|
He never said less action = strategy and critical thinking are more rewarded. He said the more time you give players to make decisions, the better those decisions will be.
When he says the following "including a dwindling pool of strategic diversity, and an over-emphasis on aggressive play.", it gives me the impression that they are mutually exclusive.
But I like the way you said it though. "Less time = Less likely you make the correct decision". Whether thats good or bad is an entirely different dicussion, but in many of the most succesful real sports and competitive computer games, you really don't have very much time. The main difference between LOL/CS and Sc2 is that one mistake doesn't lose you the game. Dying once in CS isn't the end of the world, and the same thing in LOL due to the defenders advantage (at least your team can still win the game for you).
However, SC2 can be so unforgiving as losing one engagemnt when looking away for 1 second can result in the enemy just marching towards your base and killing you. But, a change to an economy isn't gonna fix this issue. This issue is much much larger, and can only too an extent be minimized through proper unit design.
But my complaint here is that I hate when people try and think that all their suggestions have these huge positive sideffects and bring in "more strategy" into EVERYTHING. Can you please stop doing that, and just only mention the actual effects?
John also states that the 12-worker start is related to terrible terrible damage with hardcounters. What does that have in common with each other?
He never said anything about a viewer friendly game being unfun; he said that blizzard set out to create a viewer friendly game rather than a game that is entertaining to play. As a result, the game is neither. In fact, he was arguing exactly what you were in your final statement; the game should be designed to be entertaining to play first, and viewer friendly will happen naturally.
From my perspective, he implies it with the following statement: "Blizzard's emphasis on the viewer has lasting effects on the players of the game, including a dwindling pool of strategic diversity, and an over-emphasis on aggressive play".
Regardless of how exactly it should be interpreted, I have huge issues with this statement, as it imples that Blizzard made a mistake on emphasizing the viewer. I actually think it is good when a game developer takes that into accunt, however I believe the main issue lies in the execution.
As an example, here is how I imagined a proper designed Widow Mine
(don't focus on whether you think the idea is bad or good, but rather read my comments below on what the point is)
- Range scales with armory weapon upgrades
- Projectile speed significantly slowed down (with the target markers from LOTV)
- AOE damage radius increased slightly
- 1 supply
What would the consequences of this Widow Mine be?
More countermicro --> Check --> More fun to play vs + more opportunities for splitting vs it --> More fun to watch
Useful in different compositions check --> More fun to play and watch
Outcome is uncertain --> Check --> Viewer friendly
When I want to add more countermicro I don't think of doing for the player or the viewer. Instead, I just know that giving players opportunites to showcase their skill make a better game.
The only instance where I see a noticeable difference between what the player and viewer wants is when it comes to uncertainty, however as long as uncertainty is skillbased (micro) and not luckbased/splitsecond based (WOL Fungal), its good for both viewers and players as well.
So this whole speech about emphasizing the viewer gives the wrong message imo. Rather, Blizzard is simply not competent at designing units, and I doubt they would do better if they focussed on making the game more fun to play. (cus accoriding to Dustin Browder, fun stuff = Forcefields and Colossus).
Allow me to clear up a misconception you seem to have; time contraction =/ action packed.
I want you do find the quote where I implied that.
|
|
|
On April 20 2015 20:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +He never said less action = strategy and critical thinking are more rewarded. He said the more time you give players to make decisions, the better those decisions will be.
When he says the following "including a dwindling pool of strategic diversity, and an over-emphasis on aggressive play.", it gives me the impression that they are mutually exclusive.
You mean mutually inclusive?
On April 20 2015 20:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +Allow me to clear up a misconception you seem to have; time contraction =/ action packed. I want you do find the quote where I implied that.
John never said anything about action packed and strategy being exclusive, he said time contraction and strategy were exclusive. Ergo, when I read
On April 20 2015 20:19 Hider wrote:
Actionpacked game =/ Cannot reward strategy
I figured you were blurring the lines between time contraction and action packed.
|
You mean mutually inclusive?
It gives me the impression that he thinks strategic diversity and focus on aggressive play are mutually exclusive = Cannot coexist.
I figured you were blurring the lines between time contraction and action packed.
No, my whole point was that you shouldn't confuse causation with correlation. That goes both ways.
|
On April 20 2015 21:19 Hider wrote:It gives me the impression that he thinks strategic diversity and focus on aggressive play are mutually exclusive = Cannot coexist.
