Laying down the Truth about SCII and Fun - Page 2

On September 26 2015 07:26 MrInocence wrote:
[I smurf a bit in the lower leagues, and mass reaper/voidray/cannon rush openings are incredibly popular. You have to think from the perspective of someone who just got the game, then gets reaper rushed. They're almost like ground oracles, when someone gets more than two of them.

But what exactly is the point of a reaper? From my perspective, its more of a scouting tool than anything else. Using the same argument for the oracle, if it's primarily a scouting/utility tool, then why does it need an attack?

Another analogy. People using the MSC to scout. That's perfectly fine, but what if the MSC also 2shotted workers? Is that really necessary?

On September 26 2015 08:04 timchen1017 wrote:


It needs an attack because if the opposition is not required to invest in defense, you are behind in economy or tech.

Not saying the design is good, i agree this very extreme result of not having proper defense against oracle or widow mine is not so fun. But removing the attack kills their viability at the timing.

On September 26 2015 08:34 hitpoint wrote:


I guess I still don't see what's wrong with their current attack. It's really, really weak, and at least gives them some meaningful micro potential in the early game. I think you'll find that a purely scouting unit is much worse design when you think about it.

I think you're saying that low level players die to reaper cheese? I think you'll find that low level players can die to pretty much anything in the right circumstance. They are nowhere near as strong as oracles in any regard.

On September 26 2015 07:45 MrInocence wrote:


At the beginning of the beta I remember people saying "Dont worry its just the beta everything's gonna be better at release"

On September 26 2015 08:57 Phaenoman wrote:

We are not at the beginning. What kind of argument is that? U will not change anything with that request.

And this is the ultimate problem with team liquid.

"Don't like it? Too bad."

On September 26 2015 09:23 Cold Warpgates wrote:
Starcraft is always going to be frustrating. It's just inherent in the game. You could tweak individual units or abilities to make them individually less frustrating, sure. But it's still going to be a game of limited information, which is stressful - and you're going to lose to things you didn't see coming. It's always going to be a game of multi-tasking, which is stressful - and you're going to mis-allocate your attention and lose because of it. Even more fundamentally, starcraft is a game where you spend anywhere from 5 - 45 minutes making a beautiful sandcastle only to have someone come and try to kick it over.

I'm not going to pretend that the game is perfect or that there aren't changes I at least want to see tried out. But I think the ones you propose are waaaaaay too extreme and basically short-sighted.

If you remove pulsar beam, no one will make oracles. If you remove reaper attack, no one will make reapers. If you remove Banshee cloak, no one will make banshees. If you remove hellion/hellbat AOE, no one will make them.

If these units are too strong, or kill workers too fast, why not just reduce their damage? (Or even give workers more health) There's no reason to basically remove them from the game.

I'm not going to pretend that I haven't been frustrated by drops, or mutas, or dark templar. But, the game needs them. Maybe some individual units are too strong or too weak, but without these harassment units people will be forced into the turtle->deathball->one giant fight thing every game, and you can't tell me that's fun.

TL;DR The game is literally always going to be frustrating. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, but it's not productive to dream about broad, sweeping changes meant to remove frustration.



I think it's more the problem with posting proposed changes to the game on a fan site that has no power to implement said changes (outside of user mods).

The culture is (probably, I might be making this up) from the brood war days, when the game wasn't being regularly patched and you literally just had to deal with it.

On September 26 2015 07:49 MrInocence wrote:


First of all... easier? Not once did I say to make Starcraft easier. I said to tone down the frustrating points. That has nothing to do with the difficulty of the game.

Brood War was a more fun game. That's why it was more popular. Believe it or not fun games become popular games.

HotS has less players than WoL precisely because of gameplay. CounterStrike had a few players, then made the gameplay better and created the gambling system and became immensely popular.

LoL was gaining players because its gameplay was being improved every patch.

On September 26 2015 07:34 CheddarToss wrote:
Here is the ultimate solution to make the game more fun:

Change your mindset.

On September 26 2015 09:58 Cele wrote:


did that, never regretted it.


true BW never was as popular as sc2 is right now. But it's still the best RTS out there right now, coz it's not a thing of the past.

On September 26 2015 10:06 Cele wrote:


don't get me wrong, your opinion if fine, but don't present it like an irrevocable fact that "Sc2 is the best RTS out there", who could make such a statement.

And rtbh there is no "Starcraft community" as such in my opinion. There's a Broodwar and a Starcraft 2 community, they overlap here and there but are two different scenes. It's like saying "the ballsports community thinks soccer is the best game out there" when football fans disagree.