This week, we’ve mostly been focusing on iterating on a few specific topics through various meetings, discussions, playtests, and new idea generation.
Warp Gate changes In last week’s Protoss update, we brought up some potential changes that we were looking at for Warp Gate. We tried a large number of different changes in this area, and where we are currently at is this:
Units take 2 seconds to warp-in at Pylons that have Warpgates touching their pylon power. Buff to defensive case.
Units take 16 seconds to warp in at Pylons not “connected” to Warpgates. Huge nerf to the offensive case.
Warp Prism power fields take 2 seconds. Players will need to tech to Warp Prisms in order to offensive warp in well. Due to the smaller warp-radius of the Warp Prism, players may require several to effectively warp-in offensively with their army (this is countered somewhat by the fact that the offensive warp-in case is much stronger than before).
We tried many different designs in this area that have ultimately similar results, but this design seems to be the most clean in terms of added rules. With the offensive early warp-ins being less of a threat, we wanted to buff the defensive case and the Warp Prism case. We also felt that it’s ok to have a much stronger Warp Prism because players have had to commit to that tech in order to have access to its strength.
Disruptor We still agree with you that the current version in the beta is not good, because just being invulnerable for so long doesn’t have the interesting micro and the potential for cool interactions. With that in mind, we’ve actually been focusing heavily on trying out various community suggestions and also branching off our own ideas from your suggestions. We’ll have a better update for you on the Disruptor next week, since we’re not quite done playtesting the various versions and forming conclusions on this area yet.
Alt control group for 1v1 We noticed some players were asking for the new alt control group feature to be added to 1v1, so we wanted to clear up some confusion and make sure that everybody knew that this feature is not specific to archon mode and can be used in any mode of StarCraft 2!
Macro Mechanics Macro mechanics are something we’ve absolutely seen the community discuss in the past. With Legacy of the Void becoming more difficult to play due to our main goals - more action, micro on both sides during engagements, less downtime, etc. - we have been exploring areas that we can make easier. For these, we’re trying to locate areas that are difficult to manage but aren’t really easily noticeable. For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
Currently, we’re looking at two options here.
Option 1:
Spawn larva is autocast by default, but spawn only 3 larva. Mule efficiency is nerfed by 20% or so. Chrono boost cost increased to 50, and efficiency not quite doubled.
The thought here is that because efficiency is nerfed overall, it’s not as big of a deal to not do these mechanics spot on all the time.
Option 2: Cut chrono Cut mule Spawn larva is autocast by default, but spawn only 2 larva
The thought here is just do away with these added clicks, we do lose a little bit of strategy and decision making but we wonder if that’s ok, and have a clean version where players don’t need to do the extra clicks.
With that said, keep in mind neither of these versions are final, they’re just one of two potential directions we can go in this area.
Shoutouts
Finally, we also wanted to give a shoutout this week to the various Archon mode tournaments going on, as well as the MSI 2015 WSL tournament.
We saw a lot of excitement around the Redbull Archon tournament especially in the TvT series last weekend. BasetradeTV also had many cool moments, and one that was really memorable to us was the situation where a Korean team lost to a new Terran strategy from a foreign team. Then, in the following series, a different Zerg team countered the same strategy using Ravagers. In truth, seeing the more innovative teams performing better than the more “skilled at HotS” teams was pretty awesome.
For HotS, we really enjoyed the first matches of the MSI 2015 WSL. Although the games weren’t the highest skill like we’re used to seeing these days, the more casual and different type of environment was a cool change of pace and very entertaining to watch. Lastly, we wanted to also shoutout to Hungryapp TV for trying something new and fun.
In conclusion, thanks for all the continued feedback on Legacy of the Void. Let us know what you think of these changes and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
This does not work well with how fast battles are in SC2. Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds. Basically, there is not enough longstanding micro (and enough corresponding time to perform such micro) for players to do.
This is a 1v1 game. Both you and your opponent have to keep up with macromechanics, so you end up playing those who are around the same skill level.
I would rather they nerf the effectiveness of macromechanics but keep (or increase) the difficulty of being optimal with them (i.e. more injects/mules/chrono per minute for less larvae/minerals/boost)
Macromechanics are apparent to viewers. Especially with the UI of SC2 and casters to point it out. Both in BW and in SC2, people notice how good players are at pumping out units. Blizzard's proposal dumbs down the playing field even more.
If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
They can't just remove chronoboost to protoss without any sort of buffs in other areas. Its a huge part in the protoss gameplay. And the different warp-ins time changes seems exagerated, would be better if they were lets say 4 and 8 or something like that. 16 seconds is too much
One of the most disappointing community updates as of late. Protoss is widely regarded as a defensive "deathball" race so they make it weaker offensively and stronger defensively. makes sense. Also the alt control group feature is terrible, I thought they wanted players to be able to differentiate themselves through their skill and not make the mechanics even more easy than they are now. Finally they want to tone down/remove the races unique macro mechanics making the races more similar and reducing the required mechanical skill even further. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if LotV will be a huge failure and kill sc2 as a competitive eSports.
On August 01 2015 04:30 IeZaeL wrote: They can't just remove chronoboost to protoss without any sort of buffs in other areas. Its a huge part in the protoss gameplay. And the different warp-ins time changes seems exagerated, would be better if they were lets say 4 and 8 or something like that. 16 seconds is too much
The macromechanics of the other races receives comparable nerfs, and spawn larva + mule are much more impactful than CB.
Also they are supposed to be "exaggerated" as offensive warpins needs to be nerfed signifciantly. 8 seconds won't accomplish that.
The issue I have with the change is that he isn't really suggesting other changes to protoss and warp prism + adept allins will be further buffed.
Full on "yay" for warpgate change, I really like the idea and want to see how it plays out.
As far as macro mechanics go, thats actually something I hear a lot of people complain about. "It's just added clicks" - for the majority of players thats true, but for some players thats pretty much what sets them apart from othes. I remember Nestea saying "If queen energy over 50, you lose".
On the other hand, many players have 100+ energy on their queens and still win conistently. And Brood war didn't have those mechanics as well...
Really don't know how I feel about that. Definitely something interesting to try out.
so protoss is the weakest race in lotv right now and were getting nerfed hard, makes sense
edit (to clarifiy): the only thing we could do that allowed us to win just got nerfed to the ground, adept pressure. everything else about this race is putrid right now.
the funny thing is blizzard previously reverted an offensive warpgate change because it hurt protoss too much (the warpin time nerf).. and now they're nerfing offensive warpgates even harder. wheres the logic in that?
On August 01 2015 04:31 Charoisaur wrote: Protoss is widely regarded as a defensive "deathball" race so they make it weaker offensively and stronger defensively. makes sense.
Protoss is also widely regarded as a race that wins off of bullshit timings that are very difficult to scout and prepare for.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW. With this change especially, SC2 players will have even fewer ways to distinguish themselves.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not. In this case, we may as well have auto macro and players can focus just on managing their army. What makes Starcraft (BW or SC2) Starcraft is the good balance between macro and micro. Blizzard is shifting way too much into terrible, terrible damage.
"It's just added clicks" - for the majority of players thats true, but for some players thats pretty much what sets them apart from othes. I remember Nestea saying "If queen energy over 50, you lose".
In early 2011, maybe inject seperated pro players. But not today.
regardless of the terrible impact of the game, the horrible warpin change will just be extremely complicated. there would need to be two different circles for gateways and pylons so it's clear where you can warpin fast and where not. For DKs philosophy of "the viewer must be entertained, the player experience doesn't matter" this is not good.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even have injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
Removing things to do in the hopes that players will do something else (that is actually not really related) is not effective. Players do not attack not because macro is too difficult. Players do not attack because they want to build up a bigger army, or they do not feel like an attack will be effective, or that they are down on supply/tech. Having bad macro does not prevent players from attacking.
Sure, noticing macro is more difficult than seeing marine splits or whatever, but what I am talking about is more differentiation between players. Like I said before, SC2 macro is already pretty straightforward. Remember that your opponent has to do macromechanics, too.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
im kinda on board with all these changes, id rather test them out too.
I dont think macro mechanics are very beneficial to the game.
A zerg without good larva injects is barely playable. That goes through to the bronze league, where it hurts players the most.
Whos to say that "skilled plays" shouldnt be found elsewhere in the game. Clever decision making, positioning and factors like that should decide the outcome of a game more.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of your mind to think Injects are easy.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of you mind to think Injects are easy.
By the time Life starts slipping a little bit in injects, it does not matter, because he will have already built up a larvae bank. He either does not have enough minerals to use all of his larvae or he is waiting for tech.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
I really don't think this should be the focus though. This would be an enormous change to the esports side of Starcraft which I don't like. I like to be able to abuse my opponent's attention in TvZ to mess with their injects, I like the added complexity of chronoboost when facing Protoss, I like that with MULES I can choose to play like Bomber and max out more quickly or choose to play like Taeja and scan everywhere and play a very map-control focused style. I especially have a problem with removing injects because those, to me, feel like 80% of zerg macro whereas mules and chronoboost are less essential.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
Removing things to do in the hopes that players will do something else (that is actually not really related) is not effective. Players do not attack because macro is too difficult. Players do not attack because they want to build up a bigger army, or they do not feel like an attack will be effective, or that they are down on supply/tech.
I should have been clearer - I don't disagree with that part of your post at all. Only the notion that macro is always readily apparent, when in truth even casters struggle to correctly identify it as the source of players' successes and failures.
My thoughts related to this topic: 1. I don't like MULE/Chrono/Inject. 2. I like tech lab/reactor/creep tumors. 3. I wouldn't mind more "flashy" macro like the above in the game, e.g. WarpGate/GateWay transformations. 4. Cutting the macro mechanics that exist without replacing them will not increase the amount of action in pro games, but it will lower the skill ceiling. I thought Blizzard was aiming for the opposite with LOTV.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of your mind to think Injects are easy.
by that time zerg has 5-6 hatches, you dont need perfect larva injects to stay maxed (alot of zergs even add their queens to their army in that stage of the game).. if you dont know what you're talking pls dont spread misinformation.
On August 01 2015 04:49 weikor wrote: Whos to say that "skilled plays" shouldnt be found elsewhere in the game. Clever decision making, positioning and factors like that should decide the outcome of a game more.
That's great and all, but these aren't things players can just make up out of thin air. Blizzard has to provide us with units and abilities that can take advantage of clever decision making and positioning, and Disruptors and Ravagers are only one step toward fixing that problem.
The beta's far from over though and if they still have new mechanics coming to Zerg and Protoss, I'm all for it. But right now the balance is out of whack, and removing macro abilities will make the game especially easier for Zerg, so they gotta get to experimenting with the counterweight.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of your mind to think Injects are easy.
by that time zerg has 5-6 hatches, you dont need perfect larva injects to stay maxed (alot of zergs even add their queens to their army in that stage of the game).. if you dont know what you're talking pls dont spread misinformation.
yes you need for tech switches... and yes on 4-5 hatches you still need good injects.... remaxing is a thing you know... They add queens when they have to much of them vs void rays or going with ultralisk
i know what im talking about,,, you only speak theory and what you see not what i play as zerg.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of you mind to think Injects are easy.
By the time Life starts slipping a little bit in injects, it does not matter, because he will have already built up a larvae bank. He either does not have enough minerals to use all of his larvae or he is waiting for tech.
you missed the point not everyone is life and when you plan on more tech switches and remaxes its very important. its like me saying you dont need MULES in late game cuz you have enough money.
but you still use it to get even more rich or steal minerals from the enemy bases.
It's really cool they are bringing macro mechanics up. I hope they don't completely remove that aspect of the game, because it can really differentiate players from each other in how a game feels. Since there is much more to do than what is possible for a human being. That said I think nerfing the strength of these can really help Starcraft out in the grand scheme of things. If it takes everyone longer to get to their wished amount of income, it'll drag the game out a lot more and introduce more situations where it's not strategically trivial to say, now I need more army, or now I need more workers. Just please don't automate the process, since the choice between when to Creep Spread and when to Inject is one that brings more depth to the game. Mule/Scan+What to Chrono.
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
Removing things to do in the hopes that players will do something else (that is actually not really related) is not effective. Players do not attack not because macro is too difficult. Players do not attack because they want to build up a bigger army, or they do not feel like an attack will be effective, or that they are down on supply/tech.
I should have been clearer - I don't disagree with that part of your post at all. Only the notion that macro is always readily apparent, when in truth even casters struggle to correctly identify it as the source of players' successes and failures.
My thoughts related to this topic: 1. I don't like MULE/Chrono/Inject. 2. I like tech lab/reactor/creep tumors. 3. I wouldn't mind more "flashy" macro like the above in the game, e.g. WarpGate/GateWay transformations. 4. Cutting the macro mechanics that exist without replacing them will not increase the amount of action in pro games, but it will lower the skill ceiling. I thought Blizzard was aiming for the opposite with LOTV.
Alright, I think we are more in line now though I do not fully agree with all of your points.
Macromechanics (MULE/chrono/inject) are important to SC2. Players need reasons to go back (view) to their bases more than just to put down 1-2 buildings every minute or so. Personally, a chrono type macrobooster for all races would be fine to enforce this. Creep tumours are fine as long as the incentive is there (which it is). I do not like reactors, as it is just a passive macrobooster. Wish they removed them and rebalanced everything around the slower Terran macro. I realise that it is much less common to max in LotV, but I have always had complaints of how fast 200/200 comes in SC2 due to macroboosters and increased supply costs (compared to BW -- Zerg has no 1 supply army unit >_>).
On August 01 2015 04:27 Hider wrote: If Mule is cutted, will there be a more strategic macromechanic for terran as a replacement? Otherwise you are just gonna mass scans.
A bit surprised Blizzard presents up with this idea without any more specific solutions. That said, I definitely think macromechanics are pretty uninteresting and waste of APM in the game. Not something that I directly dislike, but I think it could improve the experience if you could focus more on unit management.
I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
That's not what he says. He says he doesn't want to have APM-mechanics that aren't visually apparent to viewers.
Players need something else to do other than pivoting their deathball for 5 minutes into a battle that ends in a few seconds.
This is what they are attempting to change with LOTV. More unit vs unit interactions all the time so you never just sit in your base and do nothing (but macro).
But macro is apparent to viewers. SC2 has the UI and casters to point out good macro. Heck, even BW viewers can see how good Flash's macro was. It was amazing because of how difficult it is to macro well in BW.
More unit vs unit interactions all the time has nothing to do with just sitting in your base and doing nothing. You can still sit in your base and do nothing.
The goal is good, but they way Blizzard is trying to do it (by removing other things to do) is not.
Macro is not apparent to viewers.
It took soO making it to two consecutive GSL finals for people to start realizing that his success wasn't based off of flukes, but flawless macro. How often do you remember Tastosis saying "wow look at his macro, no other Zerg would have macroed this well!"
Brilliant macro only becomes evident to professional casters after they rewatch and study the games they cast. What hope do casuals have of noticing it?
Removing things to do in the hopes that players will do something else (that is actually not really related) is not effective. Players do not attack not because macro is too difficult. Players do not attack because they want to build up a bigger army, or they do not feel like an attack will be effective, or that they are down on supply/tech.
I should have been clearer - I don't disagree with that part of your post at all. Only the notion that macro is always readily apparent, when in truth even casters struggle to correctly identify it as the source of players' successes and failures.
My thoughts related to this topic: 1. I don't like MULE/Chrono/Inject. 2. I like tech lab/reactor/creep tumors. 3. I wouldn't mind more "flashy" macro like the above in the game, e.g. WarpGate/GateWay transformations. 4. Cutting the macro mechanics that exist without replacing them will not increase the amount of action in pro games, but it will lower the skill ceiling. I thought Blizzard was aiming for the opposite with LOTV.
Alright, I think we are more in line now though I do not fully agree with all of your points.
Macromechanics (MULE/chrono/inject) are important to SC2. Players need reasons to go back (view) to their bases more than just to put down 1-2 buildings every minute or so. Personally, a chrono type macrobooster for all races would be fine to enforce this. Creep tumours are fine as long as the incentive is there (which it is).
Yeah. To be even clearer than before - I like what the macro mechanics accomplish. I just don't like the particular ones we're stuck with. I would not like to see macro mechanics cut with no replacements.
I do not like reactors, as it is just a passive macrobooster. Wish they removed them and rebalanced everything around the slower Terran macro. I realise that it is much less common to max in LotV, but I have always had complaints of how fast 200/200 comes in SC2 due to macroboosters and increased supply costs (compared to BW -- Zerg has no 1 supply army unit >_>).
I meant reactor more in the sense of the add-on in general. I like that Terrans have to pick one or the other, and then have the option to switch them out by temporarily disabling their production facilities and floating them around. It's a very natural way to add macro to the race, it's part of a complex system that enhances the race's themes As opposed to just "here have a spell that you can cast every 30 seconds."
I'm actually ok with removing macro mechanics because a) the game is crazy fast anyway, it needs to be slowed down and let's face it they aren't touching the economy anyway and b) i fucking hate how inject larva makes it possible to attack zerg only if you have a good chance of actually getting away (with medivacs or recall basically), or with a deathball.
Plus, without inject i can be right when i say that zerg is the race for scrubs that can only amove without having any skill whatsoever >.>
Macro mechanics are just something that shouldnt be as demanding and punishing as they are. Its really unfair to anything but the top level players. It also adds very little to the game.
If I had to play a game of tetris at my nexus, sure the skillcap would increase - but it doesnt make starcraft better. Have you ever watched a progame and heard people scream at the chronoboost usage? Its bland and boring.
Another argument id like to bring up is where macro mechanics originated from. In the Wol beta players were complaining about the game beeing too easy in comparison to Broodwar.
Yeah... The level of play wasnt very high back then.
Option 2 is just terrible. Zerg can't survive with just 2 larva from injects... You need like 30-40% more hatcheries for production then.... That means all-ins will be way slower and defending all-ins way harder because you need a much bigger investment in buildings, while drone production is slowed as well....Removing mule will make any cloak play vs terran trivial as they will have 100% scan availability.
Option 1 is harder to decide, but I really think Zerg will be boring to play without a macro mechanic. At least in the HotS campaign it felt wrong not having any macroing to do. Terran and Protoss at least have to build structures. With autocast Zerg just plants a hatch, rally point and done is your macro. I guess it's a pretty big buff to creep spread as that will get a lot more focus then.
So, to be fair, I'm actually not opposed to those Warp Gate experiments. It sounds like a promising path to try and iterate on.
The macro stuff though...idk man. Inject/Creep spread is what separates the men from the boys, and is frankly the "best" macro mechanic as far as usefulness to skill ratio. Mules and chronoboost are much less skill based, imo, so if they want to rework those feel free.
I don't think we should be looking to make macro mechanics easier because the game overall is faster paced and "harder". We should be providing as many opportunities as reasonably makes sense for players to distinguish themselves through mechanics. And let's face it, people aren't winning and losing in lower leagues because they miss injects/mules/chrono, so why do we need to make that "easier", it's part of learning the game.
These changes are really cool direction for the game, they are addressing warp-gates and they are recognizing that the game should be less of a chore.
The game needs to be fun to play, it can't always be tailored towards making it as hard as possible for the sake of it. When you always design it for people who play as a full time job, then the game takes on the same qualities as a full time job, the same level of stress, frustration and feelings of being overworked. It's not fun.
That is not to say the game should be dumbed down, but what they are suggesting; change the focus of the difficulty from areas which are hard for the sake of it, into areas that are still just as hard but also engaging and fun.
On August 01 2015 05:18 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: What the fuck
Option 2 is just terrible. Zerg can't survive with just 2 larva from injects... You need like 30-40% more hatcheries for production then.... That means all-ins will be way slower and defending all-ins way harder because you need a much bigger investment in buildings, while drone production is slowed as well....Removing mule will make any cloak play vs terran trivial as they will have 100% scan availability.
Option 1 is harder to decide, but I really think Zerg will be boring to play without a macro mechanic. At least in the HotS campaign it felt wrong not having any macroing to do. Terran and Protoss at least have to build structures. With autocast Zerg just plants a hatch, rally point and done is your macro. I guess it's a pretty big buff to creep spread as that will get a lot more focus then.
Macro hatches and Terran won have the OP MULES comeback... Protoss less chessy.
On August 01 2015 05:22 nottapro wrote: These changes are really cool direction for the game, they are addressing warp-gates and they are recognizing that the game should be less of a chore.
The game needs to be fun to play, it can't always be tailored towards making it as hard as possible for the sake of it. When you always design it for people who play as a full time job, then the game takes on the same qualities as a full time job, the same level of stress, frustration and feelings of being overworked. It's not fun.
That is not to say the game should be dumbed down, but what they are suggesting; change the focus of the difficulty from areas which are hard for the sake of it, into areas that are still just as hard but also engaging and fun.
Except that something like inject is a really great way that a player can distinguish themselves on a macro level. It's one of the actual "busy work" mechanics that truly makes a difference, imo.
I'm very not into this update. Warp in obviously needs an change, so that's okay I guess but this direction doesn't thrill me. If they made Nexus a warp in point too with a warp in of 2 seconds, then its actually decent.
But removing macro mechanics is just not cool. Don't do it. Dont' make this game super casual. Mules takes like 2 seconds to call in and are part of the strategy of Terran. Chronoboost takes like 1 second to do. Something to make injects less make-or-break would be nice, but if we're just removing them so you can focus on your army for 2 seconds more, then we shouldn't touch them. Lots of players have made their careers on having sick macro. It's a inherent part of Starcraft and if we remove it, youre removing a large part of the game. If you want to rework mechanics, that's cool. Chronoboost is boring. Mules are kind of boring. Larva inject could afford to be less necessary for zergs to win, but dont' remove these mechanics entirely.
Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
Wow, no mule, weak larva inject. But they forget something important in the lategame. I know the new expand or die system makes it not that strong. But Protoss still has their oversupply mechanic in warpgates. Means that every Warpgate extends the Supply cap by +2. If we consider the Warpgate change its even stronger at higher level, where you use a Prism.
But my main issue would be, Mule is such a fun mechanic in the lategame. Manner mules, mass mules stealing from the opponent. Lategame weird stuff that is rather entertaining. Protoss might get a few problems. Zerg would need an extra hatch, but their worker output wouldn't be that hurt. Terran would just say, screw orbtials !
But yeah testing testing. I think they will run out of time.
On August 01 2015 04:31 Charoisaur wrote: One of the most disappointing community updates as of late. Protoss is widely regarded as a defensive "deathball" race so they make it weaker offensively and stronger defensively. makes sense. Also the alt control group feature is terrible, I thought they wanted players to be able to differentiate themselves through their skill and not make the mechanics even more easy than they are now. Finally they want to tone down/remove the races unique macro mechanics making the races more similar and reducing the required mechanical skill even further. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if LotV will be a huge failure and kill sc2 as a competitive eSports.
They have to address offensive Warp Ins if Protoss is ever going to be able to be buffed in a way that allows Gateway units to stand on their own.
Offensive Warp Ins are a balance nightmare, it removes all defender's advantage and trying to keep them around is how we ended up with Bandaid bullshit like Photon Overcharge.
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
Source?
The california meeting community update where they said koreans talk about how hard the game is
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
Source?
The california meeting community update where they said koreans talk about how hard the game..
So you think " the game is hard " means they should remove or lessen the importance of macro.
How about we get rid of the 1000 active abilities on units that aren't fun to use.
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
Source?
The california meeting community update where they said koreans talk about how hard the game..
So you think " the game is hard " means they should remove or lessen the importance of macro.
How about we get rid of the 1000 active abilities on units that aren't fun to use.
We should see more Micro and small battles then macro up and then huge armies colide and GG. That is horrible. Deathball killed this game alot.
Abilities are bad to and alot of them should be removes, even units that overlap should be removed.
I actually really hate the thought of removing the inject mechanics, it's such a distinguishing feature, and really good players make so good use of it.. Remember when DRG started showing us the potential of just having REALLY good injects for the time, and all the opportunities that made for you? I am really really against that, it takes away more than it adds i think
Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
WOW What is this madness?! Not sure it is necessary a bad thing? But somehow I feel this is going to be a really long beta if Bliz suddenly want to change the very basic of Starcraft II now
The RTS purist in me really hates the idea of lessening or getting rid of macro mechanics, I always loved how in SC2 you can differentiate yourself purely by being able to be a more robust player and that's what made me fall in love with BroodWar, the very idea that it's like trying to spin a bunch of plates while you're thinking strategy and that is one of many ways you can differentiate yourself as a player. Intuitively I love the idea that you can differentiate yourself on these different levels, macro or micro or generally strategy and this would be taking one of those out.
Having said all that I don't exactly play a ton of SC2 anymore so maybe my gut reaction is totally wrong and that's the sort of thing that would motivate me to load it up more often. Would be interesting to at least test.
On August 01 2015 06:02 Yiome wrote: WOW What is this madness?! Not sure it is necessary a bad thing? But somehow I feel this is going to be a really long beta if Bliz suddenly want to change the very basic of Starcraft II now
I'd gladly trade an extra 6 months of beta time for a better product so at least weird shit is on the table.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
I know that it was always more punishing for zerg to miss injects than it was to miss a mule when you can call down 2 later. But when the whole mechanic of zerg gets removed that shows good multitasking and time sense of a zerg player it is in the end bad for the zerg race. Might be overpowered as well and they have to weaken zerg units even more. And to be honest I don't know what to do with my spare time in the game. You can't even use that saved time to be aggressive on the map in the early game since everything is walled off anyway.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
I know that it was always more punishing for zerg to miss injects than it was to miss a mule when you can call down 2 later. But when the whole mechanic of zerg gets removed that shows good multitasking and time sense of a zerg player it is in the end bad for the zerg race. Might be overpowered as well and they have to weaken zerg units even more. And to be honest I don't know what to do with my spare time in the game. You can't even use that saved time to be aggressive on the map in the early game since everything is walled off anyway.
This shows you dont play LotV.
Overlord drop avoid all walls, creep spreading is a huge deal. Its not OP since they removed 1 larva per inject.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
Than remove the Mule and add something more difficult for terran, don't remove macro mechanics. Such a stupid idea!
If they remove MULE and CHRONO and gaved you guys actual skill in macro then im okay with that. At this point the MULE is so forginving and in late game so OP.
The only nerf the MULE got in Lotv is that if you mine to much it might lead to your death since you would need to expand like crazy even more.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
It's a trade off, Zerg armies don't need as much micro as Terran does in ZvT but they need more actions(creep, injects) to match the Terran macro. Whether or not its a good trade off is up for discussion, but you would need to rebalance around these changes.
I'm very surprised at the macro mechanics thing. Unless major changes are made along that, it goes against the "20-minute game" goal that they seem to try to achieve with LotV.
There's good, and there's not good. This is not good.
Seriously, that community update sucked every last glimmer of hope I had for LotV. Focusing on warpgate nerfs instead of really trying to make Protoss interesting as a race, those idiotic considerations on macro mechanics (needless to say they need to stay the way they are) confirming they think the viewer should be the dictator and the player the slave, their insistance on making warp prism play retardedly broken and frustrating for the opponent... I'm speechless.
Go take some holidays LotV development team, you're doing no good atm.
On August 01 2015 05:57 cabal] wrote: Removing or automating the macro mechanics will only make the game worse. You cannot remove the skill based abilities and the most severe being the auto cast spawn larva. Just because sc1 did not have those ablities does not mean sc2 does not need them. Sc1 had different ways of showing skill mainly no MBS and 12 unit limit. you have unlimited unit selection in sc2 and mbs. you can make units and f2 your army. That is why macro mechanics are needed to differentiate fast players from slow players. Sure MULES and chrono boost are not that punishing if you miss them since you bank the energy but spawn larva is a different story.
It's a trade off, Zerg armies don't need as much micro as Terran does in ZvT but they need more actions(creep, injects) to match the Terran macro. Whether or not its a good trade off is up for discussion, but you would need to rebalance around these changes.
Wut ? LBM takes alot of Micro, you think a-moving into WM is possible. In fact Bio vs LBM is the most intensive micro play. Yes and their option was to take 1 larva out while nerfing MULES a bit and CHRONO as well. We still have to SPREAD CREEP if you forgot that part.
Units can be tweaked if its a need.
I could also say that against mech its going to be harder to play since you cant just play straight up with vs mech.
Put the bias aside this changes are good for the game that should be focused more on micro and smaller battles then just macro until 200/200 and lets battle.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
if you're in gold league, then yea
WUT ?
Even GM cant inject perfectly, even Life had this thing in most of his replays where he forgets queens. Your out of your mind to think Injects are easy.
by that time zerg has 5-6 hatches, you dont need perfect larva injects to stay maxed (alot of zergs even add their queens to their army in that stage of the game).. if you dont know what you're talking pls dont spread misinformation.
I agree with TT1, zerglingshephard being one of the most vocal yet the least knowledgeable. Please be more careful saying things you don't know. LIFE IS NOT KNOWN FOR MISSING INJECTS FORGETTING QUEENS OR NOT HAVING LARVAE TO KEEP HIS RESOURCES LOW. You can find a game or two where its spikes a little. But seriously you are just turning to bash the highest level players who do not have problems with injects.
This topic has been explored thoroughly on korean forums like playxp and the consensus is that no more injects than 4 queens are ever necessary even with 5 bases mining and gases on them going. Also, most koreans have excess larvae at the 4 base phase. That's one of the reasons why the remax you see from zergs is so powerful. Removing inject powers is a nerf to zerg.
I've got it! I know why they are touching on the macro mechanics. They've watched Archon Mode and think the games are much more fun. That must be because one player is dedicated to army movement and microing. Remove macro and every game will be like Archon mode. Ofc. this would suck for Archon Mode, but you know..
On August 01 2015 05:22 nottapro wrote: These changes are really cool direction for the game, they are addressing warp-gates and they are recognizing that the game should be less of a chore.
The game needs to be fun to play, it can't always be tailored towards making it as hard as possible for the sake of it. When you always design it for people who play as a full time job, then the game takes on the same qualities as a full time job, the same level of stress, frustration and feelings of being overworked. It's not fun.
That is not to say the game should be dumbed down, but what they are suggesting; change the focus of the difficulty from areas which are hard for the sake of it, into areas that are still just as hard but also engaging and fun.
