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I totally agree with what Nazgul and Ret are saying about micro. The micro seems to be so insignificant that its seems to all boil down to strategy and build order. Sure you can pull off some basic micro like attack and move back or the reaper's jump pack ability and the stalker's blink or even dropping and lifting your siege tank like a reaver. But all those things just don't change the tide of the game like micro in SC1.
A game can depend on a person's muta micro for god sakes, a game could come down to a defiler and some lurkers and heck a game could come down to a handful of marines against a bunch of lurkers and still be able to win because of MICRO.
Enough ranting though. I think what blizzard needs to do is change the AI to make it so that units don't clump up together except when they go through choke points. Knowing blizzard and their stubborness with not wanting to change anything major once its beta, this probably won't happen.
I swear though that when the map editor comes out I hope that we can make a much better game with it and maybe change the AI configurations and add, modify or remove units for competitive play.
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Great write up.
When I first started playing beta, I was definitely more on the "micro is dead" side. I couldn't get over just how good AI pathing was. I would A-move an army in and look for straggling units, but then, I realized that my units didn't need my help at all really. I just had to make sure my melee units or short range units, were in front of my long range units really. It came to the point where I was actually afraid to micro because I felt that it would actually just hurt my army's dps in comparison to the opponent. I really don't like just how good the game was at arranging my army than I would most of the time.
Now, I'm leaning a little bit more to the middle, but still on the "micro needs improvement" side. I can see moments where micro is key to the success of winning the fight. However, this was still more on a large scale of army position when engaging rather than micro during the fight (outside of a few situations like roach burrow battles). It still needs some work overall.
About the "OMG" moments in SC1, I completely agree. I think it will be much more difficult to reproduce these moments. I know it's early, but the more I think about it, it just doesn't seem as plausible compared to SC1. I think a major problem to this is smart-casting. It's just too easy to throw casts around. Suddenly, every player is a regular Jaedong, Flash, or Bisu using the devastating damages/effects that SC1 had with storm, plague, swarm, irradiate. Incorporating the natural AI pathing of bunching up as balls, this would be even more devstating. But Blizzard's way to compensate for this is to weaken a lot of these magic effects. Psionic storm, the infestor's fungal growth, etc. are all empty shells of their former versions. They are overall weaker and aren't as devastating to cast.
Even the Raven's Hunter Missile, as devastating as it may be, is not difficult to dodge as it's very slow to reach it's opponent. Think reaver scarab but you can outrun it. I'll be thinking more along the lines of "how did he not dodge that" rather than "wow! did you see that hunter missile??!"
Something that really bugs me in this game as well is how static (or at least less static than before) defense buildings just get steamed rolled by special units that deal MORE damage to buildings. Is this really necessary? No units in SC1 had a special design that dealt more damage to buildings. I can kinda understand why Blizzard would implement this. They want to give players the option to mow down buildings with these units in mind, but this is just another interpretation of a hard counter. I often find myself with spine crawlers defending my natural just get TORN down by marauders faster than a pack of marines sitting on top of a bunch of hold lurkers (ok, maybe not that fast).
Why does this happen exactly? How I look at this situation is that I can either make buildings that are designed to specifically defend, but get destroyed by T1 Terran units that are necessary in early game pushes anyways, or... just build more units that can actually go on the offensive and maybe not get wrecked as hard. Maybe I'm just bitter that it's impossible to throw up crawlers in time the instant the opponent makes a movement. At least let me be able to first make it a creep colony first so I can cut down on morphing time when the opponent actually does move out!
And I just realized that my last two paragraphs had nothing to do with micro, but I don't care!
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On March 13 2010 16:08 madsweepslol wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2010 15:21 Seku wrote:
Nice writeup, although I think at the level of play the SC community has reached there is too much "it's too early to tell". The way the game looks and feels just isn't likely to change much even as the game matures from what I can tell. When were many of the micro tricks that define today's quality StarCraft play discovered? When did we first see rine splitting around lurkers or muta micro? Not for years after BW was released. So I say to you: it's too early to tell.
I mentioned the level of play of the community because the situation now cannot be directly related to the growth of SC1 at all.
This community now full of knowledgeable players, combined with a much "smarter" system that allows a player to rely on the AI much more heavily (directly removing not only necessity, but effectiveness of difficult execution) cannot possibly hold the potential SC1 did in it's early days. Any hidden potential it still holds will surely be trivial compared to what we saw in SC1, due to the limits of the SC2 system itself.
On March 13 2010 17:40 cerebralz wrote:
If the viewer experience continues as is, it will be up to the people in the media: journalists, casters, writers, etc. to educate the viewership about the nature of the game and the skill level that is required to be at the top. Hopefully though, the continued experience and knowledge of the game will grow and those flashes of brilliance will start showing up. After all, it wasn't until years of 'practice' did BW become what it is today.
I think the real issue here isn't that the viewers can't or won't be able to clearly see the skill level at the top, or the flashes of brilliance from those players - but simply that matches will be so heavily dependent on a player's strategy rather than execution of it, the level of brilliance we saw in SC1 will simply no longer exist. The constant mental and physical strain in SC1 allows the potential to make game changing moves in ways you will never see with a much smarter AI.
