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I wish everyone would stop reading this article as a tidbit on "how SC2 sucks," but rather as a commentary about "how SC2 can be improved." Because SC2 most definitely does not suck. It's an excellent game. And even if Blizzard never again makes a single change to it, I have no doubt that it will still be an enormously successful game. But, it's not perfect. Sure, you could sit back and think "maybe we'll wait a few years and then somehow it will magically become perfect." Or you could try to do something about. Try to make it the best it can be.
On July 12 2010 01:39 palexhur wrote:
Well this article reminds me 5 years ago when AoC (Age of Empires:the Conquerors expansion) players (including me) said that some things in AoE3 just broke the original conception of its predecessor as an excellent RTS game, new players just rant out about giving the game more time, tactics over APM nerds, and blah blah blah, right now, AoE3 is just a game without community , tournies or fun, and AoC has its 2k players community (It is 9 years old) and some tournies with even USD10k price, so You, the new guys, those that dont listen, just read again and press Blizzard to give you the maximize experience, because right now , It is not comparing a 10 yrs old game vs a Beta game, It is 10 yrs of experience gained by everybody including the companies to put the best in a game that has the biggest RTS community in the world because of SC1, It is true, games evolve with players but sometimes you can nail things that block the evolution. Right now even though I am not a SC player from my spectator point of view as a RTS player, I get excited watching pro SC scene and get boring watching the top SC2 scene, so dont go into the battle BW vs SC2, go for the battle that makes a diference between a classic game and a good one.
Also, I really liked this quote a lot. Hah.
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On July 12 2010 03:10 stellarvector wrote:
You know... I think that Blizzard sat down and looked at what they wanted to accomplish with Starcraft and how they could improve on the design. On a rational thought process, making a game easier to control is considered a general improvement to the game. Maybe that means that things are going to feel imba, maybe it means certain situations will always feel imba. But this shouldn't be new news for anyone who's participated in the Starcraft franchise. With the new, easier to control interface, it pretty much sets the game up for new ways and methods. We're going to see different styles of play and different reactions to things. Being resistant to change is a natural behavior, but I'm excited about what Starcraft 2 can do in experienced hands.
And, if it does turn out to be a huge disappointment... well- we can always just go back to brood war!
I don't think that making the game easier to control necessarily means that you have to nerf things like psistorm. Sure, if you added smartcasting to SC1, psistorm would be overpowered.
But the solution isn't to nerf psistorm and its brothers -- it's to give other races *active* defenses that also become easier to use. And we are sort of going in that direction: look at the interplay between templar trying to storm and ghosts trying to emp them. But this is less important simply because storm is less scary -- at least at the level of play I am at, it's better to just spend the gas on tanks and thors and get stormed once in a while.
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Thanks for this. I agree.
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On July 12 2010 04:30 entropius wrote:y Show nested quote +On July 12 2010 03:10 stellarvector wrote:
You know... I think that Blizzard sat down and looked at what they wanted to accomplish with Starcraft and how they could improve on the design. On a rational thought process, making a game easier to control is considered a general improvement to the game. Maybe that means that things are going to feel imba, maybe it means certain situations will always feel imba. But this shouldn't be new news for anyone who's participated in the Starcraft franchise. With the new, easier to control interface, it pretty much sets the game up for new ways and methods. We're going to see different styles of play and different reactions to things. Being resistant to change is a natural behavior, but I'm excited about what Starcraft 2 can do in experienced hands.
And, if it does turn out to be a huge disappointment... well- we can always just go back to brood war! I don't think that making the game easier to control necessarily means that you have to nerf things like psistorm. Sure, if you added smartcasting to SC1, psistorm would be overpowered. But the solution isn't to nerf psistorm and its brothers -- it's to give other races *active* defenses that also become easier to use. And we are sort of going in that direction: look at the interplay between templar trying to storm and ghosts trying to emp them. But this is less important simply because storm is less scary -- at least at the level of play I am at, it's better to just spend the gas on tanks and thors and get stormed once in a while.