Except that something like inject is a really great way that a player can distinguish themselves on a macro level. It's one of the actual "busy work" mechanics that truly makes a difference, imo.
Honestly I agree with you there, it's one of the better busywork mechanics, but something has to give. The community tends to argue the game should be as mentally and physically exhausting design as possible, they rally for it out of nostalgia then go home and play less chore-like games.
There is a deep seated conservatism that over-values old systems / mechanics regardless of merit, to the point that people will even passionately argue for 25 year old glitch-ridden path-finding algorithms. These changes today are another example, people hated inject / mules / chronoboost just 5 years ago when they learnt about it, begged for it to be removed, but now its on the chopping block... its become coveted.
If the game is going to move forward, the community will have to recognize this tendency to conserve old systems even if they don't like them and start being more forward thinking. Start to put old ideas on the chopping block and look for more progressive ways to emphasize of difficulty than retaining mechanics they don't even like.
On August 01 2015 06:28 ejozl wrote: I've got it! I know why they are touching on the macro mechanics. They've watched Archon Mode and think the games are much more fun. That must be because one player is dedicated to army movement and microing. Remove macro and every game will be like Archon mode. Ofc. this would suck for Archon Mode, but you know..
SC2 is a game of macro and micro, and, IMO, primarily macro and decisions. Micro should make the difference only at the highest level. I don't think trying to put the emphasis so heavily on "action everywhere yeah viewers blaaaaah" is a good direction for the game.
@ All the people complaining about this nerfing Protoss and Protoss being really weak atm. Please try and use an ounce of common sense and realize that everyone knows this as well. Warp-gate nerfs should be something Protoss players celebrate because it opens the door for Gateway unit buffs. And Gateway unit buffs might mean that Protoss Gateway armies can trade at least reasonably efficiently with other armies.
On August 01 2015 06:30 Bohemond wrote: @ All the people complaining about this nerfing Protoss and Protoss being really weak atm. Please try and use an ounce of common sense and realize that everyone knows this as well. Warp-gate nerfs should be something Protoss players celebrate because it opens the door for Gateway unit buffs. And Gateway unit buffs might mean that Protoss Gateway armies can trade at least reasonably efficiently with other armies.
Not really. If you really think about it this is only a minor nerf to offensive strategies. The moment you start warping in a unit the warpgate goes on cooldown so you're still seeing the same stream of units at the same frequency. While the warping in units are more vulnerable, a lot of aggressive games aren't decided around a player shutting down additional warp ins (and often when they are capable of doing that the strategy is already lost). The change essentially means if you scout it early enough you're more likely to hold it.
That "pylon connected to a warpgate" thing makes really little sense to me. I liked far more their idea to separate pylon power and warp-in power, with warp-in power being provided by warp prisms, gateways and Nexi for instance.
I hope Blizzard has enough common sense to see that most people screaming "Yay" at the warp-in nerf would scream "yay" at any warp-in nerf just because they had frustrating experiences against P and that there must be better ways to improve warpgate design. This is not even a nerf to offensive strats IMO, 2 sec warp-ins would be soooo retarded, I can see horrible things spawning from that... Aren't there already really broken adept all-ins vs T with a warp prism in their main ?
I feel like Blizzard, for whatever reason, wants to remove the passive, macro-based kind of player that can thrive, especially as Zerg or Terran, in WoL and HotS. I'm talking about Flash, Bomber, SoO, Cure, Bunny, Major, Hydra, etc. I don't know if this is a bad thing, but I think it's definitely taking place.
Hi! I just made an account in TeamLiquid and this is my first write even though I have been reading TL for 1.5 years. I just wanted to say that I have lost almost all hope In David Kim and LOTV. It seems like the Dev Team and specially DK does not give a damn about whatever complaints and issues the community comes up with. This may be wrong but after seeing all the feedback that is being provided and watching David Kims reaction to it im really beginning to question if he is the man that can make Starcraft great again (even though I think its great right already). Since the Beta started I have seen no effort from Blizzard in order to make changes that really make the game more enjoyable and fun to play. In my opinion, this approach of making sc2 more action packed and fast paced is not what we need, a lot of HOTS players simply are not willing to play with the current LOTV econ system, potential new ones wont play the game because its even more difficult which is a synonim for non-entertaining, non-entertaining meaning dead game.
Furthermore, I feel like the only thing Blizzard is actually achieving with all these changes is dividing the whole sc2 community in two or more parts. Right now TL is like a long angry rant where users just fight each other trying to impose their view on things. And even though I like Drama I think it has reached the point where its just unbearable. Im getting tired of LOTV, im getting tired of this Beta and im getting tired of sc2 if Blizzard does not start working towards a good, well balanced and fun game to play and watch.
As a final thought, I really think that Blizzard does not know how big is exactly the number of people that are disagreeing with them and I think its time for them to really start working with the community (more than they are doing now). I wish they did some kind of referendum in which they can put their changes to the test and see how people want Starcraft to be. Sorry for the long writeup and for the grammar errors. English is not my native language.
On August 01 2015 06:28 ejozl wrote: I've got it! I know why they are touching on the macro mechanics. They've watched Archon Mode and think the games are much more fun. That must be because one player is dedicated to army movement and microing. Remove macro and every game will be like Archon mode. Ofc. this would suck for Archon Mode, but you know..
While it is good that they're looking into warp gate changes, the change they're proposing is not the best. I think the best change will be for PvP mirror where warp-gate timings will be nerfed and defender's advantage increased in blink vs blink fights, thereby encouraging more Stargate+Robo play as well as assisting FE builds.
In PvZ/PvT however, this will only lead to Warp Prism plays. Due to Warp Prism's strength and the economy's nerf of Warpgate timings, changes to offensive warp ins at pylons is not very relevant in LotV. The strongest Warpgate attacks come off the Warp Prism, which with a 2 second warp-in timing is just ridiculous. The Warp Prism should be 16 seconds, with maybe an upgrade at the Robotics Bay if anything to turn it into 2 seconds.
Also there's the problem of needing an extra 1:10 to build a Warpgate at a defensively positioned pylon to warp-in safely. Protoss is already having problems taking a third versus Zerg, this is only going to exacerbate problems of being able to set-up and defend a third because you have to warp in from your natural.
these macro changes seem horrible!! would take away a huge part of the races core. specially zerg...would be soooo easy to play if no injects are needed. and wasnt there a post a long time ago which explained the necessatiy of the mule in terran eco..? How would you make up for that?
I was going to wait to see if I some decent changes were coming to protoss before buying the game. But the fact that they are actually considering these kinds of changes to warp gate is really making me itch to just pre-order..
I think the warp gate idea is definitely on the right track.. If protoss need more offensive let it be through their units and not almost completely hinged on proxy pylons.
I would be happy controlling units more and macroing less but for decent players macro mechanics might just need an overhaul. I agree that it should be more interesting and more obvious.
Jesus christ no at the Macro mechanic removal. I'd be down for making chrono and mules as "critical" as queen usage is, perhaps by lowering max nexus and orbital energy to encourage using it on time.
Warp gate change of 16 seconds seems massive, what are they going to buff to compensate? Toss is getting rekked ATM other than all-ins. I dig killing off their retarded mass cheese amounts but they need a standard play buff to hang in there right now.
Zerg changes to inject are kind of crazy. So the only macro that Zerg has to do is creep spread and occasional upgrades?? Terran macro will consist of planting MANY buildings, adding MANY add-ons, swapping buildings onto different add-ons, occasional upgrades and we have to have the most focus on our micro of any of the races. I call not fair.
Macro is an inherent part of the game - when you do it right it feels so satisfying. Don't make this Warhammer 40K please.
Wow this excites me a lot. I love the idea of removing the macro mechanics, needing offensive warp gates and just about everything they said in thus update. Thumbs up if they go through with these changes.
Guys, I really don't know why you freak out immediately when you hear something about macro changes. What Blizzard says is mostly true and makes perfect sense in my opinion. The fact that macro is a passive and relatively hidden factor in the game which is not very apparent to viewers is an objective truth. I also think that it is also an aspect really frustrating to a lot of players, because it is just something you have to constantly be doing otherwise you lose. It's repetitive and is not fun on its own, in my opinion. I'm fairly certain that most of those who say they like macroing don't actually find macroing fun but rather being strong in macro and defeating the opponents thus. (If you are not this kind of player—sorry for accusing you .) Yes, macro is a way of differentiation, a way to be better than your opponent. It seems that Blizzard are attempting to put more emphasis on micro, so that the way you can win be being better at mostly micro rather than macro, since it is visually more apparent (and lest frustrating for some, I would imagine). I fully support this initiative. However, I feel neither of the suggestions are very good. I'm OK with Chrono used less frequently. I'm not sure about MULEs, and automated Inject seems to be something that can really go wrong. Having automated Larva spawn would make the very challanging Zerg macro very, very much easier, while not other races' macro. Zerg, with enough Hatcheries, could basically macro like Terran, with the huge advantage that missed production cycles would not result in lost production because Larva could be stockpiled. If you capped Larva per Hatchery at, say, 10, it could be solved more or less, but it would take away the Zerg production's identity.
So I don't think the two options are quite refined and viable, but I definitely like the general idea. I also like the Warp Gate idea, even if 2 seconds seems to be too short.
1. Protoss Warp In Nerfs/Buff 16 seconds is.... forever lol That's a really gigantor nerf, I can't imagine anybody would actually want to leave their units warp-in in exposed like that for so long... maybe something like 10. The 2 second buff is HUGE though. This is a great addition, now maybe I can actually get a single unit out if I missed the drop before 3 marauders snipe my nexus
2. Disruptor Not much to comment on, we all know it sucks right now...
3. Macro Mechanics ehhhh... Isn't the entire damn game balanced around Mules/Inject right now? Chrono is the least of them, but even a lot of viable timings depend on it (any early harrass/all-in basically). I'll be interested to see what their final view on it is, but ya, idk..... Maybe
* Cap Nexus and Orbital at 100, or even 75 energy * Decrease efficiency of Chrono and Mule * Inject only injects 3 larva now, but hatches auto build more larva normally over time now
So I guess closer to their option one. Still, I'm not really sure who's out there at the top level complaining that they lost a long game because they didn't inject properly.... it does always piss me off to see 10 MULEs rain down on a fresh base though, hence my suggestion on the cap lol
I don't understand them anymore, I really don't...
On one hand they want to oversimplify mechanics to a level that toddlers can play the game and on the other hand they add insanely stupid rules like the "16 second warp-in when the power grid of the Pylon is not touching a Warpgate, only 2 seconds when it does". That has to be the most stupid band-aid fix I have ever seen in the history of this game. Who would come up with something like that?
Seriously, I am at a loss for words. Glad I didn't pre-order the game... Thanks TB for hammering that message into my head!
On August 01 2015 07:16 DeadByDawn wrote: Zerg changes to inject are kind of crazy. So the only macro that Zerg has to do is creep spread and occasional upgrades?? Terran macro will consist of planting MANY buildings, adding MANY add-ons, swapping buildings onto different add-ons, occasional upgrades and we have to have the most focus on our micro of any of the races. I call not fair.
Macro is an inherent part of the game - when you do it right it feels so satisfying. Don't make this Warhammer 40K please.
Just when I thought someone would mention DoW2 haha Anyway if they are going to change injects I would say maybe nerfing it would be a better direction. So far the way injects work is that injects is a must do thing. If you don't inject, you die. Personally I would like to see them at least try to nerf these mechanics a little bit. Also my idea: Maybe similar to the change the proposed on chrono, increasing the energy cost for injects and increase the larva produced to a lesser extend. This way maybe it would produce a early game strategy choice between saving energy for heal and creep for defensive propose or injects away for more worker/ units.
The defensive buff though - not sure. So I didn't scout, didn't position my army, or even make an army, and I get caught with my pants down. Don't worry - photon overcharge and insta-units and I am good - or maybe I just recall. Really? Protoss already feels like the race for noobs, don't dumb it down much more.
regarding warp gate: it may need some tweaks but I think it will definitely be better than what we have now, is it too much? is it not enough? time will tell.
regarding macro mechanics: I know I'm in the minority but I actually like the approach blizz is suggesting, in particular (and I'm saying this as a zerg player) I think inject should definitely be nerfed in terms of larvae output. why? lets do the math:
hatcheries produce 1 larvae per 15 seconds and costs 300 minerals + a drone queens produce (with optimal play) 4 larvae per 40 seconds (1 larvae per 10 seconds) and costs 150 minerals + 2 supply. lets say the drone cost and the 2 supply cost even each other out so we just compare the mineral cost : larvae produced ratio.
the smallest common denominator for the larvae production is 30 seconds, in 30 seconds queens produce 3 larvae while hatcheries produce 2 larvae, lets divide these by the costs of the units to get larvae produced / (minerals spent * 30 seconds) hatchery = 2 / 300 = 1/150 queen = 3 / 150 = 1/50
i.e. queens are 3 times more efficient at producing larvae than hatcheries, even when ignoring the fact that queens have shorter build times. these numbers comparatively help hatcheries when reducing the larvae production for queens: 3 larvae: 2.25 / 150 = 1/67 2 larvae: 1.5 / 150 = 1/100
so even at 2 larvae it is still beneficial to produce queens rather than macro-hatcheries, even when ignoring the added utility of queens.
as for whether it should be auto-cast, I can see that being a contested point, but I think it would be worth it to try it out, I know I'm not flawless on my injects and injecting just to not lose literally more than half of my larvae production (literally 60% of potential larvae production comes from queens, 100% of larvae production comes from queens when saving up larvae) has always been the most tedious part of the game in my opinion and it would be interesting to see how much more accessible the game would be if that was more lenient.
I have no opinion regarding MULE and CB.
tl.dr. I think the proposed macromechanic approach can be worth exploring and I think it will probably be significantly less detrimental to strategy/skill ceiling than one might initially think. time will tell.
while watching redbull archon qualifiers it occurred to me that once zerg doesn't have to meddle with injects, they will be able to multitask more effectively when trying to crack a mech turtle terran...
On August 01 2015 07:42 StaN.de wrote: Not gonna buy LotV if these macro changes are going to make it in the final game.
Already pre-ordered it to play the beta and I do not regret it. Regardless of the silliness of these changes SC2 is still the best RTS we have (OK, maybe BW - but it makes my eyes hurt).
And I gave CarBot $350 to bring StarCrafts to the game - so it can only get better
lol autocast injects, what's next, production hack built in? This stupid focus on making only flashy plays matter is stupid, I hope someone realizes that this game isn't only played and watched by people whose attention span and understanding of the game allows them to only enjoy gifed micro highlights.
With every patch it really looks like they don't give a crap about the macro aspect of Starcraft and just want it to become a MOBA with more units to cast your spells and activate abilities. Hopeless.
Option 2, just go all the way!!! This is the best suggestion blizzard has made so far. "I made 20zerglings which you cant know, let's see what you made" gone from ZvZ sounds too good to be true. A slower economic build up and more time to use your units before they get overwhelmed by macro? Love it! No more mass CC, and if your opponent gets to land one of them you instalose in low ecoscenarios? Gorgeous! Please test thid all the way and see what new strategies could rise. This sounds like such a great step to more stability in the game!
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
On August 01 2015 07:48 Roblin wrote: regarding warp gate: it may need some tweaks but I think it will definitely be better than what we have now, is it too much? is it not enough? time will tell.
regarding macro mechanics: I know I'm in the minority but I actually like the approach blizz is suggesting, in particular (and I'm saying this as a zerg player) I think inject should definitely be nerfed in terms of larvae output. why? lets do the math:
hatcheries produce 1 larvae per 15 seconds and costs 300 minerals + a drone queens produce (with optimal play) 4 larvae per 40 seconds (1 larvae per 10 seconds) and costs 150 minerals + 2 supply. lets say the drone cost and the 2 supply cost even each other out so we just compare the mineral cost : larvae produced ratio.
the smallest common denominator for the larvae production is 30 seconds, in 30 seconds queens produce 3 larvae while hatcheries produce 2 larvae, lets divide these by the costs of the units to get larvae produced / (minerals spent * 30 seconds) hatchery = 2 / 300 = 1/150 queen = 3 / 150 = 1/50
i.e. queens are 3 times more efficient at producing larvae than hatcheries, even when ignoring the fact that queens have shorter build times. these numbers comparatively help hatcheries when reducing the larvae production for queens: 3 larvae: 2.25 / 150 = 1/67 2 larvae: 1.5 / 150 = 1/100
so even at 2 larvae it is still beneficial to produce queens rather than macro-hatcheries, even when ignoring the added utility of queens.
as for whether it should be auto-cast, I can see that being a contested point, but I think it would be worth it to try it out, I know I'm not flawless on my injects and injecting just to not lose literally more than half of my larvae production (literally 60% of potential larvae production comes from queens, 100% of larvae production comes from queens when saving up larvae) has always been the most tedious part of the game in my opinion and it would be interesting to see how much more accessible the game would be if that was more lenient.
I have no opinion regarding MULE and CB.
tl.dr. I think the proposed macromechanic approach can be worth exploring and I think it will probably be significantly less detrimental to strategy/skill ceiling than one might initially think. time will tell.
Thanks for the analysis. As I said I hope they can make injects more of a choice than a must. Do wish they can try this out. Maybe twerk the number a little bit more to strike a good balance on larva injects vs hatchery.
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
there would be depth... tactical depth... sorry see my edit: "its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point"
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
there would be depth... tactical depth... sorry see my edit: "its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point"
The problem with that idea is that there has been no real moves to increase the amount of "tactical depth" in the game. So we're losing macro and gaining nothing else to focus on.
the warp in offensive nerf / defensive buff yes, it also makes sense (why wasnt this thought earlier for HOTS as well?) . but please dont dumb down macro requirements too hard, only a bit if really needed
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point
Then let people start with a whole army already and whoever micros the best should win the game. Let's do a pick and ban phase with unit groups before the game so we still have different army compositions and tactics. Damn that would be a nice rts am i right?
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
But how about the potential to make the game more Fun to low level/causal players by removing/lowering some of this artificial difficulties, for example if they can make Hatchery closer to the efficiency of Queens? Problem of a game first of foremost should be about the players' experience right?
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
there would be depth... tactical depth... sorry see my edit: "its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point"
The problem with that idea is that there has been no real moves to increase the amount of "tactical depth" in the game. So we're losing macro and gaining nothing else to focus on.
that's not true, you are gaining 'attention spending' that can be used to focus on tactical play ... i believe zerg hesitates to commit fully to micro'ing on 3 fronts right now because then they would be missing their injects at home... and if they tried to still hit those injects they are almost certain to mess up one of the engagements and trade poorly... so, they just stick to 1-2 fronts and so they can still safely hit their injects
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point
Then let people start with a whole army already and whoever micros the best should win the game. Let's do a pick and ban phase with unit groups before the game so we still have different army compositions and tactics. Damn that would be a nice rts am i right?
no because strategy and tactics go hand in hand
example, i can play a beautiful strategy in chess but if i miss the one key tactic that my superior position gained me then what is the point? yeah my pieces are beautifully positioned but that one key moment i needed to seize with a winning tactic i missed it...
strategy and tactics go hand in hand... strategy sets up the tactics
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
there would be depth... tactical depth... sorry see my edit: "its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point"
The problem with that idea is that there has been no real moves to increase the amount of "tactical depth" in the game. So we're losing macro and gaining nothing else to focus on.
that's not true, you are gaining 'attention spending' that can be used to focus on tactical play ... i believe zerg hesitates to commit fully to micro'ing on 3 fronts right now because then they would be missing their injects at home... and if they tried to still hit those injects they are almost certain to mess up one of the engagements and trade poorly... so, they just stick to 1-2 fronts and so they can still safely hit their injects
well said, totally agree from the zerg perspective
Oh and when i say remove the macro mechanics I couldnt care less about the viewers. It's about a) me as a player not liking them conceptually: singleplayeresque with no decision behind because they are way to strong to not use all the time, in particular injects b) mechanically: tell me of one zerg who in the midst of mutalisk harass and a combat and a runby went like: "gosh I really would like to inject some hatcheries now and park my mutalisk in this corner for a few seconds" but it's actually true. If you have to make the decision to inject or micro the injections are more important. c) strategically: inject attacks are ruining ZvZ early game because they generate too many units too fast. Mass mulehammers are often instantwins for terrans if they can acquire a certain xth base in the lategame, while for the other races its a big investment and risk to place another base on location. Also the notion to kill all your workers to have a bigger army size while maintaining the income is stupid when the other races dont have free units as workers. Chronoboost is actually not bad in any way besides fuelling stupid proxy rushes. But even those could be "saved" simply by tuning the build times.
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
yeah but telling workers to mine, or "shining through exceptional macro management" are not visible to viewers and are not exciting aspects of the game
i mean yeah it is visible after the fact when you realize "damn he must have really hit his injects to have so many units" but the hype is minimal
sorry I actually want games to have depth, not be about HYPE highlights on reddit
there would be depth... tactical depth... sorry see my edit: "its much more hype to have overlords dropping in the back, nydus wurms popping up, mutas sniping tanks, 4 hatcheries going up on the map... yeah you get the point"
The problem with that idea is that there has been no real moves to increase the amount of "tactical depth" in the game. So we're losing macro and gaining nothing else to focus on.
that's not true, you are gaining 'attention spending' that can be used to focus on tactical play ... i believe zerg hesitates to commit fully to micro'ing on 3 fronts right now because then they would be missing their injects at home... and if they tried to still hit those injects they are almost certain to mess up one of the engagements and trade poorly... so, they just stick to 1-2 fronts and so they can still safely hit their injects
And that whole idea is part of the decision making of SC2. Do I focus on macro, or do I micro my army better? Removing that makes the whole game shallower and less interesting. Every player having perfect micro on all fronts at all time doesn't make the game more interesting.
what makes you think every player will have perfect micro on all fronts? that's a silly assumption that oversimplifies the complexity of the game without basis
and by the way, macro is still existing but it will be visible on the map (i.e. bases going up)
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
Koreans at the california meeting. And most pro players agree... the zerg ones cuz MULE and CHRONO take less to 0 skill
Source?
The california meeting community update where they said koreans talk about how hard the game is
which isn't a source at all. just random pr from blizzard.
On August 01 2015 08:20 mishimaBeef wrote: what makes you think every player will have perfect micro on all fronts? that's a silly assumption that oversimplifies the complexity of the game without basis
and by the way, macro is still existing but it will be visible on the map (i.e. bases going up)
Bases going up is already here, we already have that. Nothing is being gain in the game by removing macro, only a skill is being lost. I'm all for reworking some of these mechanics. Injects are too important and make-or-break zerg players, Mules are too easy to just spam and Chronoboost is plain out boring, but to get rid of these entirely just doesn't feel right to me
On August 01 2015 08:16 Big J wrote: Oh and when i say remove the macro mechanics I couldnt care less about the viewers. It's about a) me as a player not liking them conceptually: singleplayeresque with no decision behind because they are way to strong to not use all the time, in particular injects b) mechanically: tell me of one zerg who in the midst of mutalisk harass and a combat and a runby went like: "gosh I really would like to inject some hatcheries now and park my mutalisk in this corner for a few seconds" but it's actually true. If you have to make the decision to inject or micro the injections are more important. c) strategically: inject attacks are ruining ZvZ early game because they generate too many units too fast. Mass mulehammers are often instantwins for terrans if they can acquire a certain xth base in the lategame, while for the other races its a big investment and risk to place another base on location. Also the notion to kill all your workers to have a bigger army size while maintaining the income is stupid when the other races dont have free units as workers. Chronoboost is actually not bad in any way besides fuelling stupid proxy rushes. But even those could be "saved" simply by tuning the build times.
I hate MULEs and mass larva tech switches as much as everyone else, but they could actually just rework the macro mechanics instead of removing them. I think Starbow got them actually pretty cool, Terran got a chrono for production buildings only and MULE replaced with SCV call down that still costs 50min to make. And then there's also the low energy cap on nexus and CC so you can't stack up energy and use all at once. I think that's a much much more elegant solution than putting autocast (there's a hack that injects for you, it's literally a cheat atm) and scrapping the macro requirements from the other races altogether. It really feels like Warcraft 4 in space at this point.
consider that u need 9.8/10 micro (near impossible) on 3 fronts to yield more valuable attention spending than hitting injects and attacking only on 1-2 fronts with 8/10 micro (because injects give you that much power)
then consider that if you didn't have to hit injects, you can do better micro'ing 8/10 effectiveness on 3 fronts (because of how your strategy/timing works) vs 10/10 micro on 2 fronts... suddenly it's more feasible to be micro'ing on 3 fronts...
Inject becomes spawn 8 Broodlings on your hatchery, ready to ATTACK! Chrono becomes, I need shield on that unit, this unit, this building. Mule becomes, SUPER repair. More defenders advantage is needed, but Queens also need a reason to stay at home and I kind of like M.U.L.E theme, where Terran come to this new planet and just freaking dries it from all resources in matter of seconds.
Nerfing macro mechanics is one of the most important changes they can make to the economy, and we're screaming about not having more buttons to press?
This stuff breaks the economy, so much to the point where people play late-game by replacing their workers with...more command centers. Do you not see how dead 1 base builds are? There are so many options that have been killed because you simply can't touch 3 base eco without going allin because of queens and mules.
Do you see how fast games go to max supply? I'm seriously going crazy here, this is the biggest economy fix they could have done. argh
On August 01 2015 08:00 mishimaBeef wrote: nobody says whoa look at those injects! whoa look at him drop those mules! whoa look at the chronoboost go!
but people should be saying whoa look at that _____! that's exciting.
more of that is good, remove the cruft
having visible macro (such as expanding aggressively on the map as your multitask) is great invisible macro mechanic usage not so much
fuck that sick multitask of placing buildings (wow!), if only there was no automining on workers so you'd actually have to sometimes visit bases to do something
and yes there are players who shine through exceptional macro management, but I guess there will be only PartinGs and Marus left now, just like HotS made every Terran GuMiho
I second this, I've said this before in this thread but no one responded. If these changes go through, as a player, you can't choose to focus your practice on macro specifically. You can't elect to become a player who wins off of macro-based play as much as before (this is especially relevant for zerg.) You can't choose to play like SoO because SoO will no longer have the same advantages in skill that he has now.
Edit: I also think that zergs should have to do something to inject. It shoudn't be an autocast. If these changes go through (which they absolutely should not) then inject should just be less relevant, but still require an action. Otherwise, terran is still left with a very unforgiving macro setup (supply block) but zerg's unforgiving mechanic is totally gone. That simply isn't fair, punishing one race for sloppy macro but not another.
I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
On August 01 2015 08:16 Big J wrote: Oh and when i say remove the macro mechanics I couldnt care less about the viewers. It's about a) me as a player not liking them conceptually: singleplayeresque with no decision behind because they are way to strong to not use all the time, in particular injects b) mechanically: tell me of one zerg who in the midst of mutalisk harass and a combat and a runby went like: "gosh I really would like to inject some hatcheries now and park my mutalisk in this corner for a few seconds" but it's actually true. If you have to make the decision to inject or micro the injections are more important. c) strategically: inject attacks are ruining ZvZ early game because they generate too many units too fast. Mass mulehammers are often instantwins for terrans if they can acquire a certain xth base in the lategame, while for the other races its a big investment and risk to place another base on location. Also the notion to kill all your workers to have a bigger army size while maintaining the income is stupid when the other races dont have free units as workers. Chronoboost is actually not bad in any way besides fuelling stupid proxy rushes. But even those could be "saved" simply by tuning the build times.
I hate MULEs and mass larva tech switches as much as everyone else, but they could actually just rework the macro mechanics instead of removing them. I think Starbow got them actually pretty cool, Terran got a chrono for production buildings only and MULE replaced with SCV call down that still costs 50min to make. And then there's also the low energy cap on nexus and CC so you can't stack up energy and use all at once. I think that's a much much more elegant solution than putting autocast (there's a hack that injects for you, it's literally a cheat atm) and scrapping the macro requirements from the other races altogether. It really feels like Warcraft 4 in space at this point.
I always thought Starbows solutions for macro mechanics felt very forced but I havent played it for a long time. Dunno their current status.
I generally despise the idea of macromechanics. I dont see any gain from having to switch to your base to make your stuff build at the speed the game means it to build. If they wanted that they could just make production/mining more complicated to begin with. Why would I ever want to switch my screen to the part of the game where no player-interaction is taking place? Thats a singleplayer experience that belongs in a museum.
On August 01 2015 08:28 mishimaBeef wrote: u gain attention spending...
consider that u need 9.8/10 micro (near impossible) on 3 fronts to yield more valuable attention spending than hitting injects and attacking only on 1-2 fronts with 8/10 micro (because injects give you that much power)
then consider that if you didn't have to hit injects, you can do better micro'ing 8/10 effectiveness on 3 fronts (because of how your strategy/timing works) vs 10/10 micro on 2 fronts... suddenly it's more feasible to be micro'ing on 3 fronts...
it's a human attention limit...
Why not remove having to build supply units as well then? Why not automate worker production? Even more time to micro. Might as well go full company of heroes and remove macro as a whole. Macro is part of this game and should not be removed in favor of micro. Micro is a way to increase the value of your macroed units. It should not be the endgoal of the game.
i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
On August 01 2015 08:28 mishimaBeef wrote: u gain attention spending...
consider that u need 9.8/10 micro (near impossible) on 3 fronts to yield more valuable attention spending than hitting injects and attacking only on 1-2 fronts with 8/10 micro (because injects give you that much power)
then consider that if you didn't have to hit injects, you can do better micro'ing 8/10 effectiveness on 3 fronts (because of how your strategy/timing works) vs 10/10 micro on 2 fronts... suddenly it's more feasible to be micro'ing on 3 fronts...
it's a human attention limit...
Why not remove having to build supply units as well then? Why not automate worker production? Even more time to micro. Might as well go full company of heroes and remove macro as a whole. Macro is part of this game and should not be removed in favor of micro. Micro is a way to increase the value of your macroed units. It should not be the endgoal of the game.
yes but inevitably it is the end goal of the game. u must micro an army to win the game.
