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United States4883 Posts
On April 15 2015 23:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2015 23:04 Lexender wrote:On April 15 2015 18:13 Insidioussc2 wrote:I really really like the new economy and think most of the "in-depth" analysis here comes way to early. It is a very big change, and i have still concerns when it comes to the 12 worker headstart. But the system of punishing for not expanding is great in my opinion. On April 15 2015 05:39 SC2John wrote:
This is obviously a Protoss argument, but it goes for all kinds of styles that have relied and DO rely on sacrificing tech/army for economy. With a LotV half patch model, you are directly punishing those playstyles by forcing them to no longer become their own playstyles. More mobile playstyles revolving around inexpensive map control units are rewarded since they can hold more bases earlier. Since only one type of playstyle is rewarded (or rather, one is mangled and disfigured), the only way to counter is to "balance" units around it. Read TheDwf's article; balancing units around a system that strives to create more action only ends up creating a stronger polarizing force. This is called removing options.
On April 15 2015 12:54 Whitewing wrote:
The current LOTV model accelerates specific aspects greatly and also drastically limits the effectiveness of not only turtling strategies, but also tech centric defense plays, which are not necessarily turtling plays, but merely in recognition of the fact that the game has ebbs and flows for all races at specific times in specific matchups. In PvT, if you're out on the map as protoss during the mid-game, you die horribly, which is why protoss sits back to defend: they simply lack the military technology to take map control at that time. They have to wait for the tech to field both colossi and high templar, or at least achieve many upgrades and a large enough group of units. If they try to engage a bioball mid-map too soon, they get run over for lack of damage output, or doom dropped. However, in LOTV, if that situation were to re-establish itself, Protoss literally can't sit back and defend, because they lose half their income by doing so. They can't expand at that time because they have no map control to defend, and terran could freely expand.
I defenetely see your points here, but to me those are balancing issues and i don't see The Dwf's reasoning why not. Balancing can be more than tweaking some unit stats (and defenetly much much more than Blizzard is doing in their next update). For example Protoss, you all have this picture in mind about Protoss tech only to make a deathball (colossi and hightemplar) to then stomp or contain you opponent, why can't they be more about map controll, too? Adapts at some point might provide it early on, speed warpprisems with disruptor later and there could be much much more. For example a tech to speed built nexei? Some tweaks to recall, which help you defend outer bases instead of it only being a way to safe your sentries after a failed attack? These are just some probably bad examples I came up with just now, the point is: you can balance a race or playstyle so that you can attack while taking bases, that you can slow push to the next base while defending haras and haras by yourself, and defenetly that your tech will be worth something again. The only option, that is removed by the economy and not by balance is sitting on three bases and do nothing. Which is still surprisingly effective at most skill levels in hots. I am not saying that it is perfectly implemented right now, the change is to big to leave most of the game as it was, but in my opinion it has a lot of potential, even more than a mining efficiency change. The arguably most fun matchups in hots and wol are bio vs zerg, or bio vs. mech. A big reason to why so, is because map controll is very rewarding here. I think with both the units and the economy changes Blizzard tries to make this happen for all the matchups and if they eventually succeed, I will be very very happy Somethig a lot of people don't understand is that the mobile vs immobile, attack vs defender, etc, interactions are important because they add depth to the game, there is choice and strategic capacities, its something beyond just selecting X units vs Y units, or M upgrade vs N upgrade. Think about this in the regular sport setup, there is always an aggressor vs a defender, this adds depth to the game because different choices are added for different roles. Its everything everybody tried to do was run to the basket to dunk it every they get hold of the ball, all the strategies and tactics are lost. This also applies to starcraft, the whole mobile vs immobile comes down to different ways to use a unit, just like in the whole depth of micro where adding buttons don't add micro, a unit doesn't needs to be able to move thought the map at a ridiculous