*braces self for massive incoming flame responses*
On August 25 2012 10:41 NukeD wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
But Roblin, with all due respect, you cant possibly think pathfinding in SC2 is the way it should be. Dont you feel disgusted when you see 50 units humping eachothers back while moving. While it is a technical improvement, I think they made the wrong choice leaving it that way. Same like they made the concious decision of capping unit selection to 12 in BW, while being able to make it unlimited, they should've made the units not push eachother when moving or anything of the sort. This wouldnt cause the user to battle the interface, it would just be a design preferance rather than a technical one.
I agree with other points you made, but pathing, I just cant get over that. Infact I'd go as far as saying that its the primary factor that limited them to designing such straight-forward/ onedimensional/ not OP units and mechanics.
+ Show Spoiler +
yes, I agree it doesn't look good.
but there are several methods which have been found that reduce this phenomena, for example:
make the units not push eachother.
make the units hold formation while moving.
increase size of collisionboxes.
blizzard has previously stated in patchnote motivation and similar that there is one thing they absolutely refuse to do in SC2. that is, they will never ever make the game less responsive. no matter for what reason. especially not for the sake of introducing artificial difficulty.
an obvious example of why artificial difficulty is bad: lets say every time you want to select units you need to click a button on the interface to choose a "selection tool".
it makes the game more difficult because more clicks are needed, but it doesn't make the game any more strategically deep. you just struggle against the game a little more.
two of the listed options do that: makes the game less responsive. one doesn't: increase size of collisionboxes.
in other words, blizzard will by principle never make units not push eachother. blizzard will by principle never make the units hold formation when moving. because it would be bad design to do it. however, it is possible that they will increase collision size or similar to make it look better.
furthermore, and this is something I have already told kabel previously, is that a dynamic non-deathball game is very very difficult to make, he is a very brave man (or woman, I don't know, the word choice and writing pattern would indicate man) that deserves everyones respect just for trying. most people would have given up months ago. this is the main reason and motivation for why I stay around, read and comment about the development. because whatever help he can get will most likely be appreciated and useful. in fact, the concept of non-deathballs goes against the very nature of the human mind. for centuries, no for millenia of human evolution, there has always been war.
what strategy did the cavemen use to win in wars between tribes? well, whoever had more big burly men with stone axes won.
what strategy was used 5000 years ago by the egyptians? whichever side had more swords and arrows equipped on soldiers won.
what strategy was used 2000 years ago by julius ceasar? he attacked few key locations with most of his army, conquering land after land.
what strategy was used in the second world war? if you had more soldiers at the field, you generally won battles. the war later ended because one side got a weapon that threatened to wipe out everything.
face it and embrace it. human nature is to win either with deathballs or with technology. thats how our mind works, don't deny it.
what people want however, is something entirely different. they want guerilla tactics. but guerilla tactics need 2 things to be the prevalent strategy:
1. there must be terrain that favors it.
2. the guerilla player must be at a disadvantage in army strength.
for example, if a terran player has sieged up in his base, then his army is really really strong, so guerilla tactics are encouraged, but if the terrain doesn't allow it, then people won't do it anyway.
and if the terrain is perfect for it, but your army is more powerful than the enemies, then I can guarantee you that your first thought is not to do some cute tactics, just charge in and win. it doesn't matter how the pathing works, the principle is the same.
now, from this step we can see that if the defender is at a major advantage, then it will not be very common to just charge in, because it will be rare to have the army necessary to be allowed to do it.
so the key to making a game where guerilla tactics are prevalent, and this is also something I have alreday told kabel before, is defenders advantage. more defenders advantage = more guerilla tactics.
and now we get to the point of the rant: almost all defenders advantage is provided by maps, not by engine. blizzard does not control the maps of the metagame, the community does. blizzard made some bad maps at release of starcraft2, and the community took the metagame that evolved on those to mold their new maps, which thusly could not be very different from the previous generation.
every new generation of maps is better than the previous one, but it will take a while to get the beauty of guerilla tactics back in full. as proof of what I have said, look at the maps and tell me, is it not true that newer maps tend to be easier to defend?
now, what does this have to do with pathing? a lot actually. if a game has bad pathing then the player with more time to prepare will have an advantage in a battle, this tends to be the defender. so bad pathing is a defenders advantage, and thus it encourages guerilla tactics. however, the same result can be achieved simply by, for example, increasing collisionboxes size.
tldr: SC2 pathing doesn't look good but it doesn't make the game worse in and of itself, the maps are the most important factor.
however, reducing high ground advantage to just a one-way sightblocker and two-way pathing blocker was a grave mistake in my opinion.
