EPTThe important point Blizz has to master is that the 3 races require relatively the same levels of effort to succeed at the various skill levels, from newb to pro, otherwise a race can seem overpowered at a given level.
Canata`s commentary on LotV - Page 5
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ElMeanYo
United States1032 Posts
The important point Blizz has to master is that the 3 races require relatively the same levels of effort to succeed at the various skill levels, from newb to pro, otherwise a race can seem overpowered at a given level. | ||
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w3jjjj
United States760 Posts
On July 09 2015 03:25 BisuDagger wrote: Your statement is such a blatant lie. There is comeback potential in LoTV. I'd say even if you are in the beta and make your statement it's just plain wrong. Just to be clear, you are saying in no game what so ever where you fall behind there is no chance of winning. I guess I've never been behind in any game of LoTV I've played. But by all means preach another myth that people will just spread around these forums. edit: sAsImre, your words carry a heavier weight then an average poster. When people hear a caster quote stuff like "non existent comeback potential" and those same people haven't played LoTV then it causes pitch forks to rise over something that isn't proven. Please present data that actually backs up a statement such as yours. sAsImre's words may be exaggerated but I agree with his observation. Come back potential is determined by the opportunity cost of decision making. Generally speaking, the faster a game plays out, the higher the opportunity cost of making any decisions, and the less chances for making come backs. To illustrate, if in 2 minutes of game time, a player can either make 5 marines or 5 workers, the opportunity cost of either decision is low. The 5 extra marines player won't be very behind in economy, nor will the 5 extra workers player be very behind in army value, both players can easily make a come back. Now if the game plays faster, in the same 2 minutes of game time, a player can either make 20 marines or 20 workers, the opportunity cost of either decision is now much higher. The 20 extra marines player is way too behind in economy to catch up in workers later, his attack is now all-in, he either wins the game with this attack or he gets rolled by the monstrous economy of his opponent later. The chances of making a come back drops significantly with the faster game pace. LOTV is designed to play out faster than HOTS. Resources mine out faster, so the decision to not go for an expansion carries higher opportunity costs. A HOTS Terran can begins his parade push vs zerg on 3 bases and not worry about a 4th for quite sometime, if his initial push doesn't pan out, he has more TIME to make a come back before he is mined out. A LOTV Terran doing the same parade push on 3 base faces higher opportunity cost for not taking a 4th, if his initial push doesn't pan out, he has less TIME to make a come back before he is mine out. The faster game pace directly translates into higher opportunity costs for all decisions, and allow less come back chances. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, many players enjoy the faster pace even if the opportunity costs are higher, even if the come back potential is lower. But players who wants more come back chances will find LOTV a more frustrating game than HOTS. | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19257 Posts
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On July 09 2015 07:24 w3jjjj wrote:LOTV is designed to play out faster than HOTS. Resources mine out faster, so the decision to not go for an expansion carries higher opportunity costs. A HOTS Terran can begins his parade push vs zerg on 3 bases and not worry about a 4th for quite sometime, if his initial push doesn't pan out, he has more TIME to make a come back before he is mined out. A LOTV Terran doing the same parade push on 3 base faces higher opportunity cost for not taking a 4th, if his initial push doesn't pan out, he has less TIME to make a come back before he is mine out. The faster game pace directly translates into higher opportunity costs for all decisions, and allow less come back chances. This is only strictly true if players adopt HOTS builds mineral-for-mineral. As BisuDagger suggests, LOTV unit balance, map size and features, defender's advantage, and the strategies that ensue from the combination of all these things will have much more say in which positions are recoverable and which ones are not than game speed. Just to illustrate: increase Bunker build time to 5 minutes while providing bunkered Marines with +50 DPS, and two bunkers at home will hold just about any midgame counter aggression. There's your comeback opportunity in a faster pace game. | ||
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RoomOfMush
1296 Posts