speed to need skill to use or the be fun to use. You mention bio vs mech, the reason that match is fun is because the way the 2 different skills colide, using both their strengths and weaknesess in a skillful way to defeat the enemy. This is why a change of the economy is necessary, economy should add depth to the play not remove it, if we instead try to do this only through units a lot of depth is lost. If we keep an economy that doesn't adds choices we will have to balance the units to a very narrow economy, wich will only make it so all units are similar and all of the strategic depth will be lost. Going by your idea we may as well just make every race has MMM, and make every game a tankless TvT. The attacker/defender dynamic exists ALWAYS no matter the pace of the game. Chess, Go, Street Fighter, Smash Brothers, MMA, Boxing, etc... No matter what the resource your using is (income, total units available, hitpoints, meter, stamina, breathing, sweat, etc..) No matter what the speed, no matter what the hardships, competitive sports has always been able to create that defender/aggressor dynamic because that dynamic is not tied to economy, it is tied to Human Decision Making. And no matter the speed of the background metrics (economy) an asymmetric matchup will always have one side being more mobile than the other. That dynamic will ALWAYS happen no matter how fast the game is--so long as there is asymmetric design. The only thing lost with this specific income system is purely immobile playstyles that depend on being immobile at specifically 3ish bases. An immobile playstyle that starts at 6-7 bases is possible still with this income system, especially if maps can be split/there was an increased emphasis on chokes. The only playstyle that is lost is, very specifically, wanting to be immobile at 3 or less bases. That's it. Now, whether you like that type of pace, or whether you like that type of metric is subjective. But to say that the attacker/defender dynamic disappears, or to say that the purely defensive playstyle disappears is to be dishonest. It just doesn't happen in the same timestamps that you are asking for, nor should it since the econ was changed which changes the timestamps of everything.
Okay, let me try using small words for you.
Let's call our attacker Zerdo and our defender Protan. All right, so Zerdo can attack as much as he wants, and it's what he excels at. Protan, on the other hand, is not designed to attack all the time, and in fact, most of the time, he's bad at it. So Blizzard changes some numbers and now Protan can attack just as well as Zerdo. In fact, they're actually the same character.
Okay, that's an exaggeration. They're actually VERY similar, but they are slightly different. One of them moves a little faster while the other one hits a little harder. But have we really made a more dynamic game with our changes to Protan and Zerdo? We have increased the speed of the game, but in doing so, we've made the two characters actually remarkably similar, and now it's just a matter of mechanics who will win.
Less strategy, more mechanics: the mantra of Blizzard ESPORTS.
PS: The example I gave was NOT a purely immobile 2 or 3 bases situation. It is a slower-paced situation which has been removed entirely from the game from just the economy changes in LotV. You can balance numbers and add units all you want, but the strategic pool is dwindling to basically everyone pretending to be Zerg.
EDIT: Getting to 8 bases for maximum efficiency takes a lot of planning and strategic decision making; Getting to a really fast 4 bases by 10:00 doesn't. It's difficult to execute, not to plan.
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On April 16 2015 01:09 SC2John wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2015 23:52 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 15 2015 23:04 Lexender wrote:On April 15 2015 18:13 Insidioussc2 wrote:I really really like the new economy and think most of the "in-depth" analysis here comes way to early. It is a very big change, and i have still concerns when it comes to the 12 worker headstart. But the system of punishing for not expanding is great in my opinion. On April 15 2015 05:39 SC2John wrote:
This is obviously a Protoss argument, but it goes for all kinds of styles that have relied and DO rely on sacrificing tech/army for economy. With a LotV half patch model, you are directly punishing those playstyles by forcing them to no longer become their own playstyles. More mobile playstyles revolving around inexpensive map control units are rewarded since they can hold more bases earlier. Since only one type of playstyle is rewarded (or rather, one is mangled and disfigured), the only way to counter is to "balance" units around it. Read TheDwf's article; balancing units around a system that strives to create more action only ends up creating a stronger polarizing force. This is called removing options.
