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Thank you "relevant" sir, always a pleasure.
On August 15 2015 07:04 Johan-ae wrote: This should be featured, like QXC's posts Seconded. I do agree that qxc tries to be more of a "global" typist while morrow is more terran centric on discussing/sharing his gamer feelings, but morrow is getting there (love to see qxc catz morrow... play random!).
#keep the mule, keep the inject, keep chrono boost.. never surrender never give up! that is starcraft. Obviously rework them all "collectively" (so much untapped potential in how abilities can be "set"/edited/nerfed/buffed/limited/expanded) so the game itself is improved (and yes that means "listen" to the people heavily involved in it, ergo people like morrow qxc catz nony .. the list is endless.. "trying out their ideas").
I personally thought/think that the design should have been done by the end of hots so that lotv would only be about adding while balancing (there are several other mechanics not present in sc that will never get in because of the state it is in), and that is what really kills me!). Such is not the case, we have an obfuscated and disenfranchised community with no clear headway made besides from tl and a few tournaments.
Gamers are playing this, pro gamers are playing this.. and yet it is a shallow version of what it is, what it will once again be when blizzard leaves it after a year or so after lotv retail, .. sc will prevail then. I am puzzled that after 5 years of sc 2°, just how much (just because there are 200 or so things to be mindful of/resolve/synch so that the game is "almost perfect) all of this is still in such a s#i##y state..?!
Yes yes, activision, dollars, beaucoup bucks selling another game, etc.. of course! But what about us?
This community (sc2) has not stand together! Ever. This community will dictate what sc2 is*.. when it decides to do it united.. how do you people not see that?
Hash tag sigh, too old for this.
*: for the better or worse! Edit: Just like having "less" gamers "on" sc2 isn't such a bad thing, quantity of players isn't that good for the game itself.
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Very good post. I agree on nearly every suggestion. I hope blizzard reads this carefully and considers the thoughts.
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Great article!
my personal opinion is that mechanics are fun because making your macro flow like running water and being able to rely on mechanics and multitasking to outplay your opponent is a great way to enjoy the game. Mechanics are something you have to work on and cant just copy somebody elses.
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Morrow is smart, and therefore still relevant.
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Thanks for the post! And thanks for keeping it short enough to be read in a decently short time. You don't to go more in detail than this, or people will jsut not read, and you'll get less information across anyway. I'm thinking more or less like you regarding this, but I want to highlight this part, that is at the heart of why I dislike this direction:
On August 15 2015 06:31 MorroW wrote: One thing that's so beautiful about Starcraft is that you can excel at so many different things. Some people are great at macro, some at micro, some have great mechanics while others make stellar decisions. Dumbing down or "nerfing" any parts of this list of branches you can be good at removes persona from the players. Already today I feel like players are too similar. Maru? Oh well he's a great aggressive Terran who has sick mechanics and multitasking. Cure? Oh well he's a great aggressive Terran who has sick mechanics and multitasking (I see the similarity, do you?). Of course the most the involved people will be able to deviate their styles to differentiate them but in general I feel there is a lack of "personality" in players play. So back to mechanics - making it easier is going to dumb down areas where a player can show who he is. I regard myself as a macro player, in that I try to harass the other player enough so that they lose focus on their macro rather than doing actual damage, and I can get ahead by nailing my injects (yes, the injects) perfectly in the meanwhile, or well enough to get ahead (which isn't very perfect at all in gold it turns out ). It may very well be possible to play that style without manual injects in gold, but a bit less so, and I assume much less so in higher leagues.
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I really think they should consider a weaker change first, by keeping macro mechanics but making them less strong. For instance, a less long chrono, inject that provide less larvae while normal hatcheries provide more, or increasing the mana requirement.
Or cut them altogether but don't cross the autocast line. Please. And you know it's going to be forbidden in Proleague. I mean they forbid automatic drone rallying at the start, so I can only imagine what they think about autocast injects.
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People generally don't like auto-inject mechanic but think it this way, 1) opponent would still have the option to snipe a queen to slow down zerg, 2) a queen auto injecting constantly won't have spare energy to transfuse or creep, so that will create a strategic decision, especially early game when there's only couple of them
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Fiddler's Green42661 Posts
Happy to hear my pro thoughs on the patch
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Spot on. Old school people in Dota 2 call it the 'lolification' of dota, I feel like in SC2 is the kiddification of SC. Basically making it easier and easier so that basically even a 10yo can play it at a very high level as long as they spend 10 hours per week playing it.
automatic larva inject is pure bullshit, this needs to be removed completely. Increase the hatchery larva to 5 or increase the spawn time of larva.