On July 09 2015 06:41 ElMeanYo wrote: I don't really agree with Canata here. If units become more difficult to use, it doesn't affect lower level players vs each other as they both have bad unit control. They will find someone on the ladder who is just as bad and incapable of using units to their ability, and they will both have a fun game. It only becomes pronounced when they are playing someone who is much better. The important point Blizz has to master is that the 3 races require relatively the same levels of effort to succeed at the various skill levels, from newb to pro, otherwise a race can seem overpowered at a given level. I disagree. This might be true if it wasnt humans playing against each other but artificial intelligences. A human will not have fun if he/she realizes that he/she is bad at a game. Not being able to use your units is frustrating. Watching your units die by the dozens without doing much because you are not good enough to control them does not suddenly become better just because your enemy has the same problem every now and then. At some point the game makes you feel like garbage for not being good enough, and at that point it is no longer fun no matter how much worse your opponent is. | ||
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BisuDagger
Bisutopia19257 Posts
On July 09 2015 09:05 RoomOfMush wrote: I disagree. This might be true if it wasnt humans playing against each other but artificial intelligences. A human will not have fun if he/she realizes that he/she is bad at a game. Not being able to use your units is frustrating. Watching your units die by the dozens without doing much because you are not good enough to control them does not suddenly become better just because your enemy has the same problem every now and then. At some point the game makes you feel like garbage for not being good enough, and at that point it is no longer fun no matter how much worse your opponent is. I'm terrible at brood war. The game is incredibly frustrating. Those damn protoss never do what I want. (Looking at you dragoons!) I don't storm well, execute drop play, keep scouting workers alive, recall effectively. Still, I love the hell out of the game. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On July 09 2015 09:05 RoomOfMush wrote:At some point the game makes you feel like garbage for not being good enough, and at that point it is no longer fun no matter how much worse your opponent is. I can't think of one remotely competitive game that under no circumstances "makes you feel like garbage for not being good enough." I'm trying to get better at tennis, and you better believe I feel like garbage all the time. If there is sufficient perceived reward for winning (prestige, fitness, challenge, social entertainment, etc.) then people will play, no matter how grueling it is. If not, they won't. edit: stupid double negatives | ||
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w3jjjj
United States760 Posts
On July 09 2015 09:04 pure.Wasted wrote: This is only strictly true if players adopt HOTS builds mineral-for-mineral. As BisuDagger suggests, LOTV unit balance, map size and features, defender's advantage, and the strategies that ensue from the combination of all these things will have much more say in which positions are recoverable and which ones are not than game speed. Just to illustrate: increase Bunker build time to 5 minutes while providing bunkered Marines with +50 DPS, and two bunkers at home will hold just about any midgame counter aggression. There's your comeback opportunity in a faster pace game. I've actually been thinking a lot about defender's advantage lately... Increasing defender's advantage may allow more come backs, but I fear it may also encourage players to turtle. In the late game, a player's decision to attack or defend is heavily influenced by defender's advantage. Raising defender's advantage encourages defending and discourages attacking, while lowering defender's advantage encourages attacking and discourages defending. I'm in speculation territory since the game isn't finished, but I fear when we combine a few factors, namely 1. same high resource gathering speed of HOTS, 2. same high defender's advantage of HOTS, and 3. higher opportunity cost of not expanding due to resources mine out faster. The combination of these factors may actually lead the game into long turtle wars once the meta stabilizes. Let me explain my thoughts: First, while LOTV reduces total resources available, it does not lower resource gathering speed. The issue here is not how many death balls a player can re-max on 3 bases, but rather how fast he can make his very first death ball, and as far as I can tell in beta, the speed of making your very first death ball hasn't changed from HOTS. You just won't have money to re-max on it without more expansions. Second, defender's advantage is already very high in HOTS, if your opponent is turtling on his maxed out death ball, attacking into it is very difficult and often result in heavier loses for the attacker. Think swarmhost turtle zerg (pre-nerf), if Zerg was determined to sit on wall of spine/spore/swarmhost/viper/corrupter, it was extremely difficult to break this position. I strongly support the nerf to swarmhost (and PDD) because by lowering defender's advantage, we encourage more attacking and less turtling. Third, resources mine out faster means higher opportunity cost for