On August 02 2015 23:07 Redfish wrote: Getting rid of injects and, hopefully, massive Larva banks, will be an enormously good change for the game, IMO.
Since you wouldn't be able to do those massive remaxes at the end of the game without an extra 5 macro hatches or so, you can finally balance Zerg units (perhaps buff them a little) without having to account for the ability of 20-30 Mutas or 10 BLs or whatever showing up at the same time.
Bad early decisions like overmaking or overcommitting with Zerglings would be much more consequential, since you couldn't just make 12 drones behind at once to instantly catch up in economy.
It'd reward good scouting more and punish bad army-making decisions more. You couldn't just throw your army away and remax instantly with the correct counter if you didn't figure out what your opponent was doing, but that same army (if the units were buffed) would be better holding its own and defeating an army it, compositionally, would be expected to counter.
It'd allow Terran and Protoss to actually make tactical decisions in drops since there'd now be both Tech and Production (macro hatch) facilities along with workers to target. Do I want to go after the Spire? Do I want to cut out several hatches worth of production? Think of it as much like a Terran choosing to snipe Robos or depower Gateways before loading up and leaving, or a Zerg player choosing to go after Stargates pylons with their mutas instead of seeking out a researching tech structure or killing workers with a muta flock that flies in).
Finally, no more nonsense about Inject/MULEs/Chrono being better or worse than one another. I know some people love the satisfaction of spending their buildings or queen's energy perfectly, but I'd much rather see that attention demand being shifted into managing smaller armies in several places around the map.
You're also going to have a much easier time getting new players into the game with these changes by making macro easier to learn, which SC2 sorely needs.
At what level can you just throw your army away with few consequences, you certainly can't do that at any level above masters?
How would it reward good scouting more, good scouting is already greatly rewarded in lotv is it not?
Where's the evidence that this would do anything for getting new players into the game, are you saying what's been holding sc2 down all these years is macro mechanics?
1 - What I mean is that, for example, if you max out on Roaches without seeing that your opponent had mass Void Rays and without leaving supply to make yourself Vipers or Hydras, you could send that army off to an opponent's third or fourth and likely do a ton of damage, even though you made a bad choice by maxing on Roaches. Having a huge load of larva banked from injects would mean you could remax right away on Roach/Hydra/Viper, but if production were more linear, you'd probably suffer losing a base before being able to recover from your tactical mistake.
Also, I get the whole "it doesn't work in Masters" argument, but we can't forget that 95%+ of the people who play this game are not Masters and you can't just shit on them because they're not. If we have a chance to balance the game for all levels rather than saying "it works out once you get to Masters" and just leaving it there, it should happen.
2 - If early Zerg units are buffed a little and there are slightly less of them, it'd reward building the correct ones based on good scouting info instead of just simply building a lot of anything, which is what happens now. Good scouting is mostly rewarded in LotV, but the unit imbalances and timings (Liberator, Lurker) are too out of whack right now for it to be a really stable game.
3 - I'm not saying that macro mechanics are what's been holding this game back all this time - please don't put words in my mouth. However, I AM saying that making the game easier to play at a basic level will help attract new players.
I do have personal experience as far as this goes - I tried to get my brother into the game a couple years ago so we could play team games every now and then. We live far away from each other, so it'd be something for us to do together. He wanted to try Terran out, but for a beginning player with 30 APM or so on a good day, keeping his MULEs on schedule while trying to get upgrades and tech at the right time and maintaining worker production and also moving his army around was simply too much. He got stuck in low silver or something, even with coaching, and got frustrated and moved on to an MMO. Now, would he have stayed if he didn't have to MULE? That's impossible to say, but I do know from my conversations with him that the added macro clicks made him feel more like he was playing a needless game of whack-a-mole on the side rather than playing with the units and the armies, which is where the fun was for him.
Anecdotal evidence is pretty meaningless, there's a myriad of reasons new players lose and get frustrated and only attributing this to macro mechanics is disingenuous. The idea that players would stick with sc2 if they were only microing units is based on absolutely nothing.
It is based on the frustration of losing an army because you were chronoboosting/MULEing/injecting at base and therefore not looking at your army.