On April 15 2015 12:54 Whitewing wrote:
The current LOTV model accelerates specific aspects greatly and also drastically limits the effectiveness of not only turtling strategies, but also tech centric defense plays, which are not necessarily turtling plays, but merely in recognition of the fact that the game has ebbs and flows for all races at specific times in specific matchups. In PvT, if you're out on the map as protoss during the mid-game, you die horribly, which is why protoss sits back to defend: they simply lack the military technology to take map control at that time. They have to wait for the tech to field both colossi and high templar, or at least achieve many upgrades and a large enough group of units. If they try to engage a bioball mid-map too soon, they get run over for lack of damage output, or doom dropped. However, in LOTV, if that situation were to re-establish itself, Protoss literally can't sit back and defend, because they lose half their income by doing so. They can't expand at that time because they have no map control to defend, and terran could freely expand.
I defenetely see your points here, but to me those are balancing issues and i don't see The Dwf's reasoning why not. Balancing can be more than tweaking some unit stats (and defenetly much much more than Blizzard is doing in their next update). For example Protoss, you all have this picture in mind about Protoss tech only to make a deathball (colossi and hightemplar) to then stomp or contain you opponent, why can't they be more about map controll, too? Adapts at some point might provide it early on, speed warpprisems with disruptor later and there could be much much more. For example a tech to speed built nexei? Some tweaks to recall, which help you defend outer bases instead of it only being a way to safe your sentries after a failed attack? These are just some probably bad examples I came up with just now, the point is: you can balance a race or playstyle so that you can attack while taking bases, that you can slow push to the next base while defending haras and haras by yourself, and defenetly that your tech will be worth something again. The only option, that is removed by the economy and not by balance is sitting on three bases and do nothing. Which is still surprisingly effective at most skill levels in hots. I am not saying that it is perfectly implemented right now, the change is to big to leave most of the game as it was, but in my opinion it has a lot of potential, even more than a mining efficiency change. The arguably most fun matchups in hots and wol are bio vs zerg, or bio vs. mech. A big reason to why so, is because map controll is very rewarding here. I think with both the units and the economy changes Blizzard tries to make this happen for all the matchups and if they eventually succeed, I will be very very happy Somethig a lot of people don't understand is that the mobile vs immobile, attack vs defender, etc, interactions are important because they add depth to the game, there is choice and strategic capacities, its something beyond just selecting X units vs Y units, or M upgrade vs N upgrade. Think about this in the regular sport setup, there is always an aggressor vs a defender, this adds depth to the game because different choices are added for different roles. Its everything everybody tried to do was run to the basket to dunk it every they get hold of the ball, all the strategies and tactics are lost. This also applies to starcraft, the whole mobile vs immobile comes down to different ways to use a unit, just like in the whole depth of micro where adding buttons don't add micro, a unit doesn't needs to be able to move thought the map at a ridiculous speed to need skill to use or the be fun to use. You mention bio vs mech, the reason that match is fun is because the way the 2 different skills colide, using both their strengths and weaknesess in a skillful way to defeat the enemy. This is why a change of the economy is necessary, economy should add depth to the play not remove it, if we instead try to do this only through units a lot of depth is lost. If we keep an economy that doesn't adds choices we will have to balance the units to a very narrow economy, wich will only make it so all units are similar and all of the strategic depth will be lost. Going by your idea we may as well just make every race has MMM, and make every game a tankless TvT. The attacker/defender dynamic exists ALWAYS no matter the pace of the game. Chess, Go, Street Fighter, Smash Brothers, MMA, Boxing, etc... No matter what the resource your using is (income, total units available, hitpoints, meter, stamina, breathing, sweat, etc..) No matter what the speed, no matter what the hardships, competitive sports has always been able to create that defender/aggressor dynamic because that dynamic is not tied to economy, it is tied to Human Decision Making. And no matter the speed of the background metrics (economy) an asymmetric matchup will always have one side being more mobile than the other. That dynamic will ALWAYS happen no matter how fast the game is--so long as there is asymmetric design. The only thing