not expanding. If your resources are running low, even in HOTS, securing more resources is usually the safer decision than attacking your opponent, because if your attack fails and you no longer have your economy, the game ends in your loss. This is even more true in LOTV when your resources mine out faster. Given the choice to attack vs defend and expand, defending and securing more resources will in most cases be the safer option. Combining the three factors, a player who has made his first death ball on 3 bases now has to make a decision. How does he use his death ball? Does he go attack into his opponent where his opponent enjoys defender's advantage? And if he fails the attack his main and natural will mine out and he basically loses the game.. Or does he use his death ball to secure a 4th and a 5th, park his death ball at a favorable defensive position where he enjoys defender's advantage? The defending (read turtling) choice is better because not only will the defender enjoy better engagements from defender's advantage, he also plays safe by securing more resources. I can already see situations where both players have this mentality, and both players would rather expand and defend than to attack each other, and long turtle wars emerge. One potential fix is to keep defender's advantage high in the mid game, but lower it in the late game, so when both players are on death balls, the defender no longer enjoys more favorable trades. This will encourage more attacking and less defending. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 09 2015 09:18 pure.Wasted wrote: I can't think of one remotely competitive game that under no circumstances "makes you feel like garbage for not being good enough." I'm trying to get better at tennis, and you better believe I feel like garbage all the time. If there is sufficient perceived reward for winning (prestige, fitness, challenge, social entertainment, etc.) then people will play, no matter how grueling it is. If not, they won't. edit: stupid double negatives And some games are played by more players and others by less players. Some even die because the community shrinks so much that the presitge, social entertainment and so on becomes so little that players stop playing. Hence there must be a difference in reward size between games. And obviously SC2 fails to reward players that don't go somewhat hardcore into it. Other games don't and that is why they are more popular. And Blizzard punishes non-hardcore players even harder in LotV. The problem in all of these discussions, especially on Teamliquid.net is that only the hardcores discuss to begin with. So you always end up with "just learn to play" and "I don't care if it is hard, I like the challenge" arguments. I guess it represents the playerbase and why not make the game for those who play it, one may say. Well, it's not a good scenario for a game on life support. Especially if you do so in a manner that may additionally drive away part of the existing community. | ||
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TheFoReveRwaR
United States10657 Posts
They don't really add anything to the enjoyment of the game. In brood war you felt as if you were fighting a battle against time, struggling to keep up with your opponents speed. It was a macro game. A macro game where you could gain an advantage by forcing your opponent to focus on an attack or harass, in order to slow their ability to macro effectively. In sc2 your opponent can macro basically just as well while being surprise attacked as they can with no attack to face at all. So no advantage is gained from constant aggression unless you happen to score a victory in that aggression. An example: in brood war if you played against a sick 300 apm terran, who was constantly moving out with a smaller force while also dropping your bases you would struggle heavily as a slower zerg. You simply wouldnt be able to keep up with all the actions needed to defend successfully. I understand this is a over simplification but a terran in sc2 is better off saving up and moving out with a unbeatable force than using constant smaller attacks because a zerg is more likely to be able to defend while maintaining maximum production. The downside is they won't be spreading as much creep, but thats much different than letting your resources get to over 2000 as you desperate struggle to get all your units where they need to be. In the current sc2 the game is about fighting against tedious micro actions over and over again. It's not fluid or fun. To be honest this is what many TL.net veterans predicted would happen with sc2 when we first learned that it would "of course" have auto mining, (nearly)unlimited unit selection, and multiple building selection. To me its less about skill gaps and more about "why am I doing this?". Hope this makes sense. Note: reading around i see that others are echoing this, such as w3jjj. Blizzard needs to worry not about keeping players busy, but keeping players attacking. | ||
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jotmang-nojem
39 Posts
