longer a viable option. Add to this the removal in LotV of units that force stalemate map positions for the most part and I think a vastly different economic model would be a huge benefit, but alas, this is just rambling at this point.
I dont like the worker change , since the game starts pretty fast and casual players are likely overwhelmed by the pace, it's better for the viewing experience but I don't think we will get any new players since the game gets even harder in the beginning phase + we will lose a lot of early game cheeses and proxys , mvp vs squirtle any1
On April 05 2015 07:51 Destructicon wrote: Do you think that if we give them enough feedback they might be convinced to give the BW economic model a try?
I think without changing other statistics the current harassment will be too strong as each worker is more valuable .
First off, I have not played the beta yet. However, just from reading and watching streams I can conclude that the 12 worker change has indeed increased the pace of the game and limited players' reactions, to the point of making expanding dull. In other words, expanding has become an unplanned move that need no thought, like creating workers; most of us dont think about creating workers, rather we built them impulsevly UNLESS we are all-inning. I think what blizzard intended with Legacy of the Void, is to make pro and beginner levels stand out. And in the long run, this will be the case as it was in broodwar. No longer you will have a 50apm player defeat a 200apm player because of how quickly you have to be in order to keep up with the never ending mineral surplus.
One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands. I know that this game has to also appeal to casual gamers and this is why blizzard has a ranking system.....Moreoever, a real sport is about being mentally and physically fit and this is why I support blizzard's 12 worker change.
On April 05 2015 06:16 ZeromuS wrote: The problem here is your army is very small.
This is only tangentially related, but it touches on one of my personal bugbears. What do you think of the fact that the average unit supply cost has gone up in StarCraft 2 compared to Brood War? Marauders, Ghosts, Hellions, Roaches and Hydralisks cost 2 supply instead of 1 for their closest Brood War equivalent, Siege Tanks and Banshees cost 3 instead of 2, Brood Lords cost 4 instead of 2, Ultralisks cost 6 instead of 4...
I apologise if this is not the correct place to ask, but does this not also affect this issue of army sizes and replenishment?
On April 05 2015 07:54 ArrozConLeche wrote: First off, I have not played the beta yet. However, just from reading and watching streams I can conclude that the 12 worker change has indeed increased the pace of the game and limited players' reactions, to the point of making expanding dull. In other words, expanding has become an unplanned move that need no thought, like creating workers; most of us dont think about creating workers, rather we built them impulsevly UNLESS we are all-inning. I think what blizzard intended with Legacy of the Void, is to make pro and beginner levels stand out. And in the long run, this will be the case as it was in broodwar. No longer you will have a 50apm player defeat a 200apm player because of how quickly you have to be in order to keep up with the never ending mineral surplus.
One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands. I know that this game has to also appeal to casual gamers and this is why blizzard has a ranking system.....Moreoever, a real sport is about being mentally and physically fit and this is why I support blizzard's 12 worker change.
In brood war, Flash was considered average to slow on APM, he was nowhere near the fastest player around, but he was the best, specifically because APM wasn't nearly as important as you think it is.
And nobody wants ESPORTS to be exactly like sports, if you want that, just go outside and play soccer (football to non-Americans)
Also when you speed up the game this much as dwf pointed out the room to actually strategize becomes lesser and lesser, removing a huge part of the game. BW is the most competitive esport ever, yet it does give players to make decisions.
On April 05 2015 06:16 ZeromuS wrote: The problem here is your army is very small.
This is only tangentially related, but it touches on one of my personal bugbears. What do you think of the fact that the average unit supply cost has gone up in StarCraft 2 compared to Brood War? Marauders, Ghosts, Hellions, Roaches and Hydralisks cost 2 supply instead of 1 for their closest Brood War equivalent, Siege Tanks and Banshees cost 3 instead of 2, Brood Lords cost 4 instead of 2, Ultralisks cost 6 instead of 4...
I apologise if this is not the correct place to ask, but does this not also affect this issue of army sizes and replenishment?
If roaches cost 1 supply should immortals be 2 supply?
At 23/26 protoss rush out their first Oracle. If Oracle cost 2 they can make another Oracle with minor adjustment. A 2 supply void ray means protoss can build 3 void ray without adding a pylon which does have a build time.
Supply has been used as a limit on how fast one can build cheap weak units .
On April 05 2015 06:16 ZeromuS wrote: The problem here is your army is very small.
This is only tangentially related, but it touches on one of my personal bugbears. What do you think of the fact that the average unit supply cost has gone up in StarCraft 2 compared to Brood War? Marauders, Ghosts, Hellions, Roaches and Hydralisks cost 2 supply instead of 1 for their closest Brood War equivalent, Siege Tanks and Banshees cost 3 instead of 2, Brood Lords cost 4 instead of 2, Ultralisks cost 6 instead of 4...
I apologise if this is not the correct place to ask, but does this not also affect this issue of army sizes and replenishment?
Given that unit stats and interactions are so different in sc2, changing supply counts across the board likely opens so many cans of worms it's likely not worth it. There's already enough factors in play between changing the economy while also adding new units to the game. Also, the nice thing of higher supply counts it that they allow for more fine tuning - you can have a unit cost 2, 3, or 4 supply, which is a more subtle difference than going from 1 to 2.
On April 05 2015 07:54 ArrozConLeche wrote: First off, I have not played the beta yet. However, just from reading and watching streams I can conclude that the 12 worker change has indeed increased the pace of the game and limited players' reactions, to the point of making expanding dull. In other words, expanding has become an unplanned move that need no thought, like creating workers; most of us dont think about creating workers, rather we built them impulsevly UNLESS we are all-inning. I think what blizzard intended with Legacy of the Void, is to make pro and beginner levels stand out. And in the long run, this will be the case as it was in broodwar. No longer you will have a 50apm player defeat a 200apm player because of how quickly you have to be in order to keep up with the never ending mineral surplus.
One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands. I know that this game has to also appeal to casual gamers and this is why blizzard has a ranking system.....Moreoever, a real sport is about being mentally and physically fit and this is why I support blizzard's 12 worker change.
In brood war, Flash was considered average to slow on APM, he was nowhere near the fastest player around, but he was the best, specifically because APM wasn't nearly as important as you think it is.
And nobody wants ESPORTS to be exactly like sports, if you want that, just go outside and play soccer (football to non-Americans)
Soooooo you missed the part where I said that physical and mental attributes must go together. Flash was not the Slowest nor the fastest but He was talented and smart. I like comparing Flash to Messi, they are in two different worlds. Nontheless, both worlds belong to sports.Messi is small but talented and smart, thus one of the best soccer players in the world. Another idea you missed on my post is that I was comparing a 50apm player to a 200apm player. These are two extremes, 50apm being slowest and 200apm being fastest. I dont think the slowest player should be able to beat the fastest player if both players are both talented and smart unless you believe in luck.
The higher early game income impacts the growth of economy, compared to the growth of tech, extremely quickly. Players have far more resources to set up an expansion and infrastructure, but important research timings such as stim, lair or warpgate are unchanged. The end result is that when these researches end, the opponent's build is much more developed than it would be with a 6 worker start, making any build relying on such a research - like a basic stim timing - considerably weaker.
Isn't this a big problem with every single economy-focused change made in StarCraft 2; that tech can't keep pace with economy?
I hope this community can pressure the devs on this subject, instead of letting them hide behind their defense of "this is our game" or "you're just a nostalgic".
On April 05 2015 09:07 Rorschach wrote: Playing around with 12 workers per base and going for more infastructure/tech/units. Seems to feel a bit better than going max workers per base.
maybe different for zerg since they go up to 3 base so fast anyway.
It only feels better because you can tech on 3 bases instead of rushing a fourth and making units to defend it.
you actually make a lot less money in order to do it but your time on the clock before you are forced to take an expansion (with a regular consistent income) is longer.
I feel like the critique on the economy is going to end up:
- 10 Workers to start. - 2k Gas - Add back about 1/2 the minerals on the lower patches.
It's been fun to watch the streams (some great PvT with Carriers vs Battlecruisers at the 10 minute mark; 14ish previous timing), but it's likely the changes to the economy are a bit too much. You need a little room at the beginning.
Also, on the "4 base mining is worthless" issue: they could just raise the Supply Cap to 220.
Touched on in the article, but wanted to mention: I love Roach/Ravager vs. Roach/Ravager in ZvZ so much right now. It is awesome in all the ways that Roach vs. Roach has always been disappointing. I really hope Ravagers can be tuned to be less problematic in the other two matchups without making them useless in ZvZ.
If bio is no longer viable vs ultralisks/lings in the late game, what have Terran players been doing? Do they have to somehow transition into mech for late game? Sounds bizarre since the upgrades would be reset by this transition.
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Give us another day or two and we will have part 1 of an article on the LotV economy examining this issue specifically with some in game numbers to support it.
Part 2 will examine the 12 worker start.
I personally believe that there is a viable alternative economic model that supports rewarding expansion based play and offering deeper strategic choices while also speeding up the early game without artificially cutting out the extreme early game. (The 6-12 worker period of time).
I would prefer keeping a relatively high starting worker count but keep the HotS resource count, 8-10 worker start maybe? I don't think it is realistic to expect Blizzard to change more fundamental things like mining speed tho.
Under the current model expanding and macro doesn't feel like RTS "resource management", because you only want to expand fast, instead of expand smart and strategically. When expanding becomes a attempt at survival instead of actually "expanding" your economy, the game basically imbalances itself.
From a less serious player's perspective: when a new season begins, I don't practice the maps before laddering. It's kind of frustrating as terran when there's some new weird way of walling in. Note, I don't have beta access, but I feel like there's even less time to figure things out. As Artosis does, I also value that down time. It's a bit relaxing and helps orient myself to my map position (one of four spawning locations); it gives me some time to think about building placement.
In other words, I would also like them to try 8 or 10 workers to start the game. On the other hand, I do relish the idea of that first marine hunting down an overlord.
First of all, great post I aggree with basically everything in it and love that you are taking the time to write and think about it so much its very much appreciated! I usually just lurk on TL (it took me years to even create an account) but the beta proccess is really fascinating to me (because of such big changes) so I hope you guys don't mind if I write a rather lengthy post full of my bullshit thoughts =P
I think it is very good and hopefull that Blizzard is atleast willing to make such fundemental changes as the economic redesign of the game, its a positive sign and I hope they will keep trying to be adventurous with other changes in this long beta, so that we get the best possible end result!
That said I do aggree in that I think the economic change is a bit problematic, first of all for the bases change, on this I 100% aggree it feels different from any StarCraft game I played ever b4 and while it does seem exciting RIGHT NOW (because it is something new and interesting) there will probably be a lot of drawbacks and entire ways to play the game that get canceled out. However there are a lot of ways to play around with that, what about if you layer it more, so that you slowly start to loose income, however this would in my opinion lead to too much complexity and unneeded and unwanted obscureness of the economy which would be a HUGE drawback! Or if you try and get the now make the difference not as big (right now you loose half your income in half the time, maybe make the reduced mineral patches 75% value or make fewer of the reduced one) however those two things feel like bandaids and I am not sure that it would help THAT much, it would be trying to make it less punishing while still making it punishing enough so that every player still feels inclined to expand, which might not address the root problem but would atleast make it a bit better (treat the symptoms not the cause basically) hopefully! In my mind the best way to go about this would be making expanding more rewarding (i.e. BW economy), you already have said why its better so I don't just want to repeat your words, but to be completely honest I kind of fear that Blizz isn't going to make such a big change to the game anymore since it would feel even bigger than the current economy change (eventhough it isn't THAT much bigger really to be competely honest), BUT I also didn't predict them making the SH patch during HotS lifetime or them making such a big change in the beta, so who knows I hope I can be proofen wrong!
For the 12 worker start, while I still am on your side, I defenitely can see where Blizzard is coming from, for the casual player or the casual fan just watching some StarCraft at home, the first few minutes can be rather boring, the player player feels like nothing cool is happening and he is doing nothing really and the watcher feels like nothing is happening and doesn't understand the implications of even slightly varied builds! I think (and I put a lot of emphasis on the word THINK here because I don't know and would love to test it) that you could possibly find a starting amount between 7-10 workers (probably around 8) that would allow for enough diversity aswell as scouting, aswell as speed the game up and put more emphasis on units than on tech early on (which is actually a change that I like if it wasn't sooooo hardcore!), while at the same time cutting the downtime for spectators and casuals down by a bit and making it more fun to watch/play for them (because I know from some my friends that they get horribly bored at the start of every SC game I drag them too ;-; )
Okay the last part, and this is probably completely inappropriat to be here, so if it is please correct me and tell me and I will delete this part, is about a unit change I personally would love to see in LotV.
We have already seen that Blizzard is willing to make changes as drastic as changing the entire economy of the game, and I do really like the new unit design (especially for Protoss if they tweak a few things), one thing that I would LOVE to see changed however is the forcefield, how? Remove it!
Now I'm not balance whining here or doing any such stupid things, however I think that without the forcefields you could have much more variety in map design objectively a good thing.
AND if we are going to assume for a second that the 12 worker economy change stays (or a slightly lesser version with like 10 or so workers), then that means that early on, energy units become way less usefull, this means the sentry and the mothership core will become way weaker which gives Protoss (as we can see) a lot of problems early on since those two units used to be their main defense line, the next thing this would do is make early unit output way more important, and to be completely frank, on their own Stalkers and Zealots just suck, also if the Disruptor stays roughly the way it is, it means that (without going airtoss) protoss will rely on a very heavy gateway unit main army, since the Disruptor costs unfathomable amounts of gas aswell as it beeing not THAT massable compared to the now useless collossus (something that I love since I really hated the collosus and the type of playstyle it lead to), however, as pointed out previously gateway units kinda suck, you also can't really buff them since they could become waaay too powerfull for early pushes with forcefield support especially against Terran. If you however take the Forcefields out, and already have nerfed warpgates (another big reason that gateway units had to be weaker), you could buff these units again, this would enable Protoss to play in the early and not get compeltely denied from taking a thirdbase and then starving/getting run over because now they could use their stronger economy to get out a lot of Tier I units that are actually competitive with the opponnent, it would also lead to Protoss beeing able to easier split off parts of their armies and let them be successfull in smaller engagements!
I could ofcourse be completely wrong, however I still just wanted to give my opinion!
I apologize for any writing mistakes I did make its very late over here aswell as english not beeing my first language, I hope you could follow my logic and that I contributed atleast somewhat to a discussion
Protoss is frustrating as f*** to play right now, not a lot of viable options in almost every phase and gateway all-ins don't work at all vs Ravagers and Cyclones.
On April 05 2015 10:12 digmouse wrote: Protoss is frustrating as f*** to play right now, not a lot of viable options in almost every phase and gateway all-ins don't work at all vs Ravagers and Cyclones.
Mean you can finally feel the pain of T and Z after the years of 7 gates and Immortal all ins ;o
On April 05 2015 07:54 ArrozConLeche wrote: One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands
Nothing wrong with the game being faster, and even BW did this artificially via things like limiting group unit numbers and the various weirdness an old game engine has.
But there's a big difference between giving players choices and giving them requirements. Expanding in BW was a strategic choice, and a big one. Expanding in SC2 (both in HotS and Beta) is not one, as there is no added benefit for the risk of expanding more than 3 bases, other than you're required to keep 3 bases going.
I think what most people want out of an RTS is the "easy to learn, hard to master" idea, where the "hard to master" comes from the correct balance of speed and strategy. As Dwf so eloquently points out, one begets the other. This is where BW, with all it's weird archaic behavior, shined. It's where (imho) SC2 has always fallen short. They are also quite different games (stylistically), and I think this latest economy change just shows how different they really are, and how SC2 has sort of designed itself into a corner that won't be easy to get out of.
I really like the play I have seen from the disruptor but it in its current form makes several units seem obsolete.
You introduce a really costly unit (same price as collosus) , built from the same place as collosus and is better than the collosus- then why nerf the collosus?
Why get high templar when this unit has a clearly superior spell to storm?
TL strategy guys and Thedwf are making very insightful points. I really wish that Blizzard is actually keeping the beta as a "anything can change" sort of thing. For instance, is Blizzard willing to revert the economy changes?
I fear that the loudest voice will prefer ANYTHING over the "no protoss death ball". I dont think we should take that route.
On April 05 2015 09:48 NKexquisite wrote: If bio is no longer viable vs ultralisks/lings in the late game, what have Terran players been doing? Do they have to somehow transition into mech for late game? Sounds bizarre since the upgrades would be reset by this transition.
in bw, terran players sometimes play bio to put pressure on the zerg and then transition to mech. Don't know if it will work in sc2.
Great articles as always and thedwf with great insights.
On April 05 2015 11:46 Tiaraju9 wrote: TL strategy guys and Thedwf are making very insightful points. I really wish that Blizzard is actually keeping the beta as a "anything can change" sort of thing. For instance, is Blizzard willing to revert the economy changes?
I fear that the loudest voice will prefer ANYTHING over the "no protoss death ball". I dont think we should take that route.
I hope Blizzard doesn't revert. I would like them to change it to something better, but if they remove it that would be dumb.
On April 05 2015 07:54 ArrozConLeche wrote: First off, I have not played the beta yet. However, just from reading and watching streams I can conclude that the 12 worker change has indeed increased the pace of the game and limited players' reactions, to the point of making expanding dull. In other words, expanding has become an unplanned move that need no thought, like creating workers; most of us dont think about creating workers, rather we built them impulsevly UNLESS we are all-inning. I think what blizzard intended with Legacy of the Void, is to make pro and beginner levels stand out. And in the long run, this will be the case as it was in broodwar. No longer you will have a 50apm player defeat a 200apm player because of how quickly you have to be in order to keep up with the never ending mineral surplus.
One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands. I know that this game has to also appeal to casual gamers and this is why blizzard has a ranking system.....Moreoever, a real sport is about being mentally and physically fit and this is why I support blizzard's 12 worker change.
In brood war, Flash was considered average to slow on APM, he was nowhere near the fastest player around, but he was the best, specifically because APM wasn't nearly as important as you think it is.
And nobody wants ESPORTS to be exactly like sports, if you want that, just go outside and play soccer (football to non-Americans)
If you load up any of the few replays available the eapm of flash is as high as jaedongs, with his apm being ~400. Him being slow is flat out wrong.
On April 05 2015 11:46 Tiaraju9 wrote: TL strategy guys and Thedwf are making very insightful points. I really wish that Blizzard is actually keeping the beta as a "anything can change" sort of thing. For instance, is Blizzard willing to revert the economy changes?
I fear that the loudest voice will prefer ANYTHING over the "no protoss death ball". I dont think we should take that route.
I hope Blizzard doesn't revert. I would like them to change it to something better, but if they remove it that would be dumb.
You know I agree completely. I don't think either the LotV or HotS economy as they are now is how we should go
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and detailed write up, TL strat team! I look forward to reading the next ones.
Y'all are probably planning to address this in the first economy article, but: Do you think the issue quoted above could be addressed by adding back the removed 750 minerals to the 1500 mineral patches? (So bases would be half 750 minerals, and half 2250 mineral patches.) That would make the total resources per base the same as heart of the swarm, but still reward expansion with better mining efficiency.
Phrasing the question another way: do slower-expanding players die because they mined out their entire main base (starvation), or because they mined out all the 750 mineral patches (lower income in general)?
On April 05 2015 04:05 digmouse wrote: Agree on the expansion part, it feels very much unlike in BW or even HotS where you should be planning to expand to benefit from it, it actually feels rushy to expand just because you are 100% going to die if you do not.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and detailed write up, TL strat team! I look forward to reading the next ones.
Y'all are probably planning to address this in the first economy article, but: Do you think the issue quoted above could be addressed by adding back the removed 750 minerals to the 1500 mineral patches? (So bases would be half 750 minerals, and half 2250 mineral patches.) That would make the total resources per base the same as heart of the swarm, but still reward expansion with better mining efficiency.
Phrasing the question another way: do slower-expanding players die because they mined out their entire main base (starvation), or because they mined out all the 750 mineral patches (lower income in general)?
this is an interesting idea... (for the sake of simple numbers I'd say 1k and 2k)
on a similar topic, when I play terran, one of the things I'm running into is placement of different patches. In HotS I used to only mule the far patches (slower return, but you don't have to pull your mules). Now I'm either wasting minerals, using more apm to pull mules, or mining out my already small patches quicker. I'd like to see more maps use a split of close and far full and half patches. (I'm also using supply call-down a lot more...)
I am slightly concerned about the way this new economic model seems to be choking some strategies out, but it's so refreshing after years of sim city followed by one big death ball vs death ball engagement after 30 minutes. What I'm seeing on streams is constant confrontation with small to medium amounts of units and tons of micro-dependent tempo swings. That aspect of LotV is basically what people have been asking for all along.
Also, the difficulty of teching up is kind of cool in that it makes actually getting the upgrade a big achievement that can swing the game quite significantly, instead of just being a hoop you jump through every single game. The difference between adrenal glands lings and non-adrenal lings is mind-boggling, but more than once I've seen the zerg die while that upgrade is still researching, and it's hard to find the gas to put towards upgrades when there's constant fighting and every unit counts. You have to be certain that the upgrade will save your ass.
I don't think it should be as extreme as it is now, but I think the idea is correct. If a little of the decision-making behind taking expansions is lost, it might be worth it if the game overall is significantly more fun to watch and play in basically every other aspect.
We should also keep in mind that this is essentially late alpha, and blizzard will be getting real player data and player feedback for longer than a normal beta. We should definitely let them know about these issues, but be careful what you wish for: if we act really angry and derisive, they may just give us HotS again.
I read the title and got excited! I read the first couple of paragraphs and got even more excited! I got to the part about protoss being weak, and was like "I wonder who wrote this...?" *sees Teoita* *sighs* The most evil protoss villain of them all!!!
On April 05 2015 04:09 TheDwf wrote: 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.
Great post Dwf.
BW became what it is in large part due to random chance. It happened to be balanced well with good mechanics, but like the universe, it was not by intelligent design that it turned out that way. For instance, if July hadn't done his muta-micro tricks (which Blizzard never intended) the game wouldn't be what it is.
But I'm so happy to see many more critical voices this time around. Therefore I am hopeful that maybe the SC2 community won't just accept whatever Blizzard gives them.