lost with this specific income system is purely immobile playstyles that depend on being immobile at specifically 3ish bases. An immobile playstyle that starts at 6-7 bases is possible still with this income system, especially if maps can be split/there was an increased emphasis on chokes. The only playstyle that is lost is, very specifically, wanting to be immobile at 3 or less bases. That's it. Now, whether you like that type of pace, or whether you like that type of metric is subjective. But to say that the attacker/defender dynamic disappears, or to say that the purely defensive playstyle disappears is to be dishonest. It just doesn't happen in the same timestamps that you are asking for, nor should it since the econ was changed which changes the timestamps of everything. Okay, let me try using small words for you. Let's call our attacker Zerdo and our defender Protan. All right, so Zerdo can attack as much as he wants, and it's what he excels at. Protan, on the other hand, is not designed to attack all the time, and in fact, most of the time, he's bad at it. So Blizzard changes some numbers and now Protan can attack just as well as Zerdo. In fact, they're actually the same character. Okay, that's an exaggeration. They're actually VERY similar, but they are slightly different. One of them moves a little faster while the other one hits a little harder. But have we really made a more dynamic game with our changes to Protan and Zerdo? We have increased the speed of the game, but in doing so, we've made the two characters actually remarkably similar, and now it's just a matter of mechanics who will win. Less strategy, more mechanics: the mantra of Blizzard ESPORTS. PS: The example I gave was NOT a purely immobile 2 or 3 bases situation. It is a slower-paced situation which has been removed entirely from the game from just the economy changes in LotV. You can balance numbers and add units all you want, but the strategic pool is dwindling to basically everyone pretending to be Zerg. EDIT: Getting to 8 bases for maximum efficiency takes a lot of planning and strategic decision making; Getting to a really fast 4 bases by 10:00 doesn't. It's difficult to execute, not to plan.
But here's the thing. You're opinion about how entertaining/well designed/similar Protan and Zerdo is to each other is purely subjective. Sure they were easier for a 5 year old to tell apart when one was immobile and the other fast, but I'm sure we are grown up enough to not need such Barney the Dinosaur levels of differentiation between different types of races. And there is indeed still lots and lots of strategy to them even if they are less different than you would like. We see these in fighting games all the time, even from characters that are "basically the same." We also see this in live sports ALL the time. Basketball is not less strategic than football just because you have to stop and make a play each turn in football while Basketball is more fluid in its mechanics. It isn't less strategic just because there's more to do. Its simply that the measurement for what counts as a strategic decision and what counts as non-strategic decision changes.
This is where you're getting lost. Blizzard's system does not prevent defensive play. It doesn't prevent reactive play. It simply moves it to a later part of each match's natural timeline. Their system encourages high intensity, aggressive expanding. Which, in turn, creates lots of holes and weaknesses in both player's defenses. This encourages the same thing as the slower paced econ. Either both sides remain passive, only one side becomes aggressive, or both sides are aggressive.
Lets pretend they both are aggressive. Does the first/second one to attack always win? Most likely not. The truth is, both sides can *potentially* defend each other's attacks. And as the game progresses, suddenly both sides have large amounts of territory, lots of map vision, still low econ (due to the quickly diminishing resources) but higher tech. Decisions such as "expensive units" vs "cheap units" start coming into play. Some players keep trying to make deathballs, losing extraneous bases as they do. Other players maintain a mobile army and keep hitting the empty spots in the map. And suddenly, its 45-60 minutes in, both players have mined from 4-7 different bases, losing and gaining throughout the game. One player has a higher tech, but immobile army. The other player has a lower tech, but more mobile army. And we're back to where we were in HotS and WoL--but had 30-45 minutes of hectic action before hand.
Now, its also possible both sides decide to be passive. Except, they aren't actually passive from a viewers perspective since they are aggressively expanding instead of turtling on 3 bases maxing to 200. Choosing to not be aggressive makes it so both players suddenly have 7-8 bases each, teching to tier 3 very quickly and in the first 15 minutes you suddenly have a split map scenario ala MVP vs Squirtle. Motion is always happening, the map is always being explored, bases are continually being built, units continually being rallied. Still, much more exciting than 3base play is now.