By making SC2 all about harass, action, and loldrops, positioning your units at strategic locations on the map is counterproductive since this opens up your bases to drops. You're units are useful only when they're either turtling in the base or at the gates of your opponent's base. Game issues such as "turtling" automatically go away with good game design, of which we'll never see as long as DKim has a hard-on for drop play. | ||
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purakushi
United States3300 Posts
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BronzeKnee
United States5217 Posts
On July 09 2015 06:41 ElMeanYo wrote: I don't really agree with Canata here. If units become more difficult to use, it doesn't affect lower level players vs each other as they both have bad unit control. Right. So it wouldn't really matter if we raised basketball hoops to 25 feet high, because pros would still be able to score even though the game would become harder, so it wouldn't affect lower level players versus each other because they're bad shots would become even worse, and it'd be a race for the first team to score even a single shot. It's be a frustrating terrible good time, everyone likes to watch miss after miss after miss! It fact, all the low level players would just become spectators, because the game would end up being more fun to spectate than play. And that would be odd, because that game would be less fun to spectate than a game with the hoop at regulation height. I guess that says a lot about how fun the game becomes when the hoop is 25 feet high. On July 09 2015 09:18 pure.Wasted wrote: I'm trying to get better at tennis, and you better believe I feel like garbage all the time. If there is sufficient perceived reward for winning (prestige, fitness, challenge, social entertainment, etc.) then people will play, no matter how grueling it is. If not, they won't. We should probably make the game harder and force you to play with a racket one quarter the size you have now. It will affect you and the "garbage" opponent you're facing equally, and the game will be more fun to play because it is will be more grueling. Actually, let's just get rid of rackets all together, just use a baseball bat, that will make the game really hard. Sounds fun! In fact, every game should be made as hard as possible at all times. That is why LoL is so successful, because it is so hard to play! | ||
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Shuffleblade
Sweden1903 Posts
High skill ceiling is great but not when you NEED to do things that are very hard just to keep yourself in the game. I haven't played a lot of competetive bw but the way I see it skill and multitasking gave small advantages that over time became a big advantage. In sc2 one moment of bad multitasking or insufficient micro will have your whole army dead with basically no counter damage done. In bw you could win fights you shouldn't have if you microed well and your opponent didn't but you would still have taken damage its a huge difference here. SC2 does not reward multitasking and good micro it punished bad multitasking and bad micro ruthlessly. Mistakes are unforgiving, we see this happen in pro matches a lot too. One mistake costing someone the game almost no matter how ahead the player was before, comebacks are good mistakes leading to defeats are good but not the scale at how punishing a mistake can be nowadays. Adding more ablities to use makes the skill ceiling go up but it also makes the game much more punishing if you miss micro your army. Why make the game faster and faster and faster until no one can play the game well enough to do what you are "supposed to". SC2 is almost already a game more about who plays the least bad than it is about who plays the best. Slow the game down, don't add to the insanity of speedvacs, faster unload, teleporting BCs, unstoppable nyduses. I mean comeon, its basically becoming more and more of a game made for Maru. A game were that isn't about playing well, its about making the opponent play slightly worse. (Love Maru, huge fan but still) | ||
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My_Fake_Plastic_Luv
United States257 Posts
Think: LoL, WoW, Chess, FPSs, Bridge, Soccer, AOE, SC1, Basketball, Fishing, Poker, Track and Field, basically anything that is competitive and popular, ETC.., The key being: ordinary people can understand and play, but only with extraordinary effort (and some natural talent) can a person become pro. I do believe the complexity of SC2 (and fun) lies in micro... however complicating the units just makes it complicated. Eazy fix: let units live longer, ie get microed more, , open up the maps so units have more room to micro, don't have spells that make micro eazier or more difficult for players w/o proper counters (thus causing an imbalance). An example of a "bad" spell in this context is the siege tank pick-up and the new warp prism. In these situations it is much eazier for the dropper to micro and safe his units then the defender. In these spells the defender must chase. And its ugly. For those who think the new spells on all units are good, think about the 2-3 years of losing players while discovering the best builds... Think of all the situations a player must be prepared to face in the first 10 mins. Think of all the auto-loses. Fire David Kim. | ||