On August 25 2012 11:41 ktfever wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Thank you for your input Roblin. I'm actually not a BW fanatic and am not trying to compare BW to SC2. I'm just speaking in term of the current sc2 situation and how I find tournament games less and less enjoyable due to stale matchups and limited strategies. Units like broodlords and collosus are just boring to watch. I'm not sure if Blizzard is aware of that and brushing it aside or just oblivious. In any case, I'm not without hope and I truly wish it will get better with HOTS and LOTV.
+ Show Spoiler +
I know you are not a BW fanatic, if you were then the choice of words would have been very different, I was just venting frustration into space and wanted to clearly convey the message of: I dont dislike BW, in fact I love it, but I also like SC2 and though I recognize that it is currently not up to par with BW, that doesn't mean BWifying it will make it better.
yes, there are problems with the units in the game.
blizzard is doing nothing about it because they are not allowed to. whenever they try to make a change which hopefully will make the game better they are met with a screaming mob of fans that say "don't fix what aint broken!" this is also the problem that kabel will shortly encounter. a balanced game must not change. it would disrupt the balance.
furthermore, there are people that rely on SC2 as their income, making big changes late in the development could very well be the death of SC2 as an esport. thats something blizzard will not risk for anything.
looking through blizzards eyes, they are quite powerless.
I am also confident that as time passes the game will improve, not just with HOTS and with LOTV, but beyond that the maps will control the game.
On August 25 2012 11:52 pzea469 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I don't think many people EXCEPT for extreme fanatics, would want to bring back being able to select only 1 building, having to tell each worker to mine and dumbing down AI. I don't dislike SC2 because it has kept up with the times. The truth is that Broodwar is light years ahead of SC2 currently. It is far deeper and far more exciting to watch. Maybe that will one day change as SC2 updates, but there are no reasons to believe that it will. Looking at Hots, there are no signs of anything core about the game changing. Fights will still happen in a blink of an eye. No real high ground advantage. No unique play between races. Units that will still purposely clump up, and units which are obviously of worse design than previous units. I don't want AI dumbed down, I just want units to feel different when controlling them. Why do units purposely clump up when a simple number change in the map editor stops that from happening? Why is the Collosus in the game when almost everyone agrees it's extremely boring and terrible when compared to what it replaced. What's so creative about a protoss unit that can shoot for so far away that you can't even see it on the field. And that replaces the Carrier? Which was way more creative. It's complete bull when Blizzard tries to argue that the Carrier wasn't too useful so we replaced it. Oh, so I guess Blizzard doesn't have the ability to buff the Carrier in any way? They just wanted to put in a new unit, that's the truth. I don't mind new units, but if they have worse design than the previous ones then why replace them? TvT had some positioning play with tanks, and now Blizzard says here, this new unit allows you to 1a into tanks. Now all races and matchups are equally dumbed down. Fungals, Marauders, Forcefields, Small maps, all killing micro. Stupid artificial macro mechanics. Explain the custom maps that do nothing but add real micro to units, and yet Blizzard cannot or doesn't want to add those things. Don't even get me started on the Oracle... just wow. And people that say "Hey that might not even make it into the game, we haven't started beta yet!". So what? The fact that this unit would make it so far into design that it has been presented to the public multiple times says a lot about the direction Blizzard wants to take the game in.