Edit: I am not saying remove the macro mechanics, just from where is the wind blowing :-)
Hmm I wouldn't mind removing the macro mechanics if they would be replaced with different better machro-mechanics, because as has been pointed out most people don't think these macro mechanics are all that good, the problem would be removing them without adding any other macro mechanics to the game, as this would destroy a style of playing, everyone would have to only care about the micro and macro players would be more obsolete, this takes the game even further away from its roots in BroodWar which I also don't like :/
Some of the cool comebacks like soO vs Flash wouldn't have been possible with dumbed down macro!
On August 02 2015 23:07 Redfish wrote: Getting rid of injects and, hopefully, massive Larva banks, will be an enormously good change for the game, IMO.
Since you wouldn't be able to do those massive remaxes at the end of the game without an extra 5 macro hatches or so, you can finally balance Zerg units (perhaps buff them a little) without having to account for the ability of 20-30 Mutas or 10 BLs or whatever showing up at the same time.
Bad early decisions like overmaking or overcommitting with Zerglings would be much more consequential, since you couldn't just make 12 drones behind at once to instantly catch up in economy.
It'd reward good scouting more and punish bad army-making decisions more. You couldn't just throw your army away and remax instantly with the correct counter if you didn't figure out what your opponent was doing, but that same army (if the units were buffed) would be better holding its own and defeating an army it, compositionally, would be expected to counter.
It'd allow Terran and Protoss to actually make tactical decisions in drops since there'd now be both Tech and Production (macro hatch) facilities along with workers to target. Do I want to go after the Spire? Do I want to cut out several hatches worth of production? Think of it as much like a Terran choosing to snipe Robos or depower Gateways before loading up and leaving, or a Zerg player choosing to go after Stargates pylons with their mutas instead of seeking out a researching tech structure or killing workers with a muta flock that flies in).
Finally, no more nonsense about Inject/MULEs/Chrono being better or worse than one another. I know some people love the satisfaction of spending their buildings or queen's energy perfectly, but I'd much rather see that attention demand being shifted into managing smaller armies in several places around the map.
You're also going to have a much easier time getting new players into the game with these changes by making macro easier to learn, which SC2 sorely needs.
At what level can you just throw your army away with few consequences, you certainly can't do that at any level above masters?
How would it reward good scouting more, good scouting is already greatly rewarded in lotv is it not?
Where's the evidence that this would do anything for getting new players into the game, are you saying what's been holding sc2 down all these years is macro mechanics?
1 - What I mean is that, for example, if you max out on Roaches without seeing that your opponent had mass Void Rays and without leaving supply to make yourself Vipers or Hydras, you could send that army off to an opponent's third or fourth and likely do a ton of damage, even though you made a bad choice by maxing on Roaches. Having a huge load of larva banked from injects would mean you could remax right away on Roach/Hydra/Viper, but if production were more linear, you'd probably suffer losing a base before being able to recover from your tactical mistake.
Also, I get the whole "it doesn't work in Masters" argument, but we can't forget that 95%+ of the people who play this game are not Masters and you can't just shit on them because they're not. If we have a chance to balance the game for all levels rather than saying "it works out once you get to Masters" and just leaving it there, it should happen.
2 - If early Zerg units are buffed a little and there are slightly less of them, it'd reward building the correct ones based on good scouting info instead of just simply building a lot of anything, which is what happens now. Good scouting is mostly rewarded in LotV, but the unit imbalances and timings (Liberator, Lurker) are too out of whack right now for it to be a really stable game.
3 - I'm not saying that macro mechanics are what's been holding this game back all this time - please don't put words in my mouth. However, I AM saying that making the game easier to play at a basic level will help attract new players.
I do have personal experience as far as this goes - I tried to get my brother into the game a couple years ago so we could play team games every now and then. We live far away from each other, so it'd be something for us to do together. He wanted to try Terran out, but for a beginning player with 30 APM or so on a good day, keeping his MULEs on schedule while trying to get upgrades and tech at the right time and maintaining worker production and also moving his army around was simply too much. He got stuck in low silver or something, even with coaching, and got frustrated and moved on to an MMO. Now, would he have stayed if he didn't have to MULE? That's impossible to say, but I do know from my conversations with him that the added macro clicks made him feel more like he was playing a needless game of whack-a-mole on the side rather than playing with the units and the armies, which is where the fun was for him.