On August 01 2015 08:16 Big J wrote: Oh and when i say remove the macro mechanics I couldnt care less about the viewers. It's about a) me as a player not liking them conceptually: singleplayeresque with no decision behind because they are way to strong to not use all the time, in particular injects b) mechanically: tell me of one zerg who in the midst of mutalisk harass and a combat and a runby went like: "gosh I really would like to inject some hatcheries now and park my mutalisk in this corner for a few seconds" but it's actually true. If you have to make the decision to inject or micro the injections are more important. c) strategically: inject attacks are ruining ZvZ early game because they generate too many units too fast. Mass mulehammers are often instantwins for terrans if they can acquire a certain xth base in the lategame, while for the other races its a big investment and risk to place another base on location. Also the notion to kill all your workers to have a bigger army size while maintaining the income is stupid when the other races dont have free units as workers. Chronoboost is actually not bad in any way besides fuelling stupid proxy rushes. But even those could be "saved" simply by tuning the build times.
This best answer,
I cant belive people are against this.
You wanted big changes remember ! People wake the huck up !
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
is soo an inject player or a macro player?
There are no new macro opportunities though, they've basically straight nerfed/removed them
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
SoO won so much because his macro was perfect. Literally. Like almost completely optimal. He won so much off of this because his injects were just that much crisper than the macro of every other player. SoO can't win off of superior injects anymore if injects stop being so important, and there isn't really any macro skill to replace them.
Warp gate changes are just silly and desperate, we don't need a frontal push nerf and a defensive buff, we need there to be some type of advantage to using Gateways vs. making them all warp gates.
Nerf warp gate with the Pylon idea (the upgrade pylon) that alone should more then suffice and give Gateways a production advantage, stop with these silly gimmicky changes around warp gate I really don't understand the timid approach here, it's like David wants soooo bad for WG to be good.
Also, I'm fine with macro boosters being eliminated or greatly reduced, they suck, not because they don't take skill to use, because they contribute to larger army fights, if you want smaller army fights, you need to not have something that lets you stack 80 larvae or not spam 10 super workers or...well Chronoboost is just lame so any good idea around that I'd be fine with.
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
is soo an inject player or a macro player?
There are no new macro opportunities though, they've basically straight nerfed/removed them
so i take it nobody will be outmacro'ing you in the future then?
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
is soo an inject player or a macro player?
There are no new macro opportunities though, they've basically straight nerfed/removed them
so i take it nobody will be outmacro'ing you in the future then?
I don't see how zergs can really outmacro other zergs if they all have the same inject timings. Terrans can still outmacro because depots aren't automated.
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
is soo an inject player or a macro player?
There are no new macro opportunities though, they've basically straight nerfed/removed them
so i take it nobody will be outmacro'ing you in the future then?
the gap between me and a pro player will be significantly reduced.
macro will just change... the way you view it, the way it works... it will be more about position on the map with respect to resources... and of course multitasking is never something that will be gone...
more action, less sim city, more diversity in tactics and composition, more diverse playstyles
16 secs? wtf. How u gonna defend other bases. so it should have warpgates? also after the 16sec warp in + the WG cooldown? or you can warp in again after 16 secs?
On August 01 2015 08:51 mishimaBeef wrote: macro will just change... the way you view it, the way it works... it will be more about position on the map with respect to resources... and of course multitasking is never something that will be gone...
more action, less sim city, more diversity in tactics and composition, more diverse playstyles
I still have no clue where you're getting this from. Nothing has been done to encourage this.
On August 01 2015 08:51 mishimaBeef wrote: macro will just change... the way you view it, the way it works... it will be more about position on the map with respect to resources... and of course multitasking is never something that will be gone...
more action, less sim city, more diversity in tactics and composition, more diverse playstyles
Why do you claim that macro will simply change? Position on the map with respect to resources isn't macro. Macro is efficient production of units and upgrades and workers. They are taking away a skill sink of sorts in this area and replacing it with nothing.
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
Remember how people were saying that Gumiho would be crazy good with boosted medivacs? Then everyone else became Gumiho.
well, i've been arguing with people since WoL beta... they sounded the alarms then and heh, some things never change, time is the true tell... blizzard is on top of this... they actually have paid people analyzing the game in detail
if it were so easy people would open the editor and make the game better, few have dared
with no macro mechanics StarCraft 2 becomes a lot more like BroodWar in terms of mechanics.
With no macro mechanics for any race, it will also theoretically slow down the pace of the game, which most people are already complaining about. With no macro mechanics it will leave more room open for skill, the engagements / deathballs will be toned down, engagements will take longer as players will be safer, because it takes longer to macro.
With no macro mechanics the hypeness and the climax of each match in starcraft 2 will be more epic, as it will remove the fast paced gimmicky aspect, and introduce straightforward skill.
On August 01 2015 08:56 GGzerG wrote: with no macro mechanics StarCraft 2 becomes a lot more like BroodWar in terms of mechanics.
With no macro mechanics for any race, it will also theoretically slow down the pace of the game, which most people are already complaining about. With no macro mechanics it will leave more room open for skill, the engagements / deathballs will be toned down, engagements will take longer as players will be safer, because it takes longer to macro.
With no macro mechanics the hypeness and the climax of each match in starcraft 2 will be more epic, as it will remove the fast paced gimmicky aspect, and introduce straightforward skill.
Remember Broodwar had plenty of unnecessary macro APM sinks too, they just weren't added intentionally.
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
Remember how people were saying that Gumiho would be crazy good with boosted medivacs? Then everyone else became Gumiho.
Not sure what you are trying to say there, given a choice of watching two Gumihos playing competitively against each other and a choice of watching Gumiho stomping someone with boosted medivacs what would you choose?
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
Remember how people were saying that Gumiho would be crazy good with boosted medivacs? Then everyone else became Gumiho.
Not sure what you are trying to say there, given a choice of watching two Gumihos playing competitively against each other and a choice of watching Gumiho stomping someone with boosted medivacs what would you choose?
Gumiho was good at dropping. They made dropping easier and then his skill at dropping became irrelevant. His dropping skill was effectively removed from the game.
On August 01 2015 08:53 shin_toss wrote: 16 secs? wtf. How u gonna defend other bases. so it should have warpgates? also after the 16sec warp in + the WG cooldown? or you can warp in again after 16 secs?
also can someone explain the Alt Control groups?
Protoss already put warpgates at their wall-offs / thirds in vZ so that's not an issue at all. This would however encourage more strategic WG placement in PvT and PvP, I hardly see how that's a bad thing. Terrans already sim-city their production for unit pathing and this just encourages it for Protoss rather than enforce it.
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
On August 01 2015 08:39 mishimaBeef wrote: i'm confident this change will bring more action and we will still (inevitably) see a diversity in playstyles (especially due to the new units/tweaks and their battle interactions)
How can there be a diversity in playstyles when you effectively remove an entire playstyle from the game?
you don't remove the playstyle you just change it. if soo is really a macro player then he will exploit the new macro opportunities that are available (i.e. not injects)
is soo an inject player or a macro player?
There are no new macro opportunities though, they've basically straight nerfed/removed them
so i take it nobody will be outmacro'ing you in the future then?
I don't see how zergs can really outmacro other zergs if they all have the same inject timings. Terrans can still outmacro because depots aren't automated.
The basics of spending all of your resources is in itself a high skillcap, so this isn't the end of macro as we know it. This isn't DoW or C&C. The macro strain is still very high
Pretty disappointing update (by disappointing, I mean worst to date, imho)
Since when were macro mechanics ever an issue in sc2?! Seriously, with everything the community is talking about... I don't think I have ever seen someone complain about macro mechanics... Where does this shit come from, outer space? Did some alien on planet z-knar complain?! Someone please correct if I am just out of touch with reality... -_-
Cause the suggestion to "cut macro mechanics" is insane. This is a flippin RTS game, macro should be at least 50% of it. If you diminish macro you truly do move toward making this a moba game where you control the creeps and buildings automatically make shit. The most impressive part of watching a pro player play is how he (or she) multitasks with engagements and building an army. I would even vote for macro mechanics to become harder for certain races like zerg before they became easier. Let the macromechnic define skill even more that it already does!
If you want to demonstrate macro there are MANY ways to do that and instead your answer is, "Meh, lets just cut it."
What about having a constant inject timer running during the cast of a game and one for nexus/mule? What about more first person view? What about a number showing the accumulation of seconds between injects, mules and nexus? These are just a couple ideas that can demonstrate these mechanics to viewers.
If we strip macro out of rts, this game is dead to me. I feel that strongly about it.
How does the logic of "Well, since viewers cant really notice how difficult macro mechanics are... we should just cut it from the game. Right?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Does the viewer get to play the game for me? Are they the one sitting in my seat trying to enjoy it? Well shit let me sit back and get some popcorn and a soda! Maybe I should pay blizzard $40 and the viewer and I should sit back and both watch! Since watching is the most important thing and dictates the decisions about game design! I had NO idea until now that the true way to enjoy the game was to pay other people to play it and watch. What else can we do to make it more fun to watch?
I think we have officially reached the point at which LOTV is about making an "esport" and not making a game that is fun to fucking play for me and other people that payed for it.
This also the first time I have considered NOT BUYING LOTV. Truly didn't see that coming.
Also, I am a zerg player, and I think a 16 second offensive warp in is insane. I just don't get the logic of a complete nerf for protoss. If you nerf warp gate that hard you have to buff something else instead of just crippling the race. What pylon doesn't get sniped on a 16 second offensive warp in?
Why can't you offer a sensible suggestion like the one mentioned by SC2John,
"For the record, I still support the idea of making gateways produce faster while warpgates have a higher cooldown. Logically, this makes sense and requires fairly little rebalancing (just lower the production rates by a hair for gateways while giving warp gates an extra cooldown of ~10 seconds per unit and perhaps change the transformation time). It doesn't require any forced interaction in the game, and gives defender's advantage a strong buff while severely cutting the power of continued warpin aggression. At the very least, I'd like to see it tried and have significant amount of data collected before we write it off as "just a community nag"
WTF dont touch the macro side of the game its fine its one of the main parts that makes the difference between a gold and and plat and and plat and a diamond and so on. IF your bad a inject you should lose, if you have full chrono on all nexus and wondering why your army is smaller and lost well hello dummy use chrono get better at it. As for mule it takes maybe 2 secs to drop them like what come on blizzard SMH.
If these macro changes go through I will be done with this game. sure there's a lot of ways to say skill but macro is one and inject for zerg is like the main part that and creep. Good creep and inject you can get your way to masters at least IMO.
the rest Im not sure, I like toss nerfs but will have to see cause 16 is long and i hate toss with a passion.
On August 01 2015 08:56 GGzerG wrote: with no macro mechanics StarCraft 2 becomes a lot more like BroodWar in terms of mechanics.
With no macro mechanics for any race, it will also theoretically slow down the pace of the game, which most people are already complaining about. With no macro mechanics it will leave more room open for skill, the engagements / deathballs will be toned down, engagements will take longer as players will be safer, because it takes longer to macro.
With no macro mechanics the hypeness and the climax of each match in starcraft 2 will be more epic, as it will remove the fast paced gimmicky aspect, and introduce straightforward skill.
Remember Broodwar had plenty of unnecessary macro APM sinks too, they just weren't added intentionally.
I understand that, I strongly believe though after playing this game since WOL Beta with my experience with over 10k 1v1 ladder games played & GM in HOTS and LOTV, that removing the macro mechanics completely would make this game more like SC1:BW in the sense that the flow of the game would be a little slower, there would be a little more time to execute things because the Macro Mechanics drastically increase the speed / progression of the game, and how fast your bases mine out. With no macro mechanics players have more time not only to execute strategies, build orders, micro / macro, they also have more time in general to do them as the bases would mine out slower, especially for Terran.
Economic macro mechanics aside, it would make Zerg have to manage there larva much more usefully, we would see more builds like 3 hatch Mutalisk in ZvT, and larva Spamming 1 unit to try and win would cease to exist up until the late game potentially.
This would help balance out the game right now as Protoss is struggling extremely vs Zerg at the moment as well, it is a drastic change but it makes a lot more sense than much of the other proposed changes. I for one have been saying removing macro mechanics is a good idea since Wings of Liberty beta, one could argue whether it takes away or adds skill ceiling to the game, needless to say without it I strongly believe StarCraft 2 would be in a much better place.
Things would have to be altered though as auto larva popping would mean Zerg could spread creap proactively much easier, so creep would have to be adjusted as well. Overall, I think this is an amazing change, and it would make StarCraft 2 much more like Broodwar, which in general just isn't a bad idea.
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
Remember how people were saying that Gumiho would be crazy good with boosted medivacs? Then everyone else became Gumiho.
Not sure what you are trying to say there, given a choice of watching two Gumihos playing competitively against each other and a choice of watching Gumiho stomping someone with boosted medivacs what would you choose?
Gumiho was good at dropping. They made dropping easier and then his skill at dropping became irrelevant. His dropping skill was effectively removed from the game.
Well at the competitive level all that matters is the absolute top percentiles, let's say Gumiho was previously a 90 at dropping and everyone else was at a mere 70. Even if drops were made easier and everyone else could now score a 90 (a 20 increase), if it helped Gumiho out even slightly and boosted his score to a 95, that tiny advantage should mean he always beats out other players in the department. I don't see how it makes his skill irrelevant. And if the argument is simply that Gumiho was only good at dropping and other players were beating him in other departments, and that after dropping became easier Gumiho couldn't improve himself enough in other aspects of the game to be competitive, then one could argue that Gumiho was a one-dimensional player who failed to adapt.
On August 01 2015 08:37 ejozl wrote: I dno I'm pretty torn. On one hand I love players like Maru, Parting, Life a lot more than Innovation, Rain and SoO, but on the other hand if everyone plays like Maru, Parting and Life are these players then still special?
Even if everyone played like Maru, Parting and Life of yesterday, the Maru, Parting, and Life of the future would just play even better than before with more effective APM.
Remember how people were saying that Gumiho would be crazy good with boosted medivacs? Then everyone else became Gumiho.
Not sure what you are trying to say there, given a choice of watching two Gumihos playing competitively against each other and a choice of watching Gumiho stomping someone with boosted medivacs what would you choose?
Gumiho was good at dropping. They made dropping easier and then his skill at dropping became irrelevant. His dropping skill was effectively removed from the game.
Well at the competitive level all that matters is the absolute top percentiles, let's say Gumiho was previously a 90 at dropping and everyone else was at a mere 70. Even if drops were made easier and everyone else could now score a 90 (a 20 increase), if it helped Gumiho out even slightly and boosted his score to a 95, that tiny advantage should mean he always beats out other players in the department. I don't see how it makes his skill irrelevant. And if the argument is simply that Gumiho was only good at dropping and other players were beating him in other departments, and that after dropping became easier Gumiho couldn't improve himself enough in other aspects of the game to be competitive, then one could argue that Gumiho was a one-dimensional player who failed to adapt.
In your example, being 5% better at dropping is clearly far less of an advantage than being 20% better at dropping. In addition, the medivac boost removed one of the most crucial skills that Gumiho possessed but many others didn't; when to pick up and leave and where to move your medivacs so they didn't die. Sure, maybe Gumiho was playing one-dimensionally, but the fact remains that this skill was essentially removed. When you make things easier, it doesn't raise the skill cap. It lowers it, and players who were previously a lot worse and couldnt' compete then are able to.
On August 01 2015 09:19 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: third time with TvT finalls, clearly T is balanced and Liberator and Cyclone is okay http://www.twitch.tv/redbullesports
I haven't seen any cyclones. Maybe you should watch it?
On August 01 2015 09:19 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: third time with TvT finalls, clearly T is balanced and Liberator and Cyclone is okay http://www.twitch.tv/redbullesports
I haven't seen any cyclones. Maybe you should watch it?
semifinalls had cyclones... i watched it unlike you
On August 01 2015 07:48 Roblin wrote: regarding warp gate: it may need some tweaks but I think it will definitely be better than what we have now, is it too much? is it not enough? time will tell.
regarding macro mechanics: I know I'm in the minority but I actually like the approach blizz is suggesting, in particular (and I'm saying this as a zerg player) I think inject should definitely be nerfed in terms of larvae output. why? lets do the math:
hatcheries produce 1 larvae per 15 seconds and costs 300 minerals + a drone queens produce (with optimal play) 4 larvae per 40 seconds (1 larvae per 10 seconds) and costs 150 minerals + 2 supply. lets say the drone cost and the 2 supply cost even each other out so we just compare the mineral cost : larvae produced ratio.
the smallest common denominator for the larvae production is 30 seconds, in 30 seconds queens produce 3 larvae while hatcheries produce 2 larvae, lets divide these by the costs of the units to get larvae produced / (minerals spent * 30 seconds) hatchery = 2 / 300 = 1/150 queen = 3 / 150 = 1/50
i.e. queens are 3 times more efficient at producing larvae than hatcheries, even when ignoring the fact that queens have shorter build times. these numbers comparatively help hatcheries when reducing the larvae production for queens: 3 larvae: 2.25 / 150 = 1/67 2 larvae: 1.5 / 150 = 1/100
so even at 2 larvae it is still beneficial to produce queens rather than macro-hatcheries, even when ignoring the added utility of queens.
as for whether it should be auto-cast, I can see that being a contested point, but I think it would be worth it to try it out, I know I'm not flawless on my injects and injecting just to not lose literally more than half of my larvae production (literally 60% of potential larvae production comes from queens, 100% of larvae production comes from queens when saving up larvae) has always been the most tedious part of the game in my opinion and it would be interesting to see how much more accessible the game would be if that was more lenient.
I have no opinion regarding MULE and CB.
tl.dr. I think the proposed macromechanic approach can be worth exploring and I think it will probably be significantly less detrimental to strategy/skill ceiling than one might initially think. time will tell.
Thanks for the analysis. As I said I hope they can make injects more of a choice than a must. Do wish they can try this out. Maybe twerk the number a little bit more to strike a good balance on larva injects vs hatchery.
Dude, if the queens are going to start "twerkin" the numbers, I think the zerglings are going to pitch a tent.
For 5 Years the community has complained about the terrible design of Inject, Mules, Chronoboost and Warp-Gate, the way it makes strategy and macro imbalanced and Blizzard finally responds.
The communitys response "noooooooooooooo..... don't get rid of the thing we hate"
On August 01 2015 09:36 nottapro wrote: For 5 Years the community has complained about the terrible design of Inject, Mules, Chronoboost and Warp-Gate, the way it makes strategy and macro imbalanced and Blizzard finally responds.
The communitys response "noooooooooooooo..... don't get rid of the thing we hate"
Ìt's almost as if not everyone shares the same opinion
Am I seeing this right ? Zerg makes hatches as usuall,but more queens because since I do not inject I can spreed creep. Less larvae makes more drones more important. Lots of queens who do not cost larvae,lots of creep spread and lots of drones because I will make more queens. Fast creep highways early on ? The terran would have more scans to kill creep... Just brainstorming here haha
On August 01 2015 09:19 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: third time with TvT finalls, clearly T is balanced and Liberator and Cyclone is okay http://www.twitch.tv/redbullesports
User was temp banned for this post.
Finally.
I watched almost the whole RedBull today and barely saw a Cyclone. Saw the liberators get wrecked a few times by ravagers - seems like a good counter. The games have mostly been great - archon mode is cool. But it is clear that balance needs some work for both T&Z - on the Zerg side I saw Parasitic Bombs destroy about 20 vikings in one go.
The idea that you can't tell what macro mechanics have been used correctly is obnoxious. You can tell when INnoVation has hit his mules and production timings perfectly when he's maxed out while trading by 14:30, and if a zerg overruns a terran off creep quick too. I recently remember a game on Coda in WCS of Polt vs Elazer, where Polt's parade push started and Elazer floated 800 minerals for like 4 in game minutes...why? Because he missed injects during Polt's early harass and it cost him the game. I know Sc2 is an amazing E-sport, and has grown in popularity heavily because of it. But don't take away macro mechanics from the game just so casual viewers can understand everything that's going on at any given point.
Man, idk, I'm so torn on this now. Initially reading, as a player I was thinking this is terrible, players need as many ways to differentiate themselves as possible. Doing this to injects would definitely free up a lot of time, but is that going to be too much time considering zerg haven't been having many problems in LotV? As not many have seemed to point out; Terran and Protoss macro will be indisputably harder than Zergs. I think this is the biggest problem with the change. It will definitely be interesting to see where this would go.
On the other hand as a spectator, allowing time for more consistent action is great. If every single game is a fast paced engagement-fest then I think we are on to a winner, and especially if that is more accessible to players.
But like I mentioned previously, this is great for Zerg, but it ultimately is the equivalent of giving Terran or Protoss auto renew on production facilities. It is said that Zerg need this because Mule/Chrono = no effort, but what in the actual fuck are people thinking? When Zerg don't have to inject and suddenly have all the time they need for perfect creep spread and really, REALLY easy late game production. Do you think it's going to be fun for Terran and Protoss to have to play against that when they have to do just as much as they do now. It's a massive multitasking buff for Zerg, and that is what defines a player ultimately. It's a terrible implementation if the same isn't allowed to the other races.
But yeah, I don't think it's a step in the right direction really, feels like an incredibly desperate reach to the casual crowd to reach bigger numbers and the game will pay the price. If it goes through I will be going Zerg and then going GM n_n
Think Blizz is (somewhat unsurprisingly) struggling with the difficulty of SC2's macro. On one hand, the hardcore audience seems to advocate a higher skill ceiling, but on the other, hard macro alienates casuals. Tricky one....
Not sure how I feel about the changes to warp ins. In WoL and HotS, I dislike the warp in mechanic intensely, but I'm sympathetic to Protoss players who feel 'core' gateway units are too weak.
i wonder how protoss is supposed to allin now. blizzard is essentially limiting our strategic options with the warpgate nerf, whereas all the other races still have a huge array of early game allins at their disposal (zerg even more so with the addition of ovi drops)
Nerfing warpgate but not nerfing overlord drop? Zerg can basicly do whatever they want if thats the case ... while we have to make constant unit just to hope to survive a cheese or drop play. Cant even macro in peace because they can drop mass roaches in your main ..,. and cant do anything against them going 4 hatch before pool lol
On August 01 2015 10:15 mishimaBeef wrote: warping in near a warpgate is buffed by 150%... warpgates only cost 150 minerals... offense is still possible too
do you know how ridiculous of a statement that is? protoss isnt gonna make an offensive gateway next to a pylon just so they can do a 5 minute gateway timing, also you have to pray that your opponents misses a huge ass structure on the map
unless you're saying that we can pressure zerg or terran by warping in at our main, in which case youre wrong
On August 01 2015 10:15 mishimaBeef wrote: warping in near a warpgate is buffed by 150%... warpgates only cost 150 minerals... offense is still possible too
The evolution of the 2 gate.... that sounds interesting :D Hits later but reenforces faster.
PS: The more I think about that.. the less it works >.<
On August 01 2015 10:09 TT1 wrote: i wonder how protoss is supposed to allin now. blizzard is essentially limiting our strategic options with the warpgate nerf, whereas all the other races still have a huge array of early game allins at their disposal (zerg even more so with the addition of ovi drops)
I"ll help you out a bit here, they are obviously going to buff to compensate even if it isn't immediate. These changes are good as long as they do buff toss to compensate which I would hope they do. If they don't then I can agree with you that these changes are bad.
When are these going live ? I want to play this version of LOTV !
I like alot of Dayvie says this update.
Macro changes -I like removing /nerfing things like mules, chrono and messing with injects model -not sure if I like option 1 or 2 yet -dayvie recognise that with all the new units and actions that some other area can give-up a bit of apm, I like that.
Disruptor -they are really hearing how bad and risky this unit is for its costs, colossus is more dependable aoe (revert range to 8 already and give toss a real aoe choice)
Warpgate -good for PvP (better defensive advantage) but bad for other matchups for aggressive gateway builds, but opens up buffs to gateway units.
On August 01 2015 10:09 TT1 wrote: i wonder how protoss is supposed to allin now. blizzard is essentially limiting our strategic options with the warpgate nerf, whereas all the other races still have a huge array of early game allins at their disposal (zerg even more so with the addition of ovi drops)
I"ll help you out a bit here, they are obviously going to buff to compensate even if it isn't immediate. These changes are good as long as they do buff toss to compensate which I would hope they do. If they don't then I can agree with you that these changes are bad.
well im commenting on the current patch and they haven't said anything about that..
yeah it's understandably annoying when something you practiced long and hard to perfect gets removed from the game and you need to rework your game... but that's inevitable in heavy balance patching and especially an expansion
As long as DK has the attitude "We want to entertain the viewers, the player experience doesn't matter" LotV is doomed to fail. It blows my mind a lead designer of one of the biggest video game developers in the world can't understand that the player must be the first priority when designing a game. A game which has no or not many players won't be watched either.
I've been very skeptical of the way things were going, but I'm loving these changes. I think the warpgate change is awesome, and is an elegant solution to keep warpgates as an exciting part of the game, but cut to enhance their strengths and weaknesses, and give defenders an opportunity to stop protoss all ins (by killing the warp prism).
I like the idea of removing, or at least minimalising macro mechanics. I'd rather be spending my APM moving units around than clicking inject over and over again. I'm all for removing the menial tasks in the game and allowing players to concentrate more on strategy.
On August 01 2015 10:47 Charoisaur wrote: As long as DK has the attitude "We want to entertain the viewers, the player experience doesn't matter" LotV is doomed to fail. It blows my mind a lead designer of one of the biggest video game developers in the world can't understand that the player must be the first priority when designing a game. A game which has no or not many players won't be watched either.
On August 01 2015 10:09 TT1 wrote: i wonder how protoss is supposed to allin now. blizzard is essentially limiting our strategic options with the warpgate nerf, whereas all the other races still have a huge array of early game allins at their disposal (zerg even more so with the addition of ovi drops)
I"ll help you out a bit here, they are obviously going to buff to compensate even if it isn't immediate. These changes are good as long as they do buff toss to compensate which I would hope they do. If they don't then I can agree with you that these changes are bad.
well im commenting on the current patch and they haven't said anything about that..
I think it has to be implied that when a change effects the way the game is played, other changes may need to be made as well. The question is not so much "will protoss still be viable" - because they will obviously keep working at it until ALL the races are viable. The question is "do you want protoss to be balanced around a broken mechanic?".
Assuming they continue to balance the game (which is a fair assumption to make), I think the new warpgate is much better.
On August 01 2015 10:47 Charoisaur wrote: As long as DK has the attitude "We want to entertain the viewers, the player experience doesn't matter" LotV is doomed to fail.
I agree that if DK had that attitude then LotV would be doomed to fail. but I disagree that DK has that attitude.
thanks to DK for another informative community update.
i'd like to see Blizzard experiment with option 2 of the macromechanics changes and see how they go. i really hope LotV ends up being radically different from HotS
namely, a) Cut chrono b) Cut mule c) Spawn larva is autocast by default, but spawn only 2 larva
well this would take care of the ridiculous adept all ins that most protoss are doing right now. this is something im gonna have to play before making a judgement.
On August 01 2015 05:31 Dodgin wrote: Seems like another case of Blizzard trying to add something that nobody was asking for, who the hell came up with this idea that they need to remove macro mechanics? The game may be harder to play but the people you play against have the same trouble as you do keeping up with all the required actions.
i've been saying for a long time i want a "fast & fluid" more C&C style of game. and diminishing macro mechanics goes right down that alley. lots of guys i know who play SC2 AND other RTS games want a more fast&fluid combat-centric experience that feels a lot less like an eco-sim.
all the ex-C&C guys who lost their jobs when Victory Games was shut down are probably having a big influence on LotV.
The issue with cutting Chrono is that it isn't just a macro mechanic but also influences research/build times, which might need to be adjusted (it takes 3 HotS minutes for Blink to be researched without Chronoboost). Having HotS campaign hatcheries which spawn 5 larva instead of 3 is pretty cool though. Maybe have it so that lairs and hives produce larva significantly faster?
16seconds is far too huge. The most surprising of all is macro mechanics nerf (and cut)
That's some big change that I didn't foresee it coming at all.
To be honest I do understand why they would do that. Macro is never going to be as viewer friendly to watch as micro. And it is essentially similar across all pro players once we reach certain skill level.
But Sc2 has a very interesting and unique macro mechanics that helps to differentiate races. Please keep them.
To me looks like Blizzard is trying to make a money move by making the game a lot more casual friendly than it already is. The macro mechanics are not that hard to be honest, and its removal may make the new players feel more atracted to the game but StarCraft without macro would be so boring even to watch as well as to play if youre above gold in my opinion. I also dislike the change to starting workers, the idea is to pick up the pase of the game yeah I know but killing workers in early game is so irrelevant since players have already a lot of them, and less mineral per base? To me looks like no more epic macro games anymore which make me feel really sad. Might as well stick to hots or even go back to BW.
On August 01 2015 10:14 Dracover wrote: Never thought I would see the day where they would remove chrono, inject and mules. Can't understand why people don't want it removed.
I agree, I really want to try StarCraft 2 without the ridiculously gimmicky macro mechanics.
On August 01 2015 12:18 F u r u y a wrote: yay, let's turn sc2 into one more moba
So brood war is a moba because it doent have any of that?
On August 01 2015 12:06 Celepharn wrote: To me looks like Blizzard is trying to make a money move by making the game a lot more casual friendly than it already is. The macro mechanics are not that hard to be honest, and its removal may make the new players feel more atracted to the game but StarCraft without macro would be so boring even to watch as well as to play if youre above gold in my opinion. I also dislike the change to starting workers, the idea is to pick up the pase of the game yeah I know but killing workers in early game is so irrelevant since players have already a lot of them, and less mineral per base? To me looks like no more epic macro games anymore which make me feel really sad. Might as well stick to hots or even go back to BW.
No more macro? You no longer have to create units? Or build barracks?
On August 01 2015 12:19 Henno12 wrote: So brood war is a moba because it doent have any of that?
You don't get my joke. I mean quite the opposite.
Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
In my opinion the macro mechanics are the essence of this game. If you want to see only battles and micro shows go watch moba.
Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
In my opinion the macro mechanics are the essence of this game. If you want to see only battles and micro shows go watch moba.