Now, it's also possible that one side decides to take a slower 4rth but the other side decides to be aggressive. Oh wait--timing attacks can still happen, just not as quickly as HotS or WoL.
The numbers change, the pacing changes. But nothing disappears. Nothing is gone. The only thing gone are the old benchmarks that the whiners keep thinking is important.
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the DH method punishes not being on 6 bases (sorry, but 6 is as far as it goes normally for protoss and terran, not 8), in the sense that being under that puts you behind relative to your opponent,
Just wanted to clear up the proper use of terminology like "punish" if that's alright. You may mean disincentive or dis-incentivize 
A (positive) reward is what you get after you go and get your own lolly pop. You started with nothing and ended up with something sweet.
(negative rewards are when you have an annoying song in the background and you remove it with ear plugs)
(Negative) Punishment is when you have a lolly pop and Mr. Burns yanks it out of your hands. You start with something and that something is taken away.
(positive punishment would be getting punched in the face: you started nothing and ended up with pain. The punch could also be an insult followed by emotional pain)
Basically, punishments lead to hard feelings and bad behaviour from participants in the activity. From a behaviorist standpoint, it is very risky design.
Jealousy is when you look to the left and see another kid with a lolly pop you don't have. It is sort of punishing, but also leads to reward-seeking behaviour. It's just inequality. No need to remove this from the game- the entire strategic aspect of the game is an attempt to create and exploit this inequality!
(I guess fighting games *mostly* omit this aspect. Never thought of that before.)
Eh?
I wouldn't say that having less money than your opponent is punishing, but having an income of 800 minerals per second one minute, then having it cut down to 400/minute would be punishing. You had a batch of 400M/minute and then they were taken from you.
If, on the other hand, you have 800M/min and you lose after noticing your opponent had 1600M/min, your greed can kick in: "I want 1600M/min too!" Then you will be driven to achieve that next game.
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I think you'll be basically forced to make enough workers to use all 8 patches, but then half of them become (nearly) useless shortly afterwards, at which point your basically forced to expand. You've not only invested in the workers to use all 8 patches, but the production to spend all that income as well, which then becomes useless.
With DH, on the other hand, you can not expand and maintain the same income, and still be able to use your workers and production you've had. If you can't expand or choose not to, you simply don't build any more workers or production buildings and maintain your level of output for a while.
Could it at all be viable to stay on the same number of bases and not expand once half your base mines out? Is there a strategic decision to be made there, or is it expand or die? Does it make any sense to undersaturate or build fewer production buildings than you need because your income will go down later? Or to just live with having extra workers and unusable buildings?
And if it is expand or die, is that okay? Is it alright to limit strategic diversity if it forces the game to go down a more exciting road?
Of course all this applies to mining out a base no matter how many minerals are in the patches. It at least feels really bad for half the patches to go out before the other half. But I guess if it were, say, 1500 on the smaller patches and 2000 on the others it would feel like an extension of what we're used to and that wouldn't feel as terrible.
It feels like from a "forcing the expand" position, having half your minerals be 750 or all of them be 750 does the same thing for your first base. You just have to take another expansion. When your nat mines out half you might not. But it could be cool for your oldest 8 patches of income to actually be spread out to two locations. I'd like to see something like 1250/1750 patches tried.
