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On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote:
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. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics.
The game is as hard as your opponent.
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On August 05 2015 21:31 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:56 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 20:44 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 20:04 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote:
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. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! This is a silly argument, viewer numbers are stable and the game is doing very well for itself. WCS system injects $198,500 per WCS EU/NA and the same for the GSL x6. So that's $1,191,000 then add in the finals which is $237,500, so a nice total just from blizzard of $1,428,500. Very impressive numbers. For 2010. TI5 prize pool is bigger than all StarCraft 2 tournaments since the release of the game together. When there is no tournaments running, Starcraft has less viewers than minecraft or World of Tanks. Minecraft, Carl! WCS wasn't even around in 2010, the numbers are from the current prizes in 2015 feel free to work it out. TI5 prize pool isn't fair to compare to SC2 since the money invested into the tournament is crowd funded, anyway why does the amount of money on offer even matter, do people play the game because if they became number #1 in the world they're rich? I've noticed SC2 actually have more stream watchers recently, with people like Demuslim/Naniwa and other popular players streaming more regularly the viewership is climbing back up, as Incontrol has said many times before why do we need to be the biggest and best? SC2 is sustainable has a core viewerbase/playerbase that's not going anywhere why are we worried? That was sarcasm. 1.5m in a year is just not "doing very well" nowadays. If you don't want Starcraft to be the biggest and best, there is no point discussing anymore. We just want the opposite things. P.S. There is no such thing as sustainable core which is not going anywhere. If you don't develop, you degrade and die.
http://www.esportsearnings.com/games
Look at this link, we're 3rd in tournament earnings the ones above SC2 rely on micro transactions to increase their prizepool.
I would love SC2 to be the biggest and the best, but catering to a perceived casual audience at the detriment of gameplay when we already have a strong community and tournament scene is a moronic direction to take.
Broodwar has had no gameplay input (besides mapmakers) pretty much since it's inception, it's still got a solid viewerbase/playerbase even though it has a direct successor.
+ Show Spoiler +On a side note, whenever someone says "That was sarcasm" it invariable wasn't.
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On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote:
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. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers.
That's not an answer to my question. All you posted are current numbers, a made up conversion rate and no thoughts about non-players watching SC2.
See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch.
"Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players"
I don't think this is true at all. What makes a simpler game more interesting to watch?
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On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote:
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. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers.
Why did you use the Blizzcon finals viewer numbers they actually exist, all SC2 streaming numbers are on fuzic.nl.
155,435 is the peak viewer number for the 2014 WCS SC2 finals.
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The fact that macro decides if a low level player wins or not doesn't mean he won't micro his units or come up with a strategy. Of course its an improvement if they win with all the skills involved in the game but most people, specially in lower leagues come up with their builds and unit compositions for the fun of it.
Its actually nice to play whatever unit composition you like since macro matters the most.
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Top koreans in Code S are losing due to silly decisions. But their mechanics are great so let's praise them!
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On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote:
See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch.
Should the game be made harder? It would be very easy to come up with more tasks to players that would only be designed to make the game harder. E.g. currently a unit is produced after you click one button on the building. Shouldn't we introduce a mechanic that forces you to spend more time to produce units? Say you only pay half of the resources to start production of a unit but the progress bar just stops halfway and then you have to go to the specific production building/egg and click on a "continue production" button and pay the other half of the cost. That would definitely raise the skill ceiling by a ton, especially if you cannot smart command it on all your production facilities but you have to find the specific one that is halted at the moment.
Or say we want more attention on units that aren't on your screen. Like, I want to make this zergling runby more skilldependend. We could easily introduce a mechanic that forces you to spend more attention on harassing, e.g by removing the idle-attack stance. A unit won't attack unless specifically told at least to be on attack move. Your medivac gets unloaded in the enemy mineral line, the zerglings get move commanded to the enemy mineral line, the warp in of zealots finish - but you also need to tell them to attack now. This would obviously distinguish better players even more from worse players.
So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics? And if not and the game should be even harder, wouldn't that justify mechanics as I outlined above, because they very well fullfill the only reasoning you give for keeping the current macro mechanics.
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On August 05 2015 22:19 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote:
See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch. So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics?
You are correct on that there is a balance between a (theoretical) game full of mundane tasks and a game where everything is automated.
As for the sweet spot, my personal opinion is that we are close to it, but I wouldn't mind it being made a bit more BW-esque. I would NOT enjoy it being more simpler, in fact I think I would quit if it became as simple as Queens being able to auto-inject.
But this isn't even about me, you guys are almost saying that SC2 would be saved if it became simpler mechanically. I'm still wondering if that's true.
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Czech Republic12129 Posts
Lowering mechanics is not a good way to solve thep roblem. Change the speed of the game.
You know, remove the unforgivingness of the game. You look away from your army for a second - BOOM! Half is vaporized. You look away from a mini-map for a second - BAM! Mine killed 6 workers/Oracle killed 10 of them. And so on.
Blizzard needs to make the game slower so it is not that hectic and unforgiving.
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I don't think people want to purposely lower the skill ceiling. The point is to lower the skill floor.
