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Artificially making the game harder with "vs CPU" elements, rather than "vs Player" elements, is silly.
Totally agree with this. The current mechanics are not exciting to watch or play, they're tedious. Just because something is fulfilling a role in game now does not mean it is the best option. I can't wait to see a version without these mechanics to see what the pros do with that additional APM they can now use on other tasks, especially seeing as LOTV has more expansions and harass.
It may be that these mechanics are replaced with different ones, but as they currently stand I'm not convinced anyone is really defending these mechanics, I think they're just defending a high skill ceiling with lots of multitasking. These mechanics leaving doesn't mean those things go, it means those things shift to other tasks and roles. And people may be right, maybe that leaves the game with more micro than macro for a small while, but that can always be addressed once we've seen this change. Either way, the current mechanics are not interesting and changing things up is a welcome.
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I wholly agree, but as zerg, the strat sort of waits until low masters, since it's still macro through diamond, with a few scouting/runby tidbits.
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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.
so much thisss
Who said that SC needs to be #1 game #1 viewers?..it doesn't need to be on the top of esports to be enjoyable. There are lots of other more unpopular games with their own community and having fun. some people want to make it casual just for the sake of viewership and new players, but it wouldn't make sense since if it even happens bec its too diff from Starcraft anymore. Players (core players) should be given the highest priority than the viewers. Thousands of people enjoyed playing BW as casual and competitive so its not an excuse that SC2 mechanics are hard. If a person doesn't like the game for what it is then he should not play it. simple as that.
Me: tried playing MOBA.. always got bored since its just not my cup of tea, then I stopped playing it, I didn't complain to Valve to make it like the way i want it. Hopefully this would be the case for other sc2 players. It's not elitism when people r disagree making it easy, itsjust people want to enjoy the game the way it is
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Sorry OP, but you are wrong.
Weaker players are boring because they are weaker. Their skill is low so it limits what they can do, therefore it's boring for you to observe.
When I was new, SC was way more fun, even though I was terrible. The better players get, the more bored and tired they get because they are grinding tough opponents and doing the same strategies over and over and over, because at a high level there is little margin for error or fancy plays.
SC2 is dying largely because of MOBA type games. Big team games, freshly added heroes etc
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I disagree with the the thread writer. The better you get at SC2, the more boring it is. Repeating the same things over and over every match. Dying to build orders, cheese and maphackers all day long.
And truth is that SC2 will never be a micro focused game, the hard counter system doesn't allow that. Units will aways die to it's counter units no matter how good you are.
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On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote:
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.
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game.
SC2 isn't dying because of MOBAs. DOTA was out in force long before SC2 came out. SC2 is having difficult because the game is less fun to play than it used to be, and that is because Blizzard is forcing the game.
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.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!
WOL in it's heyday, 2011, was a really fun game, way more than HOTS is today. Units and abilities like Fungal Growth, Vortex, Photon Overcharge, Abduct, Widow Mines and other garbage ideas made SC2 less fun to play. The scene then shrank and people stopped playing, but we know what we need to do to go back.
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Casual players enjoy obstacles. To attract casuals, the game has to be fun. LOTV has more gambits and ways to punish macro plays.
For the macro mechanics, rather than remove them I want zergs to be able to make up for missed injects - such as with a double inject, popping off 6 larva; or, for protoss, a double boosted chrono giving a 75 percent speed increased. It's when your queens are full on energy and you're left wondering what to do with it you begin feeling out of place. Fix that, you don't have to mess up the macro mechanics for higher levels.
Also... fix the arcade. That's where the casuals go the most.
It'd be nice if, in chat and clan channels, players had direct communication and interaction with players from other blizzard games. Like... design an underlying chat interface for all blizzard games, with clan support. This way mixing and diversity takes place, and clans will be vibrant. Probably players will end up playing a wide variety of Blizzard games as well; fix the arcade and this could revitalize Sc2 to a wide audience.
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2015 10:00 Mamba wrote:
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.
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.So we traded strategy for unit control.If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game. SC2 isn't dying because of MOBAs. DOTA was out in force long before SC2 came out. SC2 is having difficult because the game is less fun to play than it used to be, and that is because Blizzard is forcing the game. Show nested quote +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.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!WOL in it's heyday, 2011, was a really fun game, way more than HOTS is today. Units and abilities like Fungal Growth, Vortex, Photon Overcharge, Abduct, Widow Mines and other garbage ideas made SC2 less fun to play. The scene then shrank and people stopped playing, but we know what we need to do to go back.
Guess you didn't play Brood War at all. Strategy, Micro (unit control), Macro, etc.. was all there. How popular and competitive was it? Pretty damn much, I mean hell, it's still played to this day at a high level and still an active pro scene.
Did casuals play? Yes they did, and you knew who they were. "Fastest Map Possible", D- to C- ranked players in ICCup/PGTour and a plethora of UMS games.