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TurboMaN
Germany925 Posts
Imo LotV needs to fall back to the BW origins in terms of a) no deathballs b) no hard counters You could even win fights with weaker units in BW if you micro better than your opponent. In SC2 you will lose almost always if you opponent has a hard counter, no matter how good you micro. | ||
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boxerfred
Germany8360 Posts
On July 09 2015 01:10 BisuDagger wrote: The new, fast paced economy actually has me playing Starcraft again. I rather enjoy the heavy focus on macro. I have no argument here, but if you asked me, "Am I having fun with new LoTV economy?" then the answer is YES. Actually I'm fine with the new econonmy but the combination of "macro is really challenging" and "room for 0 mistakes in fights and micro" is just plain stupid. I feel like the most important thing about sc2 is how unforgiving it is. | ||
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jellyjello
Korea (South)664 Posts
On July 08 2015 18:39 Superouman wrote: Before : "There is not enough micro! Give us more things to micro!" After : There are too many things to micro! Give us less things to micro!" Sigh... Canata is not specifically complaining about the "micro". The issue is that the game feels too difficult for players. | ||
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imre
France9263 Posts
On July 09 2015 03:25 BisuDagger wrote: Your statement is such a blatant lie. There is comeback potential in LoTV. I'd say even if you are in the beta and make your statement it's just plain wrong. Just to be clear, you are saying in no game what so ever where you fall behind there is no chance of winning. I guess I've never been behind in any game of LoTV I've played. But by all means preach another myth that people will just spread around these forums. edit: sAsImre, your words carry a heavier weight then an average poster. When people hear a caster quote stuff like "non existent comeback potential" and those same people haven't played LoTV then it causes pitch forks to rise over something that isn't proven. Please present data that actually backs up a statement such as yours. The thing is that if you lose a base you're fucked so hard because you're mined out so fast. Like if you lose your 4th you're probably dead if you can't deal a blow back immediately since your econ will be gone in 2 minutes. Tbh I should've said almost non existant, since you can always bounce back in the next minute if you have an army. Losing a fight while being on scrappy eco will be gg 99% of time except if huge maps are the norm. And by huge it means deadwing cross pos minimum and losing the fight in your opponent side. Lotv is basically end game economy at minute 10, and don't tell me that in these situations there is much comeback potential when you either lose a base or a fight and you've got no income/bank. On the other hand it creates really tenses moment, as a caster it'll be a cool thing if we can avoid the whole "I cannot engage my opponent army and he cannot either" scenario. And yes I'm really really bitter and sad about lotv right now but the one thing I'd like to be changed is macro mechanics. Keep them but tune them down and suddenly you slowed down the game a bit while keeping the need to expand rather quickly since you'll still mined out when you'll reach the late game but you'll allow the mid game to exist, and a bit the early game despite the 12 worker start. btw you can call me imre, sAs is just my first clan haha  | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On July 09 2015 19:02 boxerfred wrote: Actually I'm fine with the new econonmy but the combination of "macro is really challenging" and "room for 0 mistakes in fights and micro" is just plain stupid. I feel like the most important thing about sc2 is how unforgiving it is. The more I play LotV, the less I feel like the "new economy" impacts the early-midgame strategies a lot. The time my main starts falling to half minerals is like 9:00, which with HotS-time is like 12:30. But with the accelerated start, I think at 12:30 you should be easily able to have a 4th base anyways, so you never really fall below 3-4base saturation in the midgame. The real deal is imo that you are just cut off resources at some much earlier point in the lategame as previously. As the rough strategy is still the same - rush and saturate 3bases and eventually a 4th - what happens is that your first 3bases run out in quick succession early and the game drags on on a 1-2basish economy, because you still cannot hold more than 4-5bases. And then it starts feeling weird because you have all that production built up that you can no longer afford, but not building it up in the midgame for when you have 3bases running is just not really possible. It's a bit like the conclusion of the FRB-mod from Barrin back in the days, without a defensive mechanism like high ground it is very hard to actually spread out. Especially against the mobile styles like Zerg and Bio. | ||
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