EPTMy thoughts on blizzards Macro Mechanics patch - Page 4
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CptMarvel
France236 Posts
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ShambhalaWar
United States930 Posts
On August 16 2015 22:22 JimmyJRaynor wrote: 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. Peter Drucker could not have said it any better. New warcraft? | ||
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FLuE
United States1012 Posts
On August 17 2015 02:33 CptMarvel wrote: Feels so good, after five years, to finally see pros say straight up that SC2 has always been a badly designed game. Cause it has, it really has. The only reason it still has its audience is because of the total absence of competition. I hope LOTV makes at least a half successful attempt at making the sequel to Brood War (love love love) the game it should have been. Actually this is a bit backwards, SC2 isn't a badly designed game, it is too good a designed game. By that I mean the imperfections that existed(a lot of it the creators didn't even know when making the game) are what made BW what it was. Their was so little knowledge of unit design and micro etc. when the game was made, that it allowed BW to become what it was almost organically. With SC2 I think they essentially tried too hard. Instead of just creating awesome units and fun units, and letting the players figure out what potential existed and self balance the game, they have forced certain things down our throats. Forced certain builds and counters, always trying to provide a solution to everything. The best part of BW was the players figuring how the game and creating their own balance. Evidence with that is how few patches there were over time yet the game never was "broken" for any long periods. I think they are starting to get back to that though, and why LOTV has a chance to be better. Simplify the game, and let the players make it complicated, instead of trying to make a complicated game that the players have to figure out what the creators what us to do. | ||
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FabledIntegral
United States9232 Posts
I do dislike the huge camping or orbitals though with mech style lategame | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
You say things along the lines of the game being balanced around mechanics, which I think everyone can agree with. But then you say things like "the game will be easier for zergs than for terrans". Well, if it is balanced around mechanics that's just the same as "zerg is overpowered against terran". Since balance for LotV has not been found yet but will be achieved eventually, there is no argument here. It's going to be balanced around non-existant injects, nothing more or less. Since I believe the patch is a huge buff for Terran against Zerg, I believe the game will be "much easier for Terran" in ZvT anyways. Or in other words, Zergs losing 30% production early in comparison to losing 12.5% mineral income early will make it so that Terran can play very sloppily against Zerg and the Zerg really has to work his ass of with top-notch micro and creep spreading and crisp production and so on and so on to have a chance. Which I fear won't be enough, but the game will be balanced around those players that play Zerg as well as possible after the patch and who work their asses off mechanically, so the endresult will be that Zerg is just as mechanically demanding and as powerful as Terran or any other balanced race. | ||
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ZergLingShepherd1
404 Posts
On August 17 2015 04:08 Big J wrote: @MorroW: I think you are not really consistent in your argumentation. You say things along the lines of the game being balanced around mechanics, which I think everyone can agree with. But then you say things like "the game will be easier for zergs than for terrans". Well, if it is balanced around mechanics that's just the same as "zerg is overpowered against terran". Since balance for LotV has not been found yet but will be achieved eventually, there is no argument here. It's going to be balanced around non-existant injects, nothing more or less. Since I believe the patch is a huge buff for Terran against Zerg, I believe the game will be "much easier for Terran" in ZvT anyways. Or in other words, Zergs losing 30% production early in comparison to losing 12.5% mineral income early will make it so that Terran can play very sloppily against Zerg and the Zerg really has to work his ass of with top-notch micro and creep spreading and crisp production and so on and so on to have a chance. Which I fear won't be enough, but the game will be balanced around those players that play Zerg as well as possible after the patch and who work their asses off mechanically, so the endresult will be that Zerg is just as mechanically demanding and as powerful as Terran or any other balanced race. He had good arguments on design but he complained that terran will have a hard time when zerg will have an even harder time. Mentioned the carcer of BL/Infetor and SH but nothing about mech... This is what i dont like about most terran players... double standards. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16949 Posts