Anecdotal evidence is pretty meaningless, there's a myriad of reasons new players lose and get frustrated and only attributing this to macro mechanics is disingenuous. The idea that players would stick with sc2 if they were only microing units is based on absolutely nothing.
If you're going to call my points meaningless, then at least have the decency to offer some of your own. Otherwise, you're just name-calling and not adding anything to the discussion in the least.
I said that the needlessly complicated macro mechanics were what detracted from the game FOR HIM. I did not say that was the reason for every new player giving up the game. However, if you're looking to attract the casual player back to the game (which we need, like it or not) then you have to think about what would make them want to stay with it, and you can't shit on their reasons for not continuing to play simply because they find something less fun than you do - THAT's disingenuous.
It's not unhealthy for us to consider why some games (LoL, DotA, Hearthstone, etc.) pull a lot more players than we do. Ease of access is important for a casual gamer, and we should not take it too lightly.
The only problem I have here is removing injects. Injects are nothing like mules or chronoboost. Chronoboost and mules are energy based abilities that can play "catch-up". So if you're microing your army, when you get back to your base you can drop all of your chronos and mules and catch up.
Zerg's inject is more akin to warp gate than chrono, I feel, while creep spread is more akin to chrono. Sure, it's something you *always* do, but it's literally what makes Zerg, Zerg. We don't even have many units to micro. You can argue that ravagers need more micro, but that's simply not true. If you pop your ravagers ability, the cooldown is enough time to pop inject at your 3 bases. The same can be said for mutas, lurkers, swarm hosts, or ling-bane. All of zerg's micro is slow, and not game changing. All of our units rely on the opponent microing against us. See: Banelings, ravager ability, muta harass.
I can only imagine how incredibly bored I'll be if they push through auto-inject. Zerg would have to have some massive unit changes to make up for the loss of inject.
did anyone see that osl interview that had lilsusie in it where it was 3 old bw casters and susie talking about why sc2 failed initially in kr (and what it could do to succeed)? the head of osl complained about how little "star" factor there was for sc2 players, and how it was almost impossible for skill to stratify and for a bonjwa to emerge, so they found it boring compared to bw and league. well now that we see the game becoming easier by removing macro mechanics, you'll see the game get even more flat regarding marginal return in-game for skill/practice/mechanics.
On August 02 2015 23:07 Redfish wrote: Getting rid of injects and, hopefully, massive Larva banks, will be an enormously good change for the game, IMO.
Since you wouldn't be able to do those massive remaxes at the end of the game without an extra 5 macro hatches or so, you can finally balance Zerg units (perhaps buff them a little) without having to account for the ability of 20-30 Mutas or 10 BLs or whatever showing up at the same time.
Bad early decisions like overmaking or overcommitting with Zerglings would be much more consequential, since you couldn't just make 12 drones behind at once to instantly catch up in economy.
It'd reward good scouting more and punish bad army-making decisions more. You couldn't just throw your army away and remax instantly with the correct counter if you didn't figure out what your opponent was doing, but that same army (if the units were buffed) would be better holding its own and defeating an army it, compositionally, would be expected to counter.
It'd allow Terran and Protoss to actually make tactical decisions in drops since there'd now be both Tech and Production (macro hatch) facilities along with workers to target. Do I want to go after the Spire? Do I want to cut out several hatches worth of production? Think of it as much like a Terran choosing to snipe Robos or depower Gateways before loading up and leaving, or a Zerg player choosing to go after Stargates pylons with their mutas instead of seeking out a researching tech structure or killing workers with a muta flock that flies in).
Finally, no more nonsense about Inject/MULEs/Chrono being better or worse than one another. I know some people love the satisfaction of spending their buildings or queen's energy perfectly, but I'd much rather see that attention demand being shifted into managing smaller armies in several places around the map.
You're also going to have a much easier time getting new players into the game with these changes by making macro easier to learn, which SC2 sorely needs.
At what level can you just throw your army away with few consequences, you certainly can't do that at any level above masters?
How would it reward good scouting more, good scouting is already greatly rewarded in lotv is it not?
Where's the evidence that this would do anything for getting new players into the game, are you saying what's been holding sc2 down all these years is macro mechanics?