On August 01 2015 12:06 Celepharn wrote: To me looks like Blizzard is trying to make a money move by making the game a lot more casual friendly than it already is. The macro mechanics are not that hard to be honest, and its removal may make the new players feel more atracted to the game but StarCraft without macro would be so boring even to watch as well as to play if youre above gold in my opinion. I also dislike the change to starting workers, the idea is to pick up the pase of the game yeah I know but killing workers in early game is so irrelevant since players have already a lot of them, and less mineral per base? To me looks like no more epic macro games anymore which make me feel really sad. Might as well stick to hots or even go back to BW.
There's nothing to watch. You can't really watch people do macro mechanics properly.
The only visual cue is lots of units popping out, and that isn't going to change with the removal of macro mechanics.
On August 01 2015 09:51 ThorPool wrote: Am I seeing this right ? Zerg makes hatches as usuall,but more queens because since I do not inject I can spreed creep. Less larvae makes more drones more important. Lots of queens who do not cost larvae,lots of creep spread and lots of drones because I will make more queens. Fast creep highways early on ? The terran would have more scans to kill creep... Just brainstorming here haha
You would still need a queen near the hatchery to inject. It's just auto-cast now, like medivac heals.
So if your queen get's sniped, no injects for you.
Perhaps they can have autocast options for larva but make it autocast every 30 seconds not 25. Make autocast less effective but easier. Same for protoss, you can autocast chrono on a building but it will take more energy. Mule is the hardest one. But its also one of the easier macro mechanic so perhaps let it stay the same.
Yes, please, for the love of guacamole, cut the macro mechanics, or make them not matter as much, or make them easier. They provide a very hollow sense of systems mastery, and for that they're badly designed mechanics. Yes, there is choice involved in muel and inject vs other abilities, so a strict comparison can't be made to L-canceling in one sense, but it's very close in the other sense that "this is something which, as a whole, makes the game less fun to new / bad players, and doesn't add much for the good players, because they're repetitive actions which one often thinks little about, that must be conditioned by rote memorization" imo. At the very least, make inject auto-cast. It would be nice if we could select auto-cast for the other abilities too, but chronoboost in particular would be pretty difficult to code intelligently enough for anyone to consider turning it on to automate the tedious actions.
What if, redisgn disruptor like this, is it ok guys? - Deal way less damage (maybe 10 or 20). - After exploding, make enemy units move and fire slower a little bit. - Spell does not stack. - Invulnerable 1.5 secs after explosion. - Cost change: 200 min/100 gas. Supply:3 or 4. (number can be adjusted)
=> less rewarding, but also less frustrating when getting hit by the disruptor or missing the blow, provide more interesting interaction rather than just all-or-nothing unit.
On August 01 2015 10:09 TT1 wrote: i wonder how protoss is supposed to allin now. blizzard is essentially limiting our strategic options with the warpgate nerf, whereas all the other races still have a huge array of early game allins at their disposal (zerg even more so with the addition of ovi drops)
They are buffing warp prism all ins at the cost of the surprise of which all in protoss players are going to do (unless there is a proxy gateway which is not impossible). There are still immortal, blink, and plain gateway all ins just have to add a prism which isn't a bad thing with how strong it is. And if im reading it right with this change defensive warp ins would be strong as hell to deal with all ins (maybe instead of relying on photon overcharge). I imagine later in the game the warp to pylon upgrade should be available though. And i do agree ovie drops should require something else other then at hatch.
edit: also on the weakest race comment, lets worry about balance later we all should know blizzard is pretty good at balance just looking at hots for the past few years and even wol winrates has never been below 45ish percent. What they need is design comments.
People defending macro mechanics are either doing so because a) they think their removal will make the game too easy at high levels or b) they've gotten good at their respective mechanic and don't want to lose a perceived edge over opponents.
The mechanics are boring, arbitrary extra clicks that add little to the game. Removing them will make the game easier but in a good way. And the Econ changes more than makeup for any reduction in difficulty from their removal. People wanting to keep the mechanics because they're good at them need to put on their thinking caps. This game we love thrives when more people play and watch it. Changes that make the game more fun and intuitive are good. Difficulty for its own sake is stupid by any metric.
On Toss, I assume the redesign of the race will eventually entail a buff to core gateway units. Since i see that as inevitable, the nerfs to Protoss' coin flip strategies are welcome.
Not a big fan of the warpgate changes, even if they are somewhat in the right direction. Defensive warpins don't need a buff compared to HoTs, and if they do stick to some sort of position based warpin time then the nexus definitely needs to count in someway to give more flexibility in defensive warpins. This offensive warpin nerf isn't really even, as some builds are basically unaffected (immortal sentry with warp prism, sentry dropping on ramps, pvt colossus allin, etc) while others, like 3gate blink, are heavily nerfed. 16 seconds seems too long, especially considering the protoss isn't exactly doing well in LotV . . . they are in much more need of a buff than a nerf. Also, 16 seconds will really screw with any kind of harass not utilizing a warp prism, leading to less action, which is the opposite direction blizzard claims to want to go.
As far as macro mechanics go, they definitely should not be removed as they give more than simply another layer of skill, but also a strategic option for players: focus mainly on micro, or make more units but accept that they will be less cost effective without as much micro. They could be streamlined, but I don't think that the suggested changes are really ideal. It would be nice if terran didn't rely as heavily on mules, and had slightly better scouting, so maybe a slight nerf to mules while slightly decreasing scv build time would accomplish that: less punishment for missing a mule, less income forgone when scanning. For zergs, maybe a good compromise would be to allow queens to queue the next inject. That way zerg still have to put as many clicks into macroing, but have more flexibility as to when they do it, allowing them to micro more at important skirmishes. I'm not sure what protoss need, as their straight up macro is not as strong as the other races, so nerfing chronoboost would only aggravate that. The only thing I can think of here is again a build time reduction, although that isn't really the direction in which I want to see things go.
From a spectator perspective, as long as Blizzard improves unit vs unit and army vs army interaction, I could care less about removing macro mechanics. It's ironic that adding multiple building selection and waypointing, auto mine, unlimited unit selection etc was hailed as 'modern ui > old limitations' by sc2 boosters, but now removing chrono/mule/inject is a bridge too far- sc2 folk may get to experience what it's like to be streamlined and obsolesced. In my mind sc2 macro mechanics never successfully replaced the mechanical and strategic counterbalance that it served as in bw. What sc2 has always lacked, and can benefit most from, is truly entertaining unit/army interaction.
Macro Mechanics - OUCH.... I really hope they dont remove these. I feel thats what helps define each race in sc2. I think lots of the audience do realize and the good casters point out injects, chrono and mules as well. I suppose if removing this and army interactions are improved, I would be interested in seeing that. But I think a lot of stuff would need to change for that. Think you'd have to revamp the bigger "power" units. Make colossus smaller and cheaper and maybe change their attack, ultras smaller + faster(like qxc said), Thors... I donno what to do about thors off the top of my head. and then the new units still need work of course. Think the Disruptor should be scrapped, I just see it as a never ending balance nightmare, but I could be wrong.
Trying to imagine terran without mules would be quite weird. SCAN SCAN SCAN SCAN SCAN.... ahhhhh My ears... I can hear it now... I have kinda thought they should bring back a bit less minerals though, like 25 instead of 30 but I could be wrong there as well. I guess im just going to stay open minded about this macro mechanics removal. The more I think about it, the more potential I see overall as a game for new players and pros, especially with the early game cut.
I cannot emphasize how much I think these changes are TERRIBLE for the game. It's really strange, since the raven tweak for LOTV and the ghost tweak are, I feel, going in great directions, how below crappy these changes are.
About the warpgate, I'm usually the first one on the line to blame the protoss race for its structural flaws. However, none can be said about the fact that protoss building placement is harder than with terran or zerg. So when the protoss wants to warp defensivly, he's supposed to look for a pylon with a warpgate in range? With the big blue circles overlapping? I like the idea to nerf offensive warpin and buff the defender's advantage especially in PvP. But that's certainly not the way to go.
Now about macro mechanics : I'm hesitant between laughing or crying. The main argument we have here is "we want the action that's non-noticable by viewers to be decreased for army management and microgestion to be emphasized". Macro mechanics may not be noticed by people not playing the game, but larva gestion, mule vs scan choices and chronoboost placements are a huge part of stracraft 2 strategies and builds that SC2 players watching stream look towards. For example, when I see a professional protoss going for DTs and sending them one at a time in the terran army for force scans, while teching towards a big timing attack that will see its potency increased by the lack of mules (therefore army) of the terran, I, as a stream watcher, enjoy the protoss strategy. In "RTS", there is STRATEGY. And how you want your economy to be designed is a HUGE part of strategy. Simplfying the way macro mechanics work is direclty stating you want the depth of build orders and economic choices to be generic and allow less choice for players. Which is an ATROCIOUS direction to take, and I was glad to see that the community spits on the proposed macro changes in the polls. You even state : "The thought here is just do away with these added clicks, we do lose a little bit of strategy and decision making but we wonder if that’s ok, and have a clean version where players don’t need to do the extra clicks.". YEAH RIGHT so why should we even clic on upgrades when we build an Ebay, why not make the Ebay 650 mineral and 525 gaz, and when you build it, it automatically cues +1+2+3 bio weapons so you don't even have to clic them.
And to finish on a general note on a point this community feedback update indirectly touches : a RTS is also about defensive play, and armies fighting each other. It's not ONLY about mobile units raping defenseless workers until one of the players has run out of money. I'm terran, I love to play a mobile bio style, but I also like sometimes to play a slower mech style. TvT in HOTS is already a drop/runby fest, and while I'm not fond of line of siege tanks looking at each other, I'd still like defensive play to be a part of the game.
There's really no talent to the macro game besides the abilities they mention. At this point let's retire the word. I'm not against the changes because I have convinced myself I simply don't care. There are bigger fish to fry then killing off remaining macro features.
I would rather Blizzard test increasing/maintaining the frequency of macro mechanics while reducing their potency. Especially in the mule department.
If the macro mechanics are cut - something has to be done to address the fact that Terran will retain reactors...and Protoss warpgates. I know they're doing something in the Protoss department, but seriously! Dem reactors!
Although income will be cut significantly. Jeesh, sounds almost like an entirely different game. Supply will climb so slowly if macro mechanics are cut...
Actually the more I think about it, the more exciting it seems...though Zerg are going to have to make a LOT of hatcheries, LOL.
Not a fan of the easier macro mechanics. Next step is to have workers automaticall produced. Or units. No, keep it as it is (with changes in numbers for the sake of balance of course).
If you Auto-Inject, Why dont make the Barracks, Factory and starports "Auto Produce" a certain unit ? you right click the marauder icon and 3 barracks will try to start training of the marauder, while not queing them. Like "Auto Repair" and "auto Charge"
Its not about the game playing itself, until you can clash your deathballs. Or setting the rally point and let infinite waves of minions clash into each other like in MOBA games.
For the Warpgate change: Agreed ! Make the "Turbo-Warpin" Fields a slightly other color, like Purple. Also the Warp-in time should add upon gate cooldown ( I think it does already but i never look at gates while wooooooorpin). Protoss building placement is not that hard. It's playing simcity while the other races have to work hard . Also placing warpgates near expansions is ALREADY standard at least in PvZ. 150 minerals extra per base couldn't hurt eh? Terran has to spent them since wol.
Huge changes. Really excited to see how it goes ! I can't state how much I'm appreciative of Blizz's continued community feedback, it's so good ! <3 Regarding the nature of the changes, I like the idea behind the gateway change (nerf all the bullshit all-ins, buff the defense so P players can expand more easily). Not sure if that's the best way to do it, but I like their intention. Regarding macro mechanics, I'm less convinced. As a terran, if I don't get MULES, i'll just be making 1 orbital, then PF all the way baby.
On August 01 2015 14:54 feanaro wrote: Not a big fan of the warpgate changes, even if they are somewhat in the right direction. Defensive warpins don't need a buff compared to HoTs, and if they do stick to some sort of position based warpin time then the nexus definitely needs to count in someway to give more flexibility in defensive warpins. This offensive warpin nerf isn't really even, as some builds are basically unaffected (immortal sentry with warp prism, sentry dropping on ramps, pvt colossus allin, etc) while others, like 3gate blink, are heavily nerfed. 16 seconds seems too long, especially considering the protoss isn't exactly doing well in LotV . . . they are in much more need of a buff than a nerf. Also, 16 seconds will really screw with any kind of harass not utilizing a warp prism, leading to less action, which is the opposite direction blizzard claims to want to go.
It's not a buff for defensive warp-in, because you usually don't build a warpgate at any of your expansions as all of them are at your main base. Therefore, if your expansion is under attack, it's gonna take SIXTEEN bloody seconds to warp-in reinforcements!
I can believe i still have to say this to certain people in this thread...
NUMBERS ARE NOT FINAL
changes to warp ins like this is a huge upset in the way Protoss is played at all levels and the time it takes to Warp in defensively and offensively will need to be tweaked based on how its used.
Stop commenting like 2 seconds and 16 seconds are final and LotV releases tomorrow...
I like the change to warp ins i like the direction, I've always hated Proxy Pylons warping in non stop its just so meh to watch and play as or against.
Changes to macro seems unnecessary but understandable at the same time, Players who can micro well and still perform decent or great macro at home is part of what creates an RTS pro in any game. That being said it doesn't look like they're worried about unit creation and expanding in terms of macro and only on the macro assists built into Sc2.
Mule Boost Spawn Larva
The mule is already pretty basic and dumb when you think about its core use, its a lot simpler than Boost and Larva spawning so it could be nerfed or cut and it wouldn't effect terran too bad with changes to boost and larva as well.
Boost gets out of control the longer a game goes on is what i think Blizzard is focusing on, even the best Protoss in the world consistently miss use or forget about boosts while they're focused on other parts of the game, I like that they're looking at it but Thinking about changes or replacement leads me towards just cut...
Larva also gets out of control as the game goes on guess you could say the same about mules in the basic mechanic of use of the skill, but the larva themselves and how many you have where on the map is something people tend to ignore and just rely on having a steady amount as long as they're on top of their injects, Thinking about changes again i wouldn't mind a cut...
Cutting all 3 makes me think of BW with numbers on many things re-timed after removal of the 3 macro abilities i think it could be interesting i would love to see a return of unique workers to compensate a removal of macro abilities.
On August 01 2015 17:33 KT_Elwood wrote: nay, dont change mechanics.
If you Auto-Inject, Why dont make the Barracks, Factory and starports "Auto Produce" a certain unit ? you right click the marauder icon and 3 barracks will try to start training of the marauder, while not queing them. Like "Auto Repair" and "auto Charge"
Exactly.
Why not?
Also, if you like macro mechanics, why not remove production queues to add more macro to the game?
Suppose that it was possible to control SC2 perfectly using the player's mind and implement macros (i.e. a set of automated instructions) using the player's mind. Would SC2 cease to be a hard game? Will you never lose under such a setup?
On August 01 2015 09:09 ShambhalaWar wrote: Pretty disappointing update (by disappointing, I mean worst to date, imho)
Since when were macro mechanics ever an issue in sc2?! Seriously, with everything the community is talking about... I don't think I have ever seen someone complain about macro mechanics... Where does this shit come from, outer space? Did some alien on planet z-knar complain?! Someone please correct if I am just out of touch with reality... -_-
Cause the suggestion to "cut macro mechanics" is insane. This is a flippin RTS game, macro should be at least 50% of it. If you diminish macro you truly do move toward making this a moba game where you control the creeps and buildings automatically make shit. The most impressive part of watching a pro player play is how he (or she) multitasks with engagements and building an army. I would even vote for macro mechanics to become harder for certain races like zerg before they became easier. Let the macromechnic define skill even more that it already does!
If you want to demonstrate macro there are MANY ways to do that and instead your answer is, "Meh, lets just cut it."
What about having a constant inject timer running during the cast of a game and one for nexus/mule? What about more first person view? What about a number showing the accumulation of seconds between injects, mules and nexus? These are just a couple ideas that can demonstrate these mechanics to viewers.
If we strip macro out of rts, this game is dead to me. I feel that strongly about it.
How does the logic of "Well, since viewers cant really notice how difficult macro mechanics are... we should just cut it from the game. Right?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Does the viewer get to play the game for me? Are they the one sitting in my seat trying to enjoy it? Well shit let me sit back and get some popcorn and a soda! Maybe I should pay blizzard $40 and the viewer and I should sit back and both watch! Since watching is the most important thing and dictates the decisions about game design! I had NO idea until now that the true way to enjoy the game was to pay other people to play it and watch. What else can we do to make it more fun to watch?
I think we have officially reached the point at which LOTV is about making an "esport" and not making a game that is fun to fucking play for me and other people that payed for it.
This also the first time I have considered NOT BUYING LOTV. Truly didn't see that coming.
Also, I am a zerg player, and I think a 16 second offensive warp in is insane. I just don't get the logic of a complete nerf for protoss. If you nerf warp gate that hard you have to buff something else instead of just crippling the race. What pylon doesn't get sniped on a 16 second offensive warp in?
Why can't you offer a sensible suggestion like the one mentioned by SC2John,
"For the record, I still support the idea of making gateways produce faster while warpgates have a higher cooldown. Logically, this makes sense and requires fairly little rebalancing (just lower the production rates by a hair for gateways while giving warp gates an extra cooldown of ~10 seconds per unit and perhaps change the transformation time). It doesn't require any forced interaction in the game, and gives defender's advantage a strong buff while severely cutting the power of continued warpin aggression. At the very least, I'd like to see it tried and have significant amount of data collected before we write it off as "just a community nag"
Sir,I totally agree with you, I think Blizzard is totally heading the wrong direction and I think your points are spot on. It also feels like they are ignoring the community even though they hide it a little with these "Community Feedback Updates" that make it look like they are doing stuff. They are coming up with these changes that no one is asking for and they are simply not discussing things we are giving them feedback on. Economy, Bad Design, Game UI, AntiCheat systems, Balance...
I have to see as of yet if they are really willing to listen to us, the community is constantly discussing and investigating on changes that can make the game better and time and time again its like DK just ignores us. And its funny to me that we are still licking his boots when thanks to him we have been through a lot of bullshit.
I have lost almost all hope in LOTV, nothing of it has kept me hyped or even interested except for archon mode. I also think a big part of the already existing community is going to end up leaving when the new expansion comes out because they simply are not willing to play the game if this keeps going like this.
As a final thought, I wonder if David Kim is the man Blizz needs in order to make a good game. Remember, this is the guy that had no clue about BL/Infestor being a problem when Demuslim and Grubby brought it up at a meeting, it took him two years to understand that free units were a problem as well, Hell! he even said he is not as good of a player and that he just watches games and streams in order to know how the state of the game is. He just focuses to much on the esports and viewer side and ignores the playing the game side. If LOTV is to become the great game Blizz wants, they have to wake him up or search for another person that understands starcraft better than he does, otherwise we are looking at a game that is going to end up killing itself eventually. So make this expansion more fun to play and please for gods sake stop playing ring around the rosie, we love this game more than you probably do David Kim. Sorry for the long post.
It is good to nerf macromechanics in terms of time spent and effect on production. Something like double the energy cost and slightly reduced effect so you have to do it every 60 seconds instead of every 30 seconds. The 200 supply level won't be reached quite as fast and leave more room for skirmishes pre maxing out, while still having some benefit from performing your macro mechanics well.
It won't take away from skill this way since you have to focus more on micro because the amount of skirmishes may increase, and you also have the base mining management added in the game with the 100% and 60% patch approach. That alone is rewarding enough when managed well from a macro standpoint.
To summarize, Legacy of the Void will:
*Gain worker mining management moments because of the 100%/60% mineral patch approach ecrease the amount of time spent executing existing macro mechanics *Increase the amount of time one can invest in positioning and micro
In total you still end up doing as much or more, with perhaps 20% less time spent on macro compared to micro.
Added benefit being that reaching the supply cap will be slowed down, which means more skirmishes and micro opportunities before you hit the ultimate production level and army composition.
Lastly, this is Beta and they can test and change based upon findings. Nothing is final.
I can see at least two problems for the warpgate change proposed :
1) It's confusing. 2) It actually buffs all-ins that use a warp prism, to the point of retardedness. Adepts + warp prism all-ins are already broken enough. This is a huge problem for those who say that this warpgate "nerf" would open the door to gateway units buffs... So that 8 gates + WP all-ins become unbeatable ? That would allow nothing in the "buff gateway units" department.
On the other hand, the solution they seemed to be considering in the previous updates seemed far more clever : separate warp-in power and pylon power, leave warp-ins as they are, and you really reduced the array of all-ins a P can do with reinforcing potential while leaving everything else untouched (warp-in power could be provided by warpgates, warp prism and maybe Nexi even while building so that expanding becomes easier).
I've read all points and counterpoints about macro mechanics and I'm torn. I hate the idea of the game being dumbed down and the macro mechanical requirements being diminished in favor of micro ; this is a game of primarily macro, this is Starcraft, not Warcraft or a MOBA. Nevertheless, I agree that the pace of the game would benefit from it. The only thing I'm certain about is I despise the idea of automated injects. This would open the door to too many things. I'd rather have no macro mechanics at all with hatcheries spawning more larvae right from the get go than this.
I still think this is one of the less inspired community updates to date.
Instead of nerfing the macro mechanics, I suggest making the cost double what it is now. That way the macro cycle would be twice as long, giving players more time in between aswell as slowing down the immense production boost at the beginning of the game.
On August 01 2015 19:04 RaFox17 wrote: I'm really worried by the direction of these changes. I enjoy having a game with macro and micro.
The thing is that macro mechanics are not actually macro. Macro mechanics are maximizing your resource harvesting by doing similar things like it was in Brood War. It's not interesting to watch and it's not so funny to play.
Really don't understand why everybody suddenly started to love Mules/Larva Injects/Chrono Boost.
On August 01 2015 20:08 [PkF] Wire wrote: I've read all points and counterpoints about macro mechanics and I'm torn. I hate the idea of the game being dumbed down and the macro mechanical requirements being diminished in favor of micro ; this is a game of primarily macro, this is Starcraft, not Warcraft or a MOBA. Nevertheless, I agree that the pace of the game would benefit from it. The only thing I'm certain about is I despise the idea of automated injects. This would open the door to too many things. I'd rather have no macro mechanics at all with hatcheries spawning more larvae right from the get go than this.
I still think this is one of the less inspired community updates to date.
Auto-cast is a cleaner change than Hatcheries auto-spawning extra larva. The latter would require more work from Blizzard to rebalance the game as Queen's would have less worth and sniping them would no longer slow down production.
please realize that with the macro mechanics gone your opponent will be throwing more challenges at you (diverse, varied, unknown beforehand challenges)
yes that's right! instead of the cyclical, mechanical, rote muscle memory demands of 'macro mechanics' your opponent will be testing you! you will have to observe, assess, think, respond... not mash the keys from muscle memory
On August 01 2015 20:32 mishimaBeef wrote: please realize that with the macro mechanics gone your opponent will be throwing more challenges at you (diverse, varied, unknown beforehand challenges)
yes that's right! instead of the cyclical, mechanical, rote muscle memory demands of 'macro mechanics' your opponent will be testing you! you will have to observe, assess, think, respond... not mash the keys from muscle memory
Game gets dumped down. It's not impressing to see such things now because you know that the player can now focus 100% on these things. Multitasking nerfed hard. And it's most seen with the auto inject ******
On August 01 2015 19:04 RaFox17 wrote: I'm really worried by the direction of these changes. I enjoy having a game with macro and micro.
The thing is that macro mechanics are not actually macro. Macro mechanics are maximizing your resource harvesting by doing similar things like it was in Brood War. It's not interesting to watch and it's not so funny to play.
Really don't understand why everybody suddenly started to love Mules/Larva Injects/Chrono Boost.
It increases the skill ceiling which is something that quite a few people actually value.
And in the case of Chrono Boosts: This is more of a strategical tool rather than a test of your mechanics (which, imho, is the core of the Protoss race anyway). Deciding what to Chrono in order to hit certain timings is quite a huge deal and the sort of decision making that I appreciate. Removing strategical options is never a good idea in an RTS...
cooler strategical options would be having to plan out a 3rd and 4th prong for an attack because your opponent is able to easily deflect 2 prongs (since they don't have to tend to macro mechanics as much)
On August 01 2015 21:44 mishimaBeef wrote: cooler strategical options would be having to plan out a 3rd and 4th prong for an attack because your opponent is able to easily deflect 2 prongs (since they don't have to tend to macro mechanics as much)
We have all heard that argument and it's bs. Sounds good on paper, but it doesn't work in practice. There are only so many prongs an attack can have before it becomes disadvantageous. There are only so many ways into someone's base. And splitting your army in five different parts isn't necessarily a good thing.
yes the reason is becomes disadvantageous is because there is a limit to a human's ability to manage X number of tasks...
if Y tasks are 'macro mechanics' then you now have Y new tasks to allocate
it's the same old argument with MBS and automine from back in the day... but i don't see anyone arguing that the game would be more action packed and strategic without these features
On August 01 2015 20:08 [PkF] Wire wrote: I've read all points and counterpoints about macro mechanics and I'm torn. I hate the idea of the game being dumbed down and the macro mechanical requirements being diminished in favor of micro ; this is a game of primarily macro, this is Starcraft, not Warcraft or a MOBA. Nevertheless, I agree that the pace of the game would benefit from it. The only thing I'm certain about is I despise the idea of automated injects. This would open the door to too many things. I'd rather have no macro mechanics at all with hatcheries spawning more larvae right from the get go than this.
I still think this is one of the less inspired community updates to date.
Auto-cast is a cleaner change than Hatcheries auto-spawning extra larva. The latter would require more work from Blizzard to rebalance the game as Queen's would have less worth and sniping them would no longer slow down production.
Neither mule nor larva injection needs to be reworked because both are of a CHOICE as both OC and Queen have other spells to cast. You always have to balance between scan and mule - or larva injection and creep tumor. The real problem is that there's only ONE option for P which is chronoboost. That doesn't make sense. It could be better if MSC is removed and the nexus inherits photon overcharge and mass recall.
To everyone who argues macro is a crucial part of an RTS game, and should be at least 50% of the gameplay – who says what an RTS game should be like? Like is it written somewhere thta an RTS should consist of X% this and Y% that? No wonder there are no meaningful changes when every new idea is met with the same "That's not how an RTS should work" argument. The devs at Blizzard are trying to make StarCraft a better game, analyzing what is wrong and how it could be better. I think they have done a really good job identifying the core problems. If it turns out macro mechanics are not beneficial for the game (there are several arguments for this), do you think they should not be changed because "they have been part of the game since forever and so they must be kept in the game forever?".
On August 01 2015 21:59 mishimaBeef wrote: yes the reason is becomes disadvantageous is because there is a limit to a human's ability to manage X number of tasks...
if Y tasks are 'macro mechanics' then you now have Y new tasks to allocate
The point is there are only so many places you can attack. You threaten the natural, you drop the third, you drop the main and what else is left? You can already do that in HotS. And there are times in which you are just unable to attack, not because you don't have the apm, but because you need to wait for stim for example. Yes if there was no macro players would be able to focus a bit more on micro, but that is not starcraft imo. The game is already too focused on compositions. Dumbing down macro even more moves the game way closer to WC, than to SC.
As long as this game becomes more exciting and action packed, while staying true to elements of starcraft as we know it, I think it will be for the better. If sc2 is going to have a place in the future, the games need to be more dynamic and that will always be shown through skirmishes or armies clashing. It will not be with the macro side. At the core, it's still going to be large armies fighting. Similar to wc3 and DoW, but on a substantially larger scale.
a) automine b) multiple building selection c) unlimited unit selection
would make the game less strategic... i think at this point in the maturity of sc2 it is clear these are bogus arguments... the game is still incredibly demanding mechanically, and is chock full of strategic and micro diversity.
Similar argument applies here, removal of macro mechanic demands will not 'dumb down' the game... if anything it will do the opposite.
Are people happy with the current reaper? From mainly tvt I feel the grenade are to strong or that they are able to bypass terrain to early. Additionally is anyone using it aside from the early game? I thought the grenade was there to increase reaper usage over a whole game.
I think there is a misconception due to a lack of a coherent message from Blizzard. Let me try to simplify and interpret: Blizzard wants to make the game more action packed. Removal of these "apm-sinks" allows the already available APM of players to be allocated to something more. This "something more" has yet to be identified.
Please, until Blizzard announces a complete removal of these APM-macro-tasks and what their replacements will be, consider if you are willing to try a different approach to macro mechanics in SC2 not how their are "dumbing down" the game
On August 01 2015 22:43 BingbingBOPOMOFO wrote: I think there is a misconception due to a lack of a coherent message from Blizzard. Let me try to simplify and interpret: Blizzard wants to make the game more action packed. Removal of these "apm-sinks" allows the already available APM of players to be allocated to something more. This "something more" has yet to be identified.
Please, until Blizzard announces a complete removal of these APM-macro-tasks and what their replacements will be, consider if you are willing to try a different approach to macro mechanics in SC2 not how their are "dumbing down" the game
Though, this is just my opinion.
Please and thank you Bingbing
I think this "something more" is actually more micro. They are introducing units that require more attention (Disruptor, Warp Prism, Cyclone), and they are encouraging more expanding, more harassment, etc. which is again a good opportunity for smaller scale, "micro" battles and positioning. This is good, in my opinion, and also does not dumb down the game, only chages it.
On August 01 2015 21:02 mishimaBeef wrote: multitasking nerfed hard? lol that is near impossible at this stage of the game
people will find other things to multitask, like that 3rd or 4th prong for an attack... or that extra base or two that gets up during a long fight
Not really. There are already many situations where good multitasking isn't needed during the midgame. For example in PvP where you just sit in your base and mass colossi.
also that's only a small part of the game... heck multitasking is underpowered for the first minute or two... but multitasking isn't nerfed as a whole... for that to be true, someone with say 120 apm should be able to perform all that a 150 apm player can (talking average apm for the game)
On August 01 2015 23:03 mishimaBeef wrote: is that LotV PvP?
also that's only a small part of the game... heck multitasking is underpowered for the first minute or two... but multitasking isn't nerfed as a whole... for that to be true, someone with say 120 apm should be able to perform all that a 150 apm player can (talking average apm for the game)
No I was thinking about HotS since there is a meta we can talk about. But there are equivalent situations in LotV too. 120 apm is still pretty low even assuming no spam, and pretty much anyone can achieve 150 apm without spam. Going beyond that doesn't reward you in lots of situations (not always).