Isn't that sort of the problem he's talking about? Army Composition > Army Control in SC2. Much less true in 1
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On July 12 2010 04:25 Saracen wrote:I wish everyone would stop reading this article as a tidbit on "how SC2 sucks," but rather as a commentary about "how SC2 can be improved." Because SC2 most definitely does not suck. It's an excellent game. And even if Blizzard never again makes a single change to it, I have no doubt that it will still be an enormously successful game. But, it's not perfect. Sure, you could sit back and think "maybe we'll wait a few years and then somehow it will magically become perfect." Or you could try to do something about. Try to make it the best it can be. Show nested quote +On July 12 2010 01:39 palexhur wrote:
Well this article reminds me 5 years ago when AoC (Age of Empires:the Conquerors expansion) players (including me) said that some things in AoE3 just broke the original conception of its predecessor as an excellent RTS game, new players just rant out about giving the game more time, tactics over APM nerds, and blah blah blah, right now, AoE3 is just a game without community , tournies or fun, and AoC has its 2k players community (It is 9 years old) and some tournies with even USD10k price, so You, the new guys, those that dont listen, just read again and press Blizzard to give you the maximize experience, because right now , It is not comparing a 10 yrs old game vs a Beta game, It is 10 yrs of experience gained by everybody including the companies to put the best in a game that has the biggest RTS community in the world because of SC1, It is true, games evolve with players but sometimes you can nail things that block the evolution. Right now even though I am not a SC player from my spectator point of view as a RTS player, I get excited watching pro SC scene and get boring watching the top SC2 scene, so dont go into the battle BW vs SC2, go for the battle that makes a diference between a classic game and a good one. Also, I really liked this quote a lot. Hah.
And still the OP is nothing new. It has been said in many ways, although mostly with worse layout and pictures. But there are so many threads like this I don't think it deserves the front page.
There is no way that ten years of brood war or any other games translates directly to SC2. Sure you will start at a "high" level from the start, but that level is going to explode soon and it will be no free ride for anyone wanting to compete. So the then years matters a lot. If SC2 survives for even five years, MDT will have enough highlights to fill a library :p
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Good read, some very well-made points... but is it not too early to commit to these statements like the game has lost its excitement?
We've had ten+ years to hatch ideas that sc2 was going to be a vastly different game. The issues with casting may be addressed by changes to the game e.g. adding a small "charge-up bar" below the unit to alert the opponent that a spell is being cast.
I'm saddened that there's such lengthy prose to predicate a personal opinion on game that hasn't even reached retail or pro-levels of play ON THE FRONT PAGE of TL!!... and to push it a bit further, fellow readers, don't you think this read is discouraging to those who are striving to become the best of sc2?? namely, those players we love that have entertained us this few months: TLO, whitera, idra, tester... etc.
@Saracen You suggest that it's physically impossible to "dodge storms" but perhaps its possible to edge your army out of a possible storm's way when you see a high templar edging up to the fray? There are new dynamics with the birth of sc2, and instead of extolling these possible new dynamics this article completely entombs sc2 to this murky start imo... this is completely obscene and unexpected to find this on the front page of TL... SIGH.
peace and love
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Though units in SC2 are generally bigger, tougher, and attack faster and with more damage, there are a few things they have lost in the transition: game-changing spells and strong splash damage. And with this loss, the potential and dynamics of the game has deteriorated as well.
This sums it up so so well. The "large armies" aren't so large.
Less splash damage, less potential for game changing swings like an excellent mine drag, or amazing hold Lurker execution...
...now the exchanging of spells as well? 20% more damage to a target VS Plague or Dark Swarm...
... its fun. It's a great game. It's no BroodWar.
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I just want a SC1 MOD in sc2 and I will be the happiest guy in the world !
Very well written !!!! Thanks
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I think if we give SCII some time, they will have more tricks to make the game amazing to spectate. SC: BW had plenty of time to discover Muta stacking, Reaver-Shuttle Micro, ect. SCII hasn't even hit retail, so obviously it will be unimpressive to watch when players are just learning the basics. Also, as time passes, we might not see the amazing spells, but a whole new kind of micro that we can't even imagine. Personally, I'm not worried about SCII being stale. I'm more worried that Blizzard will patch these new tricks that players will discover. (eg: "Fazing" and Patrol-Scatter micro)
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"Fazing" is stupid. It doesn't add any tactical diversity to the game, like swarm/irradiate battles, or storm, or reaver/shuttle micro does.
It just means that if you click really fast then your void rays do double damage.
This isn't good design.
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Nice read, you bring many good points. But its not like there is nothing left in SC2. I still get alot of excitement from playing, and when I get a really good win in a really good game, my heart is pounding and I still fist pump into the air in a fit of joy.
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Brilliant post.
Not enough cuteness in SC2 yet.
Still I think there's reason to hope. Half of your splash units didn't exist until brood war came out. We're due another 2 expansions. That's plenty of time for Blizzard to craft units needed to fill a niche or change the style of the game.
T_T I miss shuttle reaver.
