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Most progamers disagree with making Starcraft mechanics easier. Huk/Desrow/Morrow/TLO think mechanics should stay as hard as they currently are.
I think they disaggree because they lack experience about how the game is for casualgamers.
I play Starcraft at grandmasterlevel, but I also coached alot of beginners (bronze-gold). This means I kinda know the situation of both sides. The casual-side and the hardcore-side.
Sometimes I really do wonder why you would ever want to play starcraft below diamondleague. I honestly think starcraft is boring as fuck in the lower leagues.
From bronze-platnum starcraft is literally one thing: Macro, macro, macro! Build stuff and overrun your opponent. No micro, no descicion making, no strategy! When I coach those leagues I just sit there and teach them the MCL (mental checklist aka Workerproduction, Unitproduction, Supplyblock etc.)
I think this is the reason why starcraft isn't that popular. The mechanics prevent the casualplayers from experience the whole beauty of Starcraft.
If there's one thing I noticed about Starcraft in my carrer it's this: "The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is".
Most games in bronze-plat are pretty boring. Sometimes you get cheesed (which is the almost the only strategical part for casualplayers), but most of the time both players macro, and the player with better mechanics wins very onesided. Maybe 1 game out of 20 there's actually a really fun and close game.
The higher the level the more exciting the games get. At around highmaster mmr everybody has pretty decent mechanics. At this point pretty much EVERY SINGLE GAME is fun, close and exciting. Micro/Descicion Making/Strategie have become a huge part of the game.
And it doesn't stop there. Once 2 players truely mastered the SC2 mechanics every single game is an absolute masterpiece and a pure firework of awesomeness. Pretty much every highlevel KR game is just something I would call art.
Starcraft is the best and most wonderful game ever created once you mastered it's mechanics. Lowering boring macro mechanics is an awesome idea from blizzard because it allowes players faster and easier access to the beauty of starcraft.
LotV got so much harder than HotS. It's way more micro and multitasking intense. Starcraft will definetly not be to easy if Blizzard makes macro/mechanics a little easier.
I honestly think Starcraft would be alot more fun (especially for casualplayers) and that the game could get very popular again if blizzard changes the macromechanics.
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I think all of the reasons you itemize are exactly why blizzard is considering reducing macro mechanics impact on the game. That said, I think keeping it the way it is, is the best option for the quality of the game. This is what keeps the skill celling so high. StarCraft 2 is already less differentiated than BroodWar was at the highest levels, but is still far more distinct that we can expect from most games. I would prefer it stay that way, or become more distinct, rather than go the other way. I want someone who is truly on another level (ala Flash, Savior, Nada in their day) to truly be able to dominate the scene. This is what creates legacies and creates awesome stories.
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I agree. I'm in gold right now. I enjoy macro to some extent (not enough to protest removing it) but the fun of the game for me has been doing things that aren't in the meta. I hate blink stalkers but I love HT's and Oracles and Warp Prisms, so that's the units I end up using. One of my absolute favorite things in LotV is kiting with the Warp Prism (hell I'd preorder the game if they just gave me a warp prism and immortal every campaign mission/match and told me to go to town), and it's annoying pulling off some sick micro, thinking "Maybe this can get me into platinum", and then whoops no I'm behind on my warp cycles, my upgrades are late, my nexus is full of energy.
I'm not saying take out macro because it's an integral part of the game. But if I'm all-inning, as a low level player whose APM is limited, having the difference between a good 2 base all-in and a bad 2 base all-in be whether or not I'm chronoboosting my warp gates to get my units out faster while I'm already warping them in and moving them around to make sure they don't get surrounded is frustrating to no end.
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If you are bad in HOTS, i don't see how you will find LOTV any harder. Sure you have to expand faster but if you are in the lower leagues, you won't notice the diff.
The problem is what 'boring' mechanic you want to remove? Is it making buildings, getting more supplies, auto Mule drops, Chrono, larvae inject? Making these changes will have a big impact tot he game.
Unfortnately I don't have a better idea for this other than cont to play and become better. Changing the 'boring' mechanics will ultimately change the fundamental game as a RTS as a whole.
Maybe another way is for lower league to use a slower game speed.
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Mamba those players also have coached in the past...
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Auto-injecting with a delay of 5-10 seconds mean you only get some increased efficiency from macroing hard there. Or decrease their effectiveness to the point where it's not worth it until plat/diamond to use them.
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Mamba those players also have coached in the past...
Sure they do coachings here and then. But they are progamers and most of them just play the game competitive.
I helped players for a very long time on www.starcraftschule.de (german side) via coachings and replay analyses. This side is entirely built around helping new players to get into the game. And of course also helping older players that are stuck in bronze-gold.
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The only foreseeable result of cutting macro is making all three races homogeneous and losing their uniqueness. In the new economy system, players will still focus on mining, expanding and production, but after the "final frontal engagement" will be the real end of the game. If you lose your main forces, there will be zero chance of comeback.
My thought is, if they really want to give the players an easy and "fun" way to gather resources, they should set up some neutral creatures or destructible objects on the map like it was in Warcraft III, rewarding anyone who destroys them first with a fair amount of minerals and/or gas. Getting those resources is risky because your base would be vulnerable without defense and your forces could be caught up during the fight with those neutral creatures.
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then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling.
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On August 05 2015 11:51 shin_toss wrote:
then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling.
And the game would die very soon when all the "funs" are depleted.
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On August 05 2015 11:51 shin_toss wrote:
then playing in high level or watching pro would be boring to.. easier game = less rewarding feeling.
In what way? People playing LotV are complaining about having too much shit to micro. All of the new units - adept, ravager, lurker, cyclone, liberator, disruptor - require some sort of specialized control. By lightening up the load on the more under-the-hood stuff, players have the room to control these units, and more plays with warp prisms, vipers, oracles, medivac/tanks, and so on.
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Yes it requires a lot of micro. which Imo it shouldn't. I believe that 50% macro 50% micro is what LotV should be.
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On August 05 2015 12:41 shin_toss wrote:
Yes it requires a lot of micro. which Imo it shouldn't. I believe that 50% macro 50% micro is what LotV should be.
Nevertheless you must keep up your production line with your enemy's all the time. Without that, no amount of micro can save you.
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On August 05 2015 10:10 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:
I agree. I'm in gold right now. I enjoy macro to some extent (not enough to protest removing it) but the fun of the game for me has been doing things that aren't in the meta. I hate blink stalkers but I love HT's and Oracles and Warp Prisms, so that's the units I end up using. One of my absolute favorite things in LotV is kiting with the Warp Prism (hell I'd preorder the game if they just gave me a warp prism and immortal every campaign mission/match and told me to go to town), and it's annoying pulling off some sick micro, thinking "Maybe this can get me into platinum", and then whoops no I'm behind on my warp cycles, my upgrades are late, my nexus is full of energy.
I'm not saying take out macro because it's an integral part of the game. But if I'm all-inning, as a low level player whose APM is limited, having the difference between a good 2 base all-in and a bad 2 base all-in be whether or not I'm chronoboosting my warp gates to get my units out faster while I'm already warping them in and moving them around to make sure they don't get surrounded is frustrating to no end.
So you play more.
Being bad (no offense) is not a reason to remove such an essential part of the game. Starcraft hooks me because it's challenging. I've been stuck in Gold for quite a while in the past, so I played and played, now I am a high diamond and my goal is Masters.
I'm also a Zerg, inject can be very difficult but it's what makes my race unique. This whole "It's pointless/boring/unfun to inject" argument is ridiculous because there are plenty of other aggravations in the game that are still very essential.
Making drones isn't fun, nor is getting supply blocked, so should we remove those mechanics too? Blizzard is walking a line right now that could greatly cost them a lot of fans. They did the same thing to World of Warcraft, they made it 10X more casual, which made it 10x more easy, and as a result 10x less interesting. Starcraft 2 is addicting because it's so hard. When you finally get that promotion to the next rank you can truly pat yourself on the back because you earned it.
Please don't take this away Bliz.
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Casual players are casual anyways, they aren't the core users, and they arent the players that will be playing for a long period of time -- they are casual. Casual gamers jump to whatever game is hot and popular, they dont stick around long. It's not worth catering to the casual player.
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I think it would also do a boatload for player retention too to be honest. If you take my situation, I played hard for 3 years, over 3000 games, high diamond for 9 seasons although I could never quite crack masters (this was with ebbs and flows in my commitments as I was at university at the time), even though I practised and did reasonably well against masters players, even if I could never crack a 50/50 win rate. At that point the game was fun and tense, I felt like I had command of an army, solid enough mechanics, I could multi-task drops, time things well and control the map. I fell down in places, like if my opponent was also very good at those things, defending multiple places was always harder than attacking them.
Fast forward to now, I don't play much and I don't want to play much but I still want to pop on every now and then at the weekends for a game or two because its a great game but I suck so hard now, and not in ways which motivate me to improve. I forget to do the boring multitasking like building units consistently in the mid game or forgetting my upgrades. I can't multitask drops or multi-pronged attacks as well but that's ok, it doesn't feel like as much of a problem, I imagine this is what it must be like to return to a sport you loved in your 20s when you're now in your 60s, you're slow and shit and your body doesn't want to do what you know you want to do.
If that's the game people want then that's fine, I'll play single player and get on with my life, Dark Souls scratches those hardcore itches these days and doesn't demand the same level of mechanical finesse from its players.
I genuinely don't believe that heavily reducing macro mechanics would make the game less interesting at a pro level either, we aren't in a place where players regularly split armies into 2-3 decent sized clumps and micro both super efficiently, it does happen a bit but its mainly a main army + drops / small worker killing forces rather than a genuinely split army trying to hit two places at once. There is a lot to do in SC2 with just your units.
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On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote:"The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is".
Couldn't agree more.
HOTS mechanics are fine but in LOTV everything is harder. To actually experience the game to the extent where your decision making is mostly meaningful; it's not mostly meaningful at a low level, it's a battle of mechanics, you have to play at least at a HOTS-master level. For this reason I support simplifying mechanics in LOTV.
I'm a HOTS high diamond / LOTV 300 wins / WOL mid master player and that's my 2 cents.
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Can't we just stop with those "Hey I am X, I am relevant because I'm GM/made ro128 in an MLG once/played a pro on stream that time, and here's my opinion about LOTV/Protoss/sc2/macro mechanics"-threads ?
Especially since this kind of talk could very well take place in like 3 other, already existing threads...
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Russian Federation93 Posts
No casual players -> no viewers -> no sponsors -> no money -> no tournaments -> no progamers -> no starcraft.
More casual players -> more viewers -> more sponsors -> more money -> more tournaments -> more progamers -> more starcraft.
That is the MOBA recipe for being a successful competitive game and they (MOBAs) are beating the shit out of starcraft right now. More and more people can afford living being a MOBA progamer all over the world (not in just one country). And they are developing 10 times faster than starcraft in order to become a worldwide sport.
Meanwhile "thi bast geme evar" or "altimate brein campetition" is dying in convulsions. Top-level starcraft events have less viewers than above average MOBA player's streams with no comments.
And for those who "Will be playing hardcore starcraft no matter what because they are to smart for MOBA". Stop lying to yourself and look at warcraft 3 competitive scene. What? You can't? Why? Because there is no such thing? Well, that is exactly how "hardcore starcraft only for geniuses" will look like in 2 years.
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EPT