What I'm saying is that if a random gm player downloads the replays of top koreans and sees that they play as fast as he does, multitasking isn't that hard and there's no point in reducing it even further.
for example say i'm trying to hold a certain position
1) i could hold position my army in a great formation... this costs me a larger initial spending of actions and then after i press hold position i can just monitor the army briefly to see if it needs an attack move command (i.e. if the opponent charges in) or whatever ability activations
2) alternatively, i could babysit the army moving back and forth, dancing, stutter stepping... here, instead of taking the large initial spending of action to position my army optimally, i just spend my actions over time through movement reaction...
it might be the case that in scenario case 2 i spent a lot more apm without actually accomplishing much more... but in scenario 1, even though i had to put up that initial investment of say 15 actions to position my army before pressing hold position, i was able to divert my attention to other tasks and only spend 1-2 actions every so often to 'check on' the position when the enemy comes in range
On August 01 2015 20:32 mishimaBeef wrote: please realize that with the macro mechanics gone your opponent will be throwing more challenges at you (diverse, varied, unknown beforehand challenges)
yes that's right! instead of the cyclical, mechanical, rote muscle memory demands of 'macro mechanics' your opponent will be testing you! you will have to observe, assess, think, respond... not mash the keys from muscle memory
Game gets dumped down. It's not impressing to see such things now because you know that the player can now focus 100% on these things. Multitasking nerfed hard. And it's most seen with the auto inject ******
Haha, you sound like the retards of 2010:" THE GAME IS TOO EASY! I WONT EVER IMPROVE! IAM AT THE PEAK OF MY SKILL! THERE IS NO ROOM TO IMPROVE!" Basically every american pro. Brood war had non of these macro mechanics. And even top tier player cant catch up with the macro in brood war.
On August 01 2015 20:32 mishimaBeef wrote: please realize that with the macro mechanics gone your opponent will be throwing more challenges at you (diverse, varied, unknown beforehand challenges)
yes that's right! instead of the cyclical, mechanical, rote muscle memory demands of 'macro mechanics' your opponent will be testing you! you will have to observe, assess, think, respond... not mash the keys from muscle memory
Game gets dumped down. It's not impressing to see such things now because you know that the player can now focus 100% on these things. Multitasking nerfed hard. And it's most seen with the auto inject ******
Haha, you sound like the retards of 2010:" THE GAME IS TOO EASY! I WONT EVER IMPROVE! IAM AT THE PEAK OF MY SKILL! THERE IS NO ROOM TO IMPROVE!" Basically every american pro. Brood war had non of these macro mechanics. And even top tier player cant catch up with the macro in brood war.
thats because there were a ton of unintentional mechanics that were bigger time sinks than the current inject stuff
or my favorite argument "even though it took 10 years for brood war to get figured out, we are a lot smarter about RTS in general these days and sc2 will be figured out in ... " (what, 1 year?)
On August 01 2015 20:32 mishimaBeef wrote: please realize that with the macro mechanics gone your opponent will be throwing more challenges at you (diverse, varied, unknown beforehand challenges)
yes that's right! instead of the cyclical, mechanical, rote muscle memory demands of 'macro mechanics' your opponent will be testing you! you will have to observe, assess, think, respond... not mash the keys from muscle memory
Game gets dumped down. It's not impressing to see such things now because you know that the player can now focus 100% on these things. Multitasking nerfed hard. And it's most seen with the auto inject ******
Haha, you sound like the retards of 2010:" THE GAME IS TOO EASY! I WONT EVER IMPROVE! IAM AT THE PEAK OF MY SKILL! THERE IS NO ROOM TO IMPROVE!" Basically every american pro. Brood war had non of these macro mechanics. And even top tier player cant catch up with the macro in brood war.
Broodwar didn't have this type of macro mechanics but they required you to go back to your base and spend actions on sending workers to mine and building units. In SC2 both of these can be done whilst watching your army and quite easily, there's very little room for pro players to show superior macro play.
For the pro player I would like it if macro boosters were half the strength. For the casual I think the removal is better.
I don't like the automated option: But maybe if you were able to Inject/Chrono an already Injected/Chronoed building and it automatically queued it up, the same way production facilities work, when they produce.
one thing that turns me off pro play is seeing players mess up... like if one guy micros bad i'm like uhh ok... it turns me off, sure he might have been doing his 'macro mechanics' and it doesn't matter, but it's not cool
i would much prefer the removal of these macro mechanic demands in hope that it will improve the quality of visible engagements and map presence (including macro of additional bases when map control is in favor of a player)
On August 01 2015 22:43 BingbingBOPOMOFO wrote: I think there is a misconception due to a lack of a coherent message from Blizzard. Let me try to simplify and interpret: Blizzard wants to make the game more action packed. Removal of these "apm-sinks" allows the already available APM of players to be allocated to something more. This "something more" has yet to be identified.
Please, until Blizzard announces a complete removal of these APM-macro-tasks and what their replacements will be, consider if you are willing to try a different approach to macro mechanics in SC2 not how their are "dumbing down" the game
I think this "something more" is actually more micro. They are introducing units that require more attention (Disruptor, Warp Prism, Cyclone), and they are encouraging more expanding, more harassment, etc. which is again a good opportunity for smaller scale, "micro" battles and positioning. This is good, in my opinion, and also does not dumb down the game, only changes it.
I agree with both posts above. The removing of the macro mechanics is the first change that's made me sit up in my chair and grin, excitedly starting to imagine what is to come. I really want this change to go in and stay for quite a while to see what develops from it.
I love SC2 to death, but I think a lot of people would agree that the game needs something fresh. It's understandable that there's resistance to this change. There's definitely huge skill and tactics in balancing all the spinning plates that are macro while microing on multiple fronts. The problem is that to most people, these spinning plates are invisible and not part of the viewing experience. It's always been a problem.
Now, if you want the audience and the players back in droves to at least give the game another go, the game needs something very fresh. One radical move towards a different style of RTS than what SC2 has become.
This change might just be it.
Let's try it out. Let's see how it develops. Let's see what other tweaks and changes will be needed or wanted as a consequence of this.
That enthusiam around removing macro mechanics leaves me mesmerized. Do people really think that just removing those will make the game suddenly as popular as LoL and wipe out every flaw of the current LotV build ? There are far more important issues to deal with.
On August 02 2015 00:55 [PkF] Wire wrote: That enthusiam around removing macro mechanics leaves me mesmerized. Do people really think that just removing those will make the game suddenly as popular as LoL and wipe out every flaw of the current LotV build ? There are far more important issues to deal with.
I don't think there's anything that says you can't deal with the removal of the macro mechanics as well as other changes at the same time.
Having said that though, the removal of macro mechanics would probably lead to a fairly lengthy period of needed changes and adjustments. If it's going to be done at all, better do it sooner rather than later.
Either way, just trying it out to see how it feels can't hurt.
On August 02 2015 00:55 [PkF] Wire wrote: That enthusiam around removing macro mechanics leaves me mesmerized. Do people really think that just removing those will make the game suddenly as popular as LoL and wipe out every flaw of the current LotV build ? There are far more important issues to deal with.
Having said that though, the removal of macro mechanics would probably lead to a fairly lengthy period of needed changes and adjustments.
This is what bothers me the most. Why go into this when the benefit is by no means obvious and the consequences may even be detrimental in the end ? I'm pretty sure Blizzard is aiming for a release around Blizzcon, and time is running out. I think the potential downsides far outweigh what can be won. Don't be fools, every Zerg player won't be coming back because you tell them "you know, now you don't have to inject anymore !".
On August 02 2015 01:17 [PkF] Wire wrote: This is what bothers me the most. Why go into this when the benefit is by no means obvious and the consequences may even be detrimental in the end ? I'm pretty sure Blizzard is aiming for a release around Blizzcon, and time is running out. I think the potential downsides far outweigh what can be won. Don't be fools, every Zerg player won't be coming back because you tell them "you know, now you don't have to inject anymore !".
It's a very valid point.
However, I'd rather try this and skip the Blizzcon timing. The game is slowly eroding at this point. A lot is riding on the boost that comes from Lotv to be a sustained boost rather than a temporary high from everyone coming back to see what the buzz is about, then quickly tiring as not much has changed.
In the long run I think we'd win more from trying radical things like this and taking whatever time it takes to launch something different, something new, something fun.
I feel that what the game needs is not only, or maybe even mainly old players coming back, it's rather a sustainable stream of new players picking up the game. If that stream is there, the influx of talent will hopefully counteract the inevitable drain of people reaching the end of their careers or simply doing something different with their lives.
But of course, those are all opinions of what I'd want to see for this game. It'd just be very interesting to see where that'd take us.
after a long time just got back to check how LotV is doing... and OMG, this is the direction I wanted it to go!
I want a game where I can build and destroy stuff with my army, where the winner is decided by what you built, when and why you built, and how your army fought in the battles.
The only stuff the current macro boosters do is make your game look like a job where you have to do the same stuff over and over again just so you don't fall behind, anyone who says these mechanics have any kind of meaningfull "strategy" on them are just lying to themselves.
Removing this will put more emphasis on army management and decision making.
Mule - Half the previous income, cannot be spammed (i.e. cool down on Mules will encourage solid usage like inject but be far less rewarding/punishing)
Inject - Only half as much Larvae, Zerg needs to expand a shit load anyways in LOTV so hatchery/larvae levels wouldn't be an issue, would free up more space for awesome creep spread (a visible mechanic, auto cast is a stupid idea, just reduce the risk reward)
Chronoboost - Rework this, I have no idea the implication of this ability being buffed/nerfed, I know most Protoss players say that Chronoboost is not skill rewarding and is lack luster and for the most part I agree (Click on building, it goes faster, LAME)
Since we want smaller fights, there needs to be less of a massive upswing from these macro mechanics.
This upswing I refer to is where 5 hatcheries will spaw larvae and Zerg will be ready for either a huge production flood or a huge tech switch, both of which contribute to balance issues, the same logic with the MULE, being able to call down 7 MULES onto one expansion and get an explosion of minerals i.e. an explosion of bio (mineral heavy units) leads to matches where Terran is outswarming Zerg rapidly after a good engagement.
This upswing sucks in LOTV with the super charged economy, if you want smaller fights/skirmish for map control, you have to reduce the flow of money and or unit production so the units come out slower, making them more important to micro and take good small engagements.
This could be the update that shaped the destiny of SC2.
Blizzard is actually admitting that the route they took to accelerate progression of SC is actually wrong. Yes, accelerated progression is actually one of the main goal for the SC2 development team and it still is. They tried to integrate it into the gameplay by introducing Mules, Injects, and Chronoboost(or MIC). But the gameplay/strategic element is long diminished since the day people learn how to take a third base.
MIC is directly responsible for a lot of the frustrating elements in SC2, for all levels of play. Fundamentally there is nothing inherently fun about MIC - you just have to use it every time you get the chance to. One might argue there are strategic values such as scans need saving or Chronoboost needs to be planned. Well the former is actually compulsory for survival and not a choice, and as for the later, it is essentially the cause of why Protoss is BO dependent and perceived as a gimmicky opponent.
Touching more on BO, SC2 is a Build dependent game, with very very strong timings that just end the game when BO "crossed". This is a direct consequence of the resource boost introduced by MIC, enabling the creation of lopsided army strength in a very small window that an opponent have no time to respond correctly. Baneling bust, roach bust, 1-1-1, Gateway all-in etc. had it not been MIC this timings would be strong but not as clear cut, binary as it is today. Blizzard's remedy was to change the map pool to huge maps with great distance between spawning locations. It says a lot about map and strategic diversity when only huge maps are the ones considered "good".
I could go on, but maybe in a new thread. I see huge impact that this could bring to the gamplay of SC2 and with it it's popularity. What is disheartening is that the polls are actually against what is the clearest admission of mistake and first ever change that could actually lower the skill floor for SC2. The bottom line is that if you want less BO losses, less chore like actions, more strategic options in game and diversity in maps, you should endorse the removal of the existing "macro mechanic".
Please test out the idea of only making some toss units accessible with gateway and some only accessible with warpgate: you mentioned how the adept and zealot share similar roles. make one only gateway accessible and the others warpgate accessible. this would make toss macro far more interesting: having some gates only used for warp ins, and some gateways for training stronger casters and beefier units
EX: warpgate accessible units: stalker, zealot, sentry, dt gateway accessible: adept, dragoon (better in straight of fights then stalker ie slower but stronger), and the HT?
Also, inject larvae is what makes z unique, would be open to macro changes for the other races though.
I only want to comment on the macro aspects of this game.
For players that have played this game for a long time the concept of simplifying macro may not look as good of an idea as it essentially removes one of the advantages that experienced players have over less experienced people.
That being said, over the years the player base has been steadily declining due to various reasons. One of them for sure is that the game is seen as too difficult - you need to spend a lot of time at this game before you get anywhere good at it.
With a lot of other games the learning curve is less steep. I am pretty sure this is also the reason why various other games are getting more popular.
The only way to break this is by making the game more simple; whether us, experienced players like it or not. I believe this will be better for the game in the long run.
The Protoss offensive warpgate nerf is fine, but please don't make the macro mechanics even more easier. SC2 is a game of multitasking and it should stay like this.
On August 02 2015 00:55 [PkF] Wire wrote: That enthusiam around removing macro mechanics leaves me mesmerized. Do people really think that just removing those will make the game suddenly as popular as LoL and wipe out every flaw of the current LotV build ? There are far more important issues to deal with.
Having said that though, the removal of macro mechanics would probably lead to a fairly lengthy period of needed changes and adjustments.
This is what bothers me the most. Why go into this when the benefit is by no means obvious and the consequences may even be detrimental in the end ? I'm pretty sure Blizzard is aiming for a release around Blizzcon, and time is running out. I think the potential downsides far outweigh what can be won. Don't be fools, every Zerg player won't be coming back because you tell them "you know, now you don't have to inject anymore !".
It sure could take a longer period to test extensively, but it is a good idea IMO. To be honest, I felt this topic should come up for SC3 as a massive and even more radical macro overhaul (should such a game ever be made).
I very, very strongly disagree with removing macro mechanics. However, I would be okay with making them weaker, and this might be a good direction to go.
Honestly, at this point, I'm wondering if Blizzard aren't listening too much to the community. The offensive warp gate change just seems to be way too strong, and still a bit confusing. Is it really that necessary?
On August 02 2015 02:42 TurboMaN wrote: The Protoss offensive warpgate nerf is fine, but please don't make the macro mechanics even more easier. SC2 is a game of multitasking and it should stay like this.
If you don't need to do as much mindless clicking like mules/inject/chrono, there are many other things you can spend your multitasking ability with. Archon mode is already proof of that.
On August 02 2015 02:42 TurboMaN wrote: The Protoss offensive warpgate nerf is fine, but please don't make the macro mechanics even more easier. SC2 is a game of multitasking and it should stay like this.
If you don't need to do as much mindless clicking like mules/inject/chrono, there are many other things you can spend your multitasking ability with. Archon mode is already proof of that.
But then you don't have to make choices anymore. Some players (e.g. Fantasy, who is this to the extreme) generally elect to focus on army control and multitask over macro, which is a valid choice. Other players decide that controlling multiple armies isn't worth it. But with the direction that this stuff is going in, then everyone would play like Fantasy but not mess up their macro, which I think is a little silly.
So I might amend my earlier strong statement about "not removing macro mechanics"...
It is true brood war existed without these, except maybe microing workers was the equivalent, so maybe it could be a good change. But for fuck sake, give a better reason than, "well since its not apparent to the viewers we are thinking about doing away with them..."
Seriously, since when should that be the reason to change a MAJOR aspect of game play? Give me a better reason than that! about how it makes the game funner to play and better in general to play.
Also, this will completely change the balance of the game. So you consider this, but the very legit talks about economy don't get considered, because they would mess with balance?
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: But for fuck sake, give a better reason than, "well since its not apparent to the viewers we are thinking about doing away with them..."
Well, give a better reason not to change than, "it has been like this for a long time and it would be a MAJOR change, so it should not change."
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: Also, this will completely change the balance of the game. So you consider this, but the very legit talks about economy don't get considered, because they would mess with balance?
the talks about economy isn't "not being considered" because it would mess with balance, it's "not being considered" because their internal playtesting has shown no significant advantage to changing it.
Community resourcing model suggestion We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some. Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm. Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.
No, don't remove mules, the game is becoming too easy!
That's the forums in a nutshell. I for one think Blizzard is in the perfect direction. The econ is already faster and these additional macro mechanics could just be gone!
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: Also, this will completely change the balance of the game. So you consider this, but the very legit talks about economy don't get considered, because they would mess with balance?
the talks about economy isn't "not being considered" because it would mess with balance, it's "not being considered" because their internal playtesting has shown no significant advantage to changing it.
Community resourcing model suggestion We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some. Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm. Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.
I mean, I'm not buying that, and that's just me personally. Why not try dh with lotv starting workers?
I think they just don't want the rebalance headache. To me that answer just doesn't make much sense, those games clearly showed an advantage to expanding over turtle play. DH had impact on games and play style, but I'm not trying to advocate for the economy talk to start back up. Let's by all means move on.
Who know maybe removing macro mechanics could be good for the game, but I repeat. Please give a more thought out reason for it than viewing quality.
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: But for fuck sake, give a better reason than, "well since its not apparent to the viewers we are thinking about doing away with them..."
Well, give a better reason not to change than, "it has been like this for a long time and it would be a MAJOR change, so it should not change."
I like major changes, but lets make them in the spirit of better gameplay for the person that is actually playing the game. That is my gripe.
F the viewer. I like to watch the game as well (viewer here), but that's a discussion for overlays and casting mods. If the game isn't fun as hell to play, nobody will be playing it.
A good number of pros have sited they just lost passion/enjoyment of the game. I personally stopped playing because I didn't enjoy it the way I used to. Wings of liberty was fun as hell, HOTS was just kinda good/meh. Then all of a sudden winning became really important and losing felt absolutely terrible. So I said to myself, "Why am I putting myself through this hell that was supposed to be fun and enjoyable?"
I just made an account in TeamLiquid and this is my first write even though I have been reading TL for 1.5 years. I just wanted to say that I have lost almost all hope In David Kim and LOTV. It seems like the Dev Team and specially DK does not give a damn about whatever complaints and issues the community comes up with. This may be wrong but after seeing all the feedback that is being provided and watching David Kims reaction to it im really beginning to question if he is the man that can make Starcraft great again (even though I think its great right already). Since the Beta started I have seen no effort from Blizzard in order to make changes that really make the game more enjoyable and fun to play. In my opinion, this approach of making sc2 more action packed and fast paced is not what we need, a lot of HOTS players simply are not willing to play with the current LOTV econ system, potential new ones wont play the game because its even more difficult which is a synonim for non-entertaining, non-entertaining meaning dead game.
Furthermore, I feel like the only thing Blizzard is actually achieving with all these changes is dividing the whole sc2 community in two or more parts. Right now TL is like a long angry rant where users just fight each other trying to impose their view on things. And even though I like Drama I think it has reached the point where its just unbearable. Im getting tired of LOTV, im getting tired of this Beta and im getting tired of sc2 if Blizzard does not start working towards a good, well balanced and fun game to play and watch.
As a final thought, I really think that Blizzard does not know how big is exactly the number of people that are disagreeing with them and I think its time for them to really start working with the community (more than they are doing now). I wish they did some kind of referendum in which they can put their changes to the test and see how people want Starcraft to be. Sorry for the long writeup and for the grammar errors. English is not my native language.
Yes, I see that youve read TL alot. This should be a template at this point. You covered all the usual stuff:
"i lost all hope!" "fire david kim!" "they dont listen to us!!!" "sorry for my english"
On August 02 2015 02:42 TurboMaN wrote: The Protoss offensive warpgate nerf is fine, but please don't make the macro mechanics even more easier. SC2 is a game of multitasking and it should stay like this.
If you don't need to do as much mindless clicking like mules/inject/chrono, there are many other things you can spend your multitasking ability with. Archon mode is already proof of that.
But then you don't have to make choices anymore. Some players (e.g. Fantasy, who is this to the extreme) generally elect to focus on army control and multitask over macro, which is a valid choice. Other players decide that controlling multiple armies isn't worth it. But with the direction that this stuff is going in, then everyone would play like Fantasy but not mess up their macro, which I think is a little silly.
But don't you agree that it's way more interesting to watch Fantasy dropping Vultures in 3 places at once, rather than massing a single big army to attack at one place?
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: Also, this will completely change the balance of the game. So you consider this, but the very legit talks about economy don't get considered, because they would mess with balance?
the talks about economy isn't "not being considered" because it would mess with balance, it's "not being considered" because their internal playtesting has shown no significant advantage to changing it.
Community resourcing model suggestion We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some. Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm. Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.
I mean, I'm not buying that, and that's just me personally. Why not try dh with lotv starting workers?
I think they just don't want the rebalance headache. To me that answer just doesn't make much sense, those games clearly showed an advantage to expanding over turtle play. DH had impact on games and play style, but I'm not trying to advocate for the economy talk to start back up. Let's by all means move on.
Who know maybe removing macro mechanics could be good for the game, but I repeat. Please give a more thought out reason for it than viewing quality.
viewing quality is not the primary justification, as explained by blizzard themselves, observe:
Game Difficulty Discussion As many of us on the team expected, this proved to be a tough topic. We knew going in there would be clear disagreements, as we’ve been seeing in many places—including individual pro feedback—that the majority of the Korean community disagrees with our goals for Void, while many outside of Korea strongly agree with our direction.
As many of you already know, these are the main goals that our team has for Legacy of the Void: More action, less down time. More micro on both sides in engagements. New ways to show off skill. Make the game more difficult for pros. Make the game more approachable to regular players through new features such as Archon Mode and Allied Commanders.
This was easily the biggest topic for the members of the Korean community at this event, and after many discussions with lots of different groups of people, we came out of the conversation with some new angles to potentially approach what we’re doing: Instead of just making the game more difficult for pros across the board, we wanted to also take some passes at exactly where we want the game to be more difficult and where we want to make the game easier. With this line of thought, and when discussing specific areas of focus, we came out with some key takeaways:
Approaching Void’s difficulty isn’t as simple as just saying things like “every unit add and change needs to make the game easier” or “every unit add has to have clear micro/hardcore add to make the game way more difficult to master.” It really depends on a case-by-case basis. For example: New Terran/Zerg units are a bit easier to use than Protoss because Protoss is currently the slightly easier race to master.
We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified. For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.
...We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified. For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.
...Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it...
Macro Mechanics Macro mechanics are something we’ve absolutely seen the community discuss in the past. With Legacy of the Void becoming more difficult to play due to our main goals - more action, micro on both sides during engagements, less downtime, etc. - we have been exploring areas that we can make easier. For these, we’re trying to locate areas that are difficult to manage but aren’t really easily noticeable. For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
...For these, we’re trying to locate areas that are difficult to manage but aren’t really easily noticeable. For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it...
...For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either...
...as a player...it's somewhat dificult for me to tell...my opponent really has no idea...this is also something that viewers can't tell either...
their justifications talk about things that are practically invisible for everyone (they do use softer words when describing it from the players own perspective and I would agree that I can have a decent idea of how well I am injecting by checking the energy on my queens.) and in fact the only time they mention viewers is to further emphasize their already established point that there are mechanics that don't adequately telegraph the fact that a player was skillfull, thereby causing losses that are highly confusing until you look at the replay. such confusion has been identified as a bad thing and I would agree that such confusion is a bad thing.
these changes are intended as primarily for the players benefit, the fact that its beneficial for viewers is a happy coincidence.
Love it. Once upon a time, I liked the idea of the macro mechanics, but I realised over time how much they made it like doing a tedious, boring job rather than playing a game. Clicks for the sake of clicks. I like player mechanics playing a decent part in the game, but prefer the idea of good mechanics being there for optimising how you do things, not a necessity to play the game at an above appallingly-bad level. I always felt it was be a big turn-off for newer players that they have to keep doing such things to have a chance of competing and that an ickle bronzie putting no effort into strategy but just getting the tedious extra macro mechanics roll over a newer bronzie who might want to play a real-time STRATEGY game.
So if they don't completely remove the *needless* mechanics, I always hoped they would have a menu option for "autocast of abilities ON/OFF by default", checked by default for newbies because we can all uncheck it easily enough. I also think that (if we're not removing it completely), they could make the auto-casting of larva injects slightly delayed (5-10 second longer than optimal?), so that 1 - there is incentive to uncheck it, but not too strong, so that lower/slower/newer players have far less reason to bother, but better players have some reward for putting the actions into it 2 - It occurs to me that with such a delay, players can potentially have enough time to decide to grab queens for other purposes before the autocast inject kicks in (spreading creep instead if they want, for example) if they think of it in time, while still being able to rely on autocast for the next 'round' of energy.
I'd also be in favour of the same sort of "autocast by default ON/OFF" for creep tumours, where there is a significant delay on the autocast, say 45-60 seconds? That would also help beginners to have better than appalling creep-spread to go on with while they focus on other parts of their play. It would also mean that professional players who really slack on their creep spread would be amusing to see, because we'd know that they're doing an even worse job than the delayed autocast. XD
On August 01 2015 04:25 purakushi wrote: I hate this focus on action just for action sake. Removing macro mechanics does not mean that players will attack more. Macro for above average players is already too easy.
The game needs new blood to keep it going and it should appeal to people who want a strategy game. A lot of people just want to unwind with their game and the game does not encourage complete newbies to try ladder for more than a couple of games (of brutal defeat).
On August 02 2015 02:42 TurboMaN wrote: The Protoss offensive warpgate nerf is fine, but please don't make the macro mechanics even more easier. SC2 is a game of multitasking and it should stay like this.
If you don't need to do as much mindless clicking like mules/inject/chrono, there are many other things you can spend your multitasking ability with. Archon mode is already proof of that.
But then you don't have to make choices anymore. Some players (e.g. Fantasy, who is this to the extreme) generally elect to focus on army control and multitask over macro, which is a valid choice. Other players decide that controlling multiple armies isn't worth it. But with the direction that this stuff is going in, then everyone would play like Fantasy but not mess up their macro, which I think is a little silly.
But don't you agree that it's way more interesting to watch Fantasy dropping Vultures in 3 places at once, rather than massing a single big army to attack at one place?
No I dont agree.
And the reason why watching BeSt was amazing is because of macro.
I think its interesting to note that they are taking ONE variable out of macro they aren't removing macro..... BW didn't have this metric and I'm pretty sure there is a few people on this forum that kinda liked BW LOL I think them exploring this is very interesting and who knows what this will do for the game because it will free up not just "clicking" but it will give mroe time for micro because you won't have to go back to your base... and chrono won't ez mode ups lol
Edit:Also you have to realize that this will now give everyone more options as far as macro and when to get certain things... its a really interesting thought....
On August 02 2015 04:49 ShambhalaWar wrote: Also, this will completely change the balance of the game. So you consider this, but the very legit talks about economy don't get considered, because they would mess with balance?
the talks about economy isn't "not being considered" because it would mess with balance, it's "not being considered" because their internal playtesting has shown no significant advantage to changing it.
Community resourcing model suggestion We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some. Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm. Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.
I mean, I'm not buying that, and that's just me personally. Why not try dh with lotv starting workers?
I think they just don't want the rebalance headache. To me that answer just doesn't make much sense, those games clearly showed an advantage to expanding over turtle play. DH had impact on games and play style, but I'm not trying to advocate for the economy talk to start back up. Let's by all means move on.
Who know maybe removing macro mechanics could be good for the game, but I repeat. Please give a more thought out reason for it than viewing quality.
viewing quality is not the primary justification, as explained by blizzard themselves, observe:
Game Difficulty Discussion As many of us on the team expected, this proved to be a tough topic. We knew going in there would be clear disagreements, as we’ve been seeing in many places—including individual pro feedback—that the majority of the Korean community disagrees with our goals for Void, while many outside of Korea strongly agree with our direction.
As many of you already know, these are the main goals that our team has for Legacy of the Void: More action, less down time. More micro on both sides in engagements. New ways to show off skill. Make the game more difficult for pros. Make the game more approachable to regular players through new features such as Archon Mode and Allied Commanders.
This was easily the biggest topic for the members of the Korean community at this event, and after many discussions with lots of different groups of people, we came out of the conversation with some new angles to potentially approach what we’re doing: Instead of just making the game more difficult for pros across the board, we wanted to also take some passes at exactly where we want the game to be more difficult and where we want to make the game easier. With this line of thought, and when discussing specific areas of focus, we came out with some key takeaways:
Approaching Void’s difficulty isn’t as simple as just saying things like “every unit add and change needs to make the game easier” or “every unit add has to have clear micro/hardcore add to make the game way more difficult to master.” It really depends on a case-by-case basis. For example: New Terran/Zerg units are a bit easier to use than Protoss because Protoss is currently the slightly easier race to master.
We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified. For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.
...We will explore internally if there are areas of the game require a lot of skill, but don’t show off well, and consider whether these can be simplified. For example: Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it. However, with spawn larva, it’s very difficult to know if a player is doing well.
...Creep tumor spreading well is super-easy to spot and notice as the opponent playing against it...
Macro Mechanics Macro mechanics are something we’ve absolutely seen the community discuss in the past. With Legacy of the Void becoming more difficult to play due to our main goals - more action, micro on both sides during engagements, less downtime, etc. - we have been exploring areas that we can make easier. For these, we’re trying to locate areas that are difficult to manage but aren’t really easily noticeable. For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
...For these, we’re trying to locate areas that are difficult to manage but aren’t really easily noticeable. For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either. Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it...
...For example, as a player doing larva inject, it’s somewhat difficult for me to tell how well I’m doing in a given game. Further, my opponent really has no idea how well I’m doing it either. In esports matches, this is also something that viewers can’t tell either...