On August 17 2015 03:13 FLuE wrote: Actually this is a bit backwards, SC2 isn't a badly designed game, it is too good a designed game. By that I mean the imperfections that existed(a lot of it the creators didn't even know when making the game) are what made BW what it was. Their was so little knowledge of unit design and micro etc. when the game was made, that it allowed BW to become what it was almost organically. they locked Bob Fitch in a room for 6 weeks and he made the SC1 engine.... its your classic lone-wolf-coder as project saviour story. On August 17 2015 02:33 CptMarvel wrote: Feels so good, after five years, to finally see pros say straight up that SC2 has always been a badly designed game. Cause it has, it really has. The only reason it still has its audience is because of the total absence of competition. I hope LOTV makes at least a half successful attempt at making the sequel to Brood War (love love love) the game it should have been. if i run MS or EA .. i'm shutting down EALA, Victory Games and Ensemble every time. smart moves by both publishers. what is MS doing for Halo Wars 2? are they opening a new studio. no. t hey are renting CA for a year. there should be no competition because there are lots of other genres of entertainment software that offer superior ROI. | ||
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sparklyresidue
United States5523 Posts
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jpg06051992
United States580 Posts
On August 17 2015 03:13 FLuE wrote: Actually this is a bit backwards, SC2 isn't a badly designed game, it is too good a designed game. By that I mean the imperfections that existed(a lot of it the creators didn't even know when making the game) are what made BW what it was. Their was so little knowledge of unit design and micro etc. when the game was made, that it allowed BW to become what it was almost organically. With SC2 I think they essentially tried too hard. Instead of just creating awesome units and fun units, and letting the players figure out what potential existed and self balance the game, they have forced certain things down our throats. Forced certain builds and counters, always trying to provide a solution to everything. The best part of BW was the players figuring how the game and creating their own balance. Evidence with that is how few patches there were over time yet the game never was "broken" for any long periods. I think they are starting to get back to that though, and why LOTV has a chance to be better. Simplify the game, and let the players make it complicated, instead of trying to make a complicated game that the players have to figure out what the creators what us to do. +1 to this | ||
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Spyridon
United States997 Posts
On August 17 2015 03:13 FLuE wrote: Actually this is a bit backwards, SC2 isn't a badly designed game, it is too good a designed game. By that I mean the imperfections that existed(a lot of it the creators didn't even know when making the game) are what made BW what it was. Their was so little knowledge of unit design and micro etc. when the game was made, that it allowed BW to become what it was almost organically. With SC2 I think they essentially tried too hard. Instead of just creating awesome units and fun units, and letting the players figure out what potential existed and self balance the game, they have forced certain things down our throats. Forced certain builds and counters, always trying to provide a solution to everything. The best part of BW was the players figuring how the game and creating their own balance. Evidence with that is how few patches there were over time yet the game never was "broken" for any long periods. I think they are starting to get back to that though, and why LOTV has a chance to be better. Simplify the game, and let the players make it complicated, instead of trying to make a complicated game that the players have to figure out what the creators what us to do. I can agree with that for sure. You don't have to "try" to make a game complicated! That makes it artificially challenging. All the resources the player spends on trying to keep up with the complexities would be better spent focusing on places where the game design encourages player vs player interaction. The REAL challenge should be against the OPPONENT, not the game mechanics themselves. Gameplay focused on game mechanics instead of competing with the other player, is basically a different wording for bad controls... Competing against the game to do what you want. That should be the easy part... the hard part should be outsmarting and defeating your opponent! | ||
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weikor
Austria580 Posts
Players would opt to make macro hatcheries instead of queens (1 macro hatch 350, to queen 150) Im personally on board with that, but i would like to see inject removed completely and force zerg to make more hatcheries. I also think its wrong to judge a new system without playing it at all. In one sentence you say starcraft has always been a bad game, in the next youre trying to keep it the way it is arguing about fundamental changes. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
On August 17 2015 04:08 Big J wrote: @MorroW: I think you are not really consistent in your argumentation. You say things along the lines of the game being balanced around mechanics, which I think everyone can agree with. But then you say things like "the game will be easier for zergs than for terrans". Well, if it is balanced around mechanics that's just the same as "zerg is overpowered against terran". Since balance for LotV has not been found yet but will be achieved eventually, there is no argument here. It's going to be balanced around non-existant injects, nothing more or less. MorroW isn't being inconsistent, he's simply talking about a very complex issue. Balance and design are not always strictly divisible, and sometimes talking about one necessitates implicating the other. The bad design of a race can make achieving true balance very difficult or even impossible. Or in other words, Zergs losing 30% production early in comparison to losing 12.5% mineral income early will make it so that Terran can play very sloppily against Zerg and the Zerg really has to work his ass of with top-notch micro and creep spreading and crisp production and so on and so on to have a chance. Why do you assume that Zerg will not receive any buffs to compensate for the loss in production...? Blizzard has made it explicitly clear that their intention with removing macro mechanics is to 1) lower the barrier for entry and 2) remove invisible plays from the equation, so that we always know why someone is winning. Changing the metagame has never come up as a priority for this change. I would argue that it is only logical to assume that they will change balance to keep the metagame as similar as possible to what it would have otherwise been. We already have an indication that this is happening with DKim saying Creep Tumors will be changed to keep their optimal use in line with HOTS expectations. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On August 17 2015 07:42 pure.Wasted wrote: MorroW isn't being inconsistent, he's simply talking about a very complex issue. Balance and design are not always strictly divisible, and sometimes talking about one necessitates implicating the other. The bad design of a race can make achieving true balance very difficult or even impossible. He says the game is balanced around mechanics and an infinite skill ceiling, which implies that races will always be equally hard to play when they are balanced*. On August 17 2015 07:42 pure.Wasted wrote: Why do you assume that Zerg will not receive any buffs to compensate for the loss in production...? Blizzard has made it explicitly clear that their intention with removing macro mechanics is to 1) lower the barrier for entry and 2) remove invisible plays from the equation, so that we always know why someone is winning. Changing the metagame has never come up as a priority for this change. I would argue that it is only logical to assume that they will change balance to keep the metagame as similar as possible to what it would have otherwise been. We already have an indication that this is happening with DKim saying Creep Tumors will be changed to keep their optimal use in line with HOTS expectations. I did not assume zerg will not receive any buffs in case my quick assumption is right (which it might not be to begin with obviously). I even said that. The point is that if we take this state as our base for balancing the game it will just turn out equally hard again once the game is balanced. Because balanced again equalls equally difficult to play*. *Why does balanced mean equally difficult if we assume balance around mechanics and infinite skill ceiling? Assume (1) The game scales with mechanical skill (2) The skill ceiling is infinite (3) The game is balanced Then in a game with equally good players (4) there cannot be a player that has it easier than his opponent. Proof: We assume the opposite and will try to find a contradiction. If so, then the above must be true. Assume one race's player has it is easier than the other. Since the skill ceiling is infinite (2) he can still get better until he uses as much skill as the opponent, because he is equally good (4) and the game scales with mechanical skill (1). Hence we reach a contradiction to (3): The game is not balanced anymore, the extra effort makes the player perform better Note that it is also impossible that the game can be balanced and his extra actions were just "useless", or we would reach a contradiction to (2) since we would have found a skill ceiling. | ||
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pure.Wasted
Canada4701 Posts
Are you saying that MorroW insists that SC2 has an infinite skill ceiling right here and now? Because that would be inconsistent with how I read his OP, but I can't find a statement like that anywhere. | ||
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imBLIND
United States2626 Posts
The easiest fix to a complicated problem such as this one would be to dumb the AI down in order to allow the human player to outplay the computer AI -- not so much that it becomes the same, dumb BW engine, but enough so that the human player can beat the so-called "smart AI and UI" with auto surround, auto cast, auto mine, idle worker tab, multi-unit selection, and multi-building selection. In BW, these were called hacks lol...I do however agree that they should probably be in the game in order to make life easier on everyone, but I think that the human player should be allowed to showcase his skill by doing everything the smart AI does, but better. | ||
BisuDagger
Bisutopia19297 Posts
On August 17 2015 02:33 CptMarvel wrote: Feels so good, after five years, to finally see pros say straight up that SC2 has always been a badly designed game. Cause it has, it really has. The only reason it still has its audience is because of the total absence of competition. I hope LOTV makes at least a half successful attempt at making the sequel to Brood War (love love love) the game it should have been. Pros did speak up. They were very vocal when the game came out. Sadly people just said "it's Idra being Idra" or something of that sort. | ||
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Superbanana
2369 Posts