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On August 06 2015 12:31 xTJx wrote:
I disagree with the the thread writer. The better you get at SC2, the more boring it is. Repeating the same things over and over every match. Dying to build orders, cheese and maphackers all day long.
And truth is that SC2 will never be a micro focused game, the hard counter system doesn't allow that. Units will aways die to it's counter units no matter how good you are.
What hard counter system are you talking about? Except with some notable exceptions (immortal>tank) any standard army can compete perfectly well against another standard army in a matchup. Generally games are players building relatively similar armies to all games in the matchup and winning by either micro, macro, or positioning. There are very few hard counters in this game that can't be overcome by good play.
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Personally I want to be able to focus my mind of decision making instead of "doing chores". I think it would be nice if there was an auto-cast option for larva inject, or dropping mules, or chrono-boosting what is in production. Obviously this would require some testing and maybe my idea is shit, but it could potentially be win-win for everyone involved in SC2.
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United States776 Posts
I actually posted in the other thread talking about this issue, but I figured what's on my mind right now is still the same so this is a bit of copy and paste.
Just to start off with my experience level, I have hit NA masters in 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s for the first 19 ladder seasons in a row.
Well, this is certainly an interesting discussion, and I must respectfully state that as my opinion, the toning down or even removing of macro mechanics will indeed be a good thing for the game. Times have changed a lot and we've all grown up with a whole new set of priorities over learning a game inside and out. Nowadays, the number one factor to "is a game worth my time?" is accessibility. Can I jump right in and realistically play with the tools I am given as effectively as I can without being hampered by not being the best a technical mechanic? If I can never be good at that one particular mechanic, even though I know the game inside and out, it just won't be fun to play.
Way back in 2003, Warcraft III introduced MBS and, to a lesser extent, improved waypointing (command queueing). I absolutely loved that feature and ever since the beginning, I was saying, "If they brought this feature to Brood War, that game would be so much more enjoyable to play." Back in SC1, you had to click each building individually to build your units. And if you played Terran, if your SCV is already constructing a building you can't shift command it to go back to minerals, but you could if you were fast enough to shift command constructing a building and returning to minerals. Even back then, I really never got the "ooh" and "ahh" factor about that.
The fun of StarCraft 1 was always the micro battles and strategic positioning, but if you weren't good at the keeping your production rolling, then there really isn't a getting to the micro and strategy part. And in the end, it's not fun because there's no strategic alternative to maximizing your production. And that part is why every single one (yes, really every single one) of my friends except for myself quit playing competitive StarCraft.
I dabbled in a little bit of League of Legends as well. I've seen pro matches and watched Worlds live one time. The fun part about League of Legends is, not to sound like a broken record, the team fights and strategic positioning. But I am not good at the technical aspect of last hitting. I'll always misjudge how much life a creep has, try to auto it, and find out I left it alive with 3 HP and my minion gets the killing blow, leaving me with no gold. The punishment goes double when you fail to last hit a cannon minion. To miss something like that is like missing your larva injects. And because of that, you're down that amount of gold for the rest of the game. There really is no strategic alternative to missing CS outside of flat out killing the opposing hero, which is no small feat. The frustrating part of that is knowing, "You fell behind, but not because you were outplayed by the other player. Now you have to suffer a disadvantage for the rest of the freaking game."
Pro players in League of Legends are capable of last hitting every single minion in each wave in high stakes matches, easily hitting over 100 CS by the 10 minute mark. They have the timings, their attacks, and movements down to a science. And because of that, my enjoyment of LoL has been utterly destroyed. I cannot emulate their actions vs the lane creeps because you have to be so damn precise. It really is all or nothing when it comes to last-hitting. I cannot last hit for crap, and I do not care to improve myself at it because it doesn't even bring any valuable real-world lessons to it either. And so I do not play League of Legends anymore.
On a side note, Heroes of the Storm is an amazing game because there are so many strategic alternatives to each situation in the game. It's easy to jump into the game and adapt and change your playstyle on the fly. And most importantly, you aren't held back by not being good at PvE.
And going to StarCraft 2, I've had many aspiring zerg friends from the beginning of Wings of Liberty. As an experienced StarCraft veteran, I can easily teach my friends strategy and the flow of the game. But they'll never be good at continuously larva injectinvg, and thus they can't reach the strategy part of the game because they're held back by that one technical mechanic. And so they do not play StarCraft 2 anymore. It's as simple as that.
Now, speaking for myself, I play random race (and hit masters 18 times in a row playing random ), but if I were to main a race, I would not pick zerg. To miss a larva inject is just simply too punishing compared to missing chrono boost and MULE. And it just sucks to lose games knowing you messed up not against the other player, but against yourself. Again, there's no strategical recourse to missing an inject. All you're doing as a zerg is playing from behind. Why should you honestly be that punished just for missing a simple task? And if you win a game vs a zerg and find out they were stockpiling tons of resources but screwed up their larva injects, that victory would feel hollow.