...as a player...it's somewhat dificult for me to tell...my opponent really has no idea...this is also something that viewers can't tell either...
their justifications talk about things that are practically invisible for everyone (they do use softer words when describing it from the players own perspective and I would agree that I can have a decent idea of how well I am injecting by checking the energy on my queens.) and in fact the only time they mention viewers is to further emphasize their already established point that there are mechanics that don't adequately telegraph the fact that a player was skillfull, thereby causing losses that are highly confusing until you look at the replay. such confusion has been identified as a bad thing and I would agree that such confusion is a bad thing.
these changes are intended as primarily for the players benefit, the fact that its beneficial for viewers is a happy coincidence.
I see the point you are trying to make, I suppose I didn't see this distinction before. Thank you for pointing it out.
It still strikes me as strange that the answer is cutting or diminishing the mechanic rather than making it more visible, which probably wouldn't be that hard. Again, if the biggest problem with the mechanics is that you can't visibly measure the other person's progress in game, is that really a big problem?
Please tell me how removing this is going to make the game richer and more fun to play?
Removing it just makes macro less difficult, does that make it easier for me to measure the progress of an opponent? What does this accomplish from blizzards perspective?
Liberator is Tempest-class cost and supply at this kind of power. Them being spammable so quickly is like a miniWarpgate for them where their production burst is not proportional to their power. They get to be Collossus and a Corsair rolled into a 150/150/2. Protoss doesn't have the DPS per Cost of the Viking at a safe range to stop the Terran Collossus. It's also just air and not both ground and air, so can't rush with ground units either. And MMW are way better Stalkers.
Lurkers need Protoss counterplay. Perhaps they need some weakness if they want to do stupid damage? Like supply inefficiency, or AoE nerf. Or more unconventional unique weaknesses: Attack the nearest unit and ignores priority. Or if FFs had HP (and priority) they could be great decoys and Zerg would have to baby sit their Lurkers to maximize their DPS like Stop command. Especially if they get a less punishing Larva Inject.
Let us revisit free units, as in, Broodlord and Swarm Host. They tend to produce deathball creep more often than not. I think they should cost minerals, but then you can be creative about the units produced instead of faux projectiles. Interceptors get to be their own thing and Reaver-shot-now-Disruptor gets to be its own fer realz unit.
Now that Immortals have interesting lockon animation/micro, it would be cool to design an offensive ability around that, a rapid fire attack rate as an active or passive would fit well (per Magpie). Or maybe the Immortal gets a cannon blast that's great at eating armored units and pushing them back. KB is a tough sell in SC (Reaper) but across-the-ground KB would look better.
On August 01 2015 04:31 Charoisaur wrote: One of the most disappointing community updates as of late. Protoss is widely regarded as a defensive "deathball" race so they make it weaker offensively and stronger defensively. makes sense. Also the alt control group feature is terrible, I thought they wanted players to be able to differentiate themselves through their skill and not make the mechanics even more easy than they are now. Finally they want to tone down/remove the races unique macro mechanics making the races more similar and reducing the required mechanical skill even further. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if LotV will be a huge failure and kill sc2 as a competitive eSports.
They have to address offensive Warp Ins if Protoss is ever going to be able to be buffed in a way that allows Gateway units to stand on their own.
Offensive Warp Ins are a balance nightmare, it removes all defender's advantage and trying to keep them around is how we ended up with Bandaid bullshit like Photon Overcharge.
PO is just simple in its implementation. Terran has the bunker dynamic and Terran takes some interesting penalty. Zerg get Queens.
On August 01 2015 15:34 trifecta wrote: From a spectator perspective, as long as Blizzard improves unit vs unit and army vs army interaction, I could care less about removing macro mechanics. It's ironic that adding multiple building selection and waypointing, auto mine, unlimited unit selection etc was hailed as 'modern ui > old limitations' by sc2 boosters, but now removing chrono/mule/inject is a bridge too far- sc2 folk may get to experience what it's like to be streamlined and obsolesced. In my mind sc2 macro mechanics never successfully replaced the mechanical and strategic counterbalance that it served as in bw. What sc2 has always lacked, and can benefit most from, is truly entertaining unit/army interaction.
I would go with something closer to Option 1 with macro. We don't need to remove different styles of play enabled by these macro mechanics, just a tweaking to a more engaging dynamic or, at the very least, slow down the APM intensiveness of them. or make them less impactful or punishing. However, the focus on the macro mechanics themselves is incomplete. Maynarding, building placement, unit production and more vulnerable points are also contributing to the base treadmill feeling. There isn't an easy answer to that.
Pylons should get their 7 range back. A relic of the warpin high ground days.
We'll have to see how the new Warping does.
HTs Feedback and Ghost EMP are probably too instant and little counterplay. HTs could be more microable too.
I don't feel like there's anything to be gained by discussing APM or mechanics or 'clicking' in this thread. It's already been done to death for years.
If we ignore the mechanical aspects of the change, and David's dubious reasons for implementing them, are people generally in favor of weakening the racial macro abilities?
On August 02 2015 00:55 [PkF] Wire wrote: That enthusiam around removing macro mechanics leaves me mesmerized. Do people really think that just removing those will make the game suddenly as popular as LoL and wipe out every flaw of the current LotV build ? There are far more important issues to deal with.
This is a really bizzare argument. If it's a good change, why the hell not implement it? That's like saying oh well changing ravager stats won't make SC2 a huge esport so why bother making the change. Are you really trying to claim that macro mechanics aren't a big part of the game? I don't get this post at all.
the macro mechanics and use are damn stupid and easy in sc2. If they decrease the difficulty in macro about 20% and increase in micro about 20%, everyone is happy. Micro is by far the best thing in RTS. It was cool to see 12min max roach in the first weeks, but now? Terribly boring to see, Everyone can do it now. Actually I stopped to play sc2 because of "macro and economy is everything in sc2".
What I love in SC2 is stylistic oppositions. Defensive player vs offensive player. Player focusing on macro vs player focusing on micro. Tricky player vs straightforward "I'll do the same build whatever" player. Ideally, all those styles should be good, without any big advantage overall for any of them. I'm quite mad they seem to want to wipe defensive styles out of the game just for the sake of viewer experience, while perfect defence vs an aggressive player is probably one of the most exciting things to watch.
I'll reiterate here that I'm fine with a warpgate change, but that the one suggested doesn't seem neither elegant nor efficient to me. It will just give more incentive to use adepts + warp prism all-ins (= make them even more broken than some already are). Come back to your first suggestion (splitting warp-in power and energy), I think there is far more to gain from that idea.
Not a fan of several things in LotV right now but definitely a fan of the communication by Blizzard. Unprecedented (almost, at least in my experience). People must realize this.
Also: These changes are big. They're not the economy changes I would like to see but still, good to see that everything else at least is being looked at. Now just remove the Liberator and try again with a different Terran unit.
Proposal (again): Add the Spectre from the campaign. This will give you loads of opportunity to make changes to Terran game play and might help in your struggle with the Ghost. Give them specific roles; One vs mechanical and the other vs Bio for instance.
Proposal: Experiment with combined ugrades for Terran. Not the regular ones but have cloak be available for both Ghost (and Spectre) and Banshee one's researched and maybe even transform for both Hellbat and Viking(!).
Edit: Also proposed al long time ago (WoL era): To give the Thor a specific role make it like an air control siege tank. I called it "Flak cannons" back then (: So either have it in regular mode or in a stationary air control mode.
And pls redesign the Hellion (and to a lesser extend the Cyclone) to look more like the tank, they're OCD inducing.
Oh and the Tank should have more hp than the cyclone.
I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
On August 02 2015 18:40 Salteador Neo wrote: Just move the warp gate tech into the lategame seriously. The proposed idea is horribad.
Why do you think so?
Does not solve anything and it's confusing. Actually it also makes the warp prism the best toss unit, if it wasnt already, and prism allins stronger. And doesnt buff defensive warpins at all.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
- I'm not asking for anything, this change is coming from blizz not me - I'm saying that it WON'T make the game easier because it will shift the foucs to other mechanics and actually be more punishing due to less catch up on bad macro mechanics. - I don't see how you can say it won't increase micro, you can spend more time with your units instead of casting these. - What are the "Layers to injecting" please? - by decisions I mean very small instant decisions, like do I make two overlords or one, not grand strategic decisions. - Everything else is ad hominem and not worth addressing.
On August 02 2015 18:40 Salteador Neo wrote: Just move the warp gate tech into the lategame seriously. The proposed idea is horribad.
Why do you think so?
Does not solve anything and it's confusing. Actually it also makes the warp prism the best toss unit, if it wasnt already, and prism allins stronger. And doesnt buff defensive warpins at all.
"Does not solve anything and it's confusing" - Solves aggressive warp in being too strong, I'll definitly agree that suggested change is confusing
"makes the warp prism the best toss unit" - How is this a problem?
"prism allins stronger" - Good point, I have to give you that.
"doesnt buff defensive warpins at all" - That's just wrong, you go from 5 seconds to 2
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
- I'm not asking for anything, this change is coming from blizz not me - I'm saying that it WON'T make the game easier because it will shift the foucs to other mechanics and actually be more punishing due to less catch up on bad macro mechanics. - I don't see how you can say it won't increase micro, you can spend more time with your units instead of casting these. - What are the "Layers to injecting" please? - by decisions I mean very small instant decisions, like do I make two overlords or one, not grand strategic decisions. - Everything else is ad hominem and not worth addressing.
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. As for increasing micro where will this increase micro, sc2 battles only take a few seconds and anyone with a brain prioritizes microing their units over a few seconds of missed injects. Literally all this does is make the game easier.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
- I'm not asking for anything, this change is coming from blizz not me - I'm saying that it WON'T make the game easier because it will shift the foucs to other mechanics and actually be more punishing due to less catch up on bad macro mechanics. - I don't see how you can say it won't increase micro, you can spend more time with your units instead of casting these. - What are the "Layers to injecting" please? - by decisions I mean very small instant decisions, like do I make two overlords or one, not grand strategic decisions. - Everything else is ad hominem and not worth addressing.
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. As for increasing micro where will this increase micro, sc2 battles only take a few seconds and anyone with a brain prioritizes microing their units over a few seconds of missed injects. Literally all this does is make the game easier.
- Again, Your'e confusing difficult and complex. injecting is very difficult, it's not complex at all.
- "I could go into the details of injects but it would take too long." it's okay, I have the time.
- SC2 battles do NOT take seconds, that's ridiculous, some engagements are fast but let's say defending a blink stalker attack with zerg takes minutes, and managing ling/muta against Terran is a constant struggle while you macro and control units at the same time.
- Now, you're only coherent point is that it's a multitasking challenge, I agree, everything in SC2 is a multitasking challenge. But injecting is a boring, simple, tedious challenge, that adds nothing to the depth of the game.
At this point you seem to be ignoring my answers and just restating your position again and again, pointless.
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.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
What exactly does it add at that high level though? For new players it's just frustrating, for top-tier players you pretty much have to hit all injects anyway. It doesn't really improve the playing experience and it doesn't really improve the viewing experience. Why keep it?
But then you don't have to make choices anymore. Some players (e.g. Fantasy, who is this to the extreme) generally elect to focus on army control and multitask over macro, which is a valid choice. Other players decide that controlling multiple armies isn't worth it. But with the direction that this stuff is going in, then everyone would play like Fantasy but not mess up their macro, which I think is a little silly.
This is a valid argument, and while its not my prefered way to add diversity, a very high macro skillcap can definitely help seperate player identities.
However, Sc2 doesn't have this skillcap. Top players aren't seperated by their macro skills, but only by whether they play a macrostyle (e.g. doesn't allin) or more aggressive.
The real effect of Sc2 macromechanics is to make it harder for nonskilled players which is exactly what you do not want. Sc2 macro is a bit of middle-of-the roadh thing here where it has the worst of both worlds.
Either macro should have a much much higher skillcap so it seperated players or it should be made much easier so players could focus more on controlling units, which most players prefer.
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.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even have injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
It doesn't have to be the same.
Injecting 5 or 6 hatcheries can be insanely powerful. Even if you don't do it perfectly, having 20 or 24 additional larvae can make a difference.
With reducing the autocast inject to 2 or 3 larvae, I (a zerg player) would need more hatches to get the production capability. I rather would prefer to inject than spending a drone and 300 minerals. (Since the hatchery provides 6 instead of 2 supply, I also save half an overlord, bringing the effective cost down to a drone and 250 minerals. Still, those are expenses.)
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even have injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
It doesn't have to be the same.
Injecting 5 or 6 hatcheries can be insanely powerful. Even if you don't do it perfectly, having 20 or 24 additional larvae can make a difference.
With reducing the autocast inject to 2 or 3 larvae, I (a zerg player) would need more hatches to get the production capability. I rather would prefer to inject than spending a drone and 300 minerals. (Since the hatchery provides 6 instead of 2 supply, I also save half an overlord, bringing the effective cost down to a drone and 250 minerals. Still, those are expenses.)
That's why they are also nerfing mules and chrono.
On August 01 2015 04:47 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: I agree with the macro mechanics. People dont know how hard is to Inject on 5-6 bases. LotV is way harder, terran and protoss have easiest marco.... but zerg is way more complex by far.
I think the Koreans ask them this because it really is hard to do it, some pro players cant even have injects perfectly !
You can always use MULES and CHRONO, Inject is not the same.
It doesn't have to be the same.
Injecting 5 or 6 hatcheries can be insanely powerful. Even if you don't do it perfectly, having 20 or 24 additional larvae can make a difference.
With reducing the autocast inject to 2 or 3 larvae, I (a zerg player) would need more hatches to get the production capability. I rather would prefer to inject than spending a drone and 300 minerals. (Since the hatchery provides 6 instead of 2 supply, I also save half an overlord, bringing the effective cost down to a drone and 250 minerals. Still, those are expenses.)
There's two core differences between those things though.
If you miss those injects, you're essentially 4 short. On 5 bases you get 15 "almost guaranteed", and in the worst case(missed all 5 injects) you don't end up having 20 extra. Which, depending on the unit composition, can be huge as we all know.
If injects now would be less effective but easier to do(due to auto-injecting you only have to make sure queens are in range, I assume), you end up with more hatcheries and thus more "guaranteed larvae" + a higher chance of getting the extra larvae, resulting in a higher larvae count all round.
It's certainly something that can change balance, but if you nerf terran's and protoss' macro mechanics accordingly, I can see it working out.
My main problem with auto-inject is Zerg production may either lose its identity or become OP. If you have auto-inject, basically you can build units every X seconds, when a new Larva spawns. It is exactly like Terran, you build units every X seconds when the previous one finishes. You don't have queues, sure, but you can stockpile Larva and make massive amounts of units very fast if need be. The way this problem is dealt with in HotS is adding the inject mechanic, whose only goal is to be there and be hard to execute. Literally it is an added weight for Zerg players, so that there be some drawback to the amazingly fast and amazingly flexible production. This is, in my opinion, the most inelegant way of addressing a problem, far worse than any Photon Overcharge or Warp-in or anything people are generally upset about. Now if you remove the burden of injecitng, suddenly Zerg production will be OP, so you will have to nerf it somehow. Either by reducing the Larva output or reducing the maximum amount of Larvae per Hatchery. Either way, Zerg production becomes less and less like it was, and will resemble Terran production more and more. I don't say that it is necessarily bad, but if Zerg loses too much of its uniqueness, it may be.
Hi! I'd posted and idea of a rework of the warp-gate mechanic on the EU SC2 forums that I want to share with you. I would love to listen to your feedback ^^.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
and you would consider yourself such a good player to judge that? Injects are terribly punishing to anything below rank 1-8 masters (and even there), to a level where zerg is barely playable effectively.
Why should the game have mechanics that are punishing to 99% of the players, when its not even something that is needed for the top 1%.
The game doesnt get complexer just because you add in some busy work at your base.
On August 02 2015 18:50 IcemanAsi wrote: I don't get people who complain about losing complexity or difficulty in regards to reducing these macro mechanics. Zerg inject has zero complexity ( you always want to inject ) but I can understand it for Terran and Protoss, but difficulty? I don't get that.
Let's say we eliminate all macro mechanics, completely. Macro won't be easier, it will just be different, supply timings will become more critical, both players won't be able to actually make up for lost macro time so it will become MORE punishing to let your macro slip up. You will have more time to focus on your micro, but so will your opponent.
The game will be different for sure, but easier? Why? Do you really think that eliminating these mechanics will leave you with enough time to do all the other micro perfectly? Of course not.
Now, as a Zerg player, let me tell you something, inject sucks, it isn't fun, it isn't interesting, it's difficult in all the wrong ways. Now, after five years, we gotten used to it and yeah it is fun doing something difficult well, so I like injecting well. But I would love, LOVE, to never have to do it again and focus on stuff like actual macro 'Decisions'. What to make, when to make it, how many overlords to get. And be punished when I make those decisions wrong instead of when I miss a timing test that people have literally made metronome apps for.
Down with injects! Five years too long!!
Just because you don't have the apm to inject perfectly doesn't mean you should remove it. It's an important part of what separates players even at the very top. Someone like Jaedong has perfect injects all the time and is still able to micro amazingly, lots of european pros have sub par injects and it can really hold them back in matchups like tvz. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't complex. It's fucking hard to have perfect injects and anyone who says they do who isn't even grandmaster is lying. You won't see any increase in micro by removing injects, good players are already doing it all.
- I don't miss injects beucase of APM, I miss injects mostly because I'm thinking about something else ( I shouldn't be, it's the most critical thing as zerg ) - No one can "Do it all", SC2 is designed to and is impossible to play perfectly - Seeing it has nothing to do with complexity, it isn't complex because there are no decisions involved ( for zerg ) - Yes, it is extremely hard, a boring, simple, tedious hard. - Of course you will see a change in micro, those seconds you spent on macro mechanics will now be used to micro units - I agree it currently separates players, so what? I prefer macro decisions and micro mechanics separate players.
You seem to be confusing complexity with difficulty, inject is difficult but not complex. It might be complex to do it perfectly, but that's not a complexity of the task in itself.
What your asking for is for bad players like yourself to have an easier time, injecting is a technique that can take literally years to master there are many layers to injecting and its not just as simple as "oh its monotonous and everyone has do it". You seem to be under the impression it will increase micro (it won't for good players it might for bad ones). You keep talking about decisions and having time to think, good players have already decided what they're going to do minutes before they even do it. You just don't understand the game well enough and that's why you're having to think about things which is something everyone goes through in playing sc2. Injecting does not get in the way of decision making if you're at a high enough level.
and you would consider yourself such a good player to judge that? Injects are terribly punishing to anything below rank 1-8 masters (and even there), to a level where zerg is barely playable effectively.
Why should the game have mechanics that are punishing to 99% of the players, when its not even something that is needed for the top 1%.
The game doesnt get complexer just because you add in some busy work at your base.
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.
TL;DR: I really, really, really want to continue to do manual injects with my queens in LOTV (and I like the other races' macro mechanics too). This is the first LOTV change I have felt strongly about.
I don't mind if injects are nerfed a bit (e.g. hatcheries spawn 4-5 larva in the time they used to spawn 3, and queen injects only spawn 2 or 3). I don't mind if there is an optional autocast which is slightly less effective than manual at my level (I'm mid diamond). I don't even mind if in the late game it becomes better to switch autocast on, to focus more on micro at that time.
But I want to manually inject, at least until the mid game, and for doing that well to make at least some difference to my performance in the game (and not to automatically be worse than auto-injecting).
I've been playing SC2 casually since release, and I was gold league until 2 seasons ago, when I realised that macro was the only thing i needed to focus on. Having concentrated solely on spending my money, building overlords, spreading creep and injecting, I'm rushing up the ranks, and will hopefully hit masters in a couple of seasons (at age 28 & working long hours, my time is very finite for reaching the higher ranks! ) I am really proud of my queen injects having had a big impact on my ranking. It feels so good hitting them all when the queens have exactly 25 energy.
I just don't agree with the "if you can't see it easily when observing, it's a bad mechanic" line of thought. So new players won't be able to understand why the pros have loads of extra units compared with them at that same time. But that's largely due to constant worker production. That was also hard to see until modders added "worker count" as standard to the Observer UIs. It would be simple to also provide some stats on queen/Nexus/CC energy (e.g. total injects completed, total number of scans currently available, etc). We also have casters to point things out.
It's rewarding to understand what's happening in a pro game by more than just the face value of what's on screen. The building zealot which will be cancelled if there's no ebay. The widow mine placement that would have intercepted an oracle if the Protoss had been building one (even though he's not). The +1 armour upgrade first in PvT because terran units have high attack speed. The saved up chrono boost which indicates the protoss is going to rush warp tech.Soo's perfect injects that just make him ahead.Terran taking a risk on an Orbital instead of PF for his 3rd base meaning he can drop more mules. These are all things that a casual viewer wouldn't necessarily appreciate, but to someone dedicated to watching and learning the game really add reward. Taking away subtle differences of player's skills and preferences - to reluctantly use the cliché - "dumbs down" viewing SC2. Having a game which takes mastery to learn and understand is very, very rewarding, and this can be retained even within the constraints of making it easier to "get into" the game for new players.
I also find the general idea of "all micro all the time" to be bad for tactics - at least for me. I don't mind the game being harder, and more multitask intensive: theoretically it should equally be harder for my opponent too, plus the best pros will shine more (Bonjwas, hurray!), but there needs to be a bit of thinking time for "right he's probably doing X so I'll try and do Y now". That downtime for me is often during injects + creep spreading. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but when I'm having a long drawn out micro battle it's really hard not to tunnel vision and keep building the same units. I'm worried this will happen much more if the game is all micro and no downtime/macro (a little more action is OK by me, but please don't go overboard).
Too much micro isn't good for viewers either; there are already PvMaru HOTS games where the observer literally can't keep up with showing us all the action. It's going to be even more hectic in LOTV - yes it will be more exciting, but will I even be able to see it all? When will Tasteless have time to tell me how his latest game of Battle Toads was?
I want my hard work on macro, and specifically on inject timings to continue mean something, and games not to be dictated by micro only (admittedly largely because I'm old and slow these days). I also want for viewing starcraft to be a combination of showcasing flashy micros skills but also subtle advantages that players are getting for being both smart and having superlative macro mechanics - some of which only dedicated starcraft viewers will appreciate fully.
On August 02 2015 22:05 Haighstrom wrote: TL;DR: I really, really, really want to continue to do manual injects with my queens in LOTV (and I like the other races' macro mechanics too). This is the first LOTV change I have felt strongly about.
I don't mind if injects are nerfed a bit (e.g. hatcheries spawn 4-5 larva in the time they used to spawn 3, and queen injects only spawn 2 or 3). I don't mind if there is an optional autocast which is slightly less effective than manual at my level (I'm mid diamond). I don't even mind if in the late game it becomes better to switch autocast on, to focus more on micro at that time.
But I want to manually inject, at least until the mid game, and for doing that well to make at least some difference to my performance in the game (and not to automatically be worse than auto-injecting).
I've been playing SC2 casually since release, and I was gold league until 2 seasons ago, when I realised that macro was the only thing i needed to focus on. Having concentrated solely on spending my money, building overlords, spreading creep and injecting, I'm rushing up the ranks, and will hopefully hit masters in a couple of seasons (at age 28 & working long hours, my time is very finite for reaching the higher ranks! ) I am really proud of my queen injects having had a big impact on my ranking. It feels so good hitting them all when the queens have exactly 25 energy.
I just don't agree with the "if you can't see it easily when observing, it's a bad mechanic" line of thought. So new players won't be able to understand why the pros have loads of extra units compared with them at that same time. But that's largely due to constant worker production. That was also hard to see until modders added "worker count" as standard to the Observer UIs. It would be simple to also provide some stats on queen/Nexus/CC energy (e.g. total injects completed, total number of scans currently available, etc). We also have casters to point things out.
It's rewarding to understand what's happening in a pro game by more than just the face value of what's on screen. The building zealot which will be cancelled if there's no ebay. The widow mine placement that would have intercepted an oracle if the Protoss had been building one (even though he's not). The +1 armour upgrade first in PvT because terran units have high attack speed. The saved up chrono boost which indicates the protoss is going to rush warp tech.Soo's perfect injects that just make him ahead.Terran taking a risk on an Orbital instead of PF for his 3rd base meaning he can drop more mules. These are all things that a casual viewer wouldn't necessarily appreciate, but to someone dedicated to watching and learning the game really add reward. Taking away subtle differences of player's skills and preferences - to reluctantly use the cliché - "dumbs down" viewing SC2. Having a game which takes mastery to learn and understand is very, very rewarding, and this can be retained even within the constraints of making it easier to "get into" the game for new players.
I also find the general idea of "all micro all the time" to be bad for tactics - at least for me. I don't mind the game being harder, and more multitask intensive: theoretically it should equally be harder for my opponent too, plus the best pros will shine more (Bonjwas, hurray!), but there needs to be a bit of thinking time for "right he's probably doing X so I'll try and do Y now". That downtime for me is often during injects + creep spreading. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but when I'm having a long drawn out micro battle it's really hard not to tunnel vision and keep building the same units. I'm worried this will happen much more if the game is all micro and no downtime/macro (a little more action is OK by me, but please don't go overboard).
Too much micro isn't good for viewers either; there are already PvMaru HOTS games where the observer literally can't keep up with showing us all the action. It's going to be even more hectic in LOTV - yes it will be more exciting, but will I even be able to see it all? When will Tasteless have time to tell me how his latest game of Battle Toads was?
I want my hard work on macro, and specifically on inject timings to continue mean something, and games not to be dictated by micro only (admittedly largely because I'm old and slow these days). I also want for viewing starcraft to be a combination of showcasing flashy micros skills but also subtle advantages that players are getting for being both smart and having superlative macro mechanics - some of which only dedicated starcraft viewers will appreciate fully.
On August 02 2015 18:40 Salteador Neo wrote: Just move the warp gate tech into the lategame seriously. The proposed idea is horribad.
Why do you think so?
Does not solve anything and it's confusing. Actually it also makes the warp prism the best toss unit, if it wasnt already, and prism allins stronger. And doesnt buff defensive warpins at all.
"Does not solve anything and it's confusing" - Solves aggressive warp in being too strong, I'll definitly agree that suggested change is confusing
"makes the warp prism the best toss unit" - How is this a problem?
"prism allins stronger" - Good point, I have to give you that.
"doesnt buff defensive warpins at all" - That's just wrong, you go from 5 seconds to 2
The 2 second warpin is only from the gateways that are in the same pylon lol. That is jokingly bad.
So if you warp in to defend a base, how do you know how many of the gateways that are touching your warping pylon are not in cooldown? If you mass warpin you will have 2 or 3 units warp in 2 second and the rest in 16?
On August 02 2015 22:05 Haighstrom wrote: TL;DR: I really, really, really want to continue to do manual injects with my queens in LOTV (and I like the other races' macro mechanics too). This is the first LOTV change I have felt strongly about.
I don't mind if injects are nerfed a bit (e.g. hatcheries spawn 4-5 larva in the time they used to spawn 3, and queen injects only spawn 2 or 3). I don't mind if there is an optional autocast which is slightly less effective than manual at my level (I'm mid diamond). I don't even mind if in the late game it becomes better to switch autocast on, to focus more on micro at that time.
But I want to manually inject, at least until the mid game, and for doing that well to make at least some difference to my performance in the game (and not to automatically be worse than auto-injecting).
I've been playing SC2 casually since release, and I was gold league until 2 seasons ago, when I realised that macro was the only thing i needed to focus on. Having concentrated solely on spending my money, building overlords, spreading creep and injecting, I'm rushing up the ranks, and will hopefully hit masters in a couple of seasons (at age 28 & working long hours, my time is very finite for reaching the higher ranks! ) I am really proud of my queen injects having had a big impact on my ranking. It feels so good hitting them all when the queens have exactly 25 energy.
I just don't agree with the "if you can't see it easily when observing, it's a bad mechanic" line of thought. So new players won't be able to understand why the pros have loads of extra units compared with them at that same time. But that's largely due to constant worker production. That was also hard to see until modders added "worker count" as standard to the Observer UIs. It would be simple to also provide some stats on queen/Nexus/CC energy (e.g. total injects completed, total number of scans currently available, etc). We also have casters to point things out.
It's rewarding to understand what's happening in a pro game by more than just the face value of what's on screen. The building zealot which will be cancelled if there's no ebay. The widow mine placement that would have intercepted an oracle if the Protoss had been building one (even though he's not). The +1 armour upgrade first in PvT because terran units have high attack speed. The saved up chrono boost which indicates the protoss is going to rush warp tech.Soo's perfect injects that just make him ahead.Terran taking a risk on an Orbital instead of PF for his 3rd base meaning he can drop more mules. These are all things that a casual viewer wouldn't necessarily appreciate, but to someone dedicated to watching and learning the game really add reward. Taking away subtle differences of player's skills and preferences - to reluctantly use the cliché - "dumbs down" viewing SC2. Having a game which takes mastery to learn and understand is very, very rewarding, and this can be retained even within the constraints of making it easier to "get into" the game for new players.
I also find the general idea of "all micro all the time" to be bad for tactics - at least for me. I don't mind the game being harder, and more multitask intensive: theoretically it should equally be harder for my opponent too, plus the best pros will shine more (Bonjwas, hurray!), but there needs to be a bit of thinking time for "right he's probably doing X so I'll try and do Y now". That downtime for me is often during injects + creep spreading. I don't know if it's the same for everyone, but when I'm having a long drawn out micro battle it's really hard not to tunnel vision and keep building the same units. I'm worried this will happen much more if the game is all micro and no downtime/macro (a little more action is OK by me, but please don't go overboard).
Too much micro isn't good for viewers either; there are already PvMaru HOTS games where the observer literally can't keep up with showing us all the action. It's going to be even more hectic in LOTV - yes it will be more exciting, but will I even be able to see it all? When will Tasteless have time to tell me how his latest game of Battle Toads was?
I want my hard work on macro, and specifically on inject timings to continue mean something, and games not to be dictated by micro only (admittedly largely because I'm old and slow these days). I also want for viewing starcraft to be a combination of showcasing flashy micros skills but also subtle advantages that players are getting for being both smart and having superlative macro mechanics - some of which only dedicated starcraft viewers will appreciate fully.