1 - What I mean is that, for example, if you max out on Roaches without seeing that your opponent had mass Void Rays and without leaving supply to make yourself Vipers or Hydras, you could send that army off to an opponent's third or fourth and likely do a ton of damage, even though you made a bad choice by maxing on Roaches. Having a huge load of larva banked from injects would mean you could remax right away on Roach/Hydra/Viper, but if production were more linear, you'd probably suffer losing a base before being able to recover from your tactical mistake.
Also, I get the whole "it doesn't work in Masters" argument, but we can't forget that 95%+ of the people who play this game are not Masters and you can't just shit on them because they're not. If we have a chance to balance the game for all levels rather than saying "it works out once you get to Masters" and just leaving it there, it should happen.
2 - If early Zerg units are buffed a little and there are slightly less of them, it'd reward building the correct ones based on good scouting info instead of just simply building a lot of anything, which is what happens now. Good scouting is mostly rewarded in LotV, but the unit imbalances and timings (Liberator, Lurker) are too out of whack right now for it to be a really stable game.
3 - I'm not saying that macro mechanics are what's been holding this game back all this time - please don't put words in my mouth. However, I AM saying that making the game easier to play at a basic level will help attract new players.
I do have personal experience as far as this goes - I tried to get my brother into the game a couple years ago so we could play team games every now and then. We live far away from each other, so it'd be something for us to do together. He wanted to try Terran out, but for a beginning player with 30 APM or so on a good day, keeping his MULEs on schedule while trying to get upgrades and tech at the right time and maintaining worker production and also moving his army around was simply too much. He got stuck in low silver or something, even with coaching, and got frustrated and moved on to an MMO. Now, would he have stayed if he didn't have to MULE? That's impossible to say, but I do know from my conversations with him that the added macro clicks made him feel more like he was playing a needless game of whack-a-mole on the side rather than playing with the units and the armies, which is where the fun was for him.
Anecdotal evidence is pretty meaningless, there's a myriad of reasons new players lose and get frustrated and only attributing this to macro mechanics is disingenuous. The idea that players would stick with sc2 if they were only microing units is based on absolutely nothing.
If you're going to call my points meaningless, then at least have the decency to offer some of your own. Otherwise, you're just name-calling and not adding anything to the discussion in the least.
I said that the needlessly complicated macro mechanics were what detracted from the game FOR HIM. I did not say that was the reason for every new player giving up the game. However, if you're looking to attract the casual player back to the game (which we need, like it or not) then you have to think about what would make them want to stay with it, and you can't shit on their reasons for not continuing to play simply because they find something less fun than you do - THAT's disingenuous.
It's not unhealthy for us to consider why some games (LoL, DotA, Hearthstone, etc.) pull a lot more players than we do. Ease of access is important for a casual gamer, and we should not take it too lightly.
.
I'm saying there's no evidence to suggest that changing macro mechanics would have any impact on player base, if people are going to make that claim the burden of proof is on them. You could just as equally suggest that removing micro mechanics would be valid because it's too hard to micro multiple control groups for new players and its not fun and that removing micro mechanics would help new players keep playing sc2. Its nonsense.
I'm not saying there's no validity to changing macro mechanics but to objectively dumb them down because they're "too hard for new players" is stupid. They are absolutely a valid part of the game and do take skill to use them correctly, even at the pro level there are people with good and bad macro.
On August 03 2015 00:58 Arvendilin wrote: Hmm I wouldn't mind removing the macro mechanics if they would be replaced with different better machro-mechanics, because as has been pointed out most people don't think these macro mechanics are all that good, the problem would be removing them without adding any other macro mechanics to the game, as this would destroy a style of playing, everyone would have to only care about the micro and macro players would be more obsolete, this takes the game even further away from its roots in BroodWar which I also don't like :/
Some of the cool comebacks like soO vs Flash wouldn't have been possible with dumbed down macro!
I would like to point out that even if the macro mechanics were to be entirely removed (which, by the way, I don't approve of, but I do think they should be reduced in impact, especially inject), there still would remain macro in the game, and a lot at that. Protoss would still have to warp in units, make units at Robo/Stargate, Terran would still have to pump out of the Barrcks/Factory/Stargate, and Zerg, well, they would have the simplified Larvae and Creep to spread (not to mention worker production, upgrades, building new structures, etc. for all races). So it's not like the game would be entirely micro even then. But, as I said, I don't think the complete removal of the macro mechanics is the way to go, either.