For example, dropping someone's main while attacking their force. If both player's macro is easier and both player's units are smart enough not to suffer hard for taking some attention from them, the result will come down so heavily to the strategy (unit mix, position, timing based on their build) compared to the execution that we ALSO see in SC1, so much of the pressure on the player and excitement all around is lost, it's no longer SC..
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Marshall Islands104 Posts
Wow, great writeup. I tried to do some thread about this a few days ago but it failed...
Anyway, Chobopoen, you are a great writer and have made a bunch of excellent points.
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So, is it just me, or are many beta players choosing not to micro when in fact additional micro could extend their army's potential? It's only been a few weeks, so people are just trying for the basics, but I assume in the future that they will have their army grouped into several groups.
Sure there are some AI issues, but I think for the most part, people aren't bothering to micro that much yet.
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On March 13 2010 18:21 Seku wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2010 16:08 madsweepslol wrote:On March 13 2010 15:21 Seku wrote:
Nice writeup, although I think at the level of play the SC community has reached there is too much "it's too early to tell". The way the game looks and feels just isn't likely to change much even as the game matures from what I can tell. When were many of the micro tricks that define today's quality StarCraft play discovered? When did we first see rine splitting around lurkers or muta micro? Not for years after BW was released. So I say to you: it's too early to tell. I mentioned the level of play of the community because the situation now cannot be directly related to the growth of SC1 at all. This community now full of knowledgeable players, combined with a much "smarter" system that allows a player to rely on the AI much more heavily (directly removing not only necessity, but effectiveness of difficult execution) cannot possibly hold the potential SC1 did in it's early days. Any hidden potential it still holds will surely be trivial compared to what we saw in SC1, due to the limits of the SC2 system itself.
I disagree. The AI allows players to rely on it more, but doesn't force them to. And if anything, the SC1 system was more limited than the SC2 system, so by your logic SC2 has more potential. Regardless, it'll be the competition that forces players to work around the system and get better and better and develop great micro. It may happen somewhat more quickly than BW, but not so quickly that we can declare micro dead after two weeks of beta lol
On March 13 2010 19:03 0neder wrote:
So, is it just me, or are many beta players choosing not to micro when in fact additional micro could extend their army's potential? It's only been a few weeks, so people are just trying for the basics, but I assume in the future that they will have their army grouped into several groups.
Sure there are some AI issues, but I think for the most part, people aren't bothering to micro that much yet.
I agree. A lot of folks sum up micro as attack move, but actually in quite a few games I'm seeing quite a bit more than attack move.
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Maybe Blizz could just add another 'mode' of a game, where a simplified AI would be used, that'd require more micro and disallow builders to auto mine after their production, etc.
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On March 13 2010 20:17 freestalker wrote:
Maybe Blizz could just add another 'mode' of a game, where a simplified AI would be used, that'd require more micro and disallow builders to auto mine after their production, etc.
Automine is perfectly fine, as is MBS.
What i'd like to see is units getting a bit bigger, so that they don't clump up as hard.
But then again, with enough micro you could actually do that personally.
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Yes as many stated micro in SC2 is not even 1/10 of what BW has but ok we can maybe see some improvments in the future. What bugs me is that unit on ground clumps so much and there is no way to use flanks and positional play because of 3D and possibly maps been too badly made.
Is it me or i think map to unit ratio is extremly bad in SC2? ... From my point of view it looks that the maps are extremly small like 64x64 maps in BW or the units are ridiculosly big. If the maps are normal like 128x128 then this is a big problem... and the maps are generally bad made everything on the maps i see is tunnels that dont encourage strategic play like flanks surround and positional play.I wanna see more open spaces like BW instead platforms with tunnels that looks like the battles are run underground.
Think they should build the maps bigger because the units seem too big but hey i might be wrong because i have never played beta just watched few vods. I wanna see some opinions from beta players on this issue
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Amazing write up! Thanks for taking your time to write this. 
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I think that the people saying there is no micro are really saying "I'm still getting to grips with all of the available build orders and how the units fare against their counters and all the various new hotkeys and macro mechanics so I don't yet have the time to think about and properly control my units to maximum effect". Once all of that starts to become second nature then people are going to have the necessary space within their play to get more 'hands on' with the units and that's when we'll start to see the true skill demands that the game will place upon us.
I mean there's all this talk of dumbing the ai back down again so that we have to grapple and fight with horrible pathing and so on to demonstrate who has the most awesome mechanics, but why can't we grapple and fight with the current ai which is trying to be too smart? It won't always move and attack in the way we want it to so surely correcting that behaviour will end up just as important at the top levels of play?
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i really really love those articles. well written and always interesting for 99% of the tl crowd. 1up for u guys
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i hope another Boxer's Blindspot will appear in SC2, i only remember tats most epic shit in my life
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On March 13 2010 22:47 Bane_ wrote:
I mean there's all this talk of dumbing the ai back down again so that we have to grapple and fight with horrible pathing and so on to demonstrate who has the most awesome mechanics, but why can't we grapple and fight with the current ai which is trying to be too smart? It won't always move and attack in the way we want it to so surely correcting that behaviour will end up just as important at the top levels of play?