The verb 'dwindling' makes a pretty big difference :-/ but we're arguing semantics at this point. We understand eachother. I disagree that this is implied, but perhaps John could chime in?
On April 20 2015 21:19 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I figured you were blurring the lines between time contraction and action packed. No, my whole point was that you shouldn't confuse causation with correlation. That goes both ways.
I'm a bit confused on this point, could you elaborate a bit? Where was he (or I) confusing causation with correlation?
|
United States4883 Posts
On April 20 2015 20:57 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +He never said less action = strategy and critical thinking are more rewarded. He said the more time you give players to make decisions, the better those decisions will be.
When he says the following "including a dwindling pool of strategic diversity, and an over-emphasis on aggressive play.", it gives me the impression that they are mutually exclusive. He didn't say that, but I like the way you said it though. "Less time = Less likely you make the correct decision". Whether thats good or bad is an entirely different dicussion, but in many of the most succesful real sports and competitive computer games ,you really don't have very much time. The main difference between LOL/CS and Sc2 is that one mistake doesn't lose you the game. Dying once in CS isn't the end of the world, and the same thing in LOL due to the defenders advantage. However, SC2 can be so unforgiving as losing one engagemnt when looking away for 1 second can result in the enemy just marching towards your base and killing you. But, a change to an economy isn't gonna fix this issue. This issue is much much larger, and can only too an extent be minimized through proper unit design. But my complaint here is that I hate when people try and think that all their suggestions have these huge positive sideffects and bring in "more strategy" into EVERYTHING. Can you please stop doing that, and just only mention the actual effects? He then also goes on to bring in 12-workers and terrible terrible damage with hardcounters. What does that have in common with each other? Show nested quote +He never said anything about a viewer friendly game being unfun; he said that blizzard set out to create a viewer friendly game rather than a game that is entertaining to play. As a result, the game is neither. In fact, he was arguing exactly what you were in your final statement; the game should be designed to be entertaining to play first, and viewer friendly will happen naturally.
Actually he does imply it though with the following statement: "Blizzard's emphasis on the viewer has lasting effects on the players of the game, including a dwindling pool of strategic diversity, and an over-emphasis on aggressive play". Now, regardless of how exactly it should be interpreted, I have huge issues with this statement, as it imples that Blizzard made a mistake on emphasizing the viewer. I think that part of the vision of Blizzard was correct, but the execution was awfull. As an example, here is how I imagined a proper designed Widow Mine (don't focus on whether you think the idea is bad or good, but rather read my comments below on what the point is) - Range scales with armory weapon upgrades - Projectile speed significantly slowed down (with the target markers from LOTV) - AOE damage radius increased slightly - 1 supply What would the consequences of this Widow Mine be? More countermicro --> Check --> More fun to play vs + more opportunities for splitting vs it --> More fun to watch Useful in different compositions check --> More fun to play and watch Outcome is uncertain --> Check --> Viewer friendly The point here isn't that you think of the viewer or player first. When I want to add more countermicro I don't think of doing for the player or the viewer. Instead, I just know that giving players opportunites to showcase their skill make a better game. The only instance where I see a noticeable difference between what the player and viewer wants is when it comes to uncertainty, however as long as uncertainty is skillbased (micro) and not luckbased/splitsecond based (WOL Fungal), its good for both viewers and players as well. So this whole speech about emphasizing the viewer gives the wrong message imo. Blizzard is simply not competent at designing units, and I doubt they would do better if they focussed on making the game more fun to play. (cus accoriding to Dustin Browder, fun stuff = Forcefields and Colossus). Show nested quote +Allow me to clear up a misconception you seem to have; time contraction =/ action packed. I want you do find the quote where I implied that.
I think we're all on the same page here, based on some of your previous comments:
On April 17 2015 18:24 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +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.
I agree with this completely, and this is the kind of thing that I would love to see. What I feel happens when we speed up the game to hyper speed is A) less time to think through what you're doing properly, making the game less about management and more about pure reaction and B) You no longer really get the diversity of a slow, methodical strategy/playstyle versus a hyper aggro style; you just get two very aggressive styles :/. Of all things, this is a worry, not a fact.
On April 20 2015 20:19 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +
All of this stems from difficulties with unit interactions (hard counter vs hard counter units and the "Terrible Terrible Damage" factor) as well as hyper economies which reach fruition at a max of few nodes.