I completely agree with this. Good post
2:nding as well. I like the feeling of doing my injects well!
quick disclaimer: I don't claim to speak for blizzard, I'm just presenting reasoning from a game-developers general perspective. Think of it as me playing the devil's advocate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil's_advocate
I see the point you are trying to make, I suppose I didn't see this distinction before. Thank you for pointing it out.
It still strikes me as strange that the answer is cutting or diminishing the mechanic rather than making it more visible, which probably wouldn't be that hard.
there are 2 counter arguments to this point:
1. the game without macro-mechanics is mechanically demanding enough and there is no need for further attention-demanding mechanics, therefore it wouldn't make sense to add such attention-demanding mechanics and therefore it does make sense to remove them from the game that has them.
I personally try to stay out of this argument since the debate here is over the statement "the game without macro-mechanics is mechanically demanding enough". some say no, others say yes, further others such as myself say I'm not sure.
I believe it is worth it to note that blizzard seem to at least partially agree with this. "With Legacy of the Void becoming more difficult to play due to our main goals - more action, micro on both sides during engagements, less downtime, etc. - we have been exploring areas that we can make easier." - David Kim 2015 http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18300016914
2. making macro mechanics more visible might be way more difficult than it seems.
personally I can't think of a good way to make the effects of macro-mechanics visible but I'm open to suggestions and I agree that if we assume that argument 1 doesn't hold (again I want to reiterate that I am undecided on that point) then making macro-mechanics more visible would definitely be the best option.
Again, if the biggest problem with the mechanics is that you can't visibly measure the other person's progress in game, is that really a big problem?
the problem comes at the end of the game and inbetween games, see last section, but you might be right that this is not enough of a problem to warrant a change.
Please tell me how removing this is going to make the game richer and more fun to play?
lets say we add a rule to chess that states "after making move you must tell a limerick featuring the piece you moved, you may not tell the same limerick twice in the same game". then there is a suggestion from the chess community to remove this rule, this suggestion is met with contestion.
some say the rule makes the game more complex and rewards players that are inventive and poetic, and therefore removing it would make the game much worse, furthermore, new players are entertained by the limericks, old players have memorized hundreds of limericks for each piece so to them the rule is not an issue other than having to remember which limericks they have said in the game, which adds an aspect of memorization which is a skill in itself.
others say the rule contributes little to the main gameplay of chess and it would make more sense to streamline the move-making by removing the limerick part, thereby allowing players to concentrate more on the main gameplay of the game, furthermore, new players are typically not very good at inventing new, original limericks on the fly and have not learned the recorded banks of hundreds of existing limericks, so it just presents an introduction-barrier to new players.
further others say removing the limericks would change the game into something new, but wouldn't stop the fun and difficult game from being fun and difficult, just fun and difficult in a different way. such a change would make chess-lovers happy and limerick-lovers sad but ultimately if the rule-change accomplishes a secondary goal that would be good for the game, then trying it out can't hurt, right? nothing says we can't change it back if we don't like it.
people in the first cathegory ask: "Please tell me how removing this is going to make the game richer and more fun to play?"
people in the second category ask: "Please tell me how adding this to the game without it is going to make the game richer and more fun to play?"
people in the third category watch the discussion with popcorn.
who is right? this is a rhetorical question, there is no need to answer.
Removing it just makes macro less difficult, does that make it easier for me to measure the progress of an opponent? What does this accomplish from blizzards perspective?
I think this design goal of "cutting down" (note it doesn't say "remove") on high-difficulty low-visibility (arguably high-reward also belongs as a prefix) tasks are for the purpose of player retention more than player inflow. (it might help with inflow too, but I don't think that's the main goal)
note that "high-difficulty low-visibility tasks" include macro mechanics but are not limited to them and blizz has never said they want to remove or cut down on everything that fits this cathegory, for example, enemy resource banks and knowing how well the enemy spends their money is a high-difficulty low-visibility task, but there has been no indication that blizz wants to make the resource counters visible to both players or anything of the sort, another thing in a similar vein (but not as invisible) is attack/armor upgrades. true most good players check the enemy upgrades by clicking on the enemy units but I am willing to bet that a large majority of players don't do this as often as they should.
so how does this help with player retention? because it reduces the severity and frequency of frustrating losses by making losses less frustrating, which in turn helps to prevent tilt which in turn helps to prevent toxicity.
the time when players are the most likely to leave the game forever is when they are frustrated and don't see any clear way to improve/ dont see why they lost a game they were convinced they were even or ahead in, if in fact they weren't even or ahead and in fact were far behind because the enemy had been stocking up on invisible advantages which ends up crushing the player unexpectedly, this leaves the player perplexed and frustrated.
furthermore, players that are on tilt are much more unlikely to check replays to actually find out why they lost to cure/remedy/soften their own tilt, therefore one should not expect players to check replays to find these things out.
again I would like to reiterate that I don't speak for blizzard, but I think the above are valid arguments that blizzard could use if they wanted to.
On August 02 2015 18:40 Salteador Neo wrote: Just move the warp gate tech into the lategame seriously. The proposed idea is horribad.
Why do you think so?
Does not solve anything and it's confusing. Actually it also makes the warp prism the best toss unit, if it wasnt already, and prism allins stronger. And doesnt buff defensive warpins at all.
"Does not solve anything and it's confusing" - Solves aggressive warp in being too strong, I'll definitly agree that suggested change is confusing
"makes the warp prism the best toss unit" - How is this a problem?
"prism allins stronger" - Good point, I have to give you that.
"doesnt buff defensive warpins at all" - That's just wrong, you go from 5 seconds to 2
The 2 second warpin is only from the gateways that are in the same pylon lol. That is jokingly bad.
So if you warp in to defend a base, how do you know how many of the gateways that are touching your warping pylon are not in cooldown? If you mass warpin you will have 2 or 3 units warp in 2 second and the rest in 16?
Sounds awful imo.
you misunderstand the proposed warp gate change, you have read it as: "if you warp in a unit on the pylon that the warp gate that you are using to produce is being powered by then it takes 2 seconds else it takes 16 seconds"
the actual thing is: "if you are warping in on a pylon which is powering a warp gate, then it takes 2 seconds, else it takes 16 seconds"
a pylon powering any warp gate will warp things in in 2 seconds regardless of which warp gate was used to warp in the unit.
just wanted to clear up that misconception, my opinion on this matter is this model is far from perfect but its far better than what we have now.
this is basically a combination of the proposed solutions in http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/18300015133#1 the two proposed soutions back then was: option 1: warp gates make their own warp-in field and warp prisms also make warp-in fields and these warp-in fields are different from pylon power. option 2: pylons need an upgrade to provide warp-in capability.
lets call this latest proposal option 3: pylons that are powering warp gates have fast warp-gate capability, other pylons have slow warp gate capability.
so option 3 is basically option 1 in the sense that warping-in in is strongest close to warp gates and option 2 in the sense that pylons need to be upgraded (by attaching a warpgate) to provide strong warp-in, the main difference is option 3 doesn't prohibit warp-ins in locations without strong warp-in, it only delays it by a lot.
On August 02 2015 20:39 Hider wrote: 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.
This I think is a key sentence in figuring out what the design goal should be to allow new players in. No one says the game has to be dumbed down. But avoiding punishing you outright for being bad, while instad focusing on rewarding greatness, time spent, attention to detail and skill would go a long way towards that I think.
On August 02 2015 20:50 Matt` wrote: 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.
The idea of having several very different tasks to learn and then to choose which to prioritize is good. I think most people arguing for the removal or drastic reduction in the current macro boosting skills feel that the ones we have are hard to master without being fun, and worst of all, very non-transparent for viewers or maybe even opponents. Those are not the design you want necessarily for those types of abilities.
On August 02 2015 22:05 Haighstrom wrote:I just don't agree with the "if you can't see it easily when observing, it's a bad mechanic" line of thought. ... That was also hard to see until modders added "worker count" as standard to the Observer UIs. It would be simple to also provide some stats on queen/Nexus/CC energy (e.g. total injects completed, total number of scans currently available, etc). We also have casters to point things out.
I would argue that achieving the same goal of having a tough multi-tasking game with priorities, don´t have to include tasks that are very hard to observe, comment on or see. The argument is that our current ones are more invisible than we´d like.
I would also argue that we already have more numbers and metrics than can be sanely followed or discussed. Adding more numbers would not give casters and observers the ability to translate them into an easy to follow story as the information to be communicated is already at a very dense state.
Too much micro isn't good for viewers either; there are already PvMaru HOTS games where the observer literally can't keep up with showing us all the action. It's going to be even more hectic in LOTV - yes it will be more exciting, but will I even be able to see it all? When will Tasteless have time to tell me how his latest game of Battle Toads was?
Yes. This is something that came to my mind even with the increased expanding. Even if sending 1-2 harass units to 3-4 bases while a fight is going on will stretch what can be observed and translated into a coherent storyline for the viewers. Tricky. But I still don´t think that means we have to keep our current macro boosters, or keep them in their current state. Just that this needs to be considered.
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.
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?
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.
I think it would be better if they redesigned Inject.
Chronoboost and MULE have the advantage that they don't have to hit a timer, you can spam them if you forget. so to redesign Inject
Only takes 5 seconds for larva to spawn Costs 50 energy (maybe change to 5 Larva?)
Max Larva/Hatchery when spawn larva has no effect=5-10 (as opposed to 19)
So for maximum larva/sec instead of 2 Queens you build 1 Hatchery But Queens can 'Store' larva in the form of energy (and act as AA in the meantime) so Queens are good for remaxing, Hatcheries are good for buildup.
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.
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.
.
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.
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
Thanks for posting this and I hope others realized the emotional influence on their stand. It is a hard pill to swallow for those who attained their ladder ranks through hard work on macro mechanics knowing that it will not pay off in LotV. What we see now is very similar to the reaction to the removal of MBS and unlimited unit selection. Any game mechanic can be a skill set that differentiate players, but that does not make it a good enough reason to warrant it's stay.
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
Thing is, Blizzard has already made an RTS that's almost entirely focused on unit control, it's called Warcraft. Warcraft 3 was an incredible game, best they've ever done really (along with Brood War) but had mechanics that were super adapted to the micro part of things : heroes, low number of units, splendid spell-casting system, etc. This "philosophy" doesn't fit Starcraft 2 because of how retardedly quick fights are and how little of a difference you can make by actually microing better.
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
Thanks for posting this and I hope others realized the emotional influence on their stand. It is a hard pill to swallow for those who attained their ladder ranks through hard work on macro mechanics knowing that it will not pay off in LotV. What we see now is very similar to the reaction to the removal of MBS and unlimited unit selection. Any game mechanic can be a skill set that differentiate players, but that does not make it a good enough reason to warrant it's stay.
Well, the difference from MBS and auto rally is that this is a shift of what is difficult, removing MBS and auto rally was removing things that are difficult. Removing MBS and adding auto rally almost certainly made the game easier to get into, while there is no such certainty in shifting macro to micro difficulty.
So yes, my argument was emotional, but that doesn't mean that everyone arguing the same cause are also purely responding emotionally, nor does it mean that arguing the opposite automatically isn't emotional...
So if you read my post as me admitting that removing injects is the logical choice, not sure if you did, you got it wrong. Actually I was arguing that there probably is a group of people, the StarCraft veterans, that possibly will be very sad to see inject go.
Nig thanks to Roblin for pointing out how I misunderstood the warpin proposed idea. I think it kinda proves how it is kinda confusing and not elegant imo.
I agree it might be better than the current warpin mechanic, but I'm sure there's big room to improve. 16 second might as well be no warpin allowed really. We'd rather warp them at home and walk there, than have a unit unable to attack and vulnerable for 16 seconds?
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
Thanks for posting this and I hope others realized the emotional influence on their stand. It is a hard pill to swallow for those who attained their ladder ranks through hard work on macro mechanics knowing that it will not pay off in LotV. What we see now is very similar to the reaction to the removal of MBS and unlimited unit selection. Any game mechanic can be a skill set that differentiate players, but that does not make it a good enough reason to warrant it's stay.
Well, the difference from MBS and auto rally is that this is a shift of what is difficult, removing MBS and auto rally was removing things that are difficult. Removing MBS and adding auto rally almost certainly made the game easier to get into, while there is no such certainty in shifting macro to micro difficulty.
So yes, my argument was emotional, but that doesn't mean that everyone arguing the same cause are also purely responding emotionally, nor does it mean that arguing the opposite automatically isn't emotional...
So if you read my post as me admitting that removing injects is the logical choice, not sure if you did, you got it wrong. Actually I was arguing that there probably is a group of people, the StarCraft veterans, that possibly will be very sad to see inject go.
No, I did not read your post as admitting that removal of injects is the logical choice. I'm appreciating the fact that you highlight the existence of an emotional stake here. I don't assume all argument against the change are responding emotionally nor the opposite, but there are some who are but are not aware of it.
On August 03 2015 14:45 Parcelleus wrote: 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.
I think we should test it out.
For me, and I think for many others in the thread, the problem isn't the total mechanical requirement of the game, which as you say will still be very high in lotv, with or without macro mechanics. What bothers me is that the mechanical requirements would shift from economy to unit control. I'm not saying that a game needs to have super hard economy mechanics to be a good game. but I think many of us, maybe especially people that have played sc1/2 for a long time, are used to and enjoy having macro skills as a huge factor in who wins the game, especially at lower levels. Removing inject, as a reaction to the increased micro requirement, would be a step away from that, which I'd be a bit sad to see.
I feel that it'd move sc2 towards "all the other games" that typically are more about unit control than demanding economy. Again, I don't try to claim that having a hard-to-handle economy is required to make a good game, and it may be less inviting for new players, I am not sure, but it is at the heart of why I have played starcraft 1 and 2 since it was released, and that may very well the case for others as well.
So this is a purely emotional argument from my side, nothing right or wrong, just explaining why I am not personally happy to see this suggestion.
Im not sure, but from Dayvie's post, he says 'a few clicks' worth, so going by that it would hardly be noticeable but it would be less nevertheless (sorry bout that wording). If thats the case, I dont see it shifting the focus to unit micro very much if at all. At least that would be my hope.
- I agree that macro should be one the main pillars in SC2 gameplay and that we should not mess with it. Having said that, 'a few clicks' sounds ok and worth a try at least in the beta I would say. Only because Dayvie backed up that comment with a reason that might make sense (more apm required for LOTV).
- I also agree that it gets hairy with Zerg and injects. It's a different kettle of fish when comparing it to T and P's mules and chrono. I dont have a solution this minute, its an interesting one.
One theme I keep seeing repeated in the pro-macro-removal camp is that Zerg injects are "just mindless clicks", and "boring".
My response to this is that the reward for Zerg players is in the making of it becoming "mindless", i.e. learning a new and unique skill. Committing inject cycles to muscle memory and getting the timer into your brain is really hard at first, but becomes automatic after you practice enough - and feels great when you do it well.
This is comparable in Pool to potting balls becoming "automatic" (at which point positioning of the white ball becomes all that matters), or serving in Squash becoming "mindless" once you've perfected your serve. Potting easy balls in Pool and Snooker still feels damn good, even when you can do it trivially (I can clear off the break, FYI). You perform these tasks the same every time, but they still give you a great feeling because you worked hard to perfect them and not everyone you play has. The reward is in the results, not the doing, specifically.
Secondly, when injects become "mindless", it then allows you to use that time to think strategically. If you are always concentrating on "active decision" clicks (like microing your army), you don't have time to think and form a plan based on what you have seen and initiate a response.
My main objection, is not in the removal of injects, per se, but in the removal of different types of multitasking. I am happy for the game to increase to more heavy multitasking, as long as those tasks to be managed are varied in nature (I don't consider clicking speedbanes on a mineral line and mutas in another one to be different "types" of tasks).
For example, consider a simple model for Zerg that HOTS tasks consists of: Army x 2, Creep, Injects, Units/Buildings. LOTV currently consists of Army x 3, Creep, Injects, Units/Buildings. The new proposal is Army x 4, Creep, Units/Buildings. My issue is that LOTV already increases the multitasking requirement on Army as a task which needs to be prioritised. Removing injects removes one unique facet of the game and race, and replaces it with a clone of a facet we already have in abundance.
And we won't even be able to see the pros using that extra time on their armies because they will perform those actions on multiple areas of the map faster than we can watch them (macro requirements temper what is visible, which is a good thing!)
By all means, remove injects and replace it with another hard-to-master macro skill which is more "visible", but please don't replace some parts of macro with micro when we already have more micro requirements in LOTV; it's a bridge too far for me.
Ultimately, most Zerg players choose the race because it is the "macro" race: this is its unique selling point, and I am sad to see a (however small) shift away from that.
To me, making inject automatic seems like a very good change. When I played actively, I developed good routine to inject throughout the game and I feel that most of the commenters in this topic are fond of these habits they have become accustomed to. However, going through 5 bases to spam injects is pretty mindless for a strategy game, especially when you anticipate something interesting to happen. I would rather spend that time poking, scouting and finding ways to get an advantage. Dropping injects might make Zerg a bit more appealing race to master?
The two options as I see them or would like to see them: 1) Nerf Mule/Inject to almost 50% the power level. Thus making it more a decision of, do I build a Queen for extra defense+later creep spread, or do I add an expansion for about the same amount of Larvae and it's an expansion. Mule would be about the same power level as Supply Drop+Scan, thus really helping low level players, if they need extra information/help with Supply blocking or even if it just fits better in a build, as opposed to just always Muling. Adding on a CC for extra SCV production would also be closer to the income gain of an Orbital Command, thus making any decision in the game much harder. Chrono already has decision in the spell, though I suppose you could nerf it's power on Upgrades moreso than when producing units/workers. I think the correct way to nerf them is their strength over their mana cost, since that would keep the skill ceiling higher, while making it harder for players to decide if they want to give their attention to macroing or to microing, thus hopefully creating more playstyles and differentiate players. 2) Remove all the Macro Boosters, even Inject, if it's automated I don't see why it's even in the game, other than to confuse new players. Another reason would be needed for the Queen to stay at home and have it be a target of harass. Killing Queens would still need to be important. This option really cater to the casual and the spectator side of Starcraft. It would stop Players screwing up their micro, not because they have bad micro, but because they CHOSE to macro up instead. The viewer would then be under the impression that the Player is not as good as thought to be, yadda yadda.
Really don't see one option being much greater than the other, but this is how I ideally would see them split up, instead of auto inject and the not nerfed enough option.
Another area you could make the macro side a little easier, would be to reduce the build time of Supply Depots/Pylons/Overlords. It can be quite frustrating to get supply blocked. Having this in addition to option 2, might be stretching it, but might be a better reason to pick option 1.
Oh and when i say remove the macro mechanics I couldnt care less about the viewers. It's about a) me as a player not liking them conceptually: singleplayeresque with no decision behind because they are way to strong to not use all the time, in particular injects b) mechanically: tell me of one zerg who in the midst of mutalisk harass and a combat and a runby went like: "gosh I really would like to inject some hatcheries now and park my mutalisk in this corner for a few seconds" but it's actually true. If you have to make the decision to inject or micro the injections are more important. c) strategically: inject attacks are ruining ZvZ early game because they generate too many units too fast. Mass mulehammers are often instantwins for terrans if they can acquire a certain xth base in the lategame, while for the other races its a big investment and risk to place another base on location. Also the notion to kill all your workers to have a bigger army size while maintaining the income is stupid when the other races dont have free units as workers. Chronoboost is actually not bad in any way besides fuelling stupid proxy rushes. But even those could be "saved" simply by tuning the build times.
They already did ages ago and for that reason terrible units like carries take ages too build without chronoboost. Besides what about giving Senties the ability to automatically place forcefields? I mean if you place them wrong you lose or whats next automatically worker build? B: what else is Zerg doing besides Larva Injects and Creep spread since i dont recall doing alot else what the other races arent already doing besides hoping you dont overdrone....and Zerg units lack abilities so besides positioning and a moving arround it cant be much else.
All does changes are so silly, terrible and desperate.
Mostly the only thing Zerg is doing besides a moving arround the map is Queen and Larva control. They dont have blink, or things like overstimming in fact most zerg units dont even have abilities and every race has positioning so please dont come up with that.
While Mules and Chroneboosts are boring and easyer they are still part of the game. With protoss if you fu-up your chronoboosts, your all-in is maybe delayed for too long and you lose. And all-ins is basically the only thing Protoss can do atm. Chronoboost is also one of the reasons why every Protoss unit take 15 years to build. With Mules well making Terrans waste energy with scans instead of Mules in the early and mid game or even the late game if Terran lack Orbital Commands with things like DT's and Burrowed zerglings or something like that at something to the game sure most of the time it's not game breaking. Also removing the mule is a nerf for units like DT's and Banshees not even the fact that hiding your tech is like 500x harder since the whole map is getting scanned 24/7. It seems to me, they are only care about the clueless viewer who is watching SC2 for the first and last time.
The massive stupid warpin nerf wont change the all-ins they just take a Warp Prisms with them or die trying. Also often you see a Protoss player withdraw or straightup lose if the proxy pylon or Warp Prisms is killed both early too late game ever wondered why? Even if they make defensive warpins faster warpgate units still suck and often not a option or the counter. Also Protoss is already a very defensive race if you nerf offensive warpins it only get worse. Warpgate units suck in small numbers or while outnumbered and you cant warpin when your maxed. Protoss also really sucks at defending multiple bases since they dont have creep highways or things like planetaries and mobilitiy and in most cases you dont want to warp in warpgate units everytime one of your bases is under attack. Since in the late game warpgate units are basically cannon folder while some of the decent units are doing there work.
And can we please just remove the Disruptor it's a terrible designed unit and it always will be.
Besides where are the changes to units like Lurkers it seems to me they are only bussy in nerfing or changing the crap out of Protoss? They are 1 of the reasons protoss players all-in so much since not a single unit counters them. Atleast that is one of the reasons i all-in every zerg if i play Protoss. Which is another part of the problem not single person who is working on the development for this game is even wondering why Protoss is all-in in almost every game in LOTV.
Ah well, we will see what changes are gone make it, atm i refuse too preorder anyway, infact i refuse too play the beta and switched back to the live servers. Good thing i have beta acces without paying for it like alot of people who preordered.
Hmmm... I think Blizz right to look at macro-mechanics. Becuz one of the main problems with SC2 is looking away from army for 2 sec could mean army is dead. However I think it would be good to have some statistics. I'm guessing a pro-player uses 2-5 percent of time and keystrokes on machro-mechanics, however nub-players probably spends way more percent time and keystroke. So this change would favor nub-players Then someone should to evaluate how much impact the mechanics make in a game, both in terms of macro and strategy. I think taking away mules and chrono will mess with early game, but be less of a factor late game.
I guess one here is weighing micro vs. early game strategy and macro. Force vs. Finesse or something like that lol. But in pro-scene I don't think there would be an incredible change in play.
But seriously someone calculate the percent keystroke and time that macro-mechanics use, then we can argue more validly on this point
On August 03 2015 16:48 CptMarvel wrote: Like most people, I disagree with removing macro mechanics, especially injects. They defo should rework MULEs and Chronos though.
Why? Far as I can tell, MULES are better designed than Inject larvae is because they are actually a choice. Larva Inject is something every Zerg always HAS TO DO. MULEs have strategic importance and only really become a no brainer late in games when Terrans can build a lot of Orbitals. If Terrans MULE at the wrong time then they could be without a scan that can lose them the game outright. Zerg has to both inject larva and spread creep constantly over the course of the game just as a basic part of playing their race.
You could remove Larva Inject completely and rebalance Hatchery innate larva production and you won't miss that much from Zerg other than freeing up a ton of APM for them to control armies with.
IMO, if they're going to mess with macro mechanics than mess with all of them not just one.
PLZ BLIZZARD cut the mechanics, they are very stressfull and not fun at all, its more fun to play with units and i want to feel free, not click every minute on the mechanic button. The most people here are wrong.
People cry for years to remove mules injects and chrono, so many rage posts and hate on TL and finally Blizzard responds and tries to make room for more outstanding micro and decisionmaking .... and people whine again?
I love the warpgate change, 2 sec. warpin defensively is awesome. Offensive warpin is nerfed as it should, now one almost not spotted pylon can't win the game anymore ore not that easily. Curious what they will do to the disruptor.
It's kind of weird to see them take a look at all these drastic changes when they really didn't change this kind of stuff in the WoL or HotS beta.
Making the macro mechanics less significant is an interesting idea imo. I don't think they should be removed, just lessened.
I really like all this feedback. I just kind of wish they do another expansion or something and continue supporting Starcraft with the same level of experimentation.
Long time TL forums reader here. When I read the community update, I was pleasantly surprised, and actually expected the same overall reaction from the community.
When it comes to discussions about macro mechanics, there seem to be two main thrusts of argument that emphasize different aspects. Let's call them macro mechanics as an APM sink and macro mechanics as a strategic resource.
Macro mechanics as an APM sink
I think Blizzard's reasoning mostly focuses on the first aspect. The idea is that there should be something going on in your bases that requires your attention, thereby challenging your ability to multitask. Our current macro mechanics achieve that purpose, but that does not mean that they are good mechanics. Basically everything that requires attention could fill that role. I'd make semi-hyperbolic comparisons to mechanics that require you to solve a math problem every 30 seconds or all your bases stop mining, but I'm almost convinced you would find people on this forum arguing against its removal, if it was actually part of the game, on the grounds that it's something that distinguishes players.
Basically everything that you extraneously insert into the game requires some skill and distinguishes players. That's almost a tautological argument.
Therefore I think that Blizzard's approach is right: if we want to occupy the players' attention with multiple things (and we do), then it's preferable that these things are fun. As a player, it's more fun to be out there on the map doing things with my units, on all levels of skill. Because that's what you're looking for when playing an RTS. As a viewer, it's more satisfying to see another front unfold or watch better micro, than having pros waste APM on macro mechanics that are not immediately rewarding. And in my view, professional archon mode games have shown that there's lots of room for fun stuff to do if macroing requires less attention.
As an aside, it's kind of disappointing that macro mechanics are suddenly regarded as the lynchpin of macro around here. Is macro really all about clicking a button at the right moment so that you don't waste an opportunity? When it comes down to active unit abilities you all seem to hate that approach. LotV has changed the macro game significantly with the new economy, and the fact that you have to expand much faster is already an aspect that requires additional attention compared to HotS, and it only seems fair to compensate for that.
Macro mechanics as a strategic resource
This is why I'm hesitant to completely support an outright removal of macro mechanics. For Terran and Zerg, their macro mechanics compete in some way with a strategic advantage. Terrans have to divide their energy between Mules and scans. For Zerg, injects compete with creep spread. This is great because it allows interesting decisions and strategy. It also enables enemy interaction with macro mechanics: if you force Terran scans, you have in turn weakened their economy even if you did not accomplish anything else. If you snipe Queens, you've hurt the Zerg's production. These are immediate causative relations that should be apparent to viewers and can be (and in my experience are) easily pointed out by casters. I think it would be to the detriment of the game to see this angle of complexity removed.
On the other hand, most of this can be kept with inject on autocast for Queens, provided the conditions for triggering the autocast are right.
Notice how I didn't mention Chronoboost? Yeah. Some people argued that it has to be used right to hit your timings, but since all Protoss build orders are designed around the availability of CB anyway that's not all that different from other races' build orders. So CB should be reworked in any event. Personally, I'd say that making photon overcharge a Nexus ability with energy cost is a very elegant solution, because not only would it introduce a similar trade off between economic and strategic (in this case defensive) advantages for Protoss, but also allow us to hopefully get rid of the MSC.
Other considerations
Still, there are other reasons to remove macro mechanics. Many people dislike that 200/200 armies are reached too early, and removing macro mechanics would slow that progression down. This also aligns with Blizzard's goal to make LotV more about scrappy low-econ games.
Also, macro mechanics are rather out of whack in the late game. Zerg are stockpiling too many larvae if they have many bases, which makes trading with them very frustrating because they remax so fast. I don't think anyone considers Terran Mule spam a good aspect of the game, and similarly frustrating is their ability to play on 200 army supply in long games.
In conclusion, losing the strategic interplay around macro mechanics would be a detriment to the game. On the other hand, and I know this is a matter of personal preference, SC doesn't need an extraneous mechanically challenging element in its macro. So reducing the impact of our current macro mechanics without removing them is certainly the wrong way to go, as it would only reduce their strategic importance but keep the APM requirement the same.
Instead, I think Blizzard should focus on getting rid of the late game balance problems, and either retool the current macro mechanics to make them more interesting or replace them with something that is. Things like having to hit your injects correctly no matter your situation really can go.
On August 05 2015 00:42 Valyrian wrote: Long time TL forums reader here. When I read the community update, I was pleasantly surprised, and actually expected the same overall reaction from the community.
When it comes to discussions about macro mechanics, there seem to be two main thrusts of argument that emphasize different aspects. Let's call them macro mechanics as an APM sink and macro mechanics as a strategic resource.
Macro mechanics as an APM sink
I think Blizzard's reasoning mostly focuses on the first aspect. The idea is that there should be something going on in your bases that requires your attention, thereby challenging your ability to multitask. Our current macro mechanics achieve that purpose, but that does not mean that they are good mechanics. Basically everything that requires attention could fill that role. I'd make semi-hyperbolic comparisons to mechanics that require you to solve a math problem every 30 seconds or all your bases stop mining, but I'm almost convinced you would find people on this forum arguing against its removal, if it was actually part of the game, on the grounds that it's something that distinguishes players.
Basically everything that you extraneously insert into the game requires some skill and distinguishes players. That's almost a tautological argument.
Therefore I think that Blizzard's approach is right: if we want to occupy the players' attention with multiple things (and we do), then it's preferable that these things are fun. As a player, it's more fun to be out there on the map doing things with my units, on all levels of skill. Because that's what you're looking for when playing an RTS. As a viewer, it's more satisfying to see another front unfold or watch better micro, than having pros waste APM on macro mechanics that are not immediately rewarding. And in my view, professional archon mode games have shown that there's lots of room for fun stuff to do if macroing requires less attention.
As an aside, it's kind of disappointing that macro mechanics are suddenly regarded as the lynchpin of macro around here. Is macro really all about clicking a button at the right moment so that you don't waste an opportunity? When it comes down to active unit abilities you all seem to hate that approach. LotV has changed the macro game significantly with the new economy, and the fact that you have to expand much faster is already an aspect that requires additional attention compared to HotS, and it only seems fair to compensate for that.