Many people ponted out ways to make the micro harder and more meaningful in SC2 without some dumb AI. The MOBA-ish abilities are also a way, but not one i really like. about the macro: I don't think meaningless APM sinks to increase the skill ceilling are necessary, but i do think controlable macro mechanics is something i would miss a lot in SC2. Macro mechanics are one full skill set that makes SC2 what it is. Right now the number of larvae the zerg has is unpredictable after the early game, since few people in the world do it almost optimally. Same goes for creep. Chrono opens possibilities for protoss and mules are a crucial part of terran gameplay. Yes, sometimes it simply mean more money, but SCV pulls, ninja bases, and marine conga lines are only possible because terran has mules. Removing them won't necessarily add a new gameplay, specially for protoss it might only mean loss of complexity and depth. Changing the macro mechanics into something less automatic and more meaningful is a better way to go. loss of complexity won't make the game be perceived as much easier, since the skill ceiling is high enough without them (still easier tho), but loss of complexity dumbs down the game. about balance: i think the biggest problem might be the balance between same race units. After years of maturing the game balance we start from zero. Changing the larvae production also changes the value of larvae, breaking balance zergwide. But terran will be completely different without their unique mineral gas ratio. Get ready to buff marines somehow, all we know about terran will be a lie. Not saying its so hard to balance that blizzard shoudn't try, but they should consider a fix that won't break the rest. | ||
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Everlong
Czech Republic1973 Posts
On August 17 2015 04:25 ZergLingShepherd1 wrote: He had good arguments on design but he complained that terran will have a hard time when zerg will have an even harder time. Mentioned the carcer of BL/Infetor and SH but nothing about mech... This is what i dont like about most terran players... double standards. Ok, first of all - stop calling mech a cancer. Stop using that word altogether. Not only it shows you are heavily biased and immature, but it can be very offensive towards people in real life who have experience with this terrible disease. Next, mech is not even close being as bad as BL/Infestor. Comparing BL/Infestor to general "mech play" makes it pretty clear you are biased Zerg player hating on mech, most probably because you feel comfortable having the ultimate composition that can 1a into your opponent while you shield yourself with the cliche of "you let me get there, now you diserve to lose the game". Really, you are acting like a textbook hypocrite. You are throwing around moral enlightenments that you are not following yourself in the first place. | ||
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tamino
France51 Posts
On August 17 2015 03:13 FLuE wrote: Actually this is a bit backwards, SC2 isn't a badly designed game, it is too good a designed game. By that I mean the imperfections that existed(a lot of it the creators didn't even know when making the game) are what made BW what it was. Their was so little knowledge of unit design and micro etc. when the game was made, that it allowed BW to become what it was almost organically. With SC2 I think they essentially tried too hard. Instead of just creating awesome units and fun units, and letting the players figure out what potential existed and self balance the game, they have forced certain things down our throats. Forced certain builds and counters, always trying to provide a solution to everything. The best part of BW was the players figuring how the game and creating their own balance. Evidence with that is how few patches there were over time yet the game never was "broken" for any long periods. I think they are starting to get back to that though, and why LOTV has a chance to be better. Simplify the game, and let the players make it complicated, instead of trying to make a complicated game that the players have to figure out what the creators what us to do. This is exactly what I think since wol. The way blizzard is handling sc2 is like they are reverse engineering an imaginary perfect game. Or said differently, its a top down design style where they are designing the games we will play, the meta, and not the game ! Designing the game would be a bottom up design style. At the end, their way of doing this leave us with not enough space to players imagination and creativity. When David Kim says something like "we want the game to be more action oriented", this is exactly this. | ||
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SeeDs.pt
Portugal33 Posts
Terran will no longer have the possibility of sacrificing all their workers to match up against the other races. Feels good overall to get rid of that unnatural process but I wish Terran was compensated with an army that puts up a good fight rather than being relatively fucked in such situation. Pretty certain the viper bomb and new ultralisk will favor Zerg in late game more so than the new tools Terran get. that being an example. It's just a matter of balancing terran's late game isn't it? so that seems to me to fall under balance. I agree with Morrow that it feels good to get rid of that unnatural process, even if it stayed this new way the remaining mechanics will need tuning in energy costs and/or cooldowns regardless of every other balance aspect. protoss and zerg will be the ones losing the most mechanically in my weak based opinion... personally i'd like to see the idea (mentioned in a post i can't find atm) about having manually injected casts being superior due to timing differences. basically if an autocast is more costly, then it pays off to manually cast but it only compensates if you're on top of it. actually think all autocasts need to have a disadvantage to it, else you might as well just make it a passive and don't even have the option to turn it off. Be either loss of control or weaker efficiency... one of the problems i see, including in myself, is for people to make up their minds about what they want regarding impactful mechanics. Because i don't see an impactful mechanic not having a punishment on some area, that's kinda of what makes it impactful/meaningful isn't it? edit: ufff.. 4 pages have gone by... probably a pointless post by now :p | ||
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