Inject is a mechanic that getting into it, is actually super demanding, it takes research and knowledge of how other people have done it before and which way best suits you. I've played the game since WoL beta and have only briefly touched on off racing as Zerg, one of the biggest gaps for me to actually get to play the race is to overcome this freaking Inject method and make it muscle memory.
LotV is overall harder than HotS, EVEN with removed macro boosters. Why not remove some skill floor, so that we can add other stuff to raise the skill ceiling that does not fuck over the lower leagues.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 20:34 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 19:47 Bojas wrote:I don't understand this whole discussion. The point of LotV was to increase the skill ceilling, so better players have an easier time differentiating themselves. Simplifying the game even more will make the game more like the Nexus Wars arcade map. Can't argue over taste, but I think if you think that's fun, you understand the game on the same level as your mechanics are. On August 05 2015 19:10 sh1RoKen wrote:On August 05 2015 18:55 Linear wrote:On August 05 2015 18:13 Yiome wrote:On August 05 2015 17:45 sh1RoKen wrote:
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. Can't agree more. Sometimes I do feel the elitism is what poisoning this game. it seems that too many people just don't care about low-level(below diamond as OP stated) players despite they made up over half of active players on ladder. A game has to be balanced around the top, making fundamental changes that aid lower levels players to artificially attain a higher skill level hinders the higher league players ability to differentiate themselves. This is the problem with removing barriers of skill level is that you're just weakening the visibility of skill level, something which goes against their goals for Legacy. Mule is the exception, there's no efficiency drop and it stacks there's no form of punishment for not dropping it (besides not getting the 270 minerals earlier) I wouldn't be adverse to changing the mule to allow better players to demonstrate better mechanics. There will be no top without lower level players. Because there will be no viewers without lower level players. Because there will be no sponsors without lower level players. Because there will be no money without lower level players. Because there will be no tournaments without lower level players. Because there will be no sense training hard for 12 hours a day for free without lower level players. Don't you guys really see that? It is a more casual starcraft or no starcraft at all! I know that you are not happy about that. Me neither. But please just try to understand the big picture!!! You argue that lowering the mechanical skill ceilling makes the game more fun for lower level players, which means that lower level players will be watching the game more often. Instead of a counterargument, I will ask you: what makes you so certain that an SC2 with a lower skill ceilling means more people will watch the game? Lower level players will not be watching the game more often. The same percentage of gamers (both casual and hardcore) will watch tournaments. More gamers we have -> more viewers we have. And here is some facts: We have 593 GM players and 7714 Master league players (US+EU+KR/TW). 8307 hardcore players total. We also have 141656 players in Diamond or lower league. 149963 Players total. 15% of them will probably watch Blizzcon finals = 22494. Let's make starcraft twice harder -> twice more interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice less interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 16614 hardcore players and 70828 casual players. 87442 players total. 13116 viewers. Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players: We will end with 4154 hardcore players and 283312 casual players. 287466 players total. 43120 viewers. That's not an answer to my question. All you posted are current numbers, a made up conversion rate and no thoughts about non-players watching SC2. See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch.
"Let's make starcraft twice easier -> twice less interesting for GM and Master league players -> twice more interesting for Diamond and lower league players"
I don't think this is true at all. What makes a simpler game more interesting to watch?
Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling.
If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game.
And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0.
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Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling.
Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s)
If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game.
I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events.
And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0.
I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons.
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On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote:
Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV.
this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play.
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On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +Simpler game will have more PvP interactions with micro and strategy decisions rather than boring macro mechanics handling. Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s) Show nested quote +If you think that viewers count has nothing to do with players count - prove it. Because it is so obvious for me that I can't even explain it to you. Show me any example when 1000 players game constantly has more viewers than 5000 players game. I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events. Show nested quote +And non-players doesn't give a fuck about macro mechanics. They just want to see a beautiful fights. There was literally 0 times when crowd goes "oooOOOAAAAA" when someone has never missed an injection or cronoboost for 10 minutes of game.
Simplifying the game mechanics will not make it easier to win. It will just give you more time to take actions against your opponent instead of building supply buildings or handling your queens. It is very easy to move chess figures. Go win Magnus Carlsen because the difference between how you can pick up and move pieces of wood is 0. I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons.
Playerbase and viewcount is a chicken and a egg scenario, there's no reason in talking about perceived adjustments to increase a viewercount/playerbase the only discussion that makes sense is what the best move for gameplay.
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On August 05 2015 22:35 Bojas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 22:19 Big J wrote:On August 05 2015 21:59 Bojas wrote:
See what I think is, if you simplify the game, the difference between the absolute top players and slightly below absolute top players will be made smaller, which makes the insane amount of skill that for example top Koreans have a lot harder to appreciate. All in all that dumbs the game down and makes it less fun to watch. So my counter-question to those who are against making macro mechanics easier with the sole reasoning that it helps distinguish players: have we just randomly found the sweet spot with current SC2 in which the game cannot be improved anymore with harder/easier mechanics? You are correct on that there is a balance between a (theoretical) game full of mundane tasks and a game where everything is automated. As for the sweet spot, my personal opinion is that we are close to it, but I wouldn't mind it being made a bit more BW-esque. I would NOT enjoy it being more simpler, in fact I think I would quit if it became as simple as Queens being able to auto-inject. But this isn't even about me, you guys are almost saying that SC2 would be saved if it became simpler mechanically. I'm still wondering if that's true.