The excuse that SC2 is still in its early years is not true. SC2 had an extremely huge and massive head start to BW. People came into that game trying to figure it out right away, with full knowledge of how RTS games work and with all the knowledge of BW. With a pro scene emerging even during beta, and competitive 1v1 ladder matchmaking from the start. SC2 won't get much deeper if core things about it don't change. Unlimited unit selection has very little to do with the deathball either. This is very easy to test. Play SC2 and simply DON'T select all of your army but separate them into groups like BW. And watch as they still feel dry hump each other on their way to their destination. A simple number change in the map editor fixes that, which Starbow already implemented. Map sizes just make the clumping even worse. I'm all for creating something new, but Blizzard is just creating something worse. No choices made by Blizzard without good reason? What about NO high ground mechanic? Or the purposely clumping units? The only things you mentioned that Blizzard did right are basic things that almost everyone agrees were the right choices.
I see the direction that they're taking SC2 in and I along with many others don't like it. Unless there is a major overhaul in design, I don't think this game is going anywhere, not for me at least. SC2 will be successful no matter what Blizzard does though, since most people will still buy their games and there will always be people to defend bad decisions(I don't mean you, I mean hardcore Blizz fans). I don't know much about Kabel, and maybe he's the right guy to be doing this type of thing, maybe not, but regardless he's got the right idea. Take it upon yourself to make the game you want to see. Of the games I've played in Starbow, I find it way more fun and deeper than SC2.
+ Show Spoiler +most of what you talk about is stuff I have already discussed in previous responses, but there are some things I want to say about your words. also, for the sake of those that read you posts, please paragraph your texts more, particularly the first block of text in your post. do this: + Show Spoiler +
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque enim ipsum, vehicula ut egestas in, eleifend vitae ipsum. Suspendisse ac nisl dolor. Morbi at magna quis nisl iaculis sodales in nec arcu. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Suspendisse potenti. Donec at sem nisi, at elementum enim. Maecenas ultrices hendrerit vulputate. Morbi eros ligula, congue eu posuere id, feugiat in tellus. Curabitur vitae dictum nisl.
Integer ac risus in odio ornare semper. Sed egestas nunc molestie enim feugiat nec tempus metus tempus. In ut nisl sit amet ante lobortis faucibus. Curabitur tincidunt, augue vitae lobortis mollis, odio diam ornare elit, pharetra lobortis felis massa ut quam. Nam sit amet est non neque condimentum egestas. Praesent a arcu tortor, a pharetra odio. Fusce vel nulla ligula. In nisl mi, luctus ut posuere sit amet, eleifend sit amet dui. Maecenas lacinia arcu et dui elementum aliquet tempor justo tristique. Maecenas ornare dapibus lorem vel convallis.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse potenti. In ac neque vel lectus auctor tempor. Ut euismod feugiat ornare. Mauris eu sem diam. Nulla iaculis ipsum at augue cursus aliquet volutpat turpis vehicula. Etiam commodo accumsan lacus, vel vestibulum arcu consequat in. Cras porta euismod lorem, cursus pharetra ante porttitor in. Etiam ornare augue nulla. Nulla vitae orci urna. Donec a nibh nisi. Mauris tristique rhoncus nulla at elementum. Morbi rhoncus justo eget arcu feugiat hendrerit placerat velit lobortis. Maecenas lacinia, metus sed egestas auctor, erat arcu semper lectus, sed posuere odio sapien id libero. Nulla interdum blandit consequat. Phasellus dolor orci, adipiscing quis malesuada et, placerat a tellus.
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas vitae tortor at magna vehicula viverra ac ac odio. Sed velit lectus, elementum ac elementum quis, vestibulum id purus. Vestibulum in ligula eleifend ipsum vestibulum accumsan. Pellentesque ornare lacus ut lorem sagittis consectetur. Quisque vehicula suscipit fringilla. Aliquam a est est. Pellentesque euismod aliquam arcu, vehicula dictum enim lobortis in.