On August 03 2015 02:56 InfCereal wrote: The only problem I have here is removing injects. Injects are nothing like mules or chronoboost. Chronoboost and mules are energy based abilities that can play "catch-up". So if you're microing your army, when you get back to your base you can drop all of your chronos and mules and catch up.
Zerg's inject is more akin to warp gate than chrono, I feel, while creep spread is more akin to chrono. Sure, it's something you *always* do, but it's literally what makes Zerg, Zerg. We don't even have many units to micro. You can argue that ravagers need more micro, but that's simply not true. If you pop your ravagers ability, the cooldown is enough time to pop inject at your 3 bases. The same can be said for mutas, lurkers, swarm hosts, or ling-bane. All of zerg's micro is slow, and not game changing. All of our units rely on the opponent microing against us. See: Banelings, ravager ability, muta harass.
I can only imagine how incredibly bored I'll be if they push through auto-inject. Zerg would have to have some massive unit changes to make up for the loss of inject.
You can't catch up with Chronos, though. They don't stack on single buildings. You can't triple Chrono your Robo and have your Colossi build three times as fast, and you don't gain anything by banking Chrono energy like you do for banking larva.
On August 03 2015 02:56 InfCereal wrote: The only problem I have here is removing injects. Injects are nothing like mules or chronoboost. Chronoboost and mules are energy based abilities that can play "catch-up". So if you're microing your army, when you get back to your base you can drop all of your chronos and mules and catch up.
Zerg's inject is more akin to warp gate than chrono, I feel, while creep spread is more akin to chrono. Sure, it's something you *always* do, but it's literally what makes Zerg, Zerg. We don't even have many units to micro. You can argue that ravagers need more micro, but that's simply not true. If you pop your ravagers ability, the cooldown is enough time to pop inject at your 3 bases. The same can be said for mutas, lurkers, swarm hosts, or ling-bane. All of zerg's micro is slow, and not game changing. All of our units rely on the opponent microing against us. See: Banelings, ravager ability, muta harass.
I can only imagine how incredibly bored I'll be if they push through auto-inject. Zerg would have to have some massive unit changes to make up for the loss of inject.
You can't catch up with Chronos, though. They don't stack on single buildings. You can't triple Chrono your Robo and have your Colossi build three times as fast, and you don't gain anything by banking Chrono energy like you do for banking larva.
You can bank Chrono. You may decide not to Chrono your Probes so you can later Chrono Warp Gate three times. Not exactly as you can "bank" MULEs, and usually for specific timings, but you still can somewhat bank it.
On August 03 2015 02:56 InfCereal wrote: The only problem I have here is removing injects. Injects are nothing like mules or chronoboost. Chronoboost and mules are energy based abilities that can play "catch-up". So if you're microing your army, when you get back to your base you can drop all of your chronos and mules and catch up.
Zerg's inject is more akin to warp gate than chrono, I feel, while creep spread is more akin to chrono. Sure, it's something you *always* do, but it's literally what makes Zerg, Zerg. We don't even have many units to micro. You can argue that ravagers need more micro, but that's simply not true. If you pop your ravagers ability, the cooldown is enough time to pop inject at your 3 bases. The same can be said for mutas, lurkers, swarm hosts, or ling-bane. All of zerg's micro is slow, and not game changing. All of our units rely on the opponent microing against us. See: Banelings, ravager ability, muta harass.
I can only imagine how incredibly bored I'll be if they push through auto-inject. Zerg would have to have some massive unit changes to make up for the loss of inject.
You can't catch up with Chronos, though. They don't stack on single buildings. You can't triple Chrono your Robo and have your Colossi build three times as fast, and you don't gain anything by banking Chrono energy like you do for banking larva.
You're right, but you can spend the chrono right away. You can't stack them, but you could chrono 2 forges, a robo, and a stargate for example.
For zerg, you'd need to take the queen and walk it to 4 uninjected hatcheries and back again. Which is impractical.
I completely disagree. High skill ceiling is great, the speed makes the game fun to play for longer and mechanics is the reason a player can play less often and return to the game without losing all of their ability, giving the game another form of longevity to play rather than being based solely on knowledge of the metagame.