I don't think you can "save" SC2. SC2 is not going to be the topdog ever again:
On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote:
Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV.
But in terms of mechanics let's take a look at the popular blizzard RTS games:
Starcraft:Broodwar - surpassed in popularity by the Big Game Hunters mod, a Starcraft mod/map that heavily takes away from the need to manage macro. You are left with the big posterboy combats and the cool unit/strategical choices of the original play.
Warcraft 3 - surpassed in popularity by the mod DotA that took away the need to manage production/economy (which were very crippled in the game to begin with) and left you only with the (extended) hero part of the game. You are left with hero developing and microing similar to the original game.
Starcraft 2 - surpassed in popularity by mods like Nexus Wars and Desert Strike that take away from the need to macro (and micro) units. You are left with strategic choices similar to the original game.
I think the pattern I want to outline is quite clear. Blizzard has been very good at creating popular RTS games, but their most popular forms have always been the ones that got rid of a good part of the "necessary soloplay mechanics" and kept the combat micromanagement or strategic interactions that people actually loved the most in the original game.
Again, SC2 could not get there even if blizzard wanted to. But SC2 can take a few babysteps away from the mechanics that you just do without a real strategic or microdepending interaction and the macromechanics are some of the most prominent ones here. It won't make the game noobfriendly, but it caters in the direction "the best starcraft possible" in my opinion.
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Russian Federation93 Posts
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote:
Yes, because the macro skill required for PvP is very high and removing macro mechanics will suddenly make PvP fun. (/s)
If I have 150 apm, I have to spend 120 of them on macro mechanics and there is only 30 left for PvP. I want it to be otherwise. I want to think about how should I win my opponent. Not about not missing injections or not having a supply block.
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote:
I have never said that there's no correlation between playerbase and the viewer count for events.
So you should understand that the game must be more friendly for casual players. Because 95% of all players in all games are casuals. And there is 0 fun being a casual player in starcraft.
On August 05 2015 22:57 Bojas wrote:
I'm sorry but you have no idea what you're talking about and resort to making silly comparisons.
Best argument ever.
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Bisutopia19246 Posts
On August 05 2015 23:07 Schakal111 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 21:48 Big J wrote:
Guys, don't get delusional about the effect of removing macro mechanics. It's not going to make the game supereasy for noobs and it is not going to make every professional have amazing macro. There are still lots of struggles with you against the macro/build order in the game and there are still tons of things to distinguish players. More than ever in LotV. this, in sc/bw there are no mules, chronos etc. and its still hard to play.
There is no MBS and automining in BW. Therefore there are still things to macro constantly. It's a tradeoff so your argument doesn't stick.
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I think the brood war example is being used to show that 'macro boosters' don't define the character of the game. Despite that, brood war did have an insane amount of mechanical difficulties in the user interface, but I still don't think this defines the character of the game.
I can argue that my opponent's blink micro poses me a mechanical difficulty because I have to react to it with a high degree of precision.
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On August 05 2015 14:24 NKexquisite wrote:
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.
Wrong. Casual players kept SC1 alive as long as they did. This is why all the way to the release of SC2 you could find a whole slew of UMS games on East.
Casual players are and always will be the lifeblood of any game that wants to become or remain successful.
On August 05 2015 14:17 L3x_Luthor wrote:Show nested quote +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.
There's no fun in playing more. I'm not saying Blizz should put me in GM to not hurt my feelings, but I have no incentive after losing game after game after game simply because I'm not chronoing my gates between microing my units or after I work my ass off to dismantle a Zerg army chunk by chunk whoops he remaxed and is back at 200/200.
WoW was done in such a way that my dead grandma could easily get to level 90 if I sat her in front of a computer. We're not advocating that. We're advocating simplifying macro in exchange for faster micro. It's like trying to make QWOP a boxing game. At some point if you want better control of the boxer's arms, you'll need to simplify the QWOP part - not remove it entirely, but make it easier to manage so the players can actually box and not throw right hook after right hook because they're too busy with the footwork.
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Making macro mechanics easier (less punishing) would make the game more focused on micro which could be a good thing. I think they should remain in some form but less punishing and be more of a "you did something good here is a reward" type of thing, of course on pro level this will still mean you have to do them.
However, currently, I don't think the unit interactions in the game is solid enough for it to work out as intended. I fear that it will be just turbovacs, mutas and warp prisms flying around sperm jerking apm while you dance back and fourth with your units without any real strategic choices to do, other than I need unit x to counter unit y.
I don't know.. maybe I am rambling but I feel like removing macro mechanics at this point would decrease strategic options, especially in conjunction with the new economy.
-edit
Maybe give the other races something similar to chronoboost instead for mules/injects to so they can tailor their styles better?
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