Exactly. Phrased it much better than I could.
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This is probably one of the best articles I've read on an eSports community site... not to mention a good variety of opinions.
I have to agree with those that say it's just too early to tell. There are just too many games that have taken YEARS to evolve and I find it hard to believe SC2 is any different. I know from a newbie player perspective, I continue to watch replays and see "new" ideas, strats, harass attempts that I hadn't seen or thought of previously... it seems like there is a huge amount of possibility and only time will tell.
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Great read =)
I don't have a beta key, I'm just a spectator, but I've seen a Lot of games in TL streams, and I don't think that micro is dead. Micro is in this game and it is the player's job to exploit it.
Of course A-moving a blob of units will work if nobody knows how to micro. But the fact is that most people don't even try to find the micro tricks, they just wait for some pro player to develop it, and then proceed to copy the playstyle. And this is Not going to happen in the beta. Some people also just try to copy BW micro into SC2, and don't try anything new. This won't work 100% for obvious reasons.
There is some documentation on micro tricks in the forums already, but you'll have to dig a bit to find those. i.e. Z can exploit the fact that units need to turn around to attack to kill zealots with a small number of speedlings without taking damage, waypoints can be used to cast simultaneous spells from some units, patrol can be used to spread units apart, HSM has its own share of neat tricks to be exploited (targeting your own unit, targeting a dead unit, (MULESM bombing lol) ), MULE and Roach bombs, broodlords and lauch speed upgraded carriers can be microed to take full advantage of their "charged" attack bursts, while staying at a safe distance, banelings are a complete waste against anti-baneling micro, unless they are very well microed themselves, etc..
This is only the very very tip of the iceberg. I also believe that some things need to be changed (the high ground advantage problem, unit walls impossible vs a few units, Stalkers too weak overall...) but I'm not disappointed with the micro in the game. So far when I watch streams, situations keep presenting themselves where the player could have done a simple micro and he doesn't (like T putting an idle Factory to use, either for scout or building addons; or a Z building a creep path when going hydras)
So far I've hardly seen people trying micro ideas in the streams. All we have is "opponent has build this, so I'll build this" or "I have an advantage so I'll do this tech/expand". So I can't take "micro is dead" comments to be credible.
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There was so much of the endgame in BW that didn't evolve till YEARS after it came out. Dark Swarm usage? It just shocked people when it started being used because there was still mystery to the game then. I'm sure everyone knows all to well what Mutalisk stacking did as well. Even the Vulture went back and forth between usage and obscurity. Finally, it ends up being considered one of the strongest units in BW because of the amount of multi-tasking required to pretty much dominate a map with them.
Hopefully there are little surprises like these waiting for us in SC2. The sad thing is, no matter how many tweeks they make and what we say, we won't know this till years later.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. To those who long for more intense and complicated micro-management, Blizzard already has a great game for you: Warcraft III.
I prefer the chaos and carnage of battle between masses of disposable units, only a very few of which are casting spells. Heck, I wouldn't mind if Starcraft units were even MORE automated (I'm thinking of auto-retreat, or patrol + disengage instead of default patrol-attack, or set target priority before the fight) so you could maintain multiple fronts and increase the population cap without needing to micro every front on a larger battlefield. You would still be rewarded if you could micro multiple fronts, but the macro game would be more exciting for the rest of us without YoungHo Lee micro.
In summary: it ain't broke.
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who the hell is Chobopoen?
 thanks for the feedback, guys.
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Ehm I'm not a very good SC player. I can't really name the build orders I see on pro-games until they tell me and although I appreciated Micro right from the start, even when I was just being introduced to competitive BW and watched Pimpest Plays and Boxer Tributes, sometimes some of the Micro escaped me. I didn't quite understand some of the amazing stuff I was seeing.
For example, for the untrained eye the Boxer Lockdown looks hella impressive compared to say... A beautiful Rine-Split against some Lurkers. Now that I know better sniping mines with Goons, kitting Zealots with Vultures and splitting Marines are more impressive that simply cloning a bunch of Lockdowns on a group of Sieged Tanks.
SC2 has made me go HOLY SH- a couple of times already because even thou you are not impressed by the auto-surround or some sick Muta Sniping the abilities the units have are pretty cool to look at and even someone that hasn't played SC2 (like me) can say "Woah! That thing that looks like a Zerg Reaver just hit those Marines spot on! Holy crap! Are those Thors attacking their own units!!!?"
So yes while Micro "Tricks" are not present in SC2 you still have to Micro pretty well and to those that say that it is worst for the spectator... I'm afraid that is not the case, since I am the personification of a "spectator" and I can tell you SC2 looks much more interesting and appealing than what SC:BW looked like a couple of years back when I started to follow it.
And hey if you can achieve 300 APM and put it to good use in DotA and HoN you certainly will be able to do the same in SC2. Rest assured we will still be amazed by the mechanical prowess of the Pros.
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EPT