Decision making is still hugely important, the game is fine.
I'm saying there's no evidence to suggest that changing macro mechanics would have any impact on player base, if people are going to make that claim the burden of proof is on them. You could just as equally suggest that removing micro mechanics would be valid because it's too hard to micro multiple control groups for new players and its not fun and that removing micro mechanics would help new players keep playing sc2. Its nonsense.
I'm not saying there's no validity to changing macro mechanics but to objectively dumb them down because they're "too hard for new players" is stupid. They are absolutely a valid part of the game and do take skill to use them correctly, even at the pro level there are people with good and bad macro.
everyone would have to only care about the micro and macro players would be more obsolete, this takes the game even further away from its roots in BroodWar which I also don't like :/
"Macro" players are already oboslete. It hasn't been a factor that seperates pro players in 4 years. Right now macro is just a learning curve thing that takes focus away from controlling units.
I'm saying there's no evidence to suggest that changing macro mechanics would have any impact on player base, if people are going to make that claim the burden of proof is on them
I hate the word evidence, because you fully well know that if we needed e"vidence" in order to make changes, we would never see a single change to the game at all. Instead, we need to have a debate with arguments in order to discover what sounds the most plausible.
Let's look at what you post you respond to actually states:
I'm not saying that macro mechanics are what's been holding this game back all this time - please don't put words in my mouth. However, I AM saying that making the game easier to play at a basic level will help attract new players.
If injecting was so simple everyone would do it well, they don't, its about multitasking and bad players can't multitask right away they have to learn it. I could go into the details of injects but it would take too long.
Punishing bad players is actually a bad thing. What you want to do instead is to reward very good players as that's consistent with the easy-to-learn hard to master concept. Inject unfortunately does the opposite.
Injecting is easy to learn and hard to master that's the point, and there are pro players out there who are still far from mastering it.
Every pro is so good at injecting that any further improvement is almost meaningsless. No you don't need perfect injects 15 minutes into the game. You just need good enough injects to have enough production going on.
Just watch actual Sc2 games, do you ever see casters mentioning how good certain players are at injecting? If the skillcap really was there, then pro players would also be defined as either being masters at injecting or be pretty bad at injecting
Lots of things are punishing in sc2 doesn't mean they are bad. Injects are important in the 1% there's a big difference between someone like tlo's injects and someone like jaedongs, a big difference. It does go some way to separating player A from player B even in the pro scene.
The diference between JD and TLO is that the former maintains great injects whne it doesn't matter and the latter only maintains them when its really important. Just watch the games they play. TLO always has enough larva to keep his army production up.
I'm not saying there's no validity to changing macro mechanics but to objectively dumb them down because they're "too hard for new players" is stupid
That's not stupid. That's how you should think if you want to attract a larger audience. How do we make our game more accesible for newer players?
On August 02 2015 23:07 Redfish wrote: Getting rid of injects and, hopefully, massive Larva banks, will be an enormously good change for the game, IMO.
Since you wouldn't be able to do those massive remaxes at the end of the game without an extra 5 macro hatches or so, you can finally balance Zerg units (perhaps buff them a little) without having to account for the ability of 20-30 Mutas or 10 BLs or whatever showing up at the same time.
Bad early decisions like overmaking or overcommitting with Zerglings would be much more consequential, since you couldn't just make 12 drones behind at once to instantly catch up in economy.
It'd reward good scouting more and punish bad army-making decisions more. You couldn't just throw your army away and remax instantly with the correct counter if you didn't figure out what your opponent was doing, but that same army (if the units were buffed) would be better holding its own and defeating an army it, compositionally, would be expected to counter.
It'd allow Terran and Protoss to actually make tactical decisions in drops since there'd now be both Tech and Production (macro hatch) facilities along with workers to target. Do I want to go after the Spire? Do I want to cut out several hatches worth of production? Think of it as much like a Terran choosing to snipe Robos or depower Gateways before loading up and leaving, or a Zerg player choosing to go after Stargates pylons with their mutas instead of seeking out a researching tech structure or killing workers with a muta flock that flies in).
Finally, no more nonsense about Inject/MULEs/Chrono being better or worse than one another. I know some people love the satisfaction of spending their buildings or queen's energy perfectly, but I'd much rather see that attention demand being shifted into managing smaller armies in several places around the map.