Macro mechanics as a strategic resource
This is why I'm hesitant to completely support an outright removal of macro mechanics. For Terran and Zerg, their macro mechanics compete in some way with a strategic advantage. Terrans have to divide their energy between Mules and scans. For Zerg, injects compete with creep spread. This is great because it allows interesting decisions and strategy. It also enables enemy interaction with macro mechanics: if you force Terran scans, you have in turn weakened their economy even if you did not accomplish anything else. If you snipe Queens, you've hurt the Zerg's production. These are immediate causative relations that should be apparent to viewers and can be (and in my experience are) easily pointed out by casters. I think it would be to the detriment of the game to see this angle of complexity removed.
On the other hand, most of this can be kept with inject on autocast for Queens, provided the conditions for triggering the autocast are right.
Notice how I didn't mention Chronoboost? Yeah. Some people argued that it has to be used right to hit your timings, but since all Protoss build orders are designed around the availability of CB anyway that's not all that different from other races' build orders. So CB should be reworked in any event. Personally, I'd say that making photon overcharge a Nexus ability with energy cost is a very elegant solution, because not only would it introduce a similar trade off between economic and strategic (in this case defensive) advantages for Protoss, but also allow us to hopefully get rid of the MSC.
Other considerations
Still, there are other reasons to remove macro mechanics. Many people dislike that 200/200 armies are reached too early, and removing macro mechanics would slow that progression down. This also aligns with Blizzard's goal to make LotV more about scrappy low-econ games.
Also, macro mechanics are rather out of whack in the late game. Zerg are stockpiling too many larvae if they have many bases, which makes trading with them very frustrating because they remax so fast. I don't think anyone considers Terran Mule spam a good aspect of the game, and similarly frustrating is their ability to play on 200 army supply in long games.
In conclusion, losing the strategic interplay around macro mechanics would be a detriment to the game. On the other hand, and I know this is a matter of personal preference, SC doesn't need an extraneous mechanically challenging element in its macro. So reducing the impact of our current macro mechanics without removing them is certainly the wrong way to go, as it would only reduce their strategic importance but keep the APM requirement the same.
Instead, I think Blizzard should focus on getting rid of the late game balance problems, and either retool the current macro mechanics to make them more interesting or replace them with something that is. Things like having to hit your injects correctly no matter your situation really can go.
this is practically a carbon copy of my opinion and what I have been arguing for earlier in this thread, excellent post.
I would just like to note for people that didn't realize it that blizzard is fully aware of the consequences of removing macro mechanics, the update literally says immediately after presenting the options they are thinking about:
"The thought here is just do away with these added clicks, we do lose a little bit of strategy and decision making but we wonder if that’s ok, and have a clean version where players don’t need to do the extra clicks.
With that said, keep in mind neither of these versions are final, they’re just one of two potential directions we can go in this area."
fair enough, they don't talk about mechanics as player-distinguishing, but as Valyrian says, practically any attention-consuming arbitrary task achieves this. it would be significantly better to have a task more relevant to the rest of the game than "every x seconds you must click a button".
Blizz aren't idiots. But they are also not perfect. They don't have all the answers and they don't pretend to. They know your opinion and they know why you have it, but they also know about other peoples conflicting opinions and they know why they have those too.
honestly when viewing things from more than one perspective at a time it becomes painfully obvious that people with extremely strong opinions have either not actually read the content well enough or are blindsided by the assumption that everyone in the world agrees with their opinion, which is practically never true.
Blizzard has just confirmed to the ATVI Shareholders that SC2 is coming out in 2015. Until today it was "Winter 2015" which is December 21 to March 21.
Thomas Tippl in his speech noted this is a recent change and they will adjust their guidance in 2015 accordingly with this additional new revenue source.
So I guess David Kim is happy with the progress of the beta test... or .. they are running out of resources allocated to this very small ATVI revenue source.
The Warp Prism mechanic will make Robo allins stronger than they have ever been. PartinG is probably setting up a huge party right now. I don't see the benefit from removing/changing the MULE. I always understood the MULE as partially a replacement of workers (since Terran is the race to build workers the slowest) and as a lategame mineral boost (i.e. build 4+ OCs and have fun spamming). Removing or nerfing the MULE and substituting it with another mechanic (which is necessary IMHO) will be a HUGE buff to scans simply due to the availability.
I would like missed larvae injects to be a little more forgiving. With mules thats not dropped when u have the energy, u still get your minerals (but a bit later). I think the queens should be able to stockpile energy and inject and get the larvae later with a larger inject, as the penalty could be huge for not having the larvae early on when needed. (or with a minor penalty that at least recoups a part of the missed larvae)
As a balancing factor I think it should be more visible how much energy she is carrying. She should get a fatter belly so it would be more visible and worth to to hunt the fatter ones. Fattys could be slower. A Queen that gets maxed should produce a warning scream and explode if energy is not spent in say 10 secs.
A lot of errors warp changes is BS. "have Warpgates touching their pylon power. " so i wall third with gate and have to remember to warp from these gates to defend b3 and not b1 .... "Pylons not “connected” to Warpgates." Same here even if it's a "huge" nerf that affect enought the mechanics of protoss reinforcement compared to Z or T.
"Spawn larva is autocast by default," ........no no no, do we need to push a key to make it work ? no? then remove. Option 1 and 2 are the same. That's not a choice^^. If you want to remove, in my opinion, these important aspects of sc2 races, why not. I even tend to agree as they're a real nightmare for balance. If you want to keep them, they should be effective in midgame in order to keep early game safe from racial imba(bw memories^^). Cost could be increase drastcly ( ? 75 nrg ? ) in order to create a racial choice during mid game between agression/economic style (zerg creep or boost in larvas, protoss chrono tech or probe production, and terran scan or mule. The fact that you can force nrg to be spend on specific issues allows also for some kind of counter. Edit: however, this option doesnt resolve the issue of racial macro mechanics in late game.
On August 01 2015 07:42 StaN.de wrote: Not gonna buy LotV if these macro changes are going to make it in the final game.
Already pre-ordered it to play the beta and I do not regret it. Regardless of the silliness of these changes SC2 is still the best RTS we have (OK, maybe BW - but it makes my eyes hurt).
And I gave CarBot $350 to bring StarCrafts to the game - so it can only get better
Warp in changes seems nice as long as it follows with additional changes to the units itself maybe, but seems like a good start. 2 seconds warp prism warp-in seems abusive though.
The gateway range thing seems clunky, they could make it "creep esque", using connected pylon as fast warp-in region. Maybe a mid game upgrade that reduced the warp-in time for out of range would be interesting.
I don't want to play a slowed down version of this game with the macro mechanics weakened or autocasted. I enjoy pushing to improve my speed and macro. This makes the game rewarding. There are other ways to help the noob players with the macro mechanics. Make it so the punishment for missing an inject is diminished. Such as, allow for a double inject which gives diminishing returns - spawns 6 larva; a double chrono boost with diminishing returns such as 75 percent speed increase. Mules, they seem alright to me. Noobs don't really complain about MULES. This way the macro mechanics are retained yet noob players can still 'make up' for missing their injects or chronos.
Personally, I wouldn't want to see the macro abilities to be removed. It was be ashamed to just simply remove content from the game. Having more strategic options and viable choices in the game is better for the game in the long run. Blizzard just have to be smart in how they design the game, and actually consider the full benefits those enhancements brings to the game.
Saying that, I don't like the macro abilities because they currently are 'non'-strategic choices. They are simply too strong and are the obvious choice compare to the other options. And for the Queen Inject Larva ability specifically, the timing forces players to be so precise with their injects. Back when I was attempting to learn how to play Zerg, I remember my friend tell me, "If your Queen has over 25 energy, it's a sign that you're performing the spawn larva ability poorly." and that line made it so obvious to me that there isn't much room for error.
Also I consider keeping these abilities for the sake of having consuming time a bad idea.
While I'm on the topic of marco things, just a personal thing I would like to see in how they nerf, following their option 1. Though, other balance changes would have to come with it. I'll just toss it in the spoiler to not waste space. + Show Spoiler +
Zerg - Queen starting energy increased to 50 from 25. - Queen Transfusion energy cost reduced to 25 from 50. - Transfusion heal reduce to 60 from 125. - Spawn Larva energy cost increased to 50 from 25. - Spawn Larva bonus larva reduced to 3 from 4. - Lair and Hive produce Larva at a faster rate (like, 1 larva every 12 & 8 seconds fir Lair & Hive respectively), and naturally holds more larva (like, 4 & 6 for Lair & Hive respectively). And a Hatchery/Lair/Hive can hold a maximum of 6 / 7 / 9 larva through Spawn Larva.
* The biggest thing about this would that this would nerf the 'banking' on larva strategy on some levels while providing incentive for Zerg players to morph Lairs and Hive. Hopefully, the increase production from Lair and Hive will also help somewhat offset the need for Queen constant Spawn Larva ability. It might be even possible to see a game where Zerg would want to have more than 1 Hive or Lair at the same time in the game.
Protoss - Nexus starting energy increased to 25 from 50. - Chrono Boost energy cost increased to 50 from 25. - Chrono Boost duration increased to 35 seconds from 20. - Nexus has a new ability - Transform Gateway into Warpgate. Cost 50 energy. (Warpgate research at Cybernetic Core removed) - Nexus has a new ability - Energize: Grant a unit with energy, 100 energy over 25 seconds. Cost 50 energy.
* The biggest goal with this would just provide more strategic options for Toss players in choice. Also, with the Warpgate nerf (assuming they don't intend to keep the 2 second warp-in through Warp Prism) and making that the player has to transform gateways into warp-gate 1 at a time, this will weaken All-In timings, while still making Warpgate still easily obtainable (similar to Transporting Overlords).
Terran - Mule ability now puts a coating of armor over an existing SCV, becoming a Mule for 90 seconds before reverting to a SCV. - Mineral gathered per trip reduced to 15 from 30. - Mule repairs double the speed of SCV (requires half the time to repair a unit, but equal in cost).
* Like the other two, this change is remove the 'option' of just tossing all your SCV away since now Mule requires SCV to be made. I think Scan is good enough, though, I would love to see a buff to the third ability. Maybe, Extra Supplies also allow units to load in and attack like a bunker? It would give that ability an extra utility that may open additional choices in the game.
On August 07 2015 12:08 Clear World wrote: Personally, I wouldn't want to see the macro abilities to be removed. It was be ashamed to just simply remove content from the game. Having more strategic options and viable choices in the game is better for the game in the long run. Blizzard just have to be smart in how they design the game, and actually consider the full benefits those enhancements brings to the game.
Saying that, I don't like the macro abilities because they currently are 'non'-strategic choices. They are simply too strong and are the obvious choice compare to the other options. And for the Queen Inject Larva ability specifically, the timing forces players to be so precise with their injects. Back when I was attempting to learn how to play Zerg, I remember my friend tell me, "If your Queen has over 25 energy, it's a sign that you're performing the spawn larva ability poorly." and that line made it so obvious to me that there isn't much room for error.
Also I consider keeping these abilities for the sake of having consuming time a bad idea.
While I'm on the topic of marco things, just a personal thing I would like to see in how they nerf, following their option 1. Though, other balance changes would have to come with it. I'll just toss it in the spoiler to not waste space. + Show Spoiler +
Zerg - Queen starting energy increased to 50 from 25. - Queen Transfusion energy cost reduced to 25 from 50. - Transfusion heal reduce to 60 from 125. - Spawn Larva energy cost increased to 50 from 25. - Spawn Larva bonus larva reduced to 3 from 4. - Lair and Hive produce Larva at a faster rate (like, 1 larva every 12 & 8 seconds fir Lair & Hive respectively), and naturally holds more larva (like, 4 & 6 for Lair & Hive respectively). And a Hatchery/Lair/Hive can hold a maximum of 6 / 7 / 9 larva through Spawn Larva.
* The biggest thing about this would that this would nerf the 'banking' on larva strategy on some levels while providing incentive for Zerg players to morph Lairs and Hive. Hopefully, the increase production from Lair and Hive will also help somewhat offset the need for Queen constant Spawn Larva ability. It might be even possible to see a game where Zerg would want to have more than 1 Hive or Lair at the same time in the game.
Protoss - Nexus starting energy increased to 25 from 50. - Chrono Boost energy cost increased to 50 from 25. - Chrono Boost duration increased to 35 seconds from 20. - Nexus has a new ability - Transform Gateway into Warpgate. Cost 50 energy. (Warpgate research at Cybernetic Core removed) - Nexus has a new ability - Energize: Grant a unit with energy, 100 energy over 25 seconds. Cost 50 energy.
* The biggest goal with this would just provide more strategic options for Toss players in choice. Also, with the Warpgate nerf (assuming they don't intend to keep the 2 second warp-in through Warp Prism) and making that the player has to transform gateways into warp-gate 1 at a time, this will weaken All-In timings, while still making Warpgate still easily obtainable (similar to Transporting Overlords).
Terran - Mule ability now puts a coating of armor over an existing SCV, becoming a Mule for 90 seconds before reverting to a SCV. - Mineral gathered per trip reduced to 15 from 30. - Mule repairs double the speed of SCV (requires half the time to repair a unit, but equal in cost).
* Like the other two, this change is remove the 'option' of just tossing all your SCV away since now Mule requires SCV to be made. I think Scan is good enough, though, I would love to see a buff to the third ability. Maybe, Extra Supplies also allow units to load in and attack like a bunker? It would give that ability an extra utility that may open additional choices in the game.
Numbers could be discussed, but I like the ideas you have about chrono, Mule and inject. In particular I love the idea to have SCVs temporarily transformed into mules instead of summoning free units.
On August 05 2015 17:28 boxerfred wrote: The Warp Prism mechanic will make Robo allins stronger than they have ever been.
Yeah this is kinda stupid, it'll just make warp prism all-ins even more frustrating, while splitting energy/warp-in power would not. I don't know why they're this focused on making the warp prism absolutely crazy broken, it's already damn strong with that retarded long range pick-up, don't overdo it.
It would be abusive indeed, hence why the proposed change is far worse than what they proposed in the Protoss community update. It would leave no place to any gateway buff and make Protoss even keener to all-in, since a lot of all-ins can already include a warp-prism (adepts all-ins usually go with a WP, same with immortal sentry...).
I'm starting to like the idea that a couple ppl are bringing out just to eliminate or make them more painful when you miss them such as Terran Orb only have 50 energy means you better spend it when you have it also it limits chrono so you can't chrono 15 gateways at once or save up chrono and queens need to make a decision save energy to heal or spread creep or inject LOL Most ppl would not be happy about that initially though because it seems the overall consensus is to make the game ezier
David Kim said on the Gamescom stream that the next balance update will be focusing on the macro mechanics, likely starting with removing them.
New redesigned Disruptor: Purifying Nova is removed, replaced by a new ability to shoot detonating balls that can be controlled by the Protoss player and be dodged by the enemy, basically a controllable Scarab.
On August 09 2015 03:18 The_Red_Viper wrote: What did they say, they wanna remove the mechanics? Or will zerg get auto inject?
auto inject with 2 larva no mule no chrono
zerg will be very weak on the ealry game, hellbat push would be way to strong + banshee or Liberator terran will be very weak latter in the game, no parade push no more miracles but they can just make more workers and turtle a bit more and then push protoss has weaker ealry game but they have BS defense with PO....
So baisically zerg and terran gets alot more weaker... zerg the most since they will die to 5 min pushes and they wont have timings.
I suspect they will give 3 larva or they will buff roaches/zerlings/queens
On August 09 2015 01:55 digmouse wrote: David Kim said on the Gamescom stream that the next balance update will be focusing on the macro mechanics, likely starting with removing them.
Great. So it's Dawn of War all over again. This will help kill the competitive scene far faster than any balance issues at launch of LotV.
On August 09 2015 01:55 digmouse wrote: David Kim said on the Gamescom stream that the next balance update will be focusing on the macro mechanics, likely starting with removing them.
Great. So it's Dawn of War all over again. This will help kill the competitive scene far faster than any balance issues at launch of LotV.
67% of people want the macro mechanics to stay; he still removes them. Why bother with doing community updates when he doesn't listen to the community anyway. My only hope for sc2 right now is that most people boycott LotV and continue playing HotS to force blizzard to switch tournaments back to it. LotV is doomed to fail. It neither appeals to casual gamers because of the added speed in building up and taking bases nor to hardcore competitive gamers because of the easier macro mechanics.
On August 09 2015 01:55 digmouse wrote: David Kim said on the Gamescom stream that the next balance update will be focusing on the macro mechanics, likely starting with removing them.
Great. So it's Dawn of War all over again. This will help kill the competitive scene far faster than any balance issues at launch of LotV.
Do you really believe that Larva Inject and MULE are what makes competitive Starcraft so great? Of the three macro boosters, Chrono is the only one that's interesting in the slightest as far as strategy. As cool as it is to see Soo be slightly better at injects than everyone else, I think it would be more interesting to see APM being used to drop MULEs be used to create better army positioning on the map or more harassment.
There are a ton of very tangible (harder to max out) and subtle (more incentive to fight skirmishes) benefits to removing macro mechanics and there is reason to believe that the game as a whole can greatly benefit.
But more importantly, a change to the macro mechanics also leads to believe that there could possibly be even more important design changes down the line that would come as a result of changed balance and gameplay.
For example, if Terran cannot use MULE to stablize after early game Protoss harassment via Adepts and Oracles, would those units need to lose their anti-light attack? Would SCV health need to be buffed?
Another example, if we can assume that Zerg's ability to reproduce units is drastically nerfed without a significant amount of macro hatcheries, what buffs can we finally see to Hydralisk health or armor? Would it be possible for us to remove the Roach?
Regardless of actual outcome, there can be significant changes to unit interaction if each of the races cannot produce so many units as such a high speed. In any case we really lose nothing by testing out these changes, and we potentially have a very high amount to gain by this change.
On August 09 2015 01:55 digmouse wrote: David Kim said on the Gamescom stream that the next balance update will be focusing on the macro mechanics, likely starting with removing them.
Great. So it's Dawn of War all over again. This will help kill the competitive scene far faster than any balance issues at launch of LotV.
67% of people want the macro mechanics to stay; he still removes them. Why bother with doing community updates when he doesn't listen to the community anyway. My only hope for sc2 right now is that most people boycott LotV and continue playing HotS to force blizzard to switch tournaments back to it. LotV is doomed to fail. It neither appeals to casual gamers because of the added speed in building up and taking bases nor to hardcore competitive gamers because of the easier macro mechanics.
Yeah cuz macro is so intersting and takes so much skill and chooice. Not really....
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game. And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. So because of things like resource changes now you have to spread out your bases and expand more aggressively which means you have to manage multiple bases at once. And not only that, because of how the resourcing actually works in legacy of the void you gotta check back at each of those locations and manage the probes and worker lines a lot more efficiently as well. Our current thinking is that because we made it a little more difficult on this side, even if we take away a little bit from the macro mechanics we wonder if end result is that it’s a very skillful macro experience for players.
On August 09 2015 04:19 TheWinks wrote: David Kim on macro mechanics:
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game. And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. So because of things like resource changes now you have to spread out your bases and expand more aggressively which means you have to manage multiple bases at once. And not only that, because of how the resourcing actually works in legacy of the void you gotta check back at each of those locations and manage the probes and worker lines a lot more efficiently as well. Our current thinking is that because we made it a little more difficult on this side, even if we take away a little bit from the macro mechanics we wonder if end result is that it’s a very skillful macro experience for players.
On August 09 2015 04:19 TheWinks wrote: David Kim on macro mechanics:
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game. And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. So because of things like resource changes now you have to spread out your bases and expand more aggressively which means you have to manage multiple bases at once. And not only that, because of how the resourcing actually works in legacy of the void you gotta check back at each of those locations and manage the probes and worker lines a lot more efficiently as well. Our current thinking is that because we made it a little more difficult on this side, even if we take away a little bit from the macro mechanics we wonder if end result is that it’s a very skillful macro experience for players.
the biggest issues I see with it are that it might require complete rebalancing of the units from the races, especially zergs. At this point in the beta I'm not sure this is the right thing to do especially considering there are so many other problems right now. Also it is a massive buff to scan.
On August 09 2015 04:19 TheWinks wrote: David Kim on macro mechanics:
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game. And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. So because of things like resource changes now you have to spread out your bases and expand more aggressively which means you have to manage multiple bases at once. And not only that, because of how the resourcing actually works in legacy of the void you gotta check back at each of those locations and manage the probes and worker lines a lot more efficiently as well. Our current thinking is that because we made it a little more difficult on this side, even if we take away a little bit from the macro mechanics we wonder if end result is that it’s a very skillful macro experience for players.
the biggest issues I see with it are that it might require complete rebalancing of the units from the races, especially zergs. At this point in the beta I'm not sure this is the right thing to do especially considering there are so many other problems right now. Also it is a massive buff to scan.
They can nerf scan and buff zerg same with other races. There are ways to balance.
Its drastic ? Yes ! It is good ? Hell yeah !
Will get more players, no more abusable MULE, no more insta remax unless you have 8 - 9 hatches, less protoss all ins.
Isn't this game supposed to release this year? The rebalancing of units that will result from this is going to make LotV really rocky when it does release, as I do not think that they will have time based on their trajectory so far.
But I will trade the Mule hammer for stopping Zerg's insta-remaxing. Now what about warp ins - remove Warpgates and buff basic units (but nerf Adepts). After all what is Warpgate if not a macro booster.
On August 09 2015 04:19 TheWinks wrote: David Kim on macro mechanics:
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game.And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. ...
And yet theorycrafting was sufficient cause for jettisoning the community submitted economic changes.
On August 09 2015 05:56 mishimaBeef wrote: Community submitted economic changes? What are you referring to?
The big community suggestion for alternative economic models that did away with worker pairing. Blizzard's response was essentially "We don't feel like that would develop the game as we think it should be developed, so we're not going to try it." Their explanation for cutting macro mechanics is "We don't feel like we can come to a good conclusion regarding these mechanics without trying them ingame, so we're going to try it."
Option 2: Cut chrono Cut mule Spawn larva is autocast by default, but spawn only 2 larva
Litterally the most retarded thing i've ever heard since wol beta, who in blizzard did think of this ?
Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
This wont bring more twitch viewers, really.
I'm all for a warp in nerf but 16 sec might be a bit much.
On August 09 2015 04:19 TheWinks wrote: David Kim on macro mechanics:
For the multiplayer beta balance I just wanted to talk about two main things. The first is the macro mechanics being cut, something that we’ve been discussing with our community over the last week or so. I’d first like to thank everyone for giving us the feedback on both the pros and cons of potentially cutting this mechanic. And what we’ve kind of decided internally is we’d like to really try out in the next balance update how the game plays if we were to remove these macro mechanics from the game.And the reason for that is because we can theorycraft all day, but it’s really difficult to figure out the exact and specific reasons why these mechanics are good or bad for the game so we really want to identify those things. And the one other thing that I’d like to point out, as many of you guys in the community have pointed out also, is we have increased the difficulty of not just the micro in the game but also the macro as well. ...
And yet theorycrafting was sufficient cause for jettisoning the community submitted economic changes.
edit: Formatting the quote a bit more.
there were showmatch tournaments played using various "community submitted economic changes" and blizz playtested internally, they came to the conclusion that those economic models are not drastic enough and/or didn't do enough that lotv model didn't already do.
perhaps some theorycrafting was involved too but their reasons for not going with community eco models were certainly not just theorycrafting.
Community resourcing model suggestion We also watched show matches, tried games ourselves, and we agree with the majority of you guys that it’s too similar to Heart of the Swarm. But we wanted to comment again on this because it’s still a topic discussed by some. Just to reiterate once more, we’re not looking to make minor tweaks in this area. We’re looking for a big change that will make sure that players will spread out their expansions at a much faster rate than they do in Heart of the Swarm. Currently, the resourcing model that we’re testing in the beta is doing a very good job of this.
Option 2: Cut chrono Cut mule Spawn larva is autocast by default, but spawn only 2 larva
Litterally the most retarded thing i've ever heard since wol beta, who in blizzard did think of this ?
you are walking a fine line between rhetorical question and ad hominem, if the entirety of your comment can be summed up as an insult, then you simply shouldn't post it at all. in situations like this, you should present your argument for why it is "the most retarded thing you've ever heard". you might find that giving actual explanations is significantly more difficult than spouting rhetorical questions that does nothing for the discussion.
Because macro mechanics are an area that’s difficult to do, and not many people can really tell how well someone is doing it, we’ve been exploring potentially cutting them or making them less important.
This wont bring more twitch viewers, really. ...
why do people automatically assume the changes are to increase twitch popularity? this particular change is to make your skillfulness be more visible primarily to your opponent and secondarily to yourself, the observers/viewers is a tertiary party that happen to benefit from such a change, twitch viewers is not the targeted audience so I don't see why "This won't bring more twitch viewers, really" is in any way a relevant comment.
edit 2: while randomly browsing wikipedia I found the name of the specific logical fallacy you are committing! :D Argumentum ad lapidem
On August 09 2015 06:32 Roblin wrote: perhaps some theorycrafting was involved too but their reasons for not going with community eco models were certainly not just theorycrafting.
HotS and LotV are different games and the importance of those models weren't the specific models, but rather the general idea behind them. They justified not giving something like it a try on beta because of their internal testing. Here, they are admitting that their internal testing is inadequate for a change of this magnitude.
On August 09 2015 06:32 Roblin wrote: perhaps some theorycrafting was involved too but their reasons for not going with community eco models were certainly not just theorycrafting.
HotS and LotV are different games and the importance of those models weren't the specific models, but rather the general idea behind them. They justified not giving something like it a try on beta because of their internal testing. Here, they are admitting that their internal testing is inadequate for a change of this magnitude.
I feel like this post is missing a paragraph.
so what if they admit internal playtesting is insufficient here? that doesn't mean internal playtesting is inadequate for other things.
glad to see David Kim moving forward with more big changes.
i'd like to see Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void become radically different styles of games. This gives consumers a greater range of choice in what has become a barren RTS landscape.
On August 09 2015 07:29 GGzerG wrote: I will be the happiest man alive if they cut all macro mechanics.
SC2BW Here we come.
This should have been done 5 years ago, everyone who is mad get over it please....and all Oldschool bw players rejoice for this great change!
I'm all for cutting macro mechanics but it's not going to be BW, I do think it will improve the game though but your comment just seems a little silly, it's still going to be SC2 (as it should).
On August 09 2015 06:32 Roblin wrote: perhaps some theorycrafting was involved too but their reasons for not going with community eco models were certainly not just theorycrafting.
HotS and LotV are different games and the importance of those models weren't the specific models, but rather the general idea behind them. They justified not giving something like it a try on beta because of their internal testing. Here, they are admitting that their internal testing is inadequate for a change of this magnitude.
I feel like this post is missing a paragraph.
so what if they admit internal playtesting is insufficient here? that doesn't mean internal playtesting is inadequate for other things.
They watched a handful of showmatches and maybe did some internal testing to determine that community-suggested harvesting modifications were "too similar to hots." Their goal is to get players to take more bases. There has been little to no acknowledgement that the economy is an important balance consideration, and no mention of changes they are considering as a consequence of the new economy.
What they are not doing is incentivizing aggressive expansion outside of "hope you expand enough or you die!" and they are refusing to consider any economic changes to Legacy, including changes to harvesting speed and changes to the starting number of workers. Instead, they're going to jettison a huge swath of the game which they have openly said was a part of their racial balancing.
It is completely mindboggling how they refuse to consider (at worst) or communicate (at best) changes or implications of different economic models (i.e., Swarm standard, Swarm DH, Legacy standard, etc.), but have seemingly randomly just decided to alter a huge component of their game!
I have no idea why Blizzard isn't testing more things in this beta, and, even more confusingly, I have no idea at all why Blizzard isn't soliciting tester feedback on these changes over and above what they can determine from gameplay. The data they have collected from players ingame is accurate, I'm sure, but the context in which these player behaviors were made is seemingly unaccounted for.
Starcraft 2 is a STRATEGY game. It means the major impact on the game should have strategy meanwhile currently it all comes to mechanics (maby not 100% but player with better strategy but worse mechanics gonna lose match most probably) it is not fun to watch if Gm r1 loses to korean beceuse of mechanics difference: gm should be the place where mechanics does not change a lot beceuse most people will do it well, but where these little strategy things start to profit, better postioning, mindgames, micro (its mechanical part but its fun to watach). I believe that decreasing or cutting these macro parts is good idea (if balanced properly). The Warpgate change also is great, however I'd rather change it to nexus with range of nexus overcharge. It is not a high cost to put a gateway near proxy pylon to get 14 seconds faster waro time and turn this defensive mechanic into offense, meanwhile I don't feel like anyone would like to put there nexus.
On August 11 2015 17:42 Irathil wrote: Starcraft 2 is a STRATEGY game. It means the major impact on the game should have strategy meanwhile currently it all comes to mechanics (maby not 100% but player with better strategy but worse mechanics gonna lose match most probably) it is not fun to watch if Gm r1 loses to korean beceuse of mechanics difference: gm should be the place where mechanics does not change a lot beceuse most people will do it well, but where these little strategy things start to profit, better postioning, mindgames, micro (its mechanical part but its fun to watach). I believe that decreasing or cutting these macro parts is good idea (if balanced properly). The Warpgate change also is great, however I'd rather change it to nexus with range of nexus overcharge. It is not a high cost to put a gateway near proxy pylon to get 14 seconds faster waro time and turn this defensive mechanic into offense, meanwhile I don't feel like anyone would like to put there nexus.
I not specifically against or pro macro mechanics, removal should be tried out too. But, Starcraft 2 is a "Real-time" Strategy game. The term "Real-time" adds a lot more into the equation. Say that "mechanics" "speed" "good control" etc.
EPT
though I do not fully agree with all of your points.
ecrease the amount of time spent executing existing macro mechanics
I like winning by being better at doing macro mechanics!
) I am really proud of my queen injects having had a big impact on my ranking. It feels so good hitting them all when the queens have exactly 25 energy.