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I disagree strongly with the implications of this article and think that while it serves to create discussion, it is weak in substance and weakens the playerbase with a bad meme.
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You shouldnt be so biased when writing this sort of articles.
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yeah I dont disagree with what your saying, I never rally got into broodwar so i just dont have an oppinion about it. I think with time sc2 can prove to have enough things to master to keep the games exciting. you might not have thought broodwar was very special during beta. then again you could be right, sc2 could be too "watered down" for some BW fans. time will tell, both are great games imo
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United States11539 Posts
I think it's still too early to jump to these kinds of conclusions. A lot of the examples mentioned come from games that occurred many years after SCBW was released and matured. Savior came along 7 or so years after the game was released to revolutionize how zerg was played. A lot of the tactics and units mentioned didn't really gain that much attention until well after SCBW had already gained a very large player base and progaming scene which would foster innovation.
Though the article has a very good point with force field. It really just dulls the micro in the game.
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I'm going to have to disagree with the author of this article, but rather than write a long counter-argument, I'll just use one example from the article where the author is merely seeing what he wants to see.
You said that there was no way to micro out of a force field, saying that it forced one player to merely sit back and watch. In almost the same paragraph, though, you praised Stasis field for being one of those spells that was extremely powerful and interacted with EMP in interesting ways. Not only does Stasis Field prevent even more micro than Force Field, but they BOTH interact with EMP, making them game-changing spells.
There are a lot of people who just don't like not being far and away the best anymore, and feel like because they were B+ players on SCBW they should automatically be the best at SC2. Now, intelligence and a general understanding of how the game works is much more important and will get you further than hours and hours of practice to perfect timings and 300 APM, which is the way it should be. Unfortunately, hours and hours of practice is all that some players had to fall back on.
I've fallen into a bit of a tangent, but some people were only good at SCBW because they thought "this is the exact second when I need to build Mutalisks, because that's what my build order dictates." In Starcraft 2, on-the-fly build orders and "Well, he seems to be doing X, I'll try Y" seem much more valid. Maybe everyone will stop complaining when the Koreans start playing the game and giving them all the answers again.
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United States47024 Posts
While this...
On July 12 2010 07:11 Crippen wrote:
You said that there was no way to micro out of a force field, saying that it forced one player to merely sit back and watch. In almost the same paragraph, though, you praised Stasis field for being one of those spells that was extremely powerful and interacted with EMP in interesting ways. Not only does Stasis Field prevent even more micro than Force Field, but they BOTH interact with EMP, making them game-changing spells.
...is a fair point, this...
On July 12 2010 07:11 Crippen wrote:
There are a lot of people who just don't like not being far and away the best anymore, and feel like because they were B+ players on SCBW they should automatically be the best at SC2. Now, intelligence and a general understanding of how the game works is much more important and will get you further than hours and hours of practice to perfect timings and 300 APM, which is the way it should be. Unfortunately, hours and hours of practice is all that some players had to fall back on.
...is one of the most common poor arguments used in this debate. Most players who are B+ at SC1 ARE extremely good at SC2. This is because to become a B+ player requires a fairly reasonable understanding of the strategy underlying the matchups, and about RTS fundamentals in general.
You treat "hours and hours of practice" and "intelligence and a general understanding of how the game works" as if they are mutually exclusive, when this is probably the furthest from the truth that you could be. Most people who *truly* understand the game, are going to have played the game for thousands of hours. You cannot theorycraft your way into being strategically strong at this game. Game sense comes from experience, and those who say they have a deep understanding of the game without thousands of hours of practice are generally talking out of their ass.
On July 12 2010 07:11 Crippen wrote:
I've fallen into a bit of a tangent, but some people were only good at SCBW because they thought "this is the exact second when I need to build Mutalisks, because that's what my build order dictates." In Starcraft 2, on-the-fly build orders and "Well, he seems to be doing X, I'll try Y" seem much more valid. Maybe everyone will stop complaining when the Koreans start playing the game and giving them all the answers again.
This is the case because of the way Starcraft 1 strategy has been developed and optimized. It has nothing to do with its design. If you don't think that players in SC2 will refine build orders down to individual supply counts, and follow them with rote repetition, then you're ignoring the fact that it happens in virtually any RTS that grows a competitive following.
And the people who did that were never "good". I would venture a guess that a majority of people that just followed build orders on Liquipedia without understanding *why* they did any of those things probably never broke D+.
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100% Agree... I love SC2, but as a spectator sport it just isn't as good, all but a very few games of SC2 don't put me to sleep while watching, I hope in time it can change/evolve to be better for viewers.
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EPT