You're also going to have a much easier time getting new players into the game with these changes by making macro easier to learn, which SC2 sorely needs.
At what level can you just throw your army away with few consequences, you certainly can't do that at any level above masters?
How would it reward good scouting more, good scouting is already greatly rewarded in lotv is it not?
Where's the evidence that this would do anything for getting new players into the game, are you saying what's been holding sc2 down all these years is macro mechanics?
1 - What I mean is that, for example, if you max out on Roaches without seeing that your opponent had mass Void Rays and without leaving supply to make yourself Vipers or Hydras, you could send that army off to an opponent's third or fourth and likely do a ton of damage, even though you made a bad choice by maxing on Roaches. Having a huge load of larva banked from injects would mean you could remax right away on Roach/Hydra/Viper, but if production were more linear, you'd probably suffer losing a base before being able to recover from your tactical mistake.
Also, I get the whole "it doesn't work in Masters" argument, but we can't forget that 95%+ of the people who play this game are not Masters and you can't just shit on them because they're not. If we have a chance to balance the game for all levels rather than saying "it works out once you get to Masters" and just leaving it there, it should happen.
2 - If early Zerg units are buffed a little and there are slightly less of them, it'd reward building the correct ones based on good scouting info instead of just simply building a lot of anything, which is what happens now. Good scouting is mostly rewarded in LotV, but the unit imbalances and timings (Liberator, Lurker) are too out of whack right now for it to be a really stable game.
3 - I'm not saying that macro mechanics are what's been holding this game back all this time - please don't put words in my mouth. However, I AM saying that making the game easier to play at a basic level will help attract new players.
I do have personal experience as far as this goes - I tried to get my brother into the game a couple years ago so we could play team games every now and then. We live far away from each other, so it'd be something for us to do together. He wanted to try Terran out, but for a beginning player with 30 APM or so on a good day, keeping his MULEs on schedule while trying to get upgrades and tech at the right time and maintaining worker production and also moving his army around was simply too much. He got stuck in low silver or something, even with coaching, and got frustrated and moved on to an MMO. Now, would he have stayed if he didn't have to MULE? That's impossible to say, but I do know from my conversations with him that the added macro clicks made him feel more like he was playing a needless game of whack-a-mole on the side rather than playing with the units and the armies, which is where the fun was for him.
Anecdotal evidence is pretty meaningless, there's a myriad of reasons new players lose and get frustrated and only attributing this to macro mechanics is disingenuous. The idea that players would stick with sc2 if they were only microing units is based on absolutely nothing.
If you're going to call my points meaningless, then at least have the decency to offer some of your own. Otherwise, you're just name-calling and not adding anything to the discussion in the least.
I said that the needlessly complicated macro mechanics were what detracted from the game FOR HIM. I did not say that was the reason for every new player giving up the game. However, if you're looking to attract the casual player back to the game (which we need, like it or not) then you have to think about what would make them want to stay with it, and you can't shit on their reasons for not continuing to play simply because they find something less fun than you do - THAT's disingenuous.
It's not unhealthy for us to consider why some games (LoL, DotA, Hearthstone, etc.) pull a lot more players than we do. Ease of access is important for a casual gamer, and we should not take it too lightly.
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I'm saying there's no evidence to suggest that changing macro mechanics would have any impact on player base, if people are going to make that claim the burden of proof is on them. You could just as equally suggest that removing micro mechanics would be valid because it's too hard to micro multiple control groups for new players and its not fun and that removing micro mechanics would help new players keep playing sc2. Its nonsense.
I'm not saying there's no validity to changing macro mechanics but to objectively dumb them down because they're "too hard for new players" is stupid. They are absolutely a valid part of the game and do take skill to use them correctly, even at the pro level there are people with good and bad macro.
If you're speaking in terms of Starcraft, well, of course there's no evidence that changing macro mechanics would impact the player base, because macro mechanics have been pretty much the same since WoL release. There can't be proof of something that's never happened. Over the last few years, though, the player base has only gotten smaller and the game less popular as casual gamers and viewers are drawn to other games. That is a fact that cannot be refuted.