What does Terrible Terrible damage acutally mean? When 10 Speedlings in BW kills a nexus in 10 seconds--> Terrible terrible damage? - When Vultures places Spider Mines close to Dragoons --> Protoss looks away for 1 second --> Dragoons dies to Mines --> Vultures run into protoss base to kill workers w/ their 5.5 movement speed --> No way of saving probes for the protoss player --> Terrible terrible damage? - When a Disruptor moves into the enemy army and the enemy has multiple second to split his army --> Few units are attacking each other in this proces --> Duration of battle increased --> Terrible terrible damage??? It's easy enough to spew out catchphrases over and over, but do you actually have any defitions of the terms you use and can you explain why they weren't problems in BW and why they are problems in Sc2? And why reaction of time suddenly is a bad thing, when it has been a major part of all succesful popular games for many years now. And if this is too much to ask, why not just focus on the core issue of the economy instead of trying to connect unrelated issues to each other? My opinionBW economy = Good due to the incentives it creates. But if you think that a change in economy suddenly is gonna reward strategical chest-level of thinking your kidding your self. And if you think that there is no way to reward while staying with the LOTV-economy you lack creativity. Hard counters = Bad Countermicro = Good Contraction of time = A catchphrase pepole use who fails to understand that proper speed must be assessed on a case-by-case basis in relation to other relevant factors. There is no proof that Sc2 is too fast or too slow on a general basis. Terrrible terrible damage= A term people mistakenly uses where the main issue is deathball and lack of counterplay. Battles in Sc2 could indeed last longer, but that should manly be rewarded by making players not stand still when amoving, but rather move around more frequently. Deathball = A term that should be used on armies where the optimal decision is to turtle and never split up the army. However, occationally it gets (mis)used on compositions that actually are aggressive as well. BW as an example wasn't that multitaskfocussed, but alot of compositions were about being aggressive out on the map.
In that particular part of my post, I was summarizing what TheDwf said and using some of the terminology used in his article. That said, I agree with most of it (though it's pretty easy to find a way to disagree with him in the fine lines), and I think he has a solid point: more "action packed" alone does not make a better game. Now, I don't want to go directly blaming Blizzard the same way TheDwf does, but I think they have definitely made a lot of mistakes with SC2, particularly in the form of not responding to the community well enough. At the risk of making sweeping statements, I think we all wanted a better BNet with better interface, and we've all given plenty of suggestions on how to improve the game that Blizzard has neglected to really communicate with us on. I really do think the casual scene has been largely ignored in SC2 because Blizzard has wanted to really create a strong successor to BW (as an ESPORT).
I agree that they're kind of bad at designing units. In another thread, I said that they are clearly not looking to emulate older RTS games, but that they are trying to create something new. So they throw some paint on a canvas and see how it turns out. Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm have had incredible success with this concept, but not so much for SC2, which arguably needs a wider knowledge of concepts to work around.
As far as the economy goes, I'm trying hard to make it clear that the economy is just one part of the problem. There are obviously many many facets to why SC2 isn't as great of a game as it could be. The reason I push for the economy is because A) We're in an economy thread :p, and B) because it changes lot of the fundamental balance, so it's a better starting point than other things. The "other things" are numerous, and include the clumping issue, the damage point problems (LaLush Depth of Micro), the redundant units (Falling's blogs), and general design flaws. All of these things have been talked about many times before, pointed out to Blizzard, and for the first time in the history of SC2, they seem willing to change at least one core area: the economy.
I dislike the LotV economy, and I don't think it changes much. It delays critical mass until slightly later in the game and forces players to expand more quickly; it's still kind of the same system, where a mech player can mine out 4-5 bases and still be on par with a Zerg player mining out 6+ bases. Other changes such as gold patches and differing numbers of mineral patches per base have been discussed, and I'm pretty sure no one has come up with a solid economy solution. LotV is the best solution we have to the current system, and I think it's just a band-aid fix. I support either something like the Double Harvest model (which is really just a prototype because we can't actually edit the amount of minerals a worker picks up) or the idea about mineral exhaustion where the mineral node takes longer to mine per SCV on it (though this is still very theoretical). Either way, both models are about creating slightly less efficient mining.
PS: The "Terrible Terrible Damage" factor is just a whatever term that takes into account the clumping and DPS aspects which make 50 marines 50x better than 1 marine in the same small area (Versus BW, where the effectiveness of marine DPS capped at around 20ish marines simply because they just couldn't all fit into the same space). This has been talked to death, I thought we were on a first name basis with it :p.