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I'm just a casual but great points, forgot about SCV sacrifices and such.
I will really miss the macro mechanics if they are removed. I'm just so used to Heart of the Swarm. It doesn't seem so bad for Terran, since they have scan + supply drop and I suppose Queens just sit there anyway. I don't know, haha. I really like Chronoboost though, that's an awesome idea.
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Really love this post, thx Morrow. You are my hero on TLG.
I also agree with basically everything you said about mechanics being the base for skill. Just great post.
Music has some similar qualities, in that creativity is highly valued and anyone can participate in that way. Some musicians (most) make careers off creative expression, but the most revered people couple the creativity with mechanical talent.
Yo Yo Ma, for example.
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Interesting article.
While I agree with many of the points, it lacks general direction and the conclusion seems to contradict many of the conclusions for each section. Rather than try to explain both sides (which most people know), I'd rather see a professional player take a strong stand and explain why one side is better than the other.
I really get the feeling that QXC and Morrow are sugar coating things when they talk about LOTV.
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Why dumb down skill assets from players forcing them to be great at everything when you can let them wager its importance themselves during the game?
This and thousand times this!
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Something like MULE and Chrono hardly take any skill or mechanic. The only problem here is larvae inject.
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On August 15 2015 06:52 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: Zerg will suffer the most in early and mid game. And its a shame you didnt said that.... but you noted the obivous fact that Terran will have difficult time in late game.
This why i cant take your post seriously, its clearly biased.
Not to mention you dont noticed the current era of bad design... the mech cancer that is happening. I guess in your mind SH was the problem yet we still see turtle mech.
Just to be clear, i dont agree with auto-inject... i would rather see Zerg with a strong army and larva spawning faster at hatches.
Also queens having the role of good 1 supply unit maybe without Injects but with decent attack, transfuse, creep spread and a late game upgrade at hive to make them faser.
Just wanna say, I would personally "like" for larvae to spawn faster at hatches... but to be honest with how the game mechanics are, I could see why they want to keep the queen. Making hatcheries spawn faster would be a HUGE HUGE buff!!!!
If it were the hatches directly, then queens would have much more energy which would become problematic, as well as queens can actually be a target to try to shut down some of Zergs production, without actually having to take out an entire hatchery. It's much harder to take out a hatchery! Especially with queens having all that extra mana to heal the hatcheries...
It would be quite a bit more of changes and balancing, for effectively the same thing in the end. It might be a silly mechanic, but as a player, the only difference of it being queens is you will have to protect your queen and try to keep one near your hatch's. You have to be more protective and use more skill to keep that production where it is.
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Amazing, simply amazing post. I agree wholeheartedly with everything written here, and it is really nice to see such a well in depth analysis of the situation at hand from an EX BW Player as good as yourself, who clearly undestands the problem.
Thanks MorroW!
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For terran, just make mules gather minerals at the same rate as an SCV. No need to completely remove it, since it is one of the now traditional values of the game.
This makes it so that they still benefit you, but at a lower rate, meaning scans become used more, and mules less.
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Mechanics are good when they allow players to make interesting decisions about how to use their APM best. Given the pace of SC2 fights, it's sort of boom or bust, more about not being caught off guard than maintaining rhythm. The more mechanics the better, because it gives players opportunity to recover from the devastatingly quick and decisive battles we see quite often.
But since this is most relevant in the asymmetric matchups, there needs to be similar level of mechanics dependencies, which is not really born out in the current HotS world (see protossimba qq).
Anyway good writeup, I disagree strongly about giving blizzard the salute because they're fucking up unit design and econ design horribly, but not all their choices are bad.
On August 16 2015 15:29 Tosster wrote: Why dumb down skill assets from players forcing them to be great at everything when you can let them wager its importance themselves during the game?
This and thousand times this! Yes, this is depth!
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I would like to see if nexus energy could be used to convert normal pylons into ones with the faster warp in times
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thanks for the interesting read.
SC2's lead designers keep moving onto greener pastures giving SC2 a schizophrenic design lineage. Pardo and Browder did not get the Jay Wilson treatment.. They got promoted to something deemed more strategically lucrative. SC2 is on its 3rd design lead now.
On August 15 2015 06:31 MorroW wrote: After all, time should be our out-most important resource
Peter Drucker could not have said it any better.
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