Quisque cursus metus elit, eu accumsan purus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Fusce eget ligula elit, luctus egestas risus. Aliquam facilisis, mi sit amet consequat venenatis, magna turpis consectetur sem, eget consequat neque dolor sit amet nisl. Curabitur eget tellus vel neque placerat gravida. In non mauris ut tellus facilisis tincidunt. Nulla facilisi. Integer ac leo enim.
instead of this: + Show Spoiler +
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Pellentesque enim ipsum, vehicula ut egestas in, eleifend vitae ipsum. Suspendisse ac nisl dolor. Morbi at magna quis nisl iaculis sodales in nec arcu. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Suspendisse potenti. Donec at sem nisi, at elementum enim. Maecenas ultrices hendrerit vulputate. Morbi eros ligula, congue eu posuere id, feugiat in tellus. Curabitur vitae dictum nisl.
Integer ac risus in odio ornare semper. Sed egestas nunc molestie enim feugiat nec tempus metus tempus. In ut nisl sit amet ante lobortis faucibus. Curabitur tincidunt, augue vitae lobortis mollis, odio diam ornare elit, pharetra lobortis felis massa ut quam. Nam sit amet est non neque condimentum egestas. Praesent a arcu tortor, a pharetra odio. Fusce vel nulla ligula. In nisl mi, luctus ut posuere sit amet, eleifend sit amet dui. Maecenas lacinia arcu et dui elementum aliquet tempor justo tristique. Maecenas ornare dapibus lorem vel convallis.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse potenti. In ac neque vel lectus auctor tempor. Ut euismod feugiat ornare. Mauris eu sem diam. Nulla iaculis ipsum at augue cursus aliquet volutpat turpis vehicula. Etiam commodo accumsan lacus, vel vestibulum arcu consequat in. Cras porta euismod lorem, cursus pharetra ante porttitor in. Etiam ornare augue nulla. Nulla vitae orci urna. Donec a nibh nisi. Mauris tristique rhoncus nulla at elementum. Morbi rhoncus justo eget arcu feugiat hendrerit placerat velit lobortis. Maecenas lacinia, metus sed egestas auctor, erat arcu semper lectus, sed posuere odio sapien id libero. Nulla interdum blandit consequat. Phasellus dolor orci, adipiscing quis malesuada et, placerat a tellus.
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas vitae tortor at magna vehicula viverra ac ac odio. Sed velit lectus, elementum ac elementum quis, vestibulum id purus. Vestibulum in ligula eleifend ipsum vestibulum accumsan. Pellentesque ornare lacus ut lorem sagittis consectetur. Quisque vehicula suscipit fringilla. Aliquam a est est. Pellentesque euismod aliquam arcu, vehicula dictum enim lobortis in.
Quisque cursus metus elit, eu accumsan purus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Fusce eget ligula elit, luctus egestas risus. Aliquam facilisis, mi sit amet consequat venenatis, magna turpis consectetur sem, eget consequat neque dolor sit amet nisl. Curabitur eget tellus vel neque placerat gravida. In non mauris ut tellus facilisis tincidunt. Nulla facilisi. Integer ac leo enim.
by the way its lorem ipsum, your not supposed to be able to read it. ("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" translates to "this is dummy text" in latin for those that didn't know) + Show Spoiler +It is far deeper and far more exciting to watch. Maybe that will one day change as SC2 updates, but there are no reasons to believe that it will. Looking at Hots, there are no signs of anything core about the game changing. Fights will still happen in a blink of an eye. No real high ground advantage. No unique play between races. Units that will still purposely clump up, and units which are obviously of worse design than previous units. response: deeper because it has lived longer. exciting to watch because everyone knows how hard it is to do the maneuvers (aka to make the game do what you want it to do) and because some things can give fairly random results (looking at you reaver, why do you miss every second scarab?) not because everything was perfectly designed. 75% or so of a maxed terran army of well spread siege tanks dies in 12 seconds (starcraft broodwar). most maxed fights in SC2 last longer than that. unless of course one of the armies are only colossus or something retarded like that. high ground advantage is not necessary for strategy games, but it is a definite bonus. no unique play between races? not sure what you mean. again, better AI makes it easier to channel intent into game. I agree about the hellion vs vulture, colossus vs the reaver and the corruptor vs the devourer and some more, but SC2 did several things right, the broodlord is more interesting than the guardian (its the same thing but better!), the tempest is more interesting than the carrier (deal with it, it is. one opens new options