PPS: The most important factor to making SC2 a better game, imo, is introducing real positional play. I've written pretty extensively on the importance of space control and how SC2 lacks it in the HotS beta. There are a million reasons why this is the case, but changes in economy that encourage more expanding and directly correlate bases to winning will help.
|
On April 20 2015 20:57 Hider wrote:
The point here isn't that you think of the viewer or player first. When I want to add more countermicro I don't think of doing for the player or the viewer. Instead, I just know that giving players opportunites to showcase their skill make a better game. The only instance where I see a noticeable difference between what the player and viewer wants is when it comes to uncertainty, however as long as uncertainty is skillbased (micro) and not luckbased/splitsecond based (WOL Fungal), its good for both viewers and players as well.
So this whole speech about emphasizing the viewer gives the wrong message imo. Blizzard is simply not competent at designing units, and I doubt they would do better if they focussed on making the game more fun to play. (cus accoriding to Dustin Browder, fun stuff = Forcefields and Colossus).
I agree with this.
In an analogy with music: in analyzing music you always start out stating your subjective interpretation of the music, you can then list some objective criteria that have informed your decisions, but those are not very predictive for your music taste and everyone is free to assign said objective criteria zero importance. Music is so infinite that what is positive in one case can hardly matter in another. There is music with little to objectively recommend it which is nevertheless recognized as great by many. In creating music it really is about whether you have talent and inspiration, the formal qualities are not essential (though all other things being equal we would prefer good sound quality).
When you find fault with Blizzard's methodology you have to question whether you are not just searching for flaws to rationalize your dislike and whether there is a sound theoretical basis for it (necessitating the creation of theories and models), or whether you think they just lack good taste and basic competence in their choices. If it's the latter then maybe there is no good reason to explain why they failed, they simply did.
|
the question asked in this thread was
will the new economy discourage laddering?
OF COURSE FUCKING NOT.. IT SPEEDS THE GAME UP AND REMOVES THE BORING PARTS
|
On April 21 2015 03:01 PostNationalism wrote:
the question asked in this thread was
will the new economy discourage laddering?
OF COURSE FUCKING NOT.. IT SPEEDS THE GAME UP AND REMOVES THE BORING PARTS
Speaking as one of the guys mostly disagreeing with the argument that we need to fix the Econ--I would have to say that the reason you gave for your conclusion is bullshit.
It will not discourage laddering because most people don't really care. The total population of SC2 players is larger than the total population of the TL community which is larger than the total population of the SC2 TL community which is larger than the total number of active posters in the SC2 TL Community which is larger than the active posters in any specific thread in the SC2 TL community.
Numbers wise, the complaints pales in comparison to the indifferent. They'll play it because it's what they're given when they hit the "Quick Play" button.
Yes, the boring parts of the HotS early game will be removed.
An yes, the passive play in HotS will be replaced by something more proactive.
But people will change the goalpost for what counts as "boring" and what counts as "early game"
They will then start to miss the less action pact, less quick paced nature of HotS.
Those feelings are subjective and will change with time. If Blizzard really wanted to change how we see the game they need to really change the game. Changing benchmarks for the same game will mean we will complain about the same problems occurring at now different times in the matchup.
But as for laddering--most don't care. The ladder community in BW paled in comparison to the UMS community for the same reasons as today--ladder anxiety. The difference was there wasn't as much marketing telling you over and over that ladder is real sc2 and UMS is scrub sc2.
|
As far as the economy goes, I'm trying hard to make it clear that the economy is just one part of the problem.
Okay, I just think its important to seperate problems or Blizzards flaws. E.g. Bad economy should be analyzed seperately from bad micro interactions, and I got the impression after reading your post that you wanted to connect them all together.
I think when going on sidetopics, its better to seperate that completely from the economic discussion as I believe this is one of the most complicated parts of game-design already.
But what we could have is a discussion on how LOTV could be balanced to reward more diversity (more defensive options) and what the consequences would be on the gameplay. I don't agree that diversity should be obtained for any price. E.g. SH vs Raven is not a good form of diversity. So where do we draw the line between when defensive play is acceptable and when its not?
From my perspective, defensive play is acceptable when there are strong reasons to believe that it is still optimal for both players to armytrade and harass freqently. Thus, if the mech player could kill static defense with his harass units, the game could be more actionpacked. And if overlord drops were a viable form of breaking down a turtling player, we would see less stalemales.
The difference between the above logic and what we see in LOTV atm. is that the latter guarantees action while my suggested approach only makes it likely that action will occur.