On April 05 2015 14:36 Joedaddy wrote: I read the title and got excited! I read the first couple of paragraphs and got even more excited! I got to the part about protoss being weak, and was like "I wonder who wrote this...?" *sees Teoita* *sighs* The most evil protoss villain of them all!!!
This is a very different feel from BW, when it was possible for mech, terran bio (vs zerg) and protoss (vs zerg) to stay on two bases looking for openings and opportunities for a while before needing to take a third and/or fourth.
It is pretty much the first week of beta. I am sure this time Blizzard is willing to make drastic changes if the economy is not working. (As they already have pushed LOTV quite far for day 1 Beta) But follow the theory from BW is not necessarily the right way to do it either. If terran mech is allow to stay on two base, it will just ended up a lot of turtling again simply because the units in SC2 works completely differently.
It is not entirely a bad thing to force players to expand, as this is a resource base strategy game. Planning ahead to deny/defend at resource locations is part of the game.
Great read TL guys and tx TheDwf for wording things much better than I did
Economy is all, the units balance is a totally secondary subject, I personnaly don't give a flying f' about new units ability for now, beta tester should only focus on the impact on the new economy right now.
Once economy is fixed, balancing new units will be easy.
This is a very different feel from BW, when it was possible for mech, terran bio (vs zerg) and protoss (vs zerg) to stay on two bases looking for openings and opportunities for a while before needing to take a third and/or fourth.
It is pretty much the first week of beta. I am sure this time Blizzard is willing to make drastic changes if the economy is not working. (As they already have pushed LOTV quite far for day 1 Beta) But follow the theory from BW is not necessarily the right way to do it either. If terran mech is allow to stay on two base, it will just ended up a lot of turtling again simply because the units in SC2 works completely differently.
It is not entirely a bad thing to force players to expand, as this is a resource base strategy game. Planning ahead to deny/defend at resource locations is part of the game.
Encouraging players to expand, as in, rewarding them for expanding, feels to me superior to forcing players to expand, that is, punishing them for not expanding. Diversity in playstyles is a massive part of a good strategy game. In other words, replace LotV econ with reduced efficiency and enjoy the results :D
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.
This is what happens to skill when you contract time.
“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?
Just a quick possibility that is not the final fix to the way the economy works, but might be useful.
What if all workers cost 0.5 supply?
So, 22 workers would only cost 11 supply. For 11 supply, as opposed to 22, you could run another base. That means a maxed out army on 3 fully operational bases would be 167 supply as opposed to current 134. And a maxed out army on 4 fully operational bases would be 156 as opposed to the current 112.
I think 156 supply competes with 167 a lot better than 112 competes with 134 and the 1/3rd more income becomes a much more tempting option on the risk/reward calculation.
The side-effect is that it probably makes workers as front-line fighters a bigger thing (pull the boys), but they'd still be very mineral inefficient fighters.
----
Second topic rather than make two posts in a row. I think starting with 12 workers helps get us into the interesting part of the game (in non-cheese games) a lot better. It removes the unnecessary downtime of the game in typical macro games, which I think is a step in the right direction (even if Blizzard didn't completely hit the mark).
The problem is that the current scouting methods are all based on the old 6 worker model. In the 6 worker model, an overlord could usually get to the opponent's base on time to give you valuable information. Or you could wait for a reaper or first pair of lings to make the first scout. What we may need to see is an instant sending of a worker to the opponent's base as a scout right at the start of the game. You only lose 1/12th of your income as opposed to 1/6th and you should get your scouting information in time to make good strategic decisions without unnecessarily lengthening the game as the current system does.
DWF is right that a compression of time can kill strategy, but that only is valid when you are interacting (attacking, defending, scouting) with your opponent. Complete downtime without interaction adds nothing to strategy. Removing that downtime does not remove any strategy and overall creates a better experience for the players and the viewers.
To be honest I'm not happy with how the 12 worker change has made most 1 base cheeses obsolete. The point of these was to keep players honest and punish greed. Well, what happens when greed becomes the standard, what happens when greed versus safety is no longer a strategic choice?
If your answer was, the game gets boring then you'd be correct.
Also halving worker supply won't actually fix the LotV economy, it will just make deathballs bigger since the optimal number of workers still remains 66 to 72 but now you have 33 to 36 more supply to work with. Raising the supply cap does the exact same thing.
The change that actually rewards you for expanding without punishing you is if the second set of mineral workers actually mines worst.
For example, if you have a worker mining alone from a mineral patch then his efficiency is at 100%, if you add a second worker the efficiency drops to 75% for both workers and if you add a 3rd the efficiency drops to 50%. If that sounds familiar its because it was the BW model and it made it so that having 66 workers on 3 bases vs 66 on 6 was a radical difference in income and it also changed the dynamics of armies completely.
On April 05 2015 14:36 Joedaddy wrote: I read the title and got excited! I read the first couple of paragraphs and got even more excited! I got to the part about protoss being weak, and was like "I wonder who wrote this...?" *sees Teoita* *sighs* The most evil protoss villain of them all!!!
I'll wait on a more trustworthy Terran before....
If you had also read the article you'd know this isn't me ranting about balance, this is the impressions of every tl strategy member with access to the beta. Everyone agrees that protoss seems weak, no matter what race they play
It removes the unnecessary downtime of the game in typical macro games, which I think is a step in the right direction
Maybe, but it also impacts much, much more about the game. Every single research and building timing needs to be looked at, which is a massive undertaking and essentially implies rebuilding sc2 from the ground up. Again, we aren't immediately saying yes to no about any change, but it's very important to point that out.
@Destruction: the 12 worker start doesn't necessarily work like that, it's a very reductive way of looking at it. It's just a massive function of how early something is available. Ravagers are amazing for early all-ins because they are so easy to get to, while something like blink or warpgate is terrible because it takes longer to get compared to your opponent's build. One has several research "gates" to get past, the other is easily obtained. If i had to take a guess i'd say some kind of proxy cyclone build is also probably really good. This isn't related to unit numbers, it's just that both those things are really fucking good and really fucking easy to get.
On April 05 2015 17:24 Destructicon wrote: To be honest I'm not happy with how the 12 worker change has made most 1 base cheeses obsolete. The point of these was to keep players honest and punish greed. Well, what happens when greed becomes the standard, what happens when greed versus safety is no longer a strategic choice?
If your answer was, the game gets boring then you'd be correct.
I do enjoy 1 base cheeses as a viable strategic option. I don't necessarily think that 12 workers have made them completely obsolete, merely changed. Proxy 2 rax is probably dead (although I saw it work on Vibe's stream not too long ago... he botched the defense). However, proxy 3 or 4 rax is more viable with increased workers supporting it at home. It's probably also significantly more risky and the likelihood of transitioning out of it is not as good as proxy 2 rax. So it's possible the risk/reward will be too poor.
However, there will always be an overarching strategy of greed > safe > cheese > greed in an RTS such as SC. If 1-base cheese is not viable against fast expand, then 1-base cheese goes away, which prompts player to go fast 3-base or even 4-base and that becomes the standard. Suddenly 2-base quick rushes may become the cheese. The goalposts may change, but the basic strategic decisions don't.
On April 05 2015 17:24 Destructicon wrote: Also halving worker supply won't actually fix the LotV economy, it will just make deathballs bigger since the optimal number of workers still remains 66 to 72 but now you have 33 to 36 more supply to work with. Raising the supply cap does the exact same thing.
Has anyone ever argued against raising the supply cap? I know a lot of people have pushed for it. However, lowering worker supply does not merely raise the supply cap. It changes the ratio of the worker to the fighting units. If you could have 1 zealot or 4 workers mining for the same supply, that is very different from having 1 zealot or 2 workers mining for the same supply. It probably keeps an optimal base number, but probably raises that number from 3 to 4 or 5. It's not a magic bullet solution, but it's simple and makes things quite a bit better.
On April 05 2015 17:24 Destructicon wrote: The change that actually rewards you for expanding without punishing you is if the second set of mineral workers actually mines worst.
For example, if you have a worker mining alone from a mineral patch then his efficiency is at 100%, if you add a second worker the efficiency drops to 75% for both workers and if you add a 3rd the efficiency drops to 50%. If that sounds familiar its because it was the BW model and it made it so that having 66 workers on 3 bases vs 66 on 6 was a radical difference in income and it also changed the dynamics of armies completely.
Yes, that works. Although, it appears that adding a 3rd worker adds absolutely nothing in the scenario as described. You're still at 150% efficiency whether you have 2 or 3 workers.
Couldn't you create the exact same thing in SC2 by allowing the CC to be closer to the mineral patches and then altering the mineral formations slightly to wrap around the CC in a tighter formation such that the max efficiency would be 150% (as opposed to the current 200% or more on further patches)?
That seems like something that people could test in the map editor quite easily.
It removes the unnecessary downtime of the game in typical macro games, which I think is a step in the right direction
Maybe, but it also impacts much, much more about the game. Every single research and building timing needs to be looked at, which is a massive undertaking and essentially implies rebuilding sc2 from the ground up. Again, we aren't immediately saying yes to no about any change, but it's very important to point that out.
Yes, it does require a whole new rebalancing of all the researches and tech, which essentially requires rebalancing the game from the ground up (as is pretty evident from the beta). However, most of those changes can be done by changing a number in an editor at any time in the future. Removing the unnecessary downtime through a fundamental change in the game is not something that can easily be done once the final game goes live. Now is the time to strike.
Wonderful "extracting time" post by Dwf. I am not sure why everyone thinks that faster is better than everyting else. sc2 is just too fast-paced compared to wc3 and sc:bw. Just to make his driving car example better: if 30km/h is the best solution, wc3 is rather settled on 50km/h and sc2 rather 250km/h. Thats why I always feel the gameplay in sc2 is just a surface without any depth.
Maybe now is the time for Blizzard to undo some of those tech delays from earlier patches? If I recall, warp gate research time was increased and so was barracks and gateway build time. The robotics facility also takes quite long to warp in. Keep in mind that virtually all of these were changed because Blizzard kept testing the game on Steppes of War and because various proxy builds were too powerful.
A useful way of looking at the effect of the worker change is to state that every timing in the game which depends on a linear path is delayed, while those that can benefit from parallel paths are more powerful. If you have to move through every link in a chain to finally unlock e.g. banshees, this will now take longer than if you had the chance to convert your higher resource count into more barracks to build more marines in parallel. I think that as a basic rule, every unit which comes from a production facility you'll get more than one of, is now more powerful in the early game. The same probably goes for larva.
With regards to the effect on scouting, not only are overlords delayed to impede zerg scouting, sentry energy also comes later to prevent you from using hallucination in a timely fashion (so said HuK). I suspect reaper openings might be weaker, which removes a powerful terran scouting tool. Blizzard could make changes here, for instance the energy cost of hallucination could be lowered to 75 energy.
That is exactly why just speeding research up is problematic. Scouting is already bad, and if you make things develop even quicker it may get to the point of it being pointless. In that case there's two outcomes: either it's possible to get a good enough read just by poking your opponent's front (like in WoL PvT), or the game degenerates into coin flips and massive build order advantages (like in PvP). Quickening research also compresses time even further, which is problematic as Dwf pointed out.
On April 05 2015 19:27 Teoita wrote: That is exactly why just speeding research up is problematic. Scouting is already bad, and if you make things develop even quicker it may get to the point of it being pointless. In that case there's two outcomes: either it's possible to get a good enough read just by poking your opponent's front (like in WoL PvT), or the game degenerates into coin flips and massive build order advantages (like in PvP). Quickening research also compresses time even further, which is problematic as Dwf pointed out.
I wasn't really thinking of promoting speeding up research, just the build time of the barracks and gateway. Those buildings are precursors to any strategy depending on tech, but I don't think they come into play when considering response time (which should not be too compressed, yes). The goal would be to arrive closer to HotS values for economy : tech balance.
You always have a certain window of time during which you need to scout your opponent's choice in tech to be able to appropriately respond, and contracting that window reduces the chance you can dynamically adjust to your opponent's choices. But I think that reducing barracks and gateway build time comes closest to leaving this intact while still buffing tech, because otherwise it might be problematic: how else would you redress the tech : economy balance given the LotV values?
But it's not just those that are later, it's every single thing. Stim, upgrades, blink, charge...it's all different. I don't think you can expect to adjust a couple of things only. It's not an issue of "zerg is imbalanced", it's an issue of "we have these numbers for a specific economic model, and they all need to be changed for any other economic model".
On April 05 2015 19:47 Teoita wrote: But it's not just those that are later, it's every single thing. Stim, upgrades, blink, charge...it's all different. I don't think you can expect to adjust a couple of things only. It's not an issue of "zerg is imbalanced", it's an issue of "we have these numbers for a specific economic model, and they all need to be changed for any other economic model".
I mean, I would think that if the barracks builds in 50 seconds instead of 65, that stim would come 15 seconds earlier? (or maybe not, I've never played terran)
TheDwf's very enlightening post actually made me pretty upset... since it's more clear to me now than ever that starcraft 2 never was, nor will it ever be what i wanted. and i'm sort of going to explain why..... but not really..
so any/all of these things are what i wish starcraft had
---- given equal mechanical skill between two players: --
-the winner is almost always determined by better thinking -- lucky wins are a fluke, not a common thing -there is no "meta" in competitive play, if a player were known to follow such trends they would most likely lose, making it actually impossible to ever reach highly competitive play by only emulating others/doing what is "strongest" or "the only viable option vs. such and such" or whatever -there is none of this "well he went this so i had to do this", or "well he was protoss and always goes blah blah so ive gotta go blah", but instead a dynamic, open ended game. -a less than ideal engagement does not end the game, there needs to be opportunity to use quick wit and unexpected, stuff to come back from significant deficit... i dont know like sacrificing the queen, or mel gibson spearing the horses in braveheart, that kind of stuff, to tenaciously earn the right to win.
basically anything that would make it more of a showcase of strategy and skill, rather than just skill and preparation. i'm not saying i think starcraft isn't a strategy game, i just wish it seemed more like a mental battle, and less of a technical/mechanical one...
it seems impossible, and i can't even imagine a game that fits all of those criteria but personally i'd do this:
-more buildings/units -certain units only for certain matchups - since what's the point of them all being balanced equally with their full arsenal if there's no such thing as a zerg protoss terran 3 person professional free for all, if a unit just doesn't have a place in a matchup, or is somehow the clear single best choice to win it is removed from that matchup - no fog of war, -much slower resource collection, rest stays same speed -situational need to sacrifice/more reasons to distract/mislead/trick opponents -more significant attribute bonuses, like the light/armored bonuses, but more specific/critical, like in pokemon, certain things should be weak as crap like a grass vs fire type pokemon, similarly two rock based guys will just butt heads for a while while with little effect, and can't be hurt by electabuzz at all -less emphasis on abilities, more emphasis on attributes -more interactivity on maps, like areas you can't fly, or like that one map during campaign where the lava would come up every 5 minutes, maybe storms that weaken certain units, areas that slow, regions with magnetic interference, less sight, naturally occurring localized fog of war, more topography, higher areas out of sight/range bonus, tunnels, valleys, etc.
i rant, but that's the game i wish i had. and i know you can't go too far towards the slower-pure strategy side of the game-spectrum or you'll end up with a turn based strategy, but starcraft is going even further in the opposite direction, which makes me upset. i love the game and watching the professionals because i have lots of respect for the focus/talent required to do what they do. i just wish i could see a game that could showcase more than that, where we could see the most truly creative, strategic, mechanically talented, genius players doing things that could not be predicted, where like in world championship chess players are described as "aggressive", or "defensive", or unpredictable, but never "oh he likes to go something pylon before expanding then he'll usually gas up blah and at 20 supply do this". that's not strategy, that's waiting to see who has a better engagement or if someone will get enough kills with their oracle that they're ahead enough that they will most likely win. i wish i wanted to play again to explore possibilities of the game, to invent a way of doing something that hasn't been done before, and similarly watch at every tournament how pros pull out new tricks and see games that don't always remind me of two games i saw earlier that same day.
i know this is stupidly impossible to accomplish, but i felt like a good rant. and i know a lot of what i said is highly opinionated and a lot isn't necessarily accurate, but rather how the game makes me feel.... i hope that makes sense.
Yes but it's not a question a few seconds, it's a question of minutes, which is why im saying the changes need to be more drastic than that. And again, there's the question of wether you are speeding things up too quickly.
On the other hand, I think TheDwf's analogy with Blitz chess is a dangerous oversimplification. Chess is turn-based. Removing thinking time between moves while still requiring moves would be akin to playing SC2 on 2x or 4x or 8x speed, and that's not what's happening here. It still takes time to move armies, it still takes time to traverse the tech tree.
Yes, the way bases dovetail into strategies is going to change. But I don't see that necessarily being a change for the worse when the dust settles. I can easily envisage a more rolling economy translating into more rolling battles. If securing bases is more strategically important than saturating them, giving yourself that buffer to sustain production so that the next expansion isn't instantly do-or-die - well, you're going to have to plan ahead and you're going to need an army - and the extra starting workers can help with that.
Absolutely, things will need to change. Larva inject might need to be nerfed to account for the fact that bases come up quicker and provide additional supply (so fewer larvae into overlords). I could well imagine making Ravagers require an extra building or a roach warren upgrade (not lair, though; that's already overcrowded) to take the sting out of early rushes.
Overall, I'm willing to wait and see what happens.
From what I've seen in streams, OP is quality work. I don't like the cyclone much, it's one of those units that are destined to be useless when Blizzard balances them. I hope Blizzard will acknowledge that kind of feedback and doesn't hesitate to make drastic changes to the current model.
At first I thought this was April Fools article. Now I think that Blizzard just wants to make a random, luck based game similar to HearhStone, since this simply sells (and I have been playing a lot of HearhStone).
The 12 starting workers are really a non issue, contrary to popular belief. Yes this accelerates the early game. Yes timings and unit balance will have to account for it, and they definitely can, but imo it's essentially only a good change. And I'd be disappointed if TheDwf's post targeted that change also. It certainly contributes to the so-called time contraction but the real problem is expanding, if anything. From what I've read, some threads on TL propose alternative mining scaling mechanics that seem really desirable. I'd like Blizzard to at least think about those and not touch base lifetime.
And also, wtf with the "daed game luck based" attitude in this thread? First, the OP isn't that dramatic, so stop agreeing that the game is dead because OP doesn't say that. And second, while I think TheDwf's words were certainly harmoniously put together, I hope people won't be as pessimistic as he is. His post stayed overly general and consensual, not really the type of feedback Blizzard is looking for, that much I can imagine.
Edit: Ok actually let me change my mind a bit on the 12 worker thing. I think that what Blizzard intended was only to cut the downtime at the start of every game, which is an objective everyone should agree with. They probably could have opted for another solution however. Like giving more starting minerals. This would have made the starting 1 base economy less explosive, but upgrade timings have to regardless be looked at if you want to skip the boring worker building phase at the start of the game.
On April 05 2015 22:56 Blizzkrieg wrote: Are more starting workers something the players actually asked for..?
..or is it just something to appease the viewers of the game?
I've been against the 12worker start since it's original proposal.
I'm pretty adamant 12 is overdoing it and will snowball in big proportions.
I'm glad someone agrees...
I did a search on the blizz forums and couldn't find a single post where someone actually said anything along the lines of "yeah I'm bored with the early game and think starting with 12 workers as opposed to 6 would fix that!"
Shoot, I'd be all for trying out a 4 worker start. The bases would still mine out around the 9-10min mark.
HuK made an interesting point about disruptors in mineral lines last night, and I was wondering if anyone else could validate his claim or elaborate on it.
He was talking about how disruptors are very strong, but not broken-strong, because players haven't yet learned how to dodge them properly. He talked about how to easily deal with disruptors that get dropped in your mineral line. He noted that disruptors were as large as archons, so if you just keep one static defense building (turret/ spore/ spine/ cannon) in the center of your mineral line, disruptors can't run past it (they'd have to take the long way around the mineral line... around the back). And so if a warp prism drops a disruptor in your mineral line and the disruptor gets activated, you merely have to send your workers to the opposite side of your static structure for a few seconds, and you won't lose workers or much mining time at all (because the disruptor can't chase them properly). Thoughts?
I don't think I'll return to sc2 with LotV unless some of the problems are fixed, especially those Dwf has laid out. WoL was not too slow; on the contrary, it was too fast. There is no reason to make the game faster except by providing 8 workers to start with. As mentioned, true innovative thinking requires time - time to formulate a plan, and a large enough window to execute it - and not just a hundred games of trying to refine a build we all know (i.e. game prep). LotV as far as I have seen it has de-emphasised this element in favour of chaos and trigger happiness.
Also we know that many RTS gamers shun sc2 in favour of C&C, Total War, TA style games...because in these games mechanics are less of a factor and rightly or wrongly grand strategy plays a greater role in them. Strategy in them is fun. You can do many things and not instantly lose. Try playing a logical "as you like it" game in sc2 and you'll get rolled by the optimal strategy that you scouted and lost to, or cheese that you did not scout in time.
LotV does not need a time bomb to force people to expand or lose. Neither does it need forcefield destroyers (although sentries should be dearer and more powerful to compensate), insta burrowed roaches at 5 minutes into the game, long ranged missile tanks that kite with ease, teleporting BCs etc.
It needs to emphasise economic control, giving players a wide variety of 2 base builds, 3 base builds, slowly progressing to a 6 or 7 base endgame just like in BW. Multitasking and micro are cool to watch but it is okay as they are because artificially inflating the APM floor is the worst, most uncreative, least fun way of bringing players into the game. Instead they should consider weakening AOE and/or spreading out units more, and provide solid space control units to all sides. Perhaps 1 more spellcaster per side that provides unique buffs and specialised abilities without being hard counters. Capital ships should be game enders. Perhaps even including 1-2 limited tech tree and research choices just like in the campaign would allow players to make meaningful decisions and stamp their style on the game.
In short: more strategic options in units upgrades, more thinking, more spatial control, more time in the middlegame, more economy management, less mechanics, less gimmicks, less counters, less dancing around avoiding engagements, no free units.
I've liken Starcraft to a game of rock-paper-scissor before. What players and viewers want are of course interesting rock-paper-scissor games with lots of action and drama. So how can it be done?
Basically turn rock-paper-scissor into an RTS game and making sure that first of all players have enough time to think, play and counterplay. The best player to do so will win, deservedly. So I wholeheartedly agree with TheDWF's aspect about time. Not giving a player enough time to turn paper into a rock in order to beat scissor will be deadly to the game. 100%.