Even if the macro mechanics were totally gutted, I believe the game would still be reasonably difficult, yet rewarding and FUN to play. Games are most fun when you can get your buddies IRL hooked and see them enjoying it and discussing it. I love StarCraft 2 to death because I have played the full 17 years (20 years if you wanna go even further back to Warcraft 2). I am capable of the nuanced mechanics required to play effectively, but all my friends are not even though they enjoy the franchise. So they do not play.
I commend Blizzard's gaming philosophy of making things as accessible as possible to newcomers. I would be enjoying StarCraft 2 to its fullest if my friends were actively playing and discussing it. StarCraft 2 is still my absolute favorite game in the world. It deserves more players, and by making it where getting to the fun part of the game easier is a step that I see will make leaps and bounds.
Thank you for reading this humble gamer's post.
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote:
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
Remember when units didn't need abilities in order to be micro'd ? Good times.......
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While I still have horrible creep-spread, my injects are not that bad. I still would be okay with a cut or decreased auto-cast larvae injection.
One reason is the zerg fantasy. I want to infest the whole map, the whole planet. With injects, I don't really need macro hatcheries.
And there is the other side: I would be glad to sacrifice or lessen the injects, if I get rid of Terran mules. They can sit back and mule the crap out of the base.
And there is the side mentioned by the OP. Imagine you show Starcraft to a new player and have to tell him "You don't just have to build workers and units, you also have to do this repetitive macro management task or the opponent will own you every time."
The longer I think about it, the more I like the idea to overwork or cut the macro mechanics. While some decision making and some strategic depth is lost, the net gain is worth is.
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I think there's a big big BIG difference between enjoying watching a game and playing it. With this level of macro, the game is really fun to watch, but very hard to get your hands onto. That scares away new players and makes the number of active players sink.
Is it better to have a fun game to watch or a fun game to play even at the low-mid levels? What do you think?
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On August 06 2015 12:52 BronzeKnee wrote:
And this what bothers me. We traded macro mechanics (which influence decision making and therefore strategy) for micro.
So we traded strategy for unit control.
Macro =/= strategy. One of the arguments against the macro mechanics is that there isn't much strategy involved - they are just a mechanical barrier to playing the game.
If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game.
Are you suggesting that controlling units is not the focus of SC2? I have to disagree if you are. For me, controlling units is the most significant aspect to the game.
The way attract casual players isn't to make the game easy, it is to make it fun!
Removing the macro mechanics will not make the game easy. The skill cap is higher than any human will ever achieve. It will, however, make the game more fun.
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The better you get at Starcraft - the more fun it is
that's a sad opinion
Casuals player always want to be able to do the same as proplayers without spending 10 hours a day to practice. A pro broodwar game will be more interesting to watch than a pro sc2 game because the skill cap is so huge that even zergling control can be impressive  I fear that killing macro will also kill a part of sc2 that is required to stay a good game.
Macro =/= strategy. Ever heard of KT_Flash ?
what??
- If you want to control units, there are plenty of games that allow you to just do that. But this is a strategy game.
- Are you suggesting that controlling units is not the focus of SC2? I have to disagree if you are. For me, controlling units is the most significant aspect to the game.
So is this a troll topic?
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go play turn-based strategy games. by definition "real time" means that the game is supposed to revolve around simultaneous macro and micro, hence difficult mechanics.
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On August 08 2015 19:46 Cazimirbzh wrote: Ever heard of KT_Flash ? what??
I was saying that you cannot use those two words - "macro" and "strategy" interchangeably.
I agree that focusing on macro tasks can be a strategy, and that there are strategies that exist that are so called "macro strategies", but macro does not represent the entirety of "strategy", and the macro mechanics do not represent the entirety of macro. Removing the macro mechanics does not mean trading strategy for unit control.
One of the arguments against the macro mechanics is that there isn't much strategy involved - they are just a mechanical barrier to playing the game.
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random thought i had that i'll put here
Assuming this complete removal of manual zerg macro mechanics goes through, the race will be horribly imbalanced and require nerfing of massable and fast units
Because with that removal, there is literally not a single reason for zerg to ever look at their base for more than a second or two every other minute to start an upgrade or a building. Combine this with the fact that splitting selected units away from a control group (which will have a fundamental and significant impact on zerg and not the other races because of adding eggs), the mechanical requirement of zerg will be ridiculously low, and in theory, a player could just spazz around the map making chaos without ever sacrificing macro or fucking up control groups(which often happens in the current state of the game if a player is being too spastic)
It seems to me as if this change would have much more magnitude than most people think, and lead to some huge fundamental changes in balance and expose a big caveat in design, right?
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EPT