And as I said before, if you choose to straightup buff the Tank under a LOTV-economy while making the Medivac-pick up a later game upgrade --> Optimal playstyle could very well be too turtlish. Hence my belief is that the "mobile vs immobile" army first gets really interesting once the immobile army is spread thinly enough (4/5+bases), and thus I recommend a late-game upgrade to the damage value of the tank while maintaining easy access to siege Pick-up.
If we look at the ETA logic where an (immobile) player has to choose between tech, economy and aggression at a given point in time, its clear that a BW'ish economy offers more opportunies to be aggressive as you don't have to expand as aggressively as under a LOTV economy. Thus, an immobile army can be aggressive in the midgame which is a major advantage over the LOTV economy.
But as we know from BW, there are definitely also a high percentage of game where nothing does happen in the midgame. Yes players have the opportunity to be aggressive on fewer bases, however, they also have the opportunity to play a really boring game. As stated before, I think "viable" choices should give players opportunites to choose between compositions and gameplans that offers interesting gameplay, and in that regard there is also a disadvantage to the extra option a BW'ish econ offers. Aside from nostalagia, sitting on 3 bases with 20 Siege Tanks for 16 minutes isn't that interesting. Neither from a playing nor an esport-perspective.
That raises another question, should any changes to unit-design/balance be created in the proces, or should the econ be changed from BW?
With regards to Blizzard, I actually think they would like to see the defensive vs mobile playstyle with the latter constantly throwing stuff in order to break the defender down. However, I think they don't know how to create such a dynamic. Thus, instead LOTV is now in a constant mid-game state where mobile vs mobile armies battle it out as this is the only way Blizzard knows how to create relatively actionpacked games.
This is why I think its better if discussion is focussed around suggestions to implement an awesome "mobile vs immobile" dynamic into a LOTV-economy rather than neccesarily just scrapping the econ in order to test DM for a short period (without going all-in on it).
|
I dislike the LotV economy, and I don't think it changes much. It delays critical mass until slightly later in the game and forces players to expand more quickly; it's still kind of the same system, where a mech player can mine out 4-5 bases and still be on par with a Zerg player mining out 6+ bases.
The point with the LOTV economy is that by spreading yourself thinner, it becomes easier for the opponent to trade into you. On top of that, I don't agree its realistic for an immobile army to stay on the same active base count as a mobile opponent.
I think its important to view the income rate/economy as a tool to rewarding more interesting gameplay rather than viewing an assymetric income rate as a goal in itself. If there are other ways to accomplish the desired effect (than through income assymetry) it should be strongly considered.
|
United States4883 Posts
On April 21 2015 18:13 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +I dislike the LotV economy, and I don't think it changes much. It delays critical mass until slightly later in the game and forces players to expand more quickly; it's still kind of the same system, where a mech player can mine out 4-5 bases and still be on par with a Zerg player mining out 6+ bases. The point with the LOTV economy is that by spreading yourself thinner, it becomes easier for the opponent to trade into you. On top of that, I don't agree its realistic for an immobile army to stay on the same active base count as a mobile opponent. I think its important to view the income rate/economy as a tool to rewarding more interesting gameplay rather than viewing an assymetric income rate as a goal in itself. If there are other ways to accomplish the desired effect (than through income assymetry) it should be strongly considered.
The key there is "mine out". Of course immobile compositions need to stay on fewer active bases; the issue at hand is that in HotS, a mech player can take a total of 3 bases, then take a 4th, and still win on a map with ~10-12 bases (Swarm hosts can also survive and fully dominate on 4 bases e.g. Nimbus). In order to solve this, Blizzard has tried multiple "siege unit" options as well as stronger harassment tools to counteract the power of "turtling"...it obviously hasn't worked out the way they thought it would.
LotV economy model either 1) puts the state of the game into an perpetual mid game or 2) just pushes back the time it takes to reach a stable economy and produce a critical mass of units. Either way, this is a band aid fix which doesn't really actually put an emphasis on PLANNING to expand. The early and mid game are designed to place you where you want to be in the late game; in LotV, the expanding (particularly beyond 3 bases) is an automatic chore, not a part of any particular plan -- it's not "strategic".
|
One thing I like about the new model is that you have more games where you lose by starvation rather than lose because your 200 vs 200 fight went poorly. This seems to make the game "play out" over a longer period of time, rather than just 15 seconds. Clearly this is just my opinion.
Disclaimer: I do not have beta access, and I am just speculating from streams I have watched.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