The 2nd aspect is to make the rock-paper-scissor interaction more flexible, which means for example that rock will not always beat scissor, all depending on certain variables. That's what Starcraft actually does, the variables here being numbers, positions, micro.
Any decision Blizzard makes (like adding new units or changing the economy) must not destroy the possibility of counterplay by either cutting on time or flexibilty.
I believe that something like the fact that Inferno Pools is in the beta map pools is a strong indicator that blizz doesn't give a fuck about feedback.
One of the most vocal winers about HotS, FilterSC actually loved the way LotV is going in his latest video:
TBH, I believe HotS will feel slow and awkward after a few games of LotV. I am pretty sure I will not miss the first minutes of current games, where I generally just spam 123456 to warm up and every caster try to kill time and hype "oh... that zerg goes hatch-pool and the other pool-hatch for...lets wait and see..."
With the right tweaks, I think the game will improve a lot. There were not that much skill involved in the super-earlygame anyway imo.
I'd just like to say that TheDwf thoroughly and elegantly described the true issues that the community--and Blizzard--should be addressing with this beta.
Also, the article is excellent and I look forward to a more in-depth look at the new economic models.
After playing even more games, I'm pretty sure I've decided that I really, really don't like the half mineral/reduced gas changes. You just run out of resources way too fast, and it also makes losing an expansion, even early on, utterly disastrous. I like the idea of what it is trying to do, but as said in the first post, I just don't think it's the right way to go about things. I feel like maybe simply taking out one or two mineral patches entirely and going back to normal min/gas amounts would be a better starting approach to altering how the economy works. Anything to change the current SC2 "3 base is all you need" dynamic without making it all feel so....frantic.
On April 05 2015 07:54 ArrozConLeche wrote: First off, I have not played the beta yet. However, just from reading and watching streams I can conclude that the 12 worker change has indeed increased the pace of the game and limited players' reactions, to the point of making expanding dull. In other words, expanding has become an unplanned move that need no thought, like creating workers; most of us dont think about creating workers, rather we built them impulsevly UNLESS we are all-inning. I think what blizzard intended with Legacy of the Void, is to make pro and beginner levels stand out. And in the long run, this will be the case as it was in broodwar. No longer you will have a 50apm player defeat a 200apm player because of how quickly you have to be in order to keep up with the never ending mineral surplus.
One last comment I wanted to make is that, I know this is a game, an RTS genre to be exact and as such it should be about strategies and everything. However, this game is also an e-sport, if anyone out there wants it to actually be something related to a "sport", then you should be supporting blizzard's move to speed up the game, thus forcing people to become faster and faster with their hands. I know that this game has to also appeal to casual gamers and this is why blizzard has a ranking system.....Moreoever, a real sport is about being mentally and physically fit and this is why I support blizzard's 12 worker change.
In brood war, Flash was considered average to slow on APM, he was nowhere near the fastest player around, but he was the best, specifically because APM wasn't nearly as important as you think it is.
And nobody wants ESPORTS to be exactly like sports, if you want that, just go outside and play soccer (football to non-Americans)
I think what your doing here is a bit deceiving. In this context, APM clearly refers to mechanics. Mechanics are withtout a doubt superimportant in BW, and Idra was quoted as saying that Flash had the best mechanics in BW as his mouse predicision and effective APM was amazing.
For instance, if July hadn't done his muta-micro tricks (which Blizzard never intended) the game wouldn't be what it is.
And if Blizzard actually had studied how moving shot worked in BW, we could have had it in Sc2 without it being a coincidence. Look, you can through intelligent design create great micro interaction. But its not that easy, and the Sc2 development team has historically not been able to do that.
Why not? Because they basically only tweak one variable.... Damage. Its like they have one programmer who creates a unit and then he tells David Kim to balance it. David Kim then plays it a bit and adjust damage up or down if its UP or OP.
Okay, that's very rough, but you gotta wonder how on earth they are so relucant to tweak variables such as damagepoint, range and movement speed on so many units. There is so much micro potential to be unlocked in the game if Blizzard just decided to look at more than the damage variable.
On the other hand, I think TheDwf's analogy with Blitz chess is a dangerous oversimplification. Chess is turn-based. Removing thinking time between moves while still requiring moves would be akin to playing SC2 on 2x or 4x or 8x speed, and that's not what's happening here. It still takes time to move armies, it still takes time to traverse the tech tree.
I agree here. Reading his comment felt like the Emperors new Clothes. Long ramblings about the economy and how Blizzard doesn't understand anything while trying to sound intellectual and give analogies, but in the end there really wasn't much substance. Without a doubt the game could use more periods and action and an an economy is one potential tool (if you do right).
I think people are confusing their feelings about the 12 worker start.
IMO I can agree that the 6 workers or 7 you had to make HotS for a smooth build order (spending all minerals while always making workers) was too long when you compare it to how smooth and quick it is in LotV.
I like that I'm not spending 2-3 minutes in game time making workers pre building.
On April 06 2015 02:15 ZeromuS wrote: I think people are confusing their feelings about the 12 worker start.
IMO I can agree that the 6 workers or 7 you had to make HotS for a smooth build order (spending all minerals while always making workers) was too long when you compare it to how smooth and quick it is in LotV.
I like that I'm not spending 2-3 minutes in game time making workers pre building.
But are there better ways?
Yes, we remove early game completely, and before the game each player can choose between different army compositions, and then they go directly into mid/late with these compositions and can adjust them afterwards.....
Yeh okay, that was a bit of a joke, but tbh, it would be quite awesome as Sc2 first gets interesting once players are spread out over multiple bases with larger armies.
On April 06 2015 02:20 Hider wrote: Yeh okay, that was a bit of a joke, but tbh, it would be quite awesome as Sc2 first gets interesting once players are spread out over multiple bases with larger armies.
Is this what the majority of people think?
I began to love Starcraft when I realized how difficult it was to master. During WOL, I had to earn my expansions as Protoss.
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads without the help of the MSC or Hallucinations, you had to figure out what was going on before you could just plop down a Nexus or you were taking a massive risk because one base play was strong. It wasn't overly strong, it was just strong.
It took real skill, game knowledge (especially when it comes to reading what your opponent was doing with limited information) and micro to stop a lot of those all-ins.
But in HOTS, you literally just press F and click on the Nexus, and that one base 3 rax build loses. No amount of skill on the Terran side changes that, so no one does that anymore. But what Blizzard did do was improve the power of Terran to kill workers, therefore you don't actually see an army coming anymore and build an army and actually have a real battle, you chase around Hellions and Widow Mines to keep them from killing workers.
The funny thing is the result in the same. You see the 1-1-1 train coming and you lose the battle, you lose the game. You lose half your probes to Hellions, and you lose too; except there is no big battle. We went microing units in battles between armies, to ridiculous micro chasing games. For what purpose? If Blizzard doesn't want games ending early, then don't let them end early. But if they can end early, at least make it exciting, give us a climatic battle, where I can try to flank my opponents tanks sieging up my base and make plays.
And if they don't want games to end early, Blizzard should just start everyone on multiple bases, especially if that is what people want.
On April 05 2015 12:27 TiberiusAk wrote: Phrasing the question another way: do slower-expanding players die because they mined out their entire main base (starvation), or because they mined out all the 750 mineral patches (lower income in general)?
On April 05 2015 12:28 Jer99 wrote: The latter
I wonder if Blizzard really thought through the all complications that go with this change. To start, it is an instant buff to Zerg, because they out expand the other races. It also hurts Protoss the most, because they expand the least, and can't just float a Nexus to a new mineral field somewhere else.
It has been a legitimate strategy for Terran players to get two bases, and then do everything they can to deny Protoss a third, and then when the Terran main runs out of minerals, just float it to another base and continue to starve out the Protoss. This change radically enhances that strategy. As soon as the 750 minerals dry up on the Protoss natural, it's game over. And that is just scratching the surface of the balance problems that change creates.
I have trouble with 12 workes because I fear it will make scouting early game useless/too late. To me, the first few minutes of the game are not boring *enough* to risk that players won't be able to tell if their oppnent went first this or that.
Is it fun to realize your opponent went 12 pool just because 6 zerglings enter your base? Scouting is something that should be rewarded. So if you scout at the right time you should be able to tell what your opponent is doing before it hits you. At the start of the game there is only one "right time". But I feel with 12 workes its obsolete.
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
Personally I think TheDwf's post was more well written than it was necessarily right. Eloquence is often more compelling than it deserves to be.
There is no less time in lotv than in hots. There MAY be more that someone can do before you scout them, but there's always been a lot of options, including the bad things I do during that time. There will still be safe, standard play. Comparisons with chess, a turn based game where your moves must precisely counter those of your opponent one-for-one, are not valid. To paraphrase: all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
Well there should be some give in the information available, which enhances the soft-counter unit versatility you mention. And which also affects overall strategy with build choice and risk taking based on possible threats from the opponent. Obviously instalose situations should be avoided though.
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
That is how I felt in WOL before I began to learn how to make good reads. I don't think there was that much of a poker element at the end of WOL at all, unless people took blind economic risks (which ironically enough, were often best punished by one base play).
Scouting was probably the skill I had refined the most. I had my Probes, and I used em to scout at certain specific times in every matchup to figure out what my opponent was doing. And the best part was, my opponent might actively work to deny scouting. The game of cat and mouse when it came to scouting wasn't pokerish at all. It was in fact skill based.
And I think a lot of BW players didn't like it, because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about thinking and strategy. As Sun Tzu said: All warfare is based on deception. I would actively work to deceive my opponents regarding my build order. If they scouted as much as I did, and as well as I did, then my tricks wouldn't work. But people like to assume so they can focus on their mechanics.
But now I just float my MSC over their base, and send out a Hallucination when I can, and I know that even if I don't scout well, I can just press F and click on my Nexus and hold a lot of timings.
On April 05 2015 09:48 NKexquisite wrote: If bio is no longer viable vs ultralisks/lings in the late game, what have Terran players been doing? Do they have to somehow transition into mech for late game? Sounds bizarre since the upgrades would be reset by this transition.
hey! i sent you a PM, hope you received it, i'm awaiting your response
some cyclone/hellbat openers might force zerg to make roaches or a ton of units, maybe that will slow them down enough to keep bio viable, or at least not let zerg have too many ultras out! drops and denying bases will also become more powerful when so many more bases are necessary!
I'm of the belief that SC2 is hardly suitable for having matchmaking as the default game mode (slightly exaggerating), because it's too difficult to pick meaningful responses to your opponent's actions in-game. If by default you had to search for an opponent and play a session consisting of three or four games, then you could quickly review your choices in between games and learn from your mistakes. I think more so than for MOBAs, in SC2 most of your learning is done in between games.
At some point you have to cut your losses and fashion SC2 around this notion of it being a streamlined, action-oriented, competitive e-sports game, -- since Blizzard is incapable of changing this direction anyhow. It would certainly help the competitive scene if Blizzard outright forced the majority of the games to be active, scrappy, six-base macrofests.
On April 06 2015 04:34 Leviance wrote: Make it 8 starting workers! 12 is insane!
8 or 9 seems like a reasonable compromise that probably gives time to scout / develop with real early game timings but also removes about 1:00 of early game time
On April 06 2015 04:07 Teoita wrote: The poker element of Starcraft - making reads and good guesses instead of having perfect information - is one of the things i enjoy the most.
Indeed. I am appalled at the responses of some of TL users and vets saying early game is boring and that 12 workers is actually GOOD... what, what happened with Brood War, when it was just 4 workers. You didn't have any of the koreans complaining about how boring the early game was, or that there needs to be more workers. Sure, 6 is alright but 12..
and the argument I hear the most is "Well sc2 is a different game leave the past behind", notwithstanding that Blizzard has actually chosen to bring BACK a unit from BW ..
While, me alone as a sc2 player, I don't have too much research done on the new expansion, but I just feel like they're destroying the essence of what Starcraft as an RTS and a game is entirely with gimmicky units and changes. Who thought of, hey, let's make half the mineral line run out first than the other half? Not somebody who plays sc2.
While, me alone as a sc2 player, I don't have too much research done on the new expansion, but I just feel like they're destroying the essence of what Starcraft as an RTS and a game is entirely with gimmicky units and changes. Who thought of, hey, let's make half the mineral line run out first than the other half? Not somebody who plays sc2.
How are they destroying the essence of SC2? You also realize there's still cheese and mindgames ye?
I don't exactly get what your complaint is. The LotV games now already have a lot more downtime than they had on day 1 beta..
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
That is how I felt in WOL before I began to learn how to make good reads. I don't think there was that much of a poker element at the end of WOL at all, unless people took blind economic risks (which ironically enough, were often best punished by one base play).
Scouting was probably the skill I had refined the most. I had my Probes, and I used em to scout at certain specific times in every matchup to figure out what my opponent was doing. And the best part was, my opponent might actively work to deny scouting. The game of cat and mouse when it came to scouting wasn't pokerish at all. It was in fact skill based.
And I think a lot of BW players didn't like it, because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about thinking and strategy. As Sun Tzu said: All warfare is based on deception. I would actively work to deceive my opponents regarding my build order. If they scouted as much as I did, and as well as I did, then my tricks wouldn't work. But people like to assume so they can focus on their mechanics.
But now I just float my MSC over their base, and send out a Hallucination when I can, and I know that even if I don't scout well, I can just press F and click on my Nexus and hold a lot of timings.
Wait what? Have you ever watched any BW game? Scouting is a key element of any BW game even in a game with 10 years of professional play without the rules constantly changing, i.e., without blizzard's interference with patches artificially changing things.
Scouting was as important in BW as it ever was in SC2. . .and no, no BW player will tell you the scouting part of the game is boring because it is not about mechanics...hell you can even argue that keeping a scouting worker alive in the early game to scout is even more mechanic dependent than it is in sc2 and will give you the same level of information.
Other than that, I agree with your points regarding the importance of the early game and scouting.
Maybe we all have good ideas about what isn't a good game, but it seems like even collectively we can't really formulate what would really be a great game. Some people hate the harass style of Hots, I'd agree, its a little less interesting than straight-up battles. But it is action oriented. The early game does need to be shorter I think.
This might be Starcraft blasphemy, but what about having resources and places to hold ON the map that aren't just bases so that you have to spread out your army more. Perhaps some AOE effects that discourage being able to mass your army and push. Nobody think towers.
On April 06 2015 04:07 Teoita wrote: The poker element of Starcraft - making reads and good guesses instead of having perfect information - is one of the things i enjoy the most.
Besides, that part of the game was part of BW as well, but people seem to conveniently forget that. It's just something that comes with any strategy game with incomplete information.
On April 06 2015 05:56 Teoita wrote: Who said the two are mutually exclusive
Besides, that part of the game was part of BW as well, but people seem to conveniently forget that. It's just something that comes with any strategy game with incomplete information.
I don't think it's to the same extent. Like, I'm watching the WCS finals and I'm very far from being an expert yet I can predict who is going to win the map after I've seen the opening with quite good accuracy, especially for certain match-ups. That's not so true in BW. In SC2 the game is too often decided based on decisions made before the game. That's why the game is better suited for series play rather than Bo1's imo, because then you're testing how well players can adjust their builds throughout the series, and that's why GSL finals tend to be awful as players can prepare too much.
On April 06 2015 05:56 Teoita wrote: Who said the two are mutually exclusive
Besides, that part of the game was part of BW as well, but people seem to conveniently forget that. It's just something that comes with any strategy game with incomplete information.
I don't think it's to the same extent. Like, I'm watching the WCS finals and I'm very far from being an expert yet I can predict who is going to win the map after I've seen the opening with quite good accuracy, especially for certain match-ups. That's not so true in BW. In SC2 the game is too often decided based on decisions made before the game. That's why the game is better suited for series play rather than Bo1's imo, because then you're testing how well players can adjust their builds throughout the series, and that's why GSL finals tend to be awful as players can prepare too much.
Its really not that clear every time.
I've seen many games turn into close matches even though I think one person is going to blow the other one out of the water.
On April 06 2015 03:38 Umpteen wrote: Personally I think TheDwf's post was more well written than it was necessarily right. Eloquence is often more compelling than it deserves to be.
There is no less time in lotv than in hots. There MAY be more that someone can do before you scout them, but there's always been a lot of options, including the bad things I do during that time. There will still be safe, standard play. Comparisons with chess, a turn based game where your moves must precisely counter those of your opponent one-for-one, are not valid. To paraphrase: all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
I agree with you. While well written, TheDwf's point can be condensed simply: "LotV is faster paced, and at a certain threshold, fast pace creates randomness rather than skill." I don't have the time to engage in this discussion fully, but I see a couple of points that need to be raised.
In some sense, I see merit in this claim. Take, for example, an engagement in SC2 vs. Brood War. Partially because of things unit pathing, and because of the 12 unit selection limit, you had less of the deathball effect - because of deathballs in SC2, engagements could be decided by the entirety of one mistake (not emping/sniping that one high templar, not splitting banes, a big widow mine). We recognize that mistakes are inevitable - in a less deathbally situation, such as in BW, however, we think that a player is more able to recover from a single mistake and win an engagement if he/she holistically performs less mistakes.
It's the law of large numbers, essentially. If a game is vulnerable to being decided on one instance, randomness is a bigger factor, whereas a larger sample size of player input means that generally, the better player should win.
But a number of questions come up. At what "threshold" do we say "fast" is too fast? He mentions that BW used to be played on fast instead of faster. Does that mean LotV is fine if we can adjust game speed settings overall, and just pull the slider a bit to the left?
The issue of speed I also raised is an issue in engagement, not an issue in economics. I think one of the main problems in SC2 was the radical gap between the two - the economy game meant that it was entirely legitimate to just sit on two or three bases building up your deathball or all-in, and then when you pushed out the game would be decided in a flash. Having a greater starting pace means that, at the very least, we would have less build-up just to reach a boring climax (still better than the status quo), or on the more optimistic side, a more aggressive scrappy format of game. Here, I'm thinking of TvZ matches where Terrans constantly push units out and Zerg is constantly fighting and rebuilding. Certainly, small engagements can go wrong - reinforcements might be clumped up and blown up with some banelings, a widow mine might score a particularly great hit - but the prolonged and spread out nature of this conflict would encourage more action, and more action in more places.
I also think he puts too little faith in top players. Now, TheDwf agrees that a faster pace raises the theoretical skill ceiling, but states that the practical skill ceiling is reduced. But I think he puts too little faith in top players. After all, if this were the case, we'd expect it to translate empirically. But as we just saw recently, Polt took his third WCS title, being a top player since pretty early in SC2 history. We also see players like MMA still being largely successful in GSL, and top non-koreans like Snute and Bunny regularly prove their status as top non-koreans. In other words, the level of consistent success from top SC2 players seems to counter the claim that SC2 is mechanically broken to the point of randomness overwhelming skill. I think that players are up to the task of pushing towards this theoretical skill ceiling, and that some of the new units destabilize the standard death ball compositions that we currently have.
On April 06 2015 02:23 Teoita wrote: The problem is, the extra workers don't do only that, assuming atain that it's an issue (i personally don't see the problem).
I mean if we go by the logic that early game is completely irrelveant, we might as well give players entire bases to start off with....
New econ is simply not solid. It's a very bad gimmick, as the effects they are looking for can be easily implemented with less resources and a BW economy. They simply like to do gimmicks, too much coke for uncle Kim.
I advise you to try the econ models made by KTV maps (Antiworker pairing, BW - model) or the LotV - BroodWar econ model.
On April 06 2015 02:23 Teoita wrote: The problem is, the extra workers don't do only that, assuming atain that it's an issue (i personally don't see the problem).
I mean if we go by the logic that early game is completely irrelveant, we might as well give players entire bases to start off with....
New econ is simply not solid. It's a very bad gimmick, as the effects they are looking for can be easily implemented with less resources and a BW economy. They simply like to do gimmicks, too much coke for uncle Kim.
I advise you to try the econ models made by KTV maps (Antiworker pairing, BW - model) or the LotV - BroodWar econ model.
The KTV BW model doesn't prevent Worker Pairing. It actually just mines at a much higher rate than Heart of the Swarm.
I've been running tests.
The KTV worker pairing double harvest also mines at a higher rate than HotS but does prevent pairing. However due to the extremely high income (the original creator of the model was incorrect in his examination of income) I think its too punishing to not expand in the version uvantak was pushing. Not necessarily his fault, I just don't think he ran a lot of tests to confirm the original numbers of the creator (claims of mining rate were almost 20 minerals a minute per worker lower than in reality)
On April 06 2015 02:23 Teoita wrote: The problem is, the extra workers don't do only that, assuming atain that it's an issue (i personally don't see the problem).
I mean if we go by the logic that early game is completely irrelveant, we might as well give players entire bases to start off with....
New econ is simply not solid. It's a very bad gimmick, as the effects they are looking for can be easily implemented with less resources and a BW economy. They simply like to do gimmicks, too much coke for uncle Kim.
I advise you to try the econ models made by KTV maps (Antiworker pairing, BW - model) or the LotV - BroodWar econ model.
The KTV BW model doesn't prevent Worker Pairing. It actually just mines at a much higher rate than Heart of the Swarm.
I've been running tests.
The KTV worker pairing double harvest also mines at a higher rate than HotS but does prevent pairing. However due to the extremely high income (the original creator of the model was incorrect in his examination of income) I think its too punishing to not expand in the version uvantak was pushing. Not necessarily his fault, I just don't think he ran a lot of tests to confirm the original numbers of the creator (claims of mining rate were almost 20 minerals a minute per worker lower than in reality)
Consider that both models make the 1rst worker mine a lot more but make 2 workers to be less efficient (that is what we call anti-pairing), because there is wait time between them working at the same patch, even if it's very unoticeable.
However, I agree with you that the numbers claimed in this this thread where the mods come from http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/479750-lotv-economy-worker-pairing are a bit off xDD. There is also some unintended mess, because workers have their speed/acc behavior modified to mantain a very little bouncing, and I think that it messes numbers a bit. However, BW mod should work as intended, since they use it in Starbow and originally works.
I think that it's time to admit that a BW-based model (AKA "workers mining more but being less efficient when massed", SC2 dev's euphemism) but with fewer resources, what they were considering for Blizzcon, proves to be better and an easier solution than messing the maps up and forcing you heavily into a starving play with the same disadvantages of SC2 economy.
The 3rd model (LotV - BroodWar econ) is the same mining model than SC:BW but with +2 initial workers and +2 supply per base and reduced resources, following the line of the changes in LotV. I did it to compare LotV mining and a BW type of mining with LotV-like stats.
The result is that they provide almost the same speedy early game and less turtly bases since bases expire way faster, but the BW-based model didn't need mapping modifications and brings in the secret jewel of BW econ: worker harass is less effective and comebacks easier since economy in lower worker count is stronger, meaning that low supply fights are more viable to an expanding player. SC2 model is weak in that aspect, since expansions are very vulnerable (typical 2 base vs 3rd for denegation) with awful results that they are supposed to avoid, or so they said a few months ago.
EDIT: confirmed bug, workers don't bounce in BW model. There is some special behavior.
I always kind of assumed that the uneven distribution in minerals (750/1500) would sort of artificially recreate the broodwar inefficient mining thing. Note that I said sort of. At some point you're going to have only 4 mineral patches, thereby reducing the amount of workers needed to saturate the base. I suppose that is only a really small window, though.
Right now it seems for Zerg, it doesn't matter to scout... Because you can build fast lings and later ravagers... no matter what But when the game gets a little more ballanced, I really am worried about zergs ability to scout. Zerg could rely on the Overlord for like pretty much the time SC hit a stable meta. But with the faster pace, the Overlord might get a different role. I've been thinking about that at all the lotv beta streams I've watched, because a drone scoute for zerg is just a lot more expensive than a probe/scv scout (drone is in a way a resource and zerg reliese on eco more than every other race). In a HOTS game a few hours ago, I got an idea, which might solve this, but also might be overpowered for zerg: a queen could have an ability, cost like 40-50, to cast on any hatch and that would give an overlord the ability to spawn something like the halucinations of protoss. That high cost would prevent zerg to spam it in early game, but could give an overlord on the way something like a fast ground unit to scout, before really into THE gamechangeing decion early on (as soon as ravager is nerved).
On April 06 2015 08:19 a_flayer wrote: I always kind of assumed that the uneven distribution in minerals (750/1500) would sort of artificially recreate the broodwar inefficient mining thing. Note that I said sort of. At some point you're going to have only 4 mineral patches, thereby reducing the amount of workers needed to saturate the base. I suppose that is only a really small window, though.
Yeah, as you said it goes that way. However the explicit benefit of expanding and spreading workers and the easier comeback factor of BW is not present on LotV econ model. Half empty patches mean economy drop after very short time, which is somthing discusseable, plus a very tedious work of editing maps.
I'd say that both models perfom very similar on what they want to achieve (faster early game, "motivate" expansion, punish turtle play), but BW econ model is richer and more rewarding for the player that expands, since it provides natural expander advantage (in worker efficincy) and faster recoveries as low numbers of workers have stronger mining potential, which is nice when looking for more back and forth games and trades. Also, important to note, it provides a differenr mindset for playing, less conservative. LotV econ punishes a lot more mistakes done in that aspect.
So, IMAO, they are trying some tedious workarounds because they seem afraid to even pronounce "Broodwar", which seems quite silly considering what BW means for the StarCraft franchise, when they have obvious solutions or starting points to discuss. Why didn't they ever considered BW mineral mining as an option?
personally i like all the economy changes. I think people are just upset that things are different now or that its not the same as broodwar, but I'm happy with it at least it seems better then hots.
On April 06 2015 08:19 a_flayer wrote: I always kind of assumed that the uneven distribution in minerals (750/1500) would sort of artificially recreate the broodwar inefficient mining thing. Note that I said sort of. At some point you're going to have only 4 mineral patches, thereby reducing the amount of workers needed to saturate the base. I suppose that is only a really small window, though.
Yeah, as you said it goes that way. However the explicit benefit of expanding and spreading workers and the easier comeback factor of BW is not present on LotV econ model. Half empty patches mean economy drop after very short time, which is somthing discusseable, plus a very tedious work of editing maps.
I'd say that both models perfom very similar on what they want to achieve (faster early game, "motivate" expansion, punish turtle play), but BW econ model is richer and more rewarding for the player that expands, since it provides natural expander advantage (in worker efficincy) and faster recoveries as low numbers of workers have stronger mining potential, which is nice when looking for more back and forth games and trades. Also, important to note, it provides a differenr mindset for playing, less conservative. LotV econ punishes a lot more mistakes done in that aspect.
So, IMAO, they are trying some tedious workarounds because they seem afraid to even pronounce "Broodwar", which seems quite silly considering what BW means for the StarCraft franchise, when they have obvious solutions or starting points to discuss. Why didn't they ever considered BW mineral mining as an option?
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
On April 06 2015 10:02 washikie wrote: personally i like all the economy changes. I think people are just upset that things are different now or that its not the same as broodwar, but I'm happy with it at least it seems better then hots.
Better doesn't mean best and honestly, i dislike the timer being set arbitrarily on bases. I would rather have the timer set by myself or my opponent.
If I as a zerg on three bases mine 20% more than my opponent with the same worker count, that puts the opponent on a clock to do something (expand, or harass) to slow me down. As opposed to being on a clock set by the devs arbitrarily. It removes the choice to expand from me.
I wonder why people are arguing that the early game of HotS is too long?
Nobody complained about the early game in Broodwar, Wings of Liberty or WarCraft 3 (Hero farming). I don't really get the reasoning behind. The early game is used to warm up your hands, to scout your oppoents builds and to start mindgames. If you remove all this, the game is lacking something big.
On April 06 2015 10:18 TurboMaN wrote: I wonder why people are arguing that the early game of HotS is too long?
Nobody complained about the early game in Broodwar, Wings of Liberty or WarCraft 3 (Hero farming). I don't really get the reasoning behind. The early game is used to warm up your hands, to scout your oppoents builds and to start mindgames. If you remove all this, the game is lacking something big.
It was relative to unlocked tech and number of workers made before buildings I think a bit quicker in BW. You didnt wait for a minute and a half of worker building before workers began to do things.
I don't think the early game is too long, it's kind of quick actually. But (at least as a former player) I am welcoming this change because it will surely bring some interesting fundamental changes to overall gameplay. I think that quite oppositely to many here that this will not diminish the importance of skill vs chance, but rather enhance it. The reason is that I think the game will become strategically more complex as a consequence of this, and while it may take a long time for players to adjust properly I am absolutely sure that eventually we will have a stable metagame.
Strategy in sc2 has always been an accumulation of collective experience, manifesting itself as the current metagame, and in my opinion actual novelty in sc2 is exclusively in the form of preplanned strategies adapted to the current metagame. Sc2 is not like chess, you do not get to ponder for long, and your ingame decisions are based on decisions you have made a hundred times before. You do not actually need novelty to succeed in sc2.
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
Nah mate, is pure data. As simple as increasing amount mined and time to mine, and some tweaks to wait-to-return time. By default, workers are optimized to not trip each other, being perfectly synchronized in SC2: that's why you saturate at 2 workers and the third is less efficient. BW model is the same principle, but with 1 worker. You can search for extension mods in custom games.
Btw, I didn't did them, I used KTVMaps' mod (the one on the worker pairing thread). However SC:BW econ mod is a bit bugged since workers don't bounce properly, thank you for pointing it ^^. I'll look for Starbow data since they use BW econ model. You can see a bit its performance in this vid done by one man of the Starbow crew (jump to min 5).
I'll have to fix the BW mod. I think that there might be some mod done by the Starbow team (forget it, ther is), which is the same but obviously for only 1 gas geyser, meaning that gas measurements are not reliable as we have 2 gases.
I don't have accurate data, since I haven't spoken with the creator , so I don't know id it's optmized for 7,8 or 9 mineral patches, but I think that initial worker mines a bit more than actual SC2workers (around 50-55mins per min I'd say), but it's optimized to make 2worker saturation mine only at 75%-80% efficiency since workers lose time bouncing looking for free mineral patches. Look for Starbow Economy mod to experiment with the concept. There has been some talk today about this topic on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/31gwwx/even_after_all_the_hype_for_lotv_i_still_think/
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
That is how I felt in WOL before I began to learn how to make good reads. I don't think there was that much of a poker element at the end of WOL at all, unless people took blind economic risks (which ironically enough, were often best punished by one base play).
Scouting was probably the skill I had refined the most. I had my Probes, and I used em to scout at certain specific times in every matchup to figure out what my opponent was doing. And the best part was, my opponent might actively work to deny scouting. The game of cat and mouse when it came to scouting wasn't pokerish at all. It was in fact skill based.
And I think a lot of BW players didn't like it, because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about thinking and strategy. As Sun Tzu said: All warfare is based on deception. I would actively work to deceive my opponents regarding my build order. If they scouted as much as I did, and as well as I did, then my tricks wouldn't work. But people like to assume so they can focus on their mechanics.
But now I just float my MSC over their base, and send out a Hallucination when I can, and I know that even if I don't scout well, I can just press F and click on my Nexus and hold a lot of timings.
Wait what? Have you ever watched any BW game? Scouting is a key element of any BW game even in a game with 10 years of professional play without the rules constantly changing, i.e., without blizzard's interference with patches artificially changing things.
Scouting was as important in BW as it ever was in SC2. . .and no, no BW player will tell you the scouting part of the game is boring because it is not about mechanics...hell you can even argue that keeping a scouting worker alive in the early game to scout is even more mechanic dependent than it is in sc2 and will give you the same level of information.
Other than that, I agree with your points regarding the importance of the early game and scouting.
Re-reading it, what I said was not clear, in fact it was poorly worded and misleading, let me clarify that. What I meant to say was that there is a lot more deception, mind games, proxy builds and powerful one base play in SC2 than in BW (I'm not an expert on BW by any means, just from what I've seen) and that BW players didn't like that because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about trickery.
I liked that though, because it gives the game variety. I find HOTS to be quite boring PvT because I play basically the same game every game with only a small variations. But back in 2011 in WOL, if I came up against a Terran player, they might 11-11, might 3 rax, could 1-1-1 or 1-1-2 or might go CC first or even a Thor rush. You literally had no clue, and they had no clue what you might do. Standard play was far less common and expanding wasn't a given.
Scouting and making reads was the key, not mechanical superiority.
WOL felt like the wild west and it was fun... almost anything could work really well if you dug deep and worked hard on it. That's the way it should be, a game should reward many types of hard work; like it rewarded Gaulzi who was cannon rushing everyone in GM with a high level of success because his cannon rushes were so well thought out.
I want that back. I want a real nerf to Infestors without Swarm Hosts and ridiculous regen on Mutalisks. I want Terran Mech to actually have a AOE damage that is good without the Widow Mine needing to be in the game (hint: buff Siege Tanks!) And I want a real fix to Vortex that doesn't ruin Broodlords (hint: buff the Carrier!). One can dream.
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
Nah mate, is pure data. As simple as increasing amount mined and time to mine, and some tweaks to wait-to-return time. By default, workers are optimized to not trip each other, being perfectly synchronized in SC2: that's why you saturate at 2 workers and the third is less efficient. BW model is the same principle, but with 1 worker. You can search for extension mods in custom games.
Btw, I didn't did them, I used KTVMaps' mod (the one on the worker pairing thread). However SC:BW econ mod is a bit bugged since workers don't bounce properly, thank you for pointing it ^^. I'll look for Starbow data since they use BW econ model. You can see a bit its performance in this vid done by one man of the Starbow crew (jump to min 5). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavX7sH4OIE
I'll have to fix the BW mod. I think that there might be some mod done by the Starbow team (forget it, ther is), which is the same but obviously for only 1 gas geyser, meaning that gas measurements are not reliable as we have 2 gases.
I don't have accurate data, since I haven't spoken with the creator , so I don't know id it's optmized for 7,8 or 9 mineral patches, but I think that initial worker mines a bit more than actual SC2workers (around 50-55mins per min I'd say), but it's optimized to make 2worker saturation mine only at 75%-80% efficiency since workers lose time bouncing looking for free mineral patches. Look for Starbow Economy mod to experiment with the concept. There has been some talk today about this topic on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/31gwwx/even_after_all_the_hype_for_lotv_i_still_think/
I'll fix both BW econ mods tomorrow. XD.
Ah I see I've been working with a lot of those mods doing research lately for a new article.
The reason I asked for in game numbers is because I've found all the theoretical numbers differed vastly from my in game tests.
So I decided to just use the in game stuff.
No need to fix the BW ones on my account BTW since I've found a model I really like and I'm going to stick with it for the rest of my analysis.
On April 06 2015 03:38 Umpteen wrote: Personally I think TheDwf's post was more well written than it was necessarily right. Eloquence is often more compelling than it deserves to be.
There is no less time in lotv than in hots. There MAY be more that someone can do before you scout them, but there's always been a lot of options, including the bad things I do during that time. There will still be safe, standard play. Comparisons with chess, a turn based game where your moves must precisely counter those of your opponent one-for-one, are not valid. To paraphrase: all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
Guys, stop talking about chess like you get it unless you're experienced players. There are situations in which what you say about chess is true, and situations in which it's not. One-to-one moves and counter-moves are sometimes necessary, and they do inform the formation of plans, but likewise, long-term and short-term plans typically inform the selection of optimal moves. Blitz chess is more of a test of your ability to simply maintain basic competency at all times, compared with a standard chess game, in which you can, for example, afford to take on practical risk to obtain a theoretical advantage. In RTS this might be the equivalent of intentionally building the minimal number of defensive units to secure an economy which should put you in a good position down the line, but then having to defend with extreme precision.
I believe TheDwf's comparison to blitz chess is valid as with reduced opportunity to think/scout the effectiveness of the highest skill in the game (in chess understanding and in RTS the acquisition and exploitation of information) is potentially reduced such that decision making is replaced with gambling and/or non-specific, uninformed preparations.
On April 06 2015 10:40 JCoto wrote: On April 06 2015 07:17 ZeromuS wrote:
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
Nah mate, is pure data. As simple as increasing amount mined and time to mine, and some tweaks to wait-to-return time. By default, workers are optimized to not trip each other, being perfectly synchronized in SC2: that's why you saturate at 2 workers and the third is less efficient. BW model is the same principle, but with 1 worker. You can search for extension mods in custom games.
Btw, I didn't did them, I used KTVMaps' mod (the one on the worker pairing thread). However SC:BW econ mod is a bit bugged since workers don't bounce properly, thank you for pointing it ^^. I'll look for Starbow data since they use BW econ model. You can see a bit its performance in this vid done by one man of the Starbow crew (jump to min 5). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavX7sH4OIE
I'll have to fix the BW mod. I think that there might be some mod done by the Starbow team (forget it, ther is), which is the same but obviously for only 1 gas geyser, meaning that gas measurements are not reliable as we have 2 gases.
I don't have accurate data, since I haven't spoken with the creator , so I don't know id it's optmized for 7,8 or 9 mineral patches, but I think that initial worker mines a bit more than actual SC2workers (around 50-55mins per min I'd say), but it's optimized to make 2worker saturation mine only at 75%-80% efficiency since workers lose time bouncing looking for free mineral patches. Look for Starbow Economy mod to experiment with the concept. There has been some talk today about this topic on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/31gwwx/even_after_all_the_hype_for_lotv_i_still_think/
I'll fix both BW econ mods tomorrow. XD.
Ah I see I've been working with a lot of those mods doing research lately for a new article.
The reason I asked for in game numbers is because I've found all the theoretical numbers differed vastly from my in game tests.
So I decided to just use the in game stuff.
No need to fix the BW ones on my account BTW since I've found a model I really like and I'm going to stick with it for the rest of my analysis.
Please send me that one! Anyways, since I want to test BW model because I have a mod that uses it, I want to fix them xD. What happens is 2 things: that is optimized to create bounce in close mineral patches, meaning that far minerals are almost viable to be saturated with 2 workers most of the time (not that bad), and that the pathing footprint of minerals for the bounce effect was not set up. Now it works correctly. Now it should be working properly. In fact, they bounce like crazy.
However I agree with you that the BW model might be too strong economically, and may need to be tuned down. The Double Harvest mod simply does the same, but with more clear effect (mining rounds take lots of time, but deliver hughe amount of minerals). I think that once we get a good core concept, it's just about nubmers.
On April 06 2015 10:40 JCoto wrote: On April 06 2015 07:17 ZeromuS wrote:
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
Nah mate, is pure data. As simple as increasing amount mined and time to mine, and some tweaks to wait-to-return time. By default, workers are optimized to not trip each other, being perfectly synchronized in SC2: that's why you saturate at 2 workers and the third is less efficient. BW model is the same principle, but with 1 worker. You can search for extension mods in custom games.
Btw, I didn't did them, I used KTVMaps' mod (the one on the worker pairing thread). However SC:BW econ mod is a bit bugged since workers don't bounce properly, thank you for pointing it ^^. I'll look for Starbow data since they use BW econ model. You can see a bit its performance in this vid done by one man of the Starbow crew (jump to min 5). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavX7sH4OIE
I'll have to fix the BW mod. I think that there might be some mod done by the Starbow team (forget it, ther is), which is the same but obviously for only 1 gas geyser, meaning that gas measurements are not reliable as we have 2 gases.
I don't have accurate data, since I haven't spoken with the creator , so I don't know id it's optmized for 7,8 or 9 mineral patches, but I think that initial worker mines a bit more than actual SC2workers (around 50-55mins per min I'd say), but it's optimized to make 2worker saturation mine only at 75%-80% efficiency since workers lose time bouncing looking for free mineral patches. Look for Starbow Economy mod to experiment with the concept. There has been some talk today about this topic on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/31gwwx/even_after_all_the_hype_for_lotv_i_still_think/
I'll fix both BW econ mods tomorrow. XD.
Ah I see I've been working with a lot of those mods doing research lately for a new article.
The reason I asked for in game numbers is because I've found all the theoretical numbers differed vastly from my in game tests.
So I decided to just use the in game stuff.
No need to fix the BW ones on my account BTW since I've found a model I really like and I'm going to stick with it for the rest of my analysis.
Please send me that one! Anyways, since I want to test BW model because I have a mod that uses it, I want to fix them xD. What happens is 2 things: that is optimized to create bounce in close mineral patches, meaning that far minerals are almost viable to be saturated with 2 workers most of the time (not that bad), and that the pathing footprint of minerals for the bounce effect was not set up. Now it works correctly. Now it should be working properly. In fact, they bounce like crazy.
However I agree with you that the BW model might be too strong economically, and may need to be tuned down. The Double Harvest mod simply does the same, but with more clear effect (mining rounds take lots of time, but deliver hughe amount of minerals). I think that once we get a good core concept, it's just about nubmers.
You said earlier it's pure data and not trigger driven.
I haven't seen any pure data implementation of BW econ in SC2. They have all been trigger based. I hope you're not just changing Harvest Time and Harvest Amount, and thinking that's all it takes to create BW econ.
You have to eliminate this hardcoded queuing condition to have a comparable system. Afaik you can't do it without using triggers.
Double Harvesting/Double Mining also uses triggers to manipulate that queuing condition.
In SC2 a worker arriving to an occupied patch will always bounce if the currently mining worker has more than ~2s remaining before finishing. If the currently mining worker has less than ~2s remaining, the arriving worker will queue.
reduced opportunity to think/scout the effectiveness of the highest skill in the game (in chess understanding and in RTS the acquisition and exploitation of information)
MarineKing would be in silver league if that was true, and I highly doubt information was the relevant factor that made Polt win an WCS yesterday.
Maybe protoss is more poker-based, but teran definitely is focussed mainly on mechanics.
reduced opportunity to think/scout the effectiveness of the highest skill in the game (in chess understanding and in RTS the acquisition and exploitation of information)
MarineKing would be in silver league if that was true. Maybe protoss is more poker-based, but teran definitely is focussed mainly on mechanics.
You seriously think people above Silver have better strategical understanding than MarineKing?
reduced opportunity to think/scout the effectiveness of the highest skill in the game (in chess understanding and in RTS the acquisition and exploitation of information)
MarineKing would be in silver league if that was true. Maybe protoss is more poker-based, but teran definitely is focussed mainly on mechanics.
You seriously think people above Silver have better strategical understanding than MarineKing?
Do you literally think literally means literally? The point here is that MarineKing is known to not be the smartest player out there, yet still is a pro. If information really was the most important metric in the game, MarineKing wouldn't be a pro.
A general observation of mine is that people who are convinced that Stacraft is this strategically rewarding game are usually gold league or below. They have not played enough games to discover that most of the decisions you make in the game are pretty obvious and automated (obviously there are exceptions though, that was just an observation - its also possible that they are protoss players).
The same concept can probably be applied to poker as well, and its why pros play 16 tables at once as 95% of the decisions are super obvious. So they need to play alot of hands before it gets apparent who the most skilled player is.
A reason the poker-element sucks in Starcraft is because you usually only play one game against one player. In poker the read-and-trick aspect is awesome when you have played hundreds of hands against a player.
But when you only have 1 chance vs an enemy it becomes much more of a coinflip than skill.
That said, strategy should indeed be further rewarded in Starcraft. More compositions and more options should be viable and have various advantages and disadvantages. I wanna see creative minds explore the game.
But I don't want more hardcounters that create scenarios like these: "I didn't think he would go X and therfore I instalose since I went Y". That doens't fit into a model where you play one game only and not 300 hands.
reduced opportunity to think/scout the effectiveness of the highest skill in the game (in chess understanding and in RTS the acquisition and exploitation of information)
MarineKing would be in silver league if that was true. Maybe protoss is more poker-based, but teran definitely is focussed mainly on mechanics.
You seriously think people above Silver have better strategical understanding than MarineKing?
Do you literally think literally means literally.
Just a general observation based on my experience: Usually people who talk like Stacraft is like this strategic focussed game are gold league and below. They have not played enough games to discover that most of the decisions you make in the game are pretty obvious and automated.
Thats probably true for poker as well, and its why pro poker players play like 16 tables at once because 95% of the decisions are super obvious.
The reason the poker-element sucks in Starcraft is becasue you typically one play one game against one player. In poker the read-and-trick aspect is awesome when you have played hunreds of hands against a player. But when you go up against one guy 1 time it becomes much more of a coinflip than skill.
How can you say that the decisions you make are obvious and automated? Decision making is what makes the most difference between players. If you let a low masters player get up an economy unhindered and max out with an amove army you might not tell the difference between him and a progamer. The difference is that a progamer will always know how to react to all the countless different situation that might be presented to you during the game. Knowing when to attack, when to expand/play greedy, when to cut workers and defend. As well as micro-related decision making: when to pull workers, which units to focus fire, etc. Everyone above low masters knows how to build workers continuosly and not getting supply blocked too often.
FYI, when I am talking about strategy/decisions in this context (we were talking about information and scouting), it's more general/"macro"-focussed. E.g. which units to build and how to move army around and how to scout and react. Many of the examples you bring up are more "micro"-focussed.
Decision making is what makes the most difference between players. If you let a low masters player get up an economy unhindered and max out with an amove army you might not tell the difference between him and a progamer.
As I said before, protoss might be different here, but it's also no surprise why people hate the race. Its way too amove'ish. Terran could use more diversity, but the high control skill cap of bio is awesome. There is definitely a difference how you control a maxed out terran army in TvZ from a top progamer to a master league player.
Everyone above low masters knows how to build workers continuosly and not getting supply blocked too often.
Macro is like 10% of the mechanical requirement when you play bio.
so protoss is lacking the 'core' unit everyone was asking for......what a surprise. i dont even know what the adept is suppose to do...its just useless. give me the dragoon back and stop making protoss even more gimmicky
just a few weeks ago people were complaining sc2 had too easy mechanics and too little advantage for players with superior mechanics. Now they whine about sc2 having too much mechanics and should have 'more thinking'. It's not like, just because the game is faster, a player doesn't have time to think of strategy. You still have lots of time to think of strategy, even with the LOTV changes.
Out of curiousity, how many of you people who already complain and write huge novels about LOTV being dangerous for the genre as a whole and blabla, do actually have the beta and have been playing? I feel most of the people commenting here with very strong opinions haven't even played the game. I have also yet to see a single response from a professional player who, as far as I'm concerned, know shitloads more than 99,9% of the posters in this thread.
I for one love the quick pace of the game, it forces you to be very fast and accurate mechanically, while also making the right decisions. I love rewarding speed and skill.
EDIT: editing to clarify a few things. By professional players knowing more than 99,9% of the posters here, I mean that they know more how LOTV works out in reality, not in theory. They are playing the game, while people who post here sit and theorycraft about something they don't really know anything about. I'm also sure some of you have played the beta, and of course this is not directed at you who have.
4 Gates, 3 rax play, the 1-1-1, ect... you didn't just get an expansion for free. You had to actually scout and make reads
Honestly I think the majority of the playerbase dislikes the pokerelement in Sc2. When you have to guess whether its DT, Blink Stalkers, Oracles or Immortal-all in based on very limitted information, it imo becomes less of the Starcraft that I enjoy. I think strategic diversity should be about soft-counters and how you use the units in different ways. Not about "I build X and since you didn't have Y --> you instalose".
That is how I felt in WOL before I began to learn how to make good reads. I don't think there was that much of a poker element at the end of WOL at all, unless people took blind economic risks (which ironically enough, were often best punished by one base play).
Scouting was probably the skill I had refined the most. I had my Probes, and I used em to scout at certain specific times in every matchup to figure out what my opponent was doing. And the best part was, my opponent might actively work to deny scouting. The game of cat and mouse when it came to scouting wasn't pokerish at all. It was in fact skill based.
And I think a lot of BW players didn't like it, because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about thinking and strategy. As Sun Tzu said: All warfare is based on deception. I would actively work to deceive my opponents regarding my build order. If they scouted as much as I did, and as well as I did, then my tricks wouldn't work. But people like to assume so they can focus on their mechanics.
But now I just float my MSC over their base, and send out a Hallucination when I can, and I know that even if I don't scout well, I can just press F and click on my Nexus and hold a lot of timings.
Wait what? Have you ever watched any BW game? Scouting is a key element of any BW game even in a game with 10 years of professional play without the rules constantly changing, i.e., without blizzard's interference with patches artificially changing things.
Scouting was as important in BW as it ever was in SC2. . .and no, no BW player will tell you the scouting part of the game is boring because it is not about mechanics...hell you can even argue that keeping a scouting worker alive in the early game to scout is even more mechanic dependent than it is in sc2 and will give you the same level of information.
Other than that, I agree with your points regarding the importance of the early game and scouting.
Re-reading it, what I said was not clear, in fact it was poorly worded and misleading, let me clarify that. What I meant to say was that there is a lot more deception, mind games, proxy builds and powerful one base play in SC2 than in BW (I'm not an expert on BW by any means, just from what I've seen) and that BW players didn't like that because it wasn't about mechanics, it was about trickery.
I liked that though, because it gives the game variety. I find HOTS to be quite boring PvT because I play basically the same game every game with only a small variations. But back in 2011 in WOL, if I came up against a Terran player, they might 11-11, might 3 rax, could 1-1-1 or 1-1-2 or might go CC first or even a Thor rush. You literally had no clue, and they had no clue what you might do. Standard play was far less common and expanding wasn't a given.
Scouting and making reads was the key, not mechanical superiority.
WOL felt like the wild west and it was fun... almost anything could work really well if you dug deep and worked hard on it. That's the way it should be, a game should reward many types of hard work; like it rewarded Gaulzi who was cannon rushing everyone in GM with a high level of success because his cannon rushes were so well thought out.
I want that back. I want a real nerf to Infestors without Swarm Hosts and ridiculous regen on Mutalisks. I want Terran Mech to actually have a AOE damage that is good without the Widow Mine needing to be in the game (hint: buff Siege Tanks!) And I want a real fix to Vortex that doesn't ruin Broodlords (hint: buff the Carrier!). One can dream.
There are at least several one base allins in BW for every race. And I shall always argue about strategical variety of SC2 and BW, because BW looks so much more flexible and thought through game.
While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
When was the last time Polt won something more serious than a tournament with three koreans including him? Maybe you can name at least one BW-esque dominant player in SC2 history?
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
Mind that nowhere did I say that SC2 is random or luck based, all I meant is it attributes less to skill than BW due to time contraction as was explained by TheDwf.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
Mind that nowhere did I say that SC2 is random or luck based, all I meant is it attributes less to skill than BW due to time contraction as was explained by TheDwf.
I didn't quote you... my response was to Charoisaur.
I haven't gotten in the beta yet, nor have I watched much of various streamers (it all seems mostly like an experimental phase anyway) but I love reading these threads and seeing all the stuff people are concerned with. Seems eco. is the big topic of the week, and I think so long as people are reasonable in their criticisms, hopefully changes will be made that are best for the game. I'm starting to think it might be good to ignore the beta as long as possible so the current seasons of SSL/GSL/Proleague don't start to lose their lustre just yet (this definitely happened with the HoTS beta).
edit: and by ignore, I just mean me personally. I want all you hard workers to play it and find out what works and what doesn't.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
When was the last time Polt won something more serious than a tournament with three koreans including him? Maybe you can name at least one BW-esque dominant player in SC2 history?
MVP, Nestea, Parting, Life.
Its a younger game so the history isn't going to be the same. But we don't have just new random champions in SC2. We have had dominant players since the start of SC2. Hell if it weren't for MVP's injury, he'd probably still be dominating. And why was he so damn good? His strategy. Obviously he had great mechanics, any top player does. But he was great when it came to strategy. He was the guy every Terran in the world looked to.
We've had so many of the same players since the start of SC2 stay at the top of their game. The influx of the Kespa pros shook things up and made some fall, but thats because some of the most talented RTS players ever came into the scene, not because of the game.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
I would argue that there are simply more "top tier" champion caliber SC2 pros than there ever were in BW. The overall scene is still larger, I think, no?
On April 07 2015 01:29 sparklyresidue wrote: I haven't gotten in the beta yet, nor have I watched much of various streamers (it all seems mostly like an experimental phase anyway) but I love reading these threads and seeing all the stuff people are concerned with. Seems eco. is the big topic of the week, and I think so long as people are reasonable in their criticisms, hopefully changes will be made that are best for the game. I'm starting to think it might be good to ignore the beta as long as possible so the current seasons of SSL/GSL/Proleague don't start to lose their lustre just yet (this definitely happened with the HoTS beta).
edit: and by ignore, I just mean me personally. I want all you hard workers to play it and find out what works and what doesn't.
I definitely understand this sentiment. I got in fairly early on the HotS beta and it made WoL completely boring to watch after playing with the new stuff for only a couple weeks. I'm a little worried the same is going to happen for me now that I'm in LotV, but I think Proleague will *always* be entertaining for me.
I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of shit which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of shit which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I think dwf's notions are rather ambiguous in any practical sense which is why they appeal to so many people; they read their own viewpoints in them. And while the pull of nostalgic dissatisfaction is strong, letting any vague sense of "off" manifest as whatever shortcoming the critic might articulate, I think there is a truth that people have recognized in the specific kind of "off" we have sensed in lotv.
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of !@#$%^&* which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I think dwf's notions are rather ambiguous in any practical sense which is why they appeal to so many people; they read their own viewpoints in them. And while the pull of nostalgic dissatisfaction is strong, letting any vague sense of "off" manifest as whatever shortcoming the critic might articulate, I think there is a truth that people have recognized in the specific kind of "off" we have sensed in lotv.
Yeh very good point. DWFs arguments were so vague, and could be interpreted in all different ways. So everyone who had issues with Starcraft could interpret it in their own way and then would go on to agree with it.
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of !@#$%^&* which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I think dwf's notions are rather ambiguous in any practical sense which is why they appeal to so many people; they read their own viewpoints in them. And while the pull of nostalgic dissatisfaction is strong, letting any vague sense of "off" manifest as whatever shortcoming the critic might articulate, I think there is a truth that people have recognized in the specific kind of "off" we have sensed in lotv.
Yeh very good point. DWFs arguments were so vague, and could be interpreted in all different ways. So everyone who had issues with Starcraft could interpret it in their own way and then would go on to agree with it.
I agree, very good articulation of what somehow bothered me on the whole thing.
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of !@#$%^&* which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I think dwf's notions are rather ambiguous in any practical sense which is why they appeal to so many people; they read their own viewpoints in them. And while the pull of nostalgic dissatisfaction is strong, letting any vague sense of "off" manifest as whatever shortcoming the critic might articulate, I think there is a truth that people have recognized in the specific kind of "off" we have sensed in lotv.
Yeh very good point. DWFs arguments were so vague, and could be interpreted in all different ways. So everyone who had issues with Starcraft could interpret it in their own way and then would go on to agree with it.
I agree, very good articulation of what somehow bothered me on the whole thing.
Well said guys. We should definitely try to stick to talking about actual, tangible problems and potential alternative solutions and changes, as otherwise isn't very constructive.
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of shit which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I agree absolutely. I'm a BW vet, but for the love of pie, people, it isn't the perfect game. There were boring, lame games in BW all the time, and entire seasons with huge balance problems. SC2 is a completely different game, and one of the main things that's driving it down is its excessively, continually negative community with its perpetual inferiority complex and its perpetual itch to find "the big reason why SC2 is terrible and BW was perfect which if only terrible Blizzard would change it then SC2 would be more popular than LoL."
Yes, sometimes increasing speed decreases skill. Sometimes it increases skill. Who knew? It's almost like these games are complex or something.
That being said, the OP is really well thought out, and the kind of constructive analysis and criticism we need to see much, much more of. Albeit it is necessarily very speculative at this early point of the beta, this is the kind of thing that will hopefully make LotV a truly great game.
On April 07 2015 02:17 opisska wrote: I really dislike TheDwf's post from the first page and feel the need to say so because of the number of people who have expressed their liking of said post. I am sorry, if it was the first such thing, then I could have ignored that, but I am getting pretty tired of this kind of shit which happens with surprisingly regularity and even apparent coordination. There is a group of people who love to use big words and profoundly sounding sentences to discuss vague ideas about the supposed "RTS games" and "key koncepts" and whatnot, typically underlined by the looming realisation that BW had all those things right and there is "something terribly wrong". At the end, these points are typically devoid of any actual content and serve mainly to make the author look wise and to remind everyone how bad SC2 supposedly is. Compared to the fantastic, thoughtful and rational OP of this thread, it is even more laughable.
Yes, I want LoTV to be a great game, but that really doesn't mean "one that complies with TheDwf's wisecrak notions".
I agree absolutely. I'm a BW vet, but for the love of pie, people, it isn't the perfect game. There were boring, lame games in BW all the time, and entire seasons with huge balance problems. SC2 is a completely different game, and one of the main things that's driving it down is its excessively, continually negative community with its perpetual inferiority complex and its perpetual itch to find "the big reason why SC2 is terrible and BW was perfect which if only terrible Blizzard would change it then SC2 would be more popular than LoL."
Yes, sometimes increasing speed decreases skill. Sometimes it increases skill. Who knew? It's almost like these games are complex or something.
You deserve praise for this post, thank you. I agree with everything you wrote.
On April 06 2015 10:40 JCoto wrote: On April 06 2015 07:17 ZeromuS wrote:
Is there an extension for your BW model on LotV or did you recreate it in hots?
Also do you use triggers or the data editor?
Finally: do you have numbers on minerals/minute (hots or LotV) and overall income on 8 through 16 workers?
Nah mate, is pure data. As simple as increasing amount mined and time to mine, and some tweaks to wait-to-return time. By default, workers are optimized to not trip each other, being perfectly synchronized in SC2: that's why you saturate at 2 workers and the third is less efficient. BW model is the same principle, but with 1 worker. You can search for extension mods in custom games.
Btw, I didn't did them, I used KTVMaps' mod (the one on the worker pairing thread). However SC:BW econ mod is a bit bugged since workers don't bounce properly, thank you for pointing it ^^. I'll look for Starbow data since they use BW econ model. You can see a bit its performance in this vid done by one man of the Starbow crew (jump to min 5). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavX7sH4OIE
I'll have to fix the BW mod. I think that there might be some mod done by the Starbow team (forget it, ther is), which is the same but obviously for only 1 gas geyser, meaning that gas measurements are not reliable as we have 2 gases.
I don't have accurate data, since I haven't spoken with the creator , so I don't know id it's optmized for 7,8 or 9 mineral patches, but I think that initial worker mines a bit more than actual SC2workers (around 50-55mins per min I'd say), but it's optimized to make 2worker saturation mine only at 75%-80% efficiency since workers lose time bouncing looking for free mineral patches. Look for Starbow Economy mod to experiment with the concept. There has been some talk today about this topic on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/31gwwx/even_after_all_the_hype_for_lotv_i_still_think/
I'll fix both BW econ mods tomorrow. XD.
Ah I see I've been working with a lot of those mods doing research lately for a new article.
The reason I asked for in game numbers is because I've found all the theoretical numbers differed vastly from my in game tests.
So I decided to just use the in game stuff.
No need to fix the BW ones on my account BTW since I've found a model I really like and I'm going to stick with it for the rest of my analysis.
Please send me that one! Anyways, since I want to test BW model because I have a mod that uses it, I want to fix them xD. What happens is 2 things: that is optimized to create bounce in close mineral patches, meaning that far minerals are almost viable to be saturated with 2 workers most of the time (not that bad), and that the pathing footprint of minerals for the bounce effect was not set up. Now it works correctly. Now it should be working properly. In fact, they bounce like crazy.
However I agree with you that the BW model might be too strong economically, and may need to be tuned down. The Double Harvest mod simply does the same, but with more clear effect (mining rounds take lots of time, but deliver hughe amount of minerals). I think that once we get a good core concept, it's just about nubmers.
You said earlier it's pure data and not trigger driven.
I haven't seen any pure data implementation of BW econ in SC2. They have all been trigger based. I hope you're not just changing Harvest Time and Harvest Amount, and thinking that's all it takes to create BW econ.
You have to eliminate this hardcoded queuing condition to have a comparable system. Afaik you can't do it without using triggers.
Double Harvesting/Double Mining also uses triggers to manipulate that queuing condition.
In SC2 a worker arriving to an occupied patch will always bounce if the currently mining worker has more than ~2s remaining before finishing. If the currently mining worker has less than ~2s remaining, the arriving worker will queue.
Thanks you for pointing it, i didn't see the triggers when I downloaded the mod. It's pretty weird that they didn't include a data option for that in the editor. Sometimes it seems that they don't want people to experiment with core aspects of the game, when it would be natural to allow modification for that.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
Mind that nowhere did I say that SC2 is random or luck based, all I meant is it attributes less to skill than BW due to time contraction as was explained by TheDwf.
Time contraction is the wrong way to look at it though.
Instead, one needs to understand that the more mechanics matter, the higher is the probability that the best player will win. On the contrary, if you have a good build order, you can win in the short-term, but other people can copy it or figure it out, and then that advantage is gone. But mechanics cannot easily be copied.
So if the economy contributes to more luck/chance/build-order wins, then it is indeed something that make good players less able to win consistently. But that's not neccesarily true and is confusing correlation with causation. You can easily create this new economy and give players the proper tools to scout and react. Worrying about scout-and reaction not being viable should be the least of your worries with the new econ as they are vey easily fixable (if Blizzard wants to). The real worry should instead be centered on two other elements;
(1) Will we get an interesting late game with a mobile army vs an immobile army or are we just seeing midgame styles battle it out? (2) Can Blizzard reduce the snowball effect of the new econ?
The latter especially is really hard to fix with the new econ. I have some ideas for band-aid solutions, but I am not sure Blizzard will properly adress the issues.
I've lost interest in SC2 past the first two years it was out. I feel like with the "modern" UI and stuff reducing skill a ton compared to BW it was never going to be as fun to play or watch.
This new game, with the changes to the economy and everything feels even shittier. I mean every game I watch past the 7-8 minute mark seems to be everyone having 2000-3000 minerals and always being maxed out. How is that fucking fun to play or watch?
Its never going to be as fun to watch as SC1 if they don't change the UI, but they'll never will. I mean I can't get excited about a play like casting 5-6 storms or 5-6 fungal growths all over the screen when I know even I can do that. I'm not even that good at the game, but when I can do, what's the excitement about a "pro" player casting it? If everyone can do it, its not that exciting, if at all.
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. Sure I can't beat a high level player, I don't keep up with strategies, with timings, with what's trending and what the best unit composition is, but on a general note I can cast 5-6-7 storms at once, I can "macro" extremely well, I can keep my resources really low all the time, its not a big deal.
Where I suck is the tactical battles and stuff, since I play so little. I just think that as long as we have the "modern UI" that keeps the skill ceiling a lot lower compared to BW we can never have a fun watching experience.
As long as playing, I know reverting to a more difficult UI will make the game harder to play and we'll see people don't play multiplayer as much, especially the lower level players, and this is the reason Blizzard won't ever make the UI harder.
On April 07 2015 00:16 letian wrote: While reading the TheDwf post I kept thinking about how every year we have a different SC2 champion and how it is difficult for all professional players to maintain same performance. Which perfectly matches TheDwf's arguments about strategy & luck, the faster the game is the more irrelevant the skill becomes.
agreed. yesterday we had another nobody terran coming out of nowhere and winning WCS. because sc2 is fundamentally broken players just can't be consistently succesful. The amount of luck is just too high in this game.
This is not entirely true. Remember that this WCS was almost excluded of Koreans. Yes, Polt is better than most foreigners, but he wouldn't win GSL if that's what you think.
Let's also remind you that Parting just won two tournaments within a week, Life has been performing great in Korea and elsewhere. SC2 is not as random as you seem to think. Polt winning a foreign tournament with mostly foreigners in it is not a very big surprise.
There are also other players who has been on the top and stayed there for quite a while, e.g MVP, Life, Parting, Innovation etc. It's not too different from BW times actually. Remember that in the end of BW, FlaSh wasn't that dominant anymore either. Players are figured out by other players on a daily basis and things will always change. That doesn't mean the game is random or luck based.
Mind that nowhere did I say that SC2 is random or luck based, all I meant is it attributes less to skill than BW due to time contraction as was explained by TheDwf.
Time contraction is the wrong way to look at it though.
Instead, one needs to understand that the more mechanics matter, the higher is the probability that the best player will win. On the contrary, if you have a good build order, you can win in the short-term, but other people can copy it or figure it out, and then that advantage is gone. But mechanics cannot easily be copied.
So if the economy contributes to more luck/chance/build-order wins, then it is indeed something that make good players less able to win consistently. But that's not neccesarily true and is confusing correlation with causation. You can easily create this new economy and give players the proper tools to scout and react. Worrying about scout-and reaction not being viable should be the least of your worries with the new econ as they are vey easily fixable (if Blizzard wants to). The real worry should instead be centered on two other elements;
(1) Will we get an interesting late game with a mobile army vs an immobile army or are we just seeing midgame styles battle it out? (2) Can Blizzard reduce the snowball effect of the new econ?
The latter especially is really hard to fix with the new econ. I have some ideas for band-aid solutions, but I am not sure Blizzard will properly adress the issues.
Yes but short of forcing players to use the same build order there is no real way to know how much of a win is build order based and how much is mechanics.
Also, a "better" player is not necessarily one that is only superior in mechanics. Strategy is equally if not more important.
In the end, a "better" player is just a player that is able to win more.
Look at a guy like Parting - sure he's dominated with a certain build order for a period of time and then that build order was figured out... but he's been relevant and at the top of the scene for a very long time by continuing to innovate with new build orders as his opponents adapt. That's the hallmark of a great player.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
Yes but short of forcing players to use the same build order there is no real way to know how much of a win is build order based and how much is mechanics.
Also, a "better" player is not necessarily one that is only superior in mechanics. Strategy is equally if not more important.
Your missing the point here. If mechanics were the only factor in the game, the better player would almost always win since there isn't that much variability in terms of how you play from a mechanically perspective. There is much more variability in the outcome when it comes to strategy and build-order wins. You can have a bad strategy in one game, but a good one in the next game. But someone with GM mechanics isn't suddenly gonna have diamond-level mechancis in the next game (at least its much less likely).
BW had a much higher mechanical skillcap and its therefore no surprise that you had players who were more dominant (in before someone tells me that Flash had "low" apm).
So when Blizzard speeds up the game and give you less time to scout, you could argue that there is more luck-element to the game, but people ignore that this is very easily fixed (e.g. faster slow overlords, hallucation down to 75 energy and turret change already helps terran).
On April 07 2015 06:39 cheekymonkey wrote: So, does anyone know what happened to the herc? Did blizzard scrap it, and why?
Yeah they did. They've said that it didn't fill any role and wasn't particularly needed by Terran afaik. They are designing new Terran unit though and community is helping.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I've lost interest in SC2 past the first two years it was out. I feel like with the "modern" UI and stuff reducing skill a ton compared to BW it was never going to be as fun to play or watch.
This new game, with the changes to the economy and everything feels even shittier. I mean every game I watch past the 7-8 minute mark seems to be everyone having 2000-3000 minerals and always being maxed out. How is that fucking fun to play or watch?
Its never going to be as fun to watch as SC1 if they don't change the UI, but they'll never will. I mean I can't get excited about a play like casting 5-6 storms or 5-6 fungal growths all over the screen when I know even I can do that. I'm not even that good at the game, but when I can do, what's the excitement about a "pro" player casting it? If everyone can do it, its not that exciting, if at all.
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. Sure I can't beat a high level player, I don't keep up with strategies, with timings, with what's trending and what the best unit composition is, but on a general note I can cast 5-6-7 storms at once, I can "macro" extremely well, I can keep my resources really low all the time, its not a big deal.
Where I suck is the tactical battles and stuff, since I play so little. I just think that as long as we have the "modern UI" that keeps the skill ceiling a lot lower compared to BW we can never have a fun watching experience.
As long as playing, I know reverting to a more difficult UI will make the game harder to play and we'll see people don't play multiplayer as much, especially the lower level players, and this is the reason Blizzard won't ever make the UI harder.
You sound like you have a bad case of nostalgia.
There is little sense in purposefully making the UI less instinctive or more difficult just to "add to the challenge". It's a pretty archaic way of looking at things, if you ask me.
The attention that isn't dedicated to the actions that would be necessary with an unimproved UI is relocated elsewhere and allows for other kinds of plays. I doubt we could just implement the BW UI and call it progress or even see any perk to it.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Doing individual tasks in SC2 is the easiest thing ever. Just keeping the minerals low while doing nothing else is absurdly easy. Don't build probes and add a pylon everytime you hit 100. Beautiful ! That's by the way the reason why a lot of very bad players think they actually have good macro, because they never get past 30 workers since their worker production is so unsteady, and never really get enough money to bath in it. In fact they have awful macro and if they were producing workers regularly as long as they can get away with it and hitting the injects/chronos/mules they would always hover above 2k minerals and 1k gas.
Macroing =/= spending minerals. Macroing = spending resources while doing everything else near perfect. And no, you can't do that unless you're Korean God tier.
And please, don't tell me you can't do anything Roger Federer does. OK, maybe you would never hit the ball like him, but your body can do the gesture ; he never runs faster than Usain Bolt, you can move as fast as him for most movements, etc. You CAN do those things, your body is able to do them, but you CANNOT do them in good synchronization or at the same time. And anyway analogies with SC2 are always awkward, I shouldn't have tried
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I've lost interest in SC2 past the first two years it was out. I feel like with the "modern" UI and stuff reducing skill a ton compared to BW it was never going to be as fun to play or watch.
This new game, with the changes to the economy and everything feels even shittier. I mean every game I watch past the 7-8 minute mark seems to be everyone having 2000-3000 minerals and always being maxed out. How is that fucking fun to play or watch?
Its never going to be as fun to watch as SC1 if they don't change the UI, but they'll never will. I mean I can't get excited about a play like casting 5-6 storms or 5-6 fungal growths all over the screen when I know even I can do that. I'm not even that good at the game, but when I can do, what's the excitement about a "pro" player casting it? If everyone can do it, its not that exciting, if at all.
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. Sure I can't beat a high level player, I don't keep up with strategies, with timings, with what's trending and what the best unit composition is, but on a general note I can cast 5-6-7 storms at once, I can "macro" extremely well, I can keep my resources really low all the time, its not a big deal.
Where I suck is the tactical battles and stuff, since I play so little. I just think that as long as we have the "modern UI" that keeps the skill ceiling a lot lower compared to BW we can never have a fun watching experience.
As long as playing, I know reverting to a more difficult UI will make the game harder to play and we'll see people don't play multiplayer as much, especially the lower level players, and this is the reason Blizzard won't ever make the UI harder.
You sound like you have a bad case of nostalgia.
There is little sense in purposefully making the UI less instinctive or more difficult just to "add to the challenge". It's a pretty archaic way of looking at things, if you ask me.
The attention that isn't dedicated to the actions that would be necessary with an unimproved UI is relocated elsewhere and allows for other kinds of plays. I doubt we could just implement the BW UI and call it progress or even see any perk to it.
The real skill ceiling has always been your opponents, anyway. Not some arbitrary UI or unit micro stuff. That's always been the beauty of 1v1 RTS games. The game should be as hard as your opponent, and you shouldn't have to fight the UI just to add extra "difficulty".
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
I call bullshit. I don't think you could do half the stuff the pros do.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
looool ok this post is hilarious to me. Even pro's mess up on their macro. Sorry to say but no you can't do the macro, you can't do what the pro's can do at all. If you are talking making units at all as being able to do it, well you could do the same thing in broodwar so congrats!
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
That's almost as absurd as saying "I know how to move the pieces, so nothing in chess really impresses me."
And no one below masters, maybe high diamond these days, has even mediocre macro. It's not just probes and pylons, it's upgrades and production and "powering" as well which, in high level starcraft, are tightly married to an understanding of timings, strategy, trends/metagame (Which is really just risk assessment and responding to a potential threat before it has materialized).
You can't perform all the correct mechanical functions without a certain level of strategic acumen, and you can't execute even the most well thought out strategies without a certain level of mechanical aptitude, because in the big picture they're fused into one fluid process. Saying you can "do the macro" or "do the micro" is like saying "I can swing a tennis racket" or "I can run from one side of a tennis court to the other." I've played tennis exactly once and you know what? I can swing a racket. Does that make me Roger Federer? My guess is that you're actually bad enough at those things that you don't really understand why you lose or how you win. But hey, if you have replays to back yourself up by all means prove me wrong.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Unless you provide a replay I'm gonna call bullshit on all of what you're saying.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Doing individual tasks in SC2 is the easiest thing ever. Just keeping the minerals low while doing nothing else is absurdly easy. Don't build probes and add a pylon everytime you hit 100. Beautiful ! That's by the way the reason why a lot of very bad players think they actually have good macro, because they never get past 30 workers since their worker production is so unsteady, and never really get enough money to bath in it. In fact they have awful macro and if they were producing workers regularly as long as they can get away with it and hitting the injects/chronos/mules they would always hover above 2k minerals and 1k gas.
Macroing =/= spending minerals. Macroing = spending resources while doing everything else near perfect. And no, you can't do that unless you're Korean God tier.
And please, don't tell me you can't do anything Roger Federer does. OK, maybe you would never hit the ball like him, but your body can do the gesture ; he never runs faster than Usain Bolt, you can move as fast as him for most movements, etc. You CAN do those things, your body is able to do them, but you CANNOT do them in good synchronization or at the same time. And anyway analogies with SC2 are always awkward, I shouldn't have tried
I'm not sure it's really fair the make a comparaison about federer and SC2... In fact, most of Roger's movements has nothing to do with most of the modern tennis. May I ask you if you're ranked in tennis ? Cauz lemme tell you, 90% (probably more) actually can't do any movements Federer does. Seriously that's stupid. I guess your point is that everybody can run, then sure. But other than that, there's nothing that an average joe can relate to Federer except loving his style :>
Edit : Also @billgate : Actually, it was kind of the same feel in the end of bw... It was almost always the same shit, over and over. You're obviously biased.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I've lost interest in SC2 past the first two years it was out. I feel like with the "modern" UI and stuff reducing skill a ton compared to BW it was never going to be as fun to play or watch.
This new game, with the changes to the economy and everything feels even shittier. I mean every game I watch past the 7-8 minute mark seems to be everyone having 2000-3000 minerals and always being maxed out. How is that fucking fun to play or watch?
Its never going to be as fun to watch as SC1 if they don't change the UI, but they'll never will. I mean I can't get excited about a play like casting 5-6 storms or 5-6 fungal growths all over the screen when I know even I can do that. I'm not even that good at the game, but when I can do, what's the excitement about a "pro" player casting it? If everyone can do it, its not that exciting, if at all.
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. Sure I can't beat a high level player, I don't keep up with strategies, with timings, with what's trending and what the best unit composition is, but on a general note I can cast 5-6-7 storms at once, I can "macro" extremely well, I can keep my resources really low all the time, its not a big deal.
Where I suck is the tactical battles and stuff, since I play so little. I just think that as long as we have the "modern UI" that keeps the skill ceiling a lot lower compared to BW we can never have a fun watching experience.
As long as playing, I know reverting to a more difficult UI will make the game harder to play and we'll see people don't play multiplayer as much, especially the lower level players, and this is the reason Blizzard won't ever make the UI harder.
I dunno who you've been watching but I don't think I have even been maxed once so far lol
The most exciting and impressive thing in an sc2 game to me is stellar micro. And not a single (non-pro) person in this thread can even try to measure up to the best of the professionals on that.
On April 07 2015 14:07 cheekymonkey wrote: The most exciting and impressive thing in an sc2 game to me is stellar micro. And not a single (non-pro) person in this thread can even try to measure up to the best of the professionals on that.
It's extremely important to realize and very germane that "micro" is not just mouse and keyboard acrobatics. It's a very intentional game action predicated on a tactical assessment which has a lot more to do with game knowledge and momentary analysis than how fast and accurate your fingers are. And micro matters most in asymmetrical situations where the state of the game depends on your performance. Put another way, the fulcrum of a strategy is being played out. Can you pick out the word I'm trying to highlight? When you say you like watching micro (don't we all), you're not saying you can't get enough osu spectating. You're saying you like watching genius battle commanders enact their wills in real time. That is where the awesome is. The crucial point is that you can't have the awesome without a good strategic foundation.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I've lost interest in SC2 past the first two years it was out. I feel like with the "modern" UI and stuff reducing skill a ton compared to BW it was never going to be as fun to play or watch.
This new game, with the changes to the economy and everything feels even shittier. I mean every game I watch past the 7-8 minute mark seems to be everyone having 2000-3000 minerals and always being maxed out. How is that fucking fun to play or watch?
Its never going to be as fun to watch as SC1 if they don't change the UI, but they'll never will. I mean I can't get excited about a play like casting 5-6 storms or 5-6 fungal growths all over the screen when I know even I can do that. I'm not even that good at the game, but when I can do, what's the excitement about a "pro" player casting it? If everyone can do it, its not that exciting, if at all.
I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same. Sure I can't beat a high level player, I don't keep up with strategies, with timings, with what's trending and what the best unit composition is, but on a general note I can cast 5-6-7 storms at once, I can "macro" extremely well, I can keep my resources really low all the time, its not a big deal.
Where I suck is the tactical battles and stuff, since I play so little. I just think that as long as we have the "modern UI" that keeps the skill ceiling a lot lower compared to BW we can never have a fun watching experience.
As long as playing, I know reverting to a more difficult UI will make the game harder to play and we'll see people don't play multiplayer as much, especially the lower level players, and this is the reason Blizzard won't ever make the UI harder.
You are totally, even absurdly wrong. I see the following options or a combination of following:
1. you are just trolling 2. you are trying to make up arguments to repeat the thousand-times beaten horse that BW for some nostalgic reason or because you are still mad that SC2 took over 3. you are so delusional from your love for BW that you actually believe this 4. you have just absolutely zero idea about SC2
Because otherwise if you have the abilities you believe you have, you should be in WCS Global Premier. The idea that what is holding you back is "not knowing what is trendy" is laughable. If you put Parting in a stasis and wake him up three years into LoTV, you just need to tell him what the knew units so that he can defend them do and he will kill you with the old ones with his mechanics alone, I have zero doubt about it.
There is one thing I can agree with you. In BW, some of the "great plays" were superficially easier to see (for me, some of them are harder to see, but that's probably easily improved with a lot of playing/watching). But the gap between Joe Teeeler and a Korean pro is absolutely immense in SC2. A lot of time it's very, very subtle things like positioning, focus fire etc... which looks lame but is extremely difficult to do correctly when you have more than five units. But there are not-so-subtle things, just for the love of whatever deity you may like, go and watch any high-level macro ZvT with mmmm vs. ling-bane. Or even get a replay and watch it on slower speed to see the absurd amount of actions (spliting, focus fire, positioning maraouders, microing small groups of zerg units, medivac control, overseer control, muta control ...) that are happening. I believe you can now even take command and try to see how gloriously you will fail trying to immitate what the pros did.
Or if you are lazy, just watch Ro16 of GSL and then of WCS Global. If you have such a great knowledge of the game, you just have to see he unbelievable difference. Those guys who play in WCS are absurdly good and will beat the shit out of a vast majority of players on any day, yet you can see without any doubt how much better is the Korean play compared to that - proving that there is such a huge range of skill that can be shown in SC2.
This "reduction of skill" theory has been over and over debunked by pros, but is still ad nauseum repeated by the TL BW fanclub. It seems like a sign of desperation, really. Yes, the "macro" is easier. That means that you just can't be the best in this game by polishing your execution of a braindead sequence of actions to perfection. The things that are difficult at SC2 are actually very complex, not just "a lot of clicks and keypresses" and they evolve quite fast over time as people get better and better, because, unlike "macro", they involve interaction with the opponent - yes, I know BW has a shitload of micro that's insanely diffcult, but that's not where the difference is, it's in the ability to be great based on just macro which just doesn't really exist in SC2. To be at the very top in SC2, you need to constantly improve yourself. I am actually not that surprised that many players from BW are not so happy in SC2, because their robotic perfection of one set of tasks is not so useful here and suddenly they are not the superstars they used to be, but I really don't see this as a problem of SC2.
At the end, I can understand that if you liked the aspects of BW that SC2 purposefully does not have, that you like BW more, but what is the point of that here? I can't speak for all the SC2 players, but I am personally very happy that these things have been removed and for me it makes SC2 a much better game. What I don't understand is why you (and that's not just you personally, but the whole BW cohort) need to make up arguments (that do not exist and are based on blatantly wrong arguments or clear lack of understanding of SC2) to constantly berate SC2. Really, I just don't see what is this supposed to accomplish.
BillGates, actually the problem is not really about how good you are, or what you can or cannot do. The problem is what you find interesting to watch.
Suppose the UI is messed up, so it needs say 500 APM to place those force fields, or land those storms. According to your argument, now you find the game vastly more enjoyable, because those things are no longer doable by any casual players.
But now probably the player that can move his mouse as fast and as accurate as possible will win. Provided that he can type fast, too. If you are interested in those things, I suggest you watching some typing contest instead.
Seriously, if you are not interested in any strategy aspects of the game, watch something else.
I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal shit.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal shit.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that lmao
I'm aware that they did a massive change to the economy ; I'm saying that now that they are going this way, they probably won't change their mind, and they probably won't try other econ systems like reduced efficiency. But as I said, I would be the first to be happy if I was wrong.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal shit.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that lmao
Their economic changes are a joke. We would have had maps with different mineral amounts for a long time had they let us. It's a map change, not even an economic one. Workers mine the exact same amount in the exact same time from the exact same amount of set-in-stone-by-blizzard resource patches.
And their unit changes have been anything but bold. The marauder one stands out, besides the SH redesign. The other ones dont touch core units and relations of the game. Where are actually bold changes to crap like forcefields? Why are marines and roaches still massively more costefficient than most other early game units? Where is that change to stalkers to actually make room for a playable adept-role? Why are siegtanks still doing crapdamage vs Protoss? Why is muta/ling still so ridiculously fast denying mapcontrol to other players just with its existance? Changing those things would be bold. Not giving a meaningless lategame unit like the BC a meaningless teleportability. Now you can go ahead and tell me why each and every "issue" i bring up is not an issue. That's fine to me, but preserving everything that we know that it "works" is exactly why I'm blaming blizzard for not being bold with changes to the HotS units. Again, kudos for trying stuff with the marauder and Swarm Host in LotV. Those are actually vold moves because they actually fuck up current strategies, not just supplement them with an extra spell here and there.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
It's about design and therefore unit interactions and a solid economy. Balancing comes after that. Blizzard is too afraid to change things drastically though, for whatever reason (not enough people working on sc2?)
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
And your basing that comment out of no merit what so ever. You think that because Blizzard hasn't done X, then noone else can do X
But if you look at Blizzards balance track-record over the last couple of years. Its actually not very good. Fungal Growth was delayed forever based on MVP beating random foreigners. Widow Mine nerfs based on the expectation that terrans would mix in Siege Tanks was flawed logic. This isn't just about being smart in hindsight. The mistakes were blatantly obvious back then as well (and if you go back in time you find my comments as well predicting exactly what would happen). And please don't give credit for 50/50 win/rates. Its not hard to buff units when one race has a low win/rate.
But anyway, people make mistakes, and the point here isn't about balance but about being ambitious with reoverhauling the game. Lots and lots of changes are needed and Blizzard isn't doing alot here. So I am very curous if you could tell me how the developers at blizzard spent 8 hours a day. It took them over a month to come up with the current Adept idea....
This is what I would have expected would have happened during alpha:
9AM: Two developers test the new Adept the programmer and model-designers have finished. They spend 1 hour in the unit tester/editor playing out various scenarios and tweak balance numbers (so no Warhound issue should have occured) 10AM-12AM: They play some actual games with the Adept and discover that it feels a bit bland with little outmicro potential. 12AM-1PM: They discuss new ideas and come to the conclusion that the Adept needs to be more focussed on the shadow-concept (or maybe they come to another conclusion, thats not the point). 1PM:1:30M: They change the Shadow-concept to allow for more outplaying 1:30PM-2PM: They balance the new Adept in the unit-tester and make sure micro interactions are fun. 2PM-5PM: They play some games with the new Adept and discover that its quite awesome (hopefully).
That's how I would imagine one workday for 2 developers should have gone (if the proces was effective). Finding out that something is totally wrong shouldn't take months (or a beta) but a couple of hours in internal testing. But obviously they accomplished more in the above scenario than Blizzard did over an entire month, so something is very off. But you tell me.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
It's not that hard. It can't be that hard, otherwise blizzard's approach of randomly throwing out values that work at their superlowlevel of early alpha-stage play and then tweaking them over the course of a few months wouldn't be working that well. Given that their perception of balance is that it is enough for races to be balanced against each other completely disregarding that units can be absolutely mindblowingly broken in every single way when compared one to another it really cannot be hard.
Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
On April 07 2015 05:59 BillGates wrote: I just can't get excited about most of the SC2 plays, because I know I can do the same.
You're either legit good (then grats, and it's sad to see you don't enjoy watching the game) or your post doesn't make any sense. Everyone can do the motions Federer does, he does not have superhuman flexibility or impossible speed etc. You could mimic his movements for some time. What you wouldn't be able to do in your wildest dreams is time those actions precisely, choose the right type of strike/deplacement, make the right choice at every turn, have the same mental fortitude and a clever tactical plan behind the type of balls you give to your opponent... Same with the great SC2 players. Sure you could do most of the things seen on screen (even splits ?), but could you do them while keeping your minerals low, while thinking ahead of the next step to do and keeping up on scouting, while not missing a beat on injects/mules/chronos and not crumbling under stress/pressure ? I bet you can't and you should be in awe when watching players like Life/soO/PartinG/herO/Maru/INno...
I actually can't do ANYTHING Roger Federer does. I don't have his strength, I don't have his flexibility, I don't have his speed, I don't have his stamina, I don't have his precision, I don't have his game sense.
In SC2 I CAN do the macro, I can do the micro, what I'm not good at is the timings, strategy, trends, etc... because I don't play a lot, I play little these days. So essentially to compare it to tenis, I can do everything except game sense. Okay, maybe stamina translated to SC2 I can't do either, I'm not very practiced, but you get the point!
Unless you are Bronze tier or whatever you can probably do the macro fairly effectively.
Best post in the LotV forums so far 5/5. Nice bait too.
On April 08 2015 02:04 alexanderzero wrote: I don't think the Blizzard hate is appropriate. Anyone who has played the beta can see that relatively simple tweaks to the economy can take the game in very powerful directions. It takes a real pessimist to think that there isn't an awesome sweet spot waiting to be found.
I think that soon it will be a good idea to experiment with some changes. I personally think it could be as simple as reducing the mine-out rate just slightly, like bumping up the 750 mineral patches to 1000 or so. Or maybe reducing the ratio of 750 to 1500 patches. This would be more in line with the idea of rewarding expansions and less of punishing those who don't.
Another way to buff one base play is to reduce the starting worker count. Maybe to 9 or 10.
Waiting to be found? There have been plenty of ideas about economic changes. That sweet spot has probably been found already, it only needs testing. But only Blizzard have the power to implement large-scale testing, and they won't do that (either because of business decisions or because of sheer arrogance, I don't know and I don't care). I doubt they'll change the economy, and if they do it will very minor changes. I'd love to be proved wrong though.
What the literal !@#$%^&*.
They already made a giant change to the economy that no one ever dreamed of them doing, and they have already made bold changes to units. Saying they are unwilling to make changes is about the dumbest thing I've heard anyone say about LotV. It's been, like, one fucking week since the beta has been out, so proper feedback and large scale data collection on what works/what doesn't work is only just now happening.
I seriously can't believe I just read that !@#$%^&*
Bold? Maybe 10 years ago where a high level of multiplayer support wasn't the common thing, but today I think its wrong to classify those changes as bold. They have full time employees working on the game whom in theory should spend 8 hours a day testing different types of solutions. Most changes take about 5-10 minutes in the editor to imlement, and its only if you add in new units that it should take any longer.
They easily have had time to implement, test and tweak hundreds of new small tweaks to all existing units, which could improve micro interactions and change unit roles for the better. That would be awesome and something I could consider bold.
I don't think you have any idea what it means to balance a game like sc2.
Good thing, because balance is probably the least important things behing economy, game design, unit interactions, etc etc. This paradigm of balance that a lot of people seem obsessed with is ridiculous, and sadly having an "open-closed" beta with mass broadcasting and hype doesn't help that.
On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote: Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
If their internal testing wasn't good enough to prevent Daedalus 1.0 from becoming a pro map, then I seriously doubt the abilities of their internal testings.
On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote: Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
Actually the Warhound was in the beta! It proceeded alpha stages.
If we look at another "bold idea" (read: its not, its just dumb), Blizzard had 5 months since Blizzcon to test the new Nydus. I wonder how anyone during the alpha stages thought that this Nydus was fun? Should it take more than 1 single game to realize the idea was dumb and should be scrapped?