What I am suggesting, though, is that games that are easier to learn and require less sustained APM tend to be more popular and have longer lives than games that are a lot more hardcore. LoL, Heroes, DotA, Hearthstone are popular because you can make progress in those games without being stuck in the cellar for months or losing your first thirty games while you figure out what you're doing. If you want proof of this, look at games like Wildstar - it catered to the hardcore, and it never got anywhere close to as popular as some of the newer MMOs.
I'm not saying macro mechanics as they stand do not require skill to use. They do, - we agree on that. You might even find them fun, which is fine, and I'm happy for you if you do. What I'm saying is that they needlessly add to the learning curve of the game and thus drive potential new players away. My contention is that if the game doesn't make it easier for newer players to get in, then it'll remain this niche game with a slowly dwindling community over time. You can disagree if you want, but I find your logic really hard to follow.
everyone would have to only care about the micro and macro players would be more obsolete, this takes the game even further away from its roots in BroodWar which I also don't like :/
"Macro" players are already oboslete. It hasn't been a factor that seperates pro players in 4 years. Right now macro is just a learning curve thing that takes focus away from controlling units.
soO made 4 GSL finals in a row on the back of having impeccable injects and the best macro Just watch actual SC2 games, observe supply of the players.
On August 03 2015 03:02 Endymion wrote: did anyone see that osl interview that had lilsusie in it where it was 3 old bw casters and susie talking about why sc2 failed initially in kr (and what it could do to succeed)? the head of osl complained about how little "star" factor there was for sc2 players, and how it was almost impossible for skill to stratify and for a bonjwa to emerge, so they found it boring compared to bw and league. well now that we see the game becoming easier by removing macro mechanics, you'll see the game get even more flat regarding marginal return in-game for skill/practice/mechanics.
I didn't see it, but I totally agree that this is what's happening in the scene. Some players like Rain, Innonvation, soO, and Maru can hang around the top, but it never seems like they own the hill. It really sucks. There are no Michael Jordons in sc2, or maybe there are but just for a day.
I'm not sure if its the new challenger set up in WCS or not, but I am extremely disappointed in the players that made it into premier. No Suppy, no Scarlett, No Huk... How does Bunny not make premier or Firecack fall out when he did so good the season before?
Shitty system?
Or inconsistent game?
Frankly I'm tired of seeing my fav players not make it into premier. I know this may not be a popular statement, but I don't care about the "up and comer" or at least not when they knock out a personality I really like.
One thing to keep in mind which some seem to have overlooked, is the macro changes are a response to the extra units and actions that LOTV has compared with HOTS.
- They are not proposing that Macro wont matter, a slight nerf to accommodate the extra actions in LOTV. Does this sound so unreasonable ? I dont think so.
- Also, the reliance on chrono and mules decreasing I would welcome.
- As for injects, there has been some good suggestions in this thread how to make it interesting like 2-3 auto larve and queens give 4-5.
On August 03 2015 03:02 Endymion wrote: did anyone see that osl interview that had lilsusie in it where it was 3 old bw casters and susie talking about why sc2 failed initially in kr (and what it could do to succeed)? the head of osl complained about how little "star" factor there was for sc2 players, and how it was almost impossible for skill to stratify and for a bonjwa to emerge, so they found it boring compared to bw and league. well now that we see the game becoming easier by removing macro mechanics, you'll see the game get even more flat regarding marginal return in-game for skill/practice/mechanics.
I didn't see it, but I totally agree that this is what's happening in the scene. Some players like Rain, Innonvation, soO, and Maru can hang around the top, but it never seems like they own the hill. It really sucks. There are no Michael Jordons in sc2, or maybe there are but just for a day.
I'm not sure if its the new challenger set up in WCS or not, but I am extremely disappointed in the players that made it into premier. No Suppy, no Scarlett, No Huk... How does Bunny not make premier or Firecack fall out when he did so good the season before?
Shitty system?
Or inconsistent game?
Frankly I'm tired of seeing my fav players not make it into premier. I know this may not be a popular statement, but I don't care about the "up and comer" or at least not when they knock out a personality I really like.
The whole thing just feels so damn random to me.
I would put that down to the build order being a bit too strong a factor, once players styles have been figured out , they generally dont do as well soon after. And this becomes increasingly difficult, so the chance of upsets is greater.
EPT