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United States7483 Posts
On April 17 2015 10:20 HewTheTitan wrote:Show nested quote + the DH method punishes not being on 6 bases (sorry, but 6 is as far as it goes normally for protoss and terran, not 8), in the sense that being under that puts you behind relative to your opponent, Just wanted to clear up the proper use of terminology like "punish" if that's alright. You may mean disincentive or dis-incentivize A (positive) reward is what you get after you go and get your own lolly pop. You started with nothing and ended up with something sweet. (negative rewards are when you have an annoying song in the background and you remove it with ear plugs) (Negative) Punishment is when you have a lolly pop and Mr. Burns yanks it out of your hands. You start with something and that something is taken away. (positive punishment would be getting punched in the face: you started nothing and ended up with pain. The punch could also be an insult followed by emotional pain) Basically, punishments lead to hard feelings and bad behaviour from participants in the activity. From a behaviorist standpoint, it is very risky design. Jealousy is when you look to the left and see another kid with a lolly pop you don't have. It is sort of punishing, but also leads to reward-seeking behaviour. It's just inequality. No need to remove this from the game- the entire strategic aspect of the game is an attempt to create and exploit this inequality! (I guess fighting games *mostly* omit this aspect. Never thought of that before.) Eh?I wouldn't say that having less money than your opponent is punishing, but having an income of 800 minerals per second one minute, then having it cut down to 400/minute would be punishing. You had a batch of 400M/minute and then they were taken from you.
If, on the other hand, you have 800M/min and you lose after noticing your opponent had 1600M/min, your greed can kick in: "I want 1600M/min too!" Then you will be driven to achieve that next game.
I'm aware of the distinction, I was using the same definition he was using. It's often easier to utilize the same definition, even when it is wrong, rather than argue definitions. As long as the communication is understood.
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if i dont get an invite to the beta soon im going to quit the game altogether, doesnt seem like much point playing hots now if everything is so radically different bar the actual macro commands
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why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm.
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On April 17 2015 12:47 Honeybadger wrote:
why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm.
viewer vs player distinction.
Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states)
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On April 17 2015 13:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 12:47 Honeybadger wrote:
why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm. viewer vs player distinction. Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states)
And yet we still have MLB, which is like upwards of 80% mindgames between the pitcher and the batter with the rest of the time being short but frenetic action. And, perhaps shockingly, people do sit through those like a three-hour movie (give or take a bathroom break and the 7th inning stretch).
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On April 17 2015 13:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:
viewer vs player distinction.
Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states)
I think I explained it badly.
Long drawn out games where players are doing minor skirmishes here and there pretty constantly instead of major clashes was more what I described. Lots of LITTLE conflicts, as opposed to the midgame clumped army headbutting that is basically a 5 on 5 DOTA brawl, that draws down to the choices made throughout the game and declaring the victor as the one who made the most right calls, as opposed to one single right call or one single error.
Nobody ever calls bio vs mech TvT a dry affair.
I'm not saying that the cheeses and the midgame timing wins don't have their places in an exciting series, but the drawn out turtles are very, very important as well for contrasting the brutal action.
The asymmetry is fucking VITAL for starcraft. People keep asking for the changes to the races to be fair and even across the board, which just is never going to keep the game varied. Turtling needs to not be discouraged, because what we wind up with is the exact same length and style of game regardless of who's playing who or what. Mech should NOT be as mobile as bio, and that's what blizzard seems to want for some reason, because the economy model they're testing right now just flat out brutalizes players like me who think thors and tanks can make up the backbone of an immobile, positionally superior army that should be able to trade 3 or 4 to 1 with other armies. It boils down to what types of units you want to build, not what type of style you want to play. And that rubs me the wrong way.
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United States7483 Posts
On April 17 2015 14:05 Spect8rCraft wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 13:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 17 2015 12:47 Honeybadger wrote:
why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm. viewer vs player distinction. Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states) And yet we still have MLB, which is like upwards of 80% mindgames between the pitcher and the batter with the rest of the time being short but frenetic action. And, perhaps shockingly, people do sit through those like a three-hour movie (give or take a bathroom break and the 7th inning stretch).
A lot of people do something else and multi-task while watching baseball. Even the baseball commission has admitted the game is too boring and is trying to cut down on downtime and speed up the action.
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I'm not saying that the cheeses and the midgame timing wins don't have their places in an exciting series, but the drawn out turtles are very, very important as well for contrasting the brutal action.
I agree here, and I think for the longevity of the game, its important that very differnet styles gets rewarded. Mobile vs mobile can be very fun and actionpacked, but there is something very special about immobile vs mobile. However, there are simply periods of the game where the immobile army can stale the game completely. A viking is imo problematic when mixed together with Mech as it prevents a lot of the tools the enemy has to army trade.
I think defensive mech would be more interesting with a ground unit as the main AA vs armored damage dealer. Viking fits better in vs light units.
On top of that, there is no reason to think that the economy cannot make defensive mech viable. All you need here is a big late game upgrade to Siege tanks + 2 supply.
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On April 17 2015 13:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 12:47 Honeybadger wrote:
why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm. viewer vs player distinction. Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states)
That's completely subjective. Flash was arguably the most popular BW player, and he holds the record for most missile turrets produced in a game (107 I think it was). His mech was almost always of the most turtling kind, but incredibly popular nonetheless. The idea that everything must be super fast and action packed all the time is not based on any facts, and I would say makes the game far less appealing to new players.
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Yes, we really needed another thread like this.
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On April 17 2015 19:56 sushiman wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 13:54 Thieving Magpie wrote:On April 17 2015 12:47 Honeybadger wrote:
why the hell do people dislike long, drawn out defensive games with a lot of smaller skirmishes that winds up dwindling down in economy to seriously intense micro-for-your-life play as each player just barely squeaks ahead for the lead. Sure they can be rough to play but personally, I like being rewarded for my tactical choices throughout the game coming to fruition at the finale. I've always been a turtler and love the feeling of my opponent bashing himself upon my indestructible army, even if he has the economic advantage, my positioning and composition are just too tough to break. Bases can be a struggle to take, but I like that I'm not punished for carefully and slowly spreading my forces to the next point.
Planetary fortress/forward turrets used to zone the battlefield in your favor are something that is really missing from the game. It's a role that tanks have failed to do since blizzard decided to knock the damage down from 70.
those game are the most tense to me. I don't know why people insist every game be action packed and hyper aggressive. I really dislike games that never get past the midgame tech and army wise as the norm. viewer vs player distinction. Long drawn out defensive games where the battle is mostly in the mind is boring to people who don't play. For the same reasons they don't have MONDAY NIGHT CHESS and have MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL instead (in the states) That's completely subjective. Flash was arguably the most popular BW player, and he holds the record for most missile turrets produced in a game (107 I think it was). His mech was almost always of the most turtling kind, but incredibly popular nonetheless. The idea that everything must be super fast and action packed all the time is not based on any facts, and I would say makes the game far less appealing to new players.
Let's do a poll on who gets more love, Flash vs Tom Brady.
Every niche will have it's superstars. All of them.
I'd never go fanboy over flash if I met him in person, but you'd bet your ass I'd go gags asking for an autograph if I bumped into Mark Rosewater, Mike Flores, and Brian Weissman--and those guys are in a game slower and less action packed than SC2.
However, statistical trends are not subjective. While football or futball or basketball are only subjectively more entertaining in a game per game basis, the population does tend to care more for those forms of entertainment than less action packed ones. Heck, look what happens during the Super Bowl or the World Cup versus what happens during an OSL even during BW days.
Those are the metrics a large company like Blizzard is trying to match. They don't care about how much a random website cares. They care about getting everyone caring. That means metrics, that means broad market samples, that means not making just you happy but making the total population happy.
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On April 17 2015 22:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Let's do a poll on who gets more love, Flash vs Tom Brady.
Every niche will have it's superstars. All of them.
I'd never go fanboy over flash if I met him in person, but you'd bet your ass I'd go gags asking for an autograph if I bumped into Mark Rosewater, Mike Flores, and Brian Weissman--and those guys are in a game slower and less action packed than SC2.
However, statistical trends are not subjective. While football or futball or basketball are only subjectively more entertaining in a game per game basis, the population does tend to care more for those forms of entertainment than less action packed ones. Heck, look what happens during the Super Bowl or the World Cup versus what happens during an OSL even during BW days.
Those are the metrics a large company like Blizzard is trying to match. They don't care about how much a random website cares. They care about getting everyone caring. That means metrics, that means broad market samples, that means not making just you happy but making the total population happy.
I dont if there is a single thing in your post that makes any sense.
Let me be clear to you. Be it american or european football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball, etc. Their pace of action has absolutely nothing to do with their viewer popularity. The reason, the only reason, and for exactly zero other reasons, they are so popular on TV, is because they are so popular sports to play, and they were that way way way before television was even invented. Certainly much before there ever was the first ever televised sport match.
Yeah blizzard is a large company. But blizzard is still about one thousand times too small company to aim for same viewerships as those other games have. Also there is the fact that a game that is owned by someone or some company will never or can ever reach same scale of popularity.
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On April 17 2015 23:14 NasusAndDraven wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2015 22:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Let's do a poll on who gets more love, Flash vs Tom Brady.
Every niche will have it's superstars. All of them.
I'd never go fanboy over flash if I met him in person, but you'd bet your ass I'd go gags asking for an autograph if I bumped into Mark Rosewater, Mike Flores, and Brian Weissman--and those guys are in a game slower and less action packed than SC2.
However, statistical trends are not subjective. While football or futball or basketball are only subjectively more entertaining in a game per game basis, the population does tend to care more for those forms of entertainment than less action packed ones. Heck, look what happens during the Super Bowl or the World Cup versus what happens during an OSL even during BW days.
Those are the metrics a large company like Blizzard is trying to match. They don't care about how much a random website cares. They care about getting everyone caring. That means metrics, that means broad market samples, that means not making just you happy but making the total population happy. I dont if there is a single thing in your post that makes any sense. Let me be clear to you. Be it american or european football, basketball, ice hockey, baseball, etc. Their pace of action has absolutely nothing to do with their viewer popularity. The reason, the only reason, and for exactly zero other reasons, they are so popular on TV, is because they are so popular sports to play, and they were that way way way before television was even invented. Certainly much before there ever was the first ever televised sport match. Yeah blizzard is a large company. But blizzard is still about one thousand times too small company to aim for same viewerships as those other games have. Also there is the fact that a game that is owned by someone or some company will never or can ever reach same scale of popularity.
Actually, yes, their pace of action has a lot to do with why they are popular. It's something people learn a few rules of and are able to run outside and just do. Where knowledge of the game matters less than just physically doing it until you actually start going professional with it.
Are there maneuvers and mind games? Sure. Michael Jordan became the best basketball player of all time because of his fadeaway. But for 99.9% of those who play the games simply being faster or stronger is the only thing that matters. You don't need to study plays or memorize builds, you and your friends can just wing it and everything works out. The more serious you get, the more you put work on the mental but before then, all you need to do is run around and throw/kick/catch balls all day.
The same can't be said of Go. Or of Magic the Gathering. Or of Monopoly. And hence why those aren't streamed daily.
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On April 17 2015 22:43 Thieving Magpie wrote:
Let's do a poll on who gets more love, Flash vs Tom Brady.
Maybe a bad choice when brady is loathed by so, so many :D
Also because the pats did just basically hire a murderer.
And lastly, there have been starleague events in korea with more people viewing than have ever watched a superbowl. Brood war was a SPORT in korea. Does the USAF have a professional football team? no? because of Boxer, the korean air force has a starcraft team.
You can't compare the way YOU view a video game to the way YOU view a sport. You have to compare how YOU view a sport with how the KOREANS view the video game. It's a sport to them, pure and simple.
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I feel like they should revert to a bw approach. The more bases you have, the more efficient your mining / worker is. You can have 20 scvs at one base in bw, then expand and without producing any more worker, your income increases drastically. I also feel like since they added the auto-worker count, people just make 48 workers on minerals across 3 bases and dont require any more than that.
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On April 16 2015 01:09 SC2John wrote:
Less strategy, more mechanics: the mantra of Blizzard ESPORTS.
This is sadly correct.
Soon we'll be playing Pong on ladder because it is completely balanced, there is no strategy, and it all comes down to mechanics.
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EPT