Yesterday I watched Morrow lose to a Nydus and I thought.... Hmm maybe there is a better way. So I went into the editor. Clicked on the Nydus and figured out which stats determined its behaviour. 30 minutes later I had implemented a redeisgned version of the Nydus that adds for a very new playstyle and more multitasking: (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482384-new-nydus-suggestion)
I think Blizzards methodology is completely off here. They are not assessing what could happen to interactions or the gameplay if X, Y or Z were changed.
Rather it seems that they are more like:" Hmm hardened shield hardcounters mech" "hmmmmmm .... --> 5 years after --> Less tell our model-designers to add a press a button ability on the Immortal but let's not actually try and test whether it adds more micro or whether it maintains the current strenght of the unit. (I don't think the nerf to the Immortal was intentional).
Blizzard designers does one thing well and that is identifying unit roles, however, there is something wrong with the proces afterwards. And I am very curious what exactly is happening internally.
On April 08 2015 04:30 alexanderzero wrote: Warhounds and Hercs were two units that Blizzard actually removed from the game after publicly showing them. Do you really believe that Blizzard hasn't privately been testing all kinds of crazy ideas? The ones we see are the few that haven't totally broken the game or been pointless.
Warhound was in the actual beta!!! How on earth does a unit that can amove eveyrthing cost effecitvely end up in the actual beta???? There is something completely wrong with Blizzards methodology here.
Now lets look at the Nydus suggestion I presented here and compare it to Blizzards:
Blizzard had 5 months since Blizzcon to test their Nydus version. In theory, I always thought their idea was bad, but during the internal testing they never even realized it them selves? How is that possible.
Now yesterday I watched Morrow lose to a Nydus and I thought.... Hmm maybe there is a better way. So I went into the editor. Clicked on the Nydus and figured out which stats determined its behaviour. 30 minutes later I had already implemented a playable version of the Nydus into the map.
Blizzard isn't testing ideas properly. Thats the issue. They are not assessing what could happen to interactions if X, Y or Z were changed.
Rather it seems that they are more like:" Hmm hardened shield hardcounters mech" "hmmmmmm .... --> 5 years after --> Less tell our model-designers to add a press a button ability on the Immoral, but let's not actually try and test whether it adds more micro or whether it maintains the current strenght of the balance.
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation: "must use an armor tag; must use damage point; must use all standard commands like hold/stop/patrol; must have a certain size at minimum/maximum" Then they just fuck together some damage and health values that create certain relations "disruptor must oneshot all lowtier units; lowtier unit with most health=roach; here have 150damage" and that seems to be it. Everything else is balanced via playtesting and if a unit starts with 100k dps in their tests they wouldn't even notice. They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit!
They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit!
Funny fact: Dustin Browder has actually stated that one of the reasons they couldn't look at the economy in HOTS was because they were busy working on the Oracle. Good to know they are spending their time efficiently.
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation:
But besides their methodology being off, sometimes playtesting isn't harder than "is this fun or not?" If something isn't fun it probably shouldn't be part of the Blizzcon video or the beta. This is why I look at the Oracle, Swarm Hosts or Nydus. I always found those units boring and awfull immediately. So even if some of the Blizzard guys had a theory that this new Nydus would be awesome, shouldn't someone just say to him "dude we tried it, its lame, lets scrap it and just buff overlord drops for now untill we come up with something better".
But generally I do think gamedesigners with no credentials (besides having a job) gets too much credit. I once asked a Heroes of the Storm developer in an AMA on his thought on why the movement speed and cast range of abilites had been reduced. I explained how I saw the implications (they were very severe- reducing counterplay), and his response was simply nonsense. The only way to interpret that was that he hadn't even thought once about the implications.
I believe he is a former Sc2-developer, and it demonstrates that these developers aren't that competent.
Game developers aren't like jobs where you first need to school for 5 years to make sure they have solid theoretical experiecne -->Work their way up the top by constantly being reevaluted. As a game developer your in a field where you know more than your boss (CEO of blizzard), so the boss can't even properly assess whether your doing a good enough job and thats my theory to why we see such inefficiency in gamedesign at Blizzard.
On April 07 2015 20:01 timchen1017 wrote: BillGates, actually the problem is not really about how good you are, or what you can or cannot do. The problem is what you find interesting to watch.
Suppose the UI is messed up, so it needs say 500 APM to place those force fields, or land those storms. According to your argument, now you find the game vastly more enjoyable, because those things are no longer doable by any casual players.
But now probably the player that can move his mouse as fast and as accurate as possible will win. Provided that he can type fast, too. If you are interested in those things, I suggest you watching some typing contest instead.
Seriously, if you are not interested in any strategy aspects of the game, watch something else.
That is like saying if we break every footballer's legs there is still different skill to make someone better over the next. Sure, but that skill is so much lower now, if the skill ceiling with legs was 100, without legs is 10.
I mean you could say the lottery requires skill as well, that is not really true.
If SC1 has 100 skill ceiling, SC2 and the latest LOTV has something like 40% skill ceiling, less than half.
As far as strategy is just memorizing a simple build order, there is nothing there that requires intelligence. I mean every RTS player is imagining himself having 200IQ and not winning is only because of the "Archaic" UI, otherwise with his 200IQ he would beat everyone.
Let me break it to you, RTS games have very very little to do with IQ, The skill ceiling has always been the micro and macro, just like you can have a talented footballer, but he actually needs to practice every day to actually be good.
They'd only notice when everyone tells them the unit is fucked up, so they tune down the health by 10points and viola, finished is our oracle, such a fun unit!
Funny fact: Dustin Browder has actually stated that one of the reasons they couldn't look at the economy in HOTS was because they were busy working on the Oracle. Good to know they are spending their time efficiently.
Yeah, I really think they don't have any methodology besides playtesting the alpha-product as a whole. At least that's what it feels like. They follow a guide to unit creation:
But besides their methodology being off, sometimes playtesting isn't harder than "is this fun or not?" If something isn't fun it probably shouldn't be part of the Blizzcon video or the beta. This is why I look at the Oracle, Swarm Hosts or Nydus. I always found those units boring and awfull immediately. So even if some of the Blizzard guys had a theory that this new Nydus would be awesome, shouldn't someone just say to him "dude we tried it, its lame, lets scrap it and just buff overlord drops for now untill we come up with something better".
But generally I do think gamedesigners with no credentials (besides having a job) gets too much credit. I remember asking the Heroes of the Storm developer in an AMA on his thought on the consequences of reducing movement speed and cast range of abilites. I always found the consequecnes very severe as it reduced the juking potential, but his response was absolute nonsene. And I believe he is a former Sc2-developer, and it just goes on to show that many of these developers really do not understand which variables impact interactions.
I feel like many of those guys have had their time (e.g. Dustin Browder provided us with some very fun unit and game designs back in his CnC days) but are very disconnected from actually playing the game on a higher level. It's a fast moving industry and what was state of the art 10years ago simply isn't anymore these days. It bugs me when they sound like your average gold league b.net forum guy when they talk about progamers: "we were amazed by how they used our units", while guys like Jakatak are out there not being paid a dime while knowing 3times more about the game after one day of playtesting than the actualy lead designer. It's not the 90s anymore, you don't accidently create a popular esports title. You are the master of your game or you are left with a niche of hardcore fans.
It's a fast moving industry and what was state of the art 10years ago simply isn't anymore these days. It bugs me when they sound like your average gold league b.net forum guy when they talk about progamers: "we were amazed by how they used our units", while guys like Jakatak are out there not being paid a dime while knowing 3times more about the game after one day of playtesting than the actualy lead designer.
A bit off topic, but after I heard the interview with David Kim on why they implemened Archon mode, I couldn't help thinking he didn't tell the entire truth. He said that they used it to improve the quality of their internal testings so they could match the level of progamers. But instead I kept thinking that the real reason it was added was to make sure two of the other developers combined could play at low master-level so they could have have decent games against David Kim.
But obviously you don't need to be a super high level player to be a solid developer, but it really doesn't hurt. Either that or you should be a master in the editor and know all of the variables. It definitely did surprise me when Jakataks video inspired them to change the scan range. Didn't they know about that variable before? Or why didn't they never question why Stalkers could only sometimes amove Widow Mines?
It's not the 90s anymore, you don't accidently create a popular esports title. You are the master of your game or you are left with a niche of hardcore fans.
But...but.but.... BW was created by chance. It wasn't intended to be an esport and by logic you are therefore wrong.
I hate to say this, but Blizzard's apparent success in occasionally creating 50/50/50 values for the non-mirror match-ups tells us not that Blizzard is competent at balancing, but rather that balancing might not be all that difficult if even Blizzard is capable of it.
I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
We can always concede that Blizzard might be motivated by obscure business concerns and that this explains all their game design decisions, but I don't know. The fact that they can't give intelligible answers to questions asked by LaLush or Decemberscalm or Hider tells me they don't know. The fact they had to be informed by Jakatak about scan range (and damage point?) tells me the same. The fact they mentioned they were experimenting with a global 50% attack speed reduction.. etc.
This will sound elitist, but most game designers are hacks with little education and talent, kind of like music record producers that create Britney Spears albums and such.
I used to think in 2010 that Starcraft 2 was a very big deal, the new game of the future that would unite everyone and do for the rest of the world what BW did for Korea, only it would be even better. Given my expectations it's just sad to be stuck with Blizzard because they are not capable of delivering. In the future I'll make sure to never trust a for-profit organisation again.
I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
It actually is a good point. If you had this super intelligent developer-team who knew alot more about gamedesign than anyone realized, wouldn't you make that apparent? Wouldn't you write very detailed articles/videos explaining everything. Yes that would take time, but it would also function as an advertising/credibility tool. People would link to the article and say "hey these starcraft developers are so intelligent". It just doesn't make sense that you would downplay all the time with simple arguments.
It just makes more sense to me that when someone sounds like a duck, has a track-record like a duck, and continues to act like a duck, then he probably is a duck. No reason to believe in authority here.
On April 08 2015 05:50 The_Red_Viper wrote: Jesus christ this escalated quickly. Sry but all your "blizzard is so incompetent" posts are posts i would expect at /r/starcraftcirclejerk.
most game designers are hacks with little education and talent
Yeah i am sure that's the case...
I know it sounds very cruel, but if you think about it it's quite obvious. Most games have very familiar stories and are based on existing tropes, with game design based on a million previous games. It's not like the past anymore, when you had to create new genres and come up with actual new designs. Nowadays your job is to appeal to the market, not to have some sort of artistic independence. Furthermore, in virtually every single instance where I followed game design (examples being World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Planetary Annihilation) I could see just really uninspiring decision making by people that honestly couldn't really do better. There were also game designers I liked. For World of Warcraft I liked most of the designers, but the writing was atrocious, for example. The Starcraft 2 writing is similarly bad and over the years they had too many unforced errors in the game design department.
I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
It actually is a good point. If you really had this super intelligent developer-team who knew alot more about gamedesign than anyone realized, wouldn't you make that apparent? Wouldn't you write very detailed articles explaining everything. Yes that would take time, but it would also function as an advertising/credibility tool. People would link to the article and say "hey these starcraft developers are so intelligent". It just doesn't make sense that you would downplay all the time with simple arguments.
This did actually happen in WoW, you had developers constantly answering questions on forums and engaging with the community. But you'll note that in WoW business incentives lined up to force the developers to care, so more was asked of them and they had to rise up to the challenge. That's quite different from Starcraft 2 where the developers largely seek to remain elusive and dodge community questions and seemingly no one knows who's actually working on the game and in what capacity.
That is like saying if we break every footballer's legs there is still different skill to make someone better over the next. Sure, but that skill is so much lower now, if the skill ceiling with legs was 100, without legs is 10.
I mean you could say the lottery requires skill as well, that is not really true.
If SC1 has 100 skill ceiling, SC2 and the latest LOTV has something like 40% skill ceiling, less than half.
As far as strategy is just memorizing a simple build order, there is nothing there that requires intelligence. I mean every RTS player is imagining himself having 200IQ and not winning is only because of the "Archaic" UI, otherwise with his 200IQ he would beat everyone.
Let me break it to you, RTS games have very very little to do with IQ, The skill ceiling has always been the micro and macro, just like you can have a talented footballer, but he actually needs to practice every day to actually be good.
Again, I think your arguments show fundamentally how you value mechanical aspects of the game and neglect strategical ones. I would suggest you to watch real sports instead, like tennis or boxing for 1v1, where there is strategy, but physicality plays a much much more important role.
I do agree with you, if all that strategy is to memorize a simple build order, there is nothing intelligent about it. But knowing a build order is just the beginning, instead of the end. In fact, it is precisely because of the difficulty to micro and macro correctly such that people already win lots and lots of games with just a fixed build order. In my opinion that is something that should be fixed, instead of the other way around.
For example, how do you design an effective build order out from vacuum, or against a particular build? How much positioning and micro are required for a specific build to work? And these are just things to think about when preparing for the game. In the midst of a game, there are decisions to be made from situations outside of your intended build. Maybe your opponent throws something unexpected to you. Maybe you took a bad engagement. Or you took an unexpectedly good one. Maybe your worker line is interrupted and you need crisis management. Apparently all these questions are out of your concern as you only play the game to perfect your so-called micro and macro, which individually look easy to you without artificially decrease their effectiveness through messing up the UI.
I am interested in one thing though. What do you think that determines the outcome of professional games then, if you don't think there's that much strategy, and micro and macro are too easy? Pure chance?
I want to defend TheDwf's post, since it has come under some criticism.
Time exists as a dimension to many parts of the game, and it's important to establish this framing: that in general if you contract time, you lose something of your ability to react or respond to your opponent's actions. Maybe this is vague, but I think that TheDwf was talking in prophetic terms: that Blizzard foolishly ignored a fundamental rule and will have to pay the consequences.
And everyone knows that prophets have to take some artistic license with their words. :p
Time exists as a dimension to many parts of the game, and it's important to establish this framing: that in general if you contract time, you lose something of your ability to react or respond to your opponent's actions. Maybe this is vague, but I think that TheDwf was talking in prophetic terms: that Blizzard foolishly ignored a fundamental rule and will have to pay the consequences.
Except you could argue that the more time you give players to react the easier it becomes to make the right direction. As an example, I can probably calculate in my head what 28*36 is if given enough time, but I can't calculate it in 5 seconds. Only skilled math-guys can.
It simply doesn't make sense to argue that less time as a general rule reduces skill. There are lots of other variables that matters here. It must instead be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
On April 08 2015 05:50 The_Red_Viper wrote: Jesus christ this escalated quickly. Sry but all your "blizzard is so incompetent" posts are posts i would expect at /r/starcraftcirclejerk.
most game designers are hacks with little education and talent
Yeah i am sure that's the case...
I know it sounds very cruel, but if you think about it it's quite obvious. Most games have very familiar stories and are based on existing tropes, with game design based on a million previous games. It's not like the past anymore, when you had to create new genres and come up with actual new designs. Nowadays your job is to appeal to the market, not to have some sort of artistic independence. Furthermore, in virtually every single instance where I followed game design (examples being World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, Diablo III, Planetary Annihilation) I could see just really uninspiring decision making by people that honestly couldn't really do better. There were also game designers I liked. For World of Warcraft I liked most of the designers, but the writing was atrocious, for example. The Starcraft 2 writing is similarly bad and over the years they had too many unforced errors in the game design department.
I never know how many people at Blizzard are actually working on SC2 multiplayer design and balance full-time and whether it represents Blizzard's top talent. I do know that David Kim works as balance designer for the Heroes team as well and that he's also responsible for single player balance. Furthermore, given his set of responsibilities it should not be impossible to find him giving an intelligent answer about game design in an interview. I don't buy the argument that he's consistently saying meaningless things because that's Blizzard's policy, it seems more likely he just doesn't know what he's talking about.
It actually is a good point. If you really had this super intelligent developer-team who knew alot more about gamedesign than anyone realized, wouldn't you make that apparent? Wouldn't you write very detailed articles explaining everything. Yes that would take time, but it would also function as an advertising/credibility tool. People would link to the article and say "hey these starcraft developers are so intelligent". It just doesn't make sense that you would downplay all the time with simple arguments.
This did actually happen in WoW, you had developers constantly answering questions on forums and engaging with the community. But you'll note that in WoW business incentives lined up to force the developers to care, so more was asked of them and they had to rise up to the challenge. That's quite different from Starcraft 2 where the developers largely seek to remain elusive and dodge community questions and seemingly no one knows who's actually working on the game and in what capacity.
They also got questioned on every tiny little thing they did, a lot of times getting lots of abuse and stuff hurled at them. So they stopped.
Dwf post on contracting time according to his car speed illustration applies only to the actual game speed, not the pace of the game.
The changed economy creates two notable changes: 1) It decreases the idle time in the beginning of the game, making the game faster paced. But game speed is not affected.
It's like Baseball. If you decrease all the idle time in the game of baseball by not allowing batters/ pitchers to partake in their stupid habits. This decreases the time between pitches,and so it increases the pace of the game. This is a good thing for SC2. The game should try to decrease any idle time of waiting with your army in your base doing nothing but macroing (like currently PvP). Action should be constant. Players forced to micro constantly, while of course macroing. This would be ideal. And currently LotV is headed more in that direction, and games are more dynamic.
2) As Destruction pointed out, it reduces the consequence of taking a fast expansion, and that strategic important decision-making to take a risk when going for an expansion. In Hots, if you take a fast expansion, you are risking the the possibility of a one-base all in. (or two base all-in if you take a fast third) But currently in LotV, one base all-ins are seemingly rare, unless more top Koreans play and show us some crazy all-in builds/ timings.
But one can argue this is actually good, since it reduces all-ins, and so maybe reduces the randomness of build-order advantages as well? While it's true that fast expanding is less of a risk since the opposing player is more inclined to expand as well due to the reduced value of the mineral patches, there can still be the factor of greed vs reward. It's just more in the form of 3 or 4 quick expansions now.
So I like the new economy change. It certainly makes the game "seem" faster, but the game speed is still the same. But it does decrease the strategic importance when deciding to go for an expansion.
SC2 is still too fast though. Pros at the highest level still make many arbitrary mistakes which i believe no amount of practice can solve, but that's another topic I won't delve into
The level of casual contempt on show is beginning to sicken me.
How about this: if you haven't personally used the editor to create a set of great new units that are nicely balanced and fun, you don't get to insult those who are trying.
I think what most people are noticing within Blizzard development is a consequence of getting too big. When development teams get too big, each person gets a specialized role. Each person usually knows their role quite well, but are often oblivious to the other roles.
When the project is large enough (such as SC2), nobody is responsible for knowing everything. David Kim or Dustin Browder would be the closest guys to that, but then they often don't know the details of certain areas. Neither DK or DB coded the scan range. Most likely, one or both may have been in a meeting at the beginning of SC2 development when it was discussed. The programmer who did the proposal made some logical (but flawed) decisions and DK or DB approved of it. It was then forgotten by DK and/or DB as other more noticeable things became more pressing. Whoever created the scan range code has probably moved onto other projects/companies or else is a mostly unknown person within the team.
For every new unit that is created, the variable for scan range is copied over because it's the default and none of them actually know what it does anyways... they just know that the current variable works. Then someone like Jakatak digs into the editor and finds out what it actually does and how changing it makes the game better. The findings get made public and then DK and DB get caught with their pants down on some obscure variable that they probably said okay to back in 2009 and never thought about again.
That's what's actually happening. It's a consequence of being a large company that created a very complex game.
You can also be reasonably certain that Blizzard is hiring people with very impressive resumes because working for them is one of the dream jobs for every kid who grew up playing awesome Blizzard games. So they get a whole lot of applicants and can afford to be picky. The problem is that a resume does not show true passion. Being an extremely skilled programmer does not make you a good game designer.
Creating a video game is tough. The vast majority flop and you'll never hear of them. SC2 is actually a reasonably good game that many people have poured thousands of hours into and many more have put hundreds into. The problem for Blizzard is that the expectations are so high that it's almost impossible to reach.
As Day9 recently said on reddit:
I really hope Atlas will be cool. The one thing working on a game has taught me is how sickeningly incredible Blizzard is. Making games is fucking impossible. Blizzard makes SO many fun games. I can't quite figure out how.
On April 08 2015 14:15 RenSC2 wrote: I think what most people are noticing within Blizzard development is a consequence of getting too big. When development teams get too big, each person gets a specialized role. Each person usually knows their role quite well, but are often oblivious to the other roles.
When the project is large enough (such as SC2), nobody is responsible for knowing everything. David Kim or Dustin Browder would be the closest guys to that, but then they often don't know the details of certain areas. Neither DK or DB coded the scan range. Most likely, one or both may have been in a meeting at the beginning of SC2 development when it was discussed. The programmer who did the proposal made some logical (but flawed) decisions and DK or DB approved of it. It was then forgotten by DK and/or DB as other more noticeable things became more pressing. Whoever created the scan range code has probably moved onto other projects/companies or else is a mostly unknown person within the team.
For every new unit that is created, the variable for scan range is copied over because it's the default and none of them actually know what it does anyways... they just know that the current variable works. Then someone like Jakatak digs into the editor and finds out what it actually does and how changing it makes the game better. The findings get made public and then DK and DB get caught with their pants down on some obscure variable that they probably said okay to back in 2009 and never thought about again.
That's what's actually happening. It's a consequence of being a large company that created a very complex game.
You can also be reasonably certain that Blizzard is hiring people with very impressive resumes because working for them is one of the dream jobs for every kid who grew up playing awesome Blizzard games. So they get a whole lot of applicants and can afford to be picky. The problem is that a resume does not show true passion. Being an extremely skilled programmer does not make you a good game designer.
Creating a video game is tough. The vast majority flop and you'll never hear of them. SC2 is actually a reasonably good game that many people have poured thousands of hours into and many more have put hundreds into. The problem for Blizzard is that the expectations are so high that it's almost impossible to reach.
I really hope Atlas will be cool. The one thing working on a game has taught me is how sickeningly incredible Blizzard is. Making games is fucking impossible. Blizzard makes SO many fun games. I can't quite figure out how.
This is very well said. It's a really good point that isn't very easy to remember when we berate DK and DB. These guys know a LOT about SC2 but knowing EVERYTHING about SC2 is impossible, even as a developer as closely involved as they are.
The economy is another example this applies to. Despite understanding the HOTS economy on a basic level I doubt DK fully understands the implications of the new economic model as well as someone like LaLush does. Not for lack of trying, but because he's got a lot more than JUST that change to worry about.
On April 08 2015 14:15 RenSC2 wrote: I think what most people are noticing within Blizzard development is a consequence of getting too big. When development teams get too big, each person gets a specialized role. Each person usually knows their role quite well, but are often oblivious to the other roles.
When the project is large enough (such as SC2), nobody is responsible for knowing everything. David Kim or Dustin Browder would be the closest guys to that, but then they often don't know the details of certain areas. Neither DK or DB coded the scan range. Most likely, one or both may have been in a meeting at the beginning of SC2 development when it was discussed. The programmer who did the proposal made some logical (but flawed) decisions and DK or DB approved of it. It was then forgotten by DK and/or DB as other more noticeable things became more pressing. Whoever created the scan range code has probably moved onto other projects/companies or else is a mostly unknown person within the team.
For every new unit that is created, the variable for scan range is copied over because it's the default and none of them actually know what it does anyways... they just know that the current variable works. Then someone like Jakatak digs into the editor and finds out what it actually does and how changing it makes the game better. The findings get made public and then DK and DB get caught with their pants down on some obscure variable that they probably said okay to back in 2009 and never thought about again.
That's what's actually happening. It's a consequence of being a large company that created a very complex game.
You can also be reasonably certain that Blizzard is hiring people with very impressive resumes because working for them is one of the dream jobs for every kid who grew up playing awesome Blizzard games. So they get a whole lot of applicants and can afford to be picky. The problem is that a resume does not show true passion. Being an extremely skilled programmer does not make you a good game designer.
Creating a video game is tough. The vast majority flop and you'll never hear of them. SC2 is actually a reasonably good game that many people have poured thousands of hours into and many more have put hundreds into. The problem for Blizzard is that the expectations are so high that it's almost impossible to reach.
As Day9 recently said on reddit:
I really hope Atlas will be cool. The one thing working on a game has taught me is how sickeningly incredible Blizzard is. Making games is fucking impossible. Blizzard makes SO many fun games. I can't quite figure out how.
This is very well said. It's a really good point that isn't very easy to remember when we berate DK and DB. These guys know a LOT about SC2 but knowing EVERYTHING about SC2 is impossible, even as a developer as closely involved as they are.
The economy is another example this applies to. Despite understanding the HOTS economy on a basic level I doubt DK fully understands the implications of the new economic model as well as someone like LaLush does. Not for lack of trying, but because he's got a lot more than JUST that change to worry about.
You overestimate Lalush and underestimate David Kim, I fear. One is...well, what is he exactly nowadays? The other is a senior game designer at one of the most successful video game developing companies ever. It will take more than a few pseudo-mathish posts on TL about how Broodwar is great and SC2 sucks (what an original claim) to convince me of who has the better credentials.
Time exists as a dimension to many parts of the game, and it's important to establish this framing: that in general if you contract time, you lose something of your ability to react or respond to your opponent's actions. Maybe this is vague, but I think that TheDwf was talking in prophetic terms: that Blizzard foolishly ignored a fundamental rule and will have to pay the consequences.
Except you could argue that the more time you give players to react the easier it becomes to make the right direction. As an example, I can probably calculate in my head what 28*36 is if given enough time, but I can't calculate it in 5 seconds. Only skilled math-guys can.
It simply doesn't make sense to argue that less time as a general rule reduces skill. There are lots of other variables that matters here. It must instead be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
It might not reduce skill per se, but it does typically make the game more volatile, random and less strategic. If you were set on case by case analysis you could never make the global assessment that the game is too fast in various ways and that one mighht desire thematic sort of change.
Time exists as a dimension to many parts of the game, and it's important to establish this framing: that in general if you contract time, you lose something of your ability to react or respond to your opponent's actions. Maybe this is vague, but I think that TheDwf was talking in prophetic terms: that Blizzard foolishly ignored a fundamental rule and will have to pay the consequences.
Except you could argue that the more time you give players to react the easier it becomes to make the right direction. As an example, I can probably calculate in my head what 28*36 is if given enough time, but I can't calculate it in 5 seconds. Only skilled math-guys can.
It simply doesn't make sense to argue that less time as a general rule reduces skill. There are lots of other variables that matters here. It must instead be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
It might not reduce skill per se, but it does typically make the game more volatile, random and less strategic. If you were set on case by case analysis you could never make the global assessment that the game is too fast in various ways and that one mighht desire thematic sort of change.
I believe the only actually way to reward more strategy is to bring in lots of different choices where the best solution isn't obvious. Increasing the time you have to make decisions doesn't increase strategy here. Rather it just gives more time for players to think about strategy. But if the optimal decision is obvious, your just giving "slower thinking" player a better chance to make the right decision.
Well said TheDwf, I don't want to be hard on blizzard ever, because starcraft has been one of the juggernauts when it comes to intellectually challenging games of our lifetime and for that I will cherish them forever... perfecting this game(if there is even such a thing) is probably an endless journey. But having said that and without even playing it anymore and only being a spectator, it does feel like Jay said "dumbed down and i doubled my dollars". They probably see this endless struggle for anyone to compete with a small ridiculously good korean scene and figure they will even it out a bit.
When it comes to the best of the best, the cream of the crop, these changes are only limiting their ability to put on a intellectually stimulating game for the audience to see develop in real time, these changes are meant to cast a wider net in possible profit by making it more accessible for the middle class to enjoy the game.
Less time and less resources just constraints creativity and possibilities, I guess it would be a good way to start from scratch as these changes should make it easier to find balance withing the game and units.
On April 08 2015 10:19 Umpteen wrote: The level of casual contempt on show is beginning to sicken me.
How about this: if you haven't personally used the editor to create a set of great new units that are nicely balanced and fun, you don't get to insult those who are trying.
They're expecting us to part with money to play the game, and want us to watch events featuring it. Of course we get to complain if it's not what we want.
The more I see of the ravager, the less I think that the ravager is too strong, or even comes too early. From what I'm seeing on streams: - vs Z: ravagers aren't all that dominant; roaches still carry the army - vs T: ravagers seem to be a minor factor in the matchup. It's nice to have some in some occasions for zoning, but with flying siege tanks just keep any rush with them in check easily. - vs P: protoss is fucked early against anything zerg if they can't wall and the ravager is good vs the convenient Protoss walls & canons & forcefields. --> the main problem is that protoss is fucked early against anything zerg. The ravager just - finally - is able to prevent the invincible 2base protoss early game. The much more healthy approach than nerfing the ravager (besides possibly necessary tweaks) is to just make protoss more capable of open field combat. Especially given how fucked up protoss got so far, buffs to protoss seem like the appropriate solution for now.
Yeah, yeah... I'm stopping already. Not having access to the beta makes all of what I'm writing bullcrap anyways...
I definitely agree that the more correct approach is to strengthen Protoss early game, but I would still like to see Ravager slowed down a bit for how powerful it is. The unit is almost *too* good at everything for its cost/tech. I mean, when you can have 3+ ravagers attacking your opponent's base at the 4 minute mark, that's pretty crazy.
On April 09 2015 02:38 KrazyTrumpet wrote: I definitely agree that the more correct approach is to strengthen Protoss early game, but I would still like to see Ravager slowed down a bit for how powerful it is. The unit is almost *too* good at everything for its cost/tech. I mean, when you can have 3+ ravagers attacking your opponents base at the 4 minute mark, that's pretty crazy.
Yeah, it comes out very early and a lair requirment or a 50/50-100/100 roachtech upgrade would probably make sense. But 4mins now, is like 7:00 HotS mins (though the conversion with the 12worker start is of course a false friend, given how it affects tech openings much more than e.g. hatch first). Pretty early, but puts it more into perspective.
On April 09 2015 03:08 Tenks wrote: Has anyone discussed how the new Terran unit DKim talked about may only fit into the game if they outright remove the anti-air from Cyclone?
How so? The Cyclone attack is long range single-target and even more so thanks to the way Lock-On works. The new Terran unit is short range AoE (sounds like it uses fire).
On April 09 2015 03:08 Tenks wrote: Has anyone discussed how the new Terran unit DKim talked about may only fit into the game if they outright remove the anti-air from Cyclone?
How so? The Cyclone attack is long range single-target and even more so thanks to the way Lock-On works. The new Terran unit is short range AoE (sounds like it uses fire).
Hellbat can morph to a FireStorm! Even tanker and deadlier version of hellbat that can be healed, repaired and has combat drugs
Has anyone noticed impact to Oracle/DT opening vs Terran? I imagine they are completely dead with the Turret change.
With the Warp-in nerf, Immortal nerf, Colossus nerfs, Oracle/DT opening nerf, Sentry nerf (Ravager breaks FF), I wonder if they should just remove Protoss from the game altogether. Maybe then people will be happy. Sigh.
On a more serious note I can't help but think that anti-Protoss sentiment is driving more of these changes than actual game design. The economy change makes easily massable cheap units really good.. meanwhile Protoss is getting all its crowd control / game pace units nerfed and receiving nothing in the form of early game brawlers to compensate for it.
Disruptors are super expensive and are almost entirely reliant on synergy with the Warp Prism to make them work effectively. At 300 gas a pop it's not something that you can afford to have kill 3 roaches and get sniped. They either look completely OP or useless as fuck depending on who's using them. And that's the last thing Protoss needs... more gimmicky shit that everyone will hate on.
Suggestions:
Remove the Robotics Bay requirement for the Disruptor Make Warp Prism range an upgrade at the Robotics Bay
This should allow Protoss to get a few Disruptors early to deal with some of the early Zerg/Terran aggression while limiting how early the "imba" Disruptor drops can hit the field. Currently that strategy is played almost every game because it's so good....
I've honestly been using Oracles for Stasis Ward. Stasis Ward is so cool, I love it for delaying pushes.
I strongly disagree with lowering the Disruptor's tech tier. It's powerful, and it's spot on the tech tree is appropriate. The better way to deal with current Protoss weakness is to simply buff Gateway. Considering all the rest of the changes to the game now, it's the perfect time to try this. And hell, if you make Protoss continually less reliant on Forcefields, we can have more than 2 types of maps, maybe!
On April 09 2015 03:39 KrazyTrumpet wrote: I've honestly been using Oracles for Stasis Ward. Stasis Ward is so cool, I love it for delaying pushes.
I strongly disagree with lowering the Disruptor's tech tier. It's powerful, and it's spot on the tech tree is appropriate. The better way to deal with current Protoss weakness is to simply buff Gateway. Considering all the rest of the changes to the game now, it's the perfect time to try this. And hell, if you make Protoss continually less reliant on Forcefields, we can have more than 2 types of maps, maybe!
What is the role of the Colossus then? What's the point of having 2 AoE Robotics units with the same exact tech requirement?
People bitched and moaned about the Colossus because they didn't like the design but it wasn't imbalanced. Now they've nerfed its damage 20% and its range with nothing to compensate.
I don't have beta access and nobody is making Colo so I can't really tell....
Perhaps if you get a few Colossus and a few disruptors you can use the Disruptors to zone out the enemy army while the Colos do damage from a distance?
On April 09 2015 03:47 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Honestly, just remove the Colossus. It's unnecessary now (range nerf + 20% damage nerf), and the most boring unit Protoss has. I won't miss it.
Okay but give us something to replace it? Just for strategic depth. I don't want to get to a point where everyone learns to split against Disruptor and now we have no units that can kill anything....
What strategic depth? There's already no real need for it. The new strategic depth for P is that Storm and Stargate into Carriers are viable strats as well as Disruptor. Protoss has plenty of strategic depth now, largely BECAUSE of the fact that you don't *have* to make Colossus every game or just die. Protoss is more fun to play than ever, even if it has a glaring early game problem at the moment that should honestly be easy to figure out a fix for.
On April 09 2015 04:07 KrazyTrumpet wrote: What strategic depth? There's already no real need for it. The new strategic depth for P is that Storm and Stargate into Carriers are viable strats as well as Disruptor. Protoss has plenty of strategic depth now, largely BECAUSE of the fact that you don't *have* to make Colossus every game or just die. Protoss is more fun to play than ever, even if it has a glaring early game problem at the moment that should honestly be easy to figure out a fix for.
Maybe you know more than me because you've gotten to play it, but to me it just seems like all everyone is doing (and winning with) is Disruptor drop > Carriers.
I want to play StarCraft, not "Disruptor Drop Challenge 2000."
I want to be able to play a game without having to make a Disruptor. Disruptor is just the new Colossus.
On April 09 2015 04:07 KrazyTrumpet wrote: What strategic depth? There's already no real need for it. The new strategic depth for P is that Storm and Stargate into Carriers are viable strats as well as Disruptor. Protoss has plenty of strategic depth now, largely BECAUSE of the fact that you don't *have* to make Colossus every game or just die. Protoss is more fun to play than ever, even if it has a glaring early game problem at the moment that should honestly be easy to figure out a fix for.
Maybe you know more than me because you've gotten to play it, but to me it just seems like all everyone is doing (and winning with) is Disruptor drop > Carriers.
I want to play StarCraft, not "Disruptor Drop Challenge 2000."
I want to be able to play a game without having to make a Disruptor. Disruptor is just the new Colossus.
With a buff to Protoss early game, that won't have to be the case. The other tech trees are very viable, if it wasn't for the weak early game, imo.
On April 09 2015 04:07 KrazyTrumpet wrote: What strategic depth? There's already no real need for it. The new strategic depth for P is that Storm and Stargate into Carriers are viable strats as well as Disruptor. Protoss has plenty of strategic depth now, largely BECAUSE of the fact that you don't *have* to make Colossus every game or just die. Protoss is more fun to play than ever, even if it has a glaring early game problem at the moment that should honestly be easy to figure out a fix for.
Maybe you know more than me because you've gotten to play it, but to me it just seems like all everyone is doing (and winning with) is Disruptor drop > Carriers.
I want to play StarCraft, not "Disruptor Drop Challenge 2000."
I want to be able to play a game without having to make a Disruptor. Disruptor is just the new Colossus.
You should blame that on the many people trying to play to win instead of trying to find new builds, though. And I mean a unit being a core part of a matchup is nothing bad per se(see ZvT or some BW matchups), it's just bad if it's all that EVER happens.
On April 09 2015 04:35 ROOTFayth wrote: I think at this point if they kept the game like that, a buff to gateway units could be nice indeed
Cyclone will still need a nerf because it's absolutely ridiculous
^This. A gateway buff has been a huge request for a long time, I think that Blizzard is working towards that, they've nerfed the collosus, now they are likely looking at how zealots and stalkers (and now adepts) can be buffed to make protoss feel like a more rounded race.
I think the economy change lends itself nicely to that as well, because warpgate doesn't hit as early, so by the time warpgate is in play gateway rushes shouldn't be a problem like they would have with 6 starting workers and buffed gateway units.
On April 09 2015 04:35 ROOTFayth wrote: I think at this point if they kept the game like that, a buff to gateway units could be nice indeed
Cyclone will still need a nerf because it's absolutely ridiculous
^This. A gateway buff has been a huge request for a long time, I think that Blizzard is working towards that, they've nerfed the collosus, now they are likely looking at how zealots and stalkers (and now adepts) can be buffed to make protoss feel like a more rounded race.
I think the economy change lends itself nicely to that as well, because warpgate doesn't hit as early, so by the time warpgate is in play gateway rushes shouldn't be a problem like they would have with 6 starting workers and buffed gateway units.
That and Lurkers/Widow Mines will rape Gateway units still.
Oh my dear sweet god, so apparently the popular Terran strat right now is just mass cyclone + mass widow mine and I have no idea how to deal with it as Protoss. Easily the single most frustrating strat I think I have ever played against. I even got up to Carriers (in good numbers!) in the games I played vs it, and the cyclones could just seriously kite to infinity.
I really, really hope the Cyclone is patched soon, that is some really really really frustrating nonsense.
On April 09 2015 06:22 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Oh my dear sweet god, so apparently the popular Terran strat right now is just mass cyclone + mass widow mine and I have no idea how to deal with it as Protoss. Easily the single most frustrating strat I think I have ever played against. I even got up to Carriers (in good numbers!) in the games I played vs it, and the cyclones could just seriously kite to infinity.
I really, really hope the Cyclone is patched soon, that is some really really really frustrating nonsense.
In the meantime...anyone have any tips?
Does anyone have any idea when the first balance patch will hit ?
Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Yeah phoenix seem to shut them down well early game, but things can still spiral out of control if the Terran doesn't commit and just builds up cyclones + mines. I've seen PartinG crushing Terrans left and right by just killing the first 1-2 cyclones with lifts and then making a massive gateway counter attack, but that seems a very gimmicky way to play the match-up (every game was over by 5 min basically). I don't know, I kinda hope cyclone is reworked quite quickly too. I feel the lock-on range is far too much and should have more counterplay, even if that implies making the attack a bit stronger. I feel the cyclone is far too massable too because it's quite solid all-around, what's the point of even making a tank now ? And goddammit, REMOVE THOSE RANGE INDICATORS FOR THE OPPONENT if mass cyclones has to be a thing. It makes the screens impossibly messy, especially when you have tempests (range indicators everywhere).
On April 09 2015 06:31 DinoMight wrote: Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
On April 09 2015 06:31 DinoMight wrote: If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
I laughed
I'm glad someone did.
I think what they need to do is remove the moving fire when NOT locked on and get rid of autocast lock. I like the concept of the unit but right now it's just way too good. It should only be that good when a good player is microing it to its full potential IMO. I just watched Demuslim spam Cyclone/Hellion and it looked ridiculously strong.
Phoenixes to shut down the early Cyclones is a good idea. You'll want the SG later for Carriers anyway and it gives you a bit of scouting/map presence.
I really want to try Blink openings though. With the slightly weaker Marauder and the Disruptor being able to tank Widow Mine shots on its way in seems like you could start Blink+Obs and transition into the mid-late game on a good footing.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
The *only* way to stop Cylones is lifting them with Phoenix and killing their lock on. There is no microing vs them, they are too fast and the range is way too long.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
The *only* way to stop Cylones is lifting them with Phoenix and killing their lock on. There is no microing vs them, they are too fast and the range is way too long.
Not even if you Blink away the unit they're locked onto and move the others forward etc? Are they just too strong?
On April 09 2015 03:39 KrazyTrumpet wrote: I've honestly been using Oracles for Stasis Ward. Stasis Ward is so cool, I love it for delaying pushes.
I strongly disagree with lowering the Disruptor's tech tier. It's powerful, and it's spot on the tech tree is appropriate. The better way to deal with current Protoss weakness is to simply buff Gateway. Considering all the rest of the changes to the game now, it's the perfect time to try this. And hell, if you make Protoss continually less reliant on Forcefields, we can have more than 2 types of maps, maybe!
What is the role of the Colossus then? What's the point of having 2 AoE Robotics units with the same exact tech requirement?
People bitched and moaned about the Colossus because they didn't like the design but it wasn't imbalanced. Now they've nerfed its damage 20% and its range with nothing to compensate.
I don't have beta access and nobody is making Colo so I can't really tell....
Perhaps if you get a few Colossus and a few disruptors you can use the Disruptors to zone out the enemy army while the Colos do damage from a distance?
I saw Apollo do just that earlier. Added a second robo after his third kicked in (pvt) and kept about 3 disruptors on the map at all times and produced colossi the rest of the time. The terran he was playing was using a cyclone hellion hellbat composition and I can't speak to whether or not that's even remotely playable but the colossi added a lot of stability.
I generally agree with others that it would be better to scrap the colossus altogether and buff gateway units at this point than to try and plug the early game hole with expensive shit, especially with how badly you get punished for sitting on two bases.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
The *only* way to stop Cylones is lifting them with Phoenix and killing their lock on. There is no microing vs them, they are too fast and the range is way too long.
Not even if you Blink away the unit they're locked onto and move the others forward etc? Are they just too strong?
Yeah their to strong. 200 health and sick damage. Pretty crazy.
On April 09 2015 06:26 KrazyTrumpet wrote: Dunno, hope it's soon. Cyclone is out of control haha
You basically have to blindly open Phoenix in PvT right now, which deal with early game Cyclone shenanigans, but if you are looking to try to take more than 3 bases, it gets crazy tough, especially when they start adding in the mass widow mine. Throw in some hellion runbys and, welp. Just not sure what to do. I guess Storm but idk, I feel like that's pretty weak vs Cyclone still.
Cyclones also own cannons pretty hard, which is unfortunate.
Maybe try Blink + obs? Gives you a bit of map control and lets you micro against Cyclones.
If they go bio you can add disruptors and if they mech you can leave the game and queue up as Zerg.
The *only* way to stop Cylones is lifting them with Phoenix and killing their lock on. There is no microing vs them, they are too fast and the range is way too long.
Not even if you Blink away the unit they're locked onto and move the others forward etc? Are they just too strong?
Yeah their to strong. 200 health and sick damage. Pretty crazy.
And kind of fast.
edit: Well, apparently if you can get a Pylon in Terran's base you can beat Cyclones! Source: Whitera's stream lmao
On April 08 2015 10:19 Umpteen wrote: The level of casual contempt on show is beginning to sicken me.
How about this: if you haven't personally used the editor to create a set of great new units that are nicely balanced and fun, you don't get to insult those who are trying.
They're expecting us to part with money to play the game, and want us to watch events featuring it. Of course we get to complain if it's not what we want.
First, calling hardworking people stupid lazy hacks is not complaining, it's just insulting and depressing. The only thing I don't enjoy about lotv - the only thing I've ever not enjoyed about StarCraft 2 - is how down the community is. It's like half of us just discovered how cool it is to be cynical.
Secondly, instantly complaining when things aren't immediately to your liking is something I'm trying to teach my 8 year old daughter to quit.
how do you have the gas to go mass cyclone mass mine? I saw demuslim go mass cyclone mass hellion and his gas & mineral was very low. Doesn't seem to me that there would be enough gas to support mass mines & cyclones only.
On April 09 2015 16:06 cheekymonkey wrote: how do you have the gas to go mass cyclone mass mine? I saw demuslim go mass cyclone mass hellion and his gas & mineral was very low. Doesn't seem to me that there would be enough gas to support mass mines & cyclones only.
Open Cyclones, get map presence, take bases everywhere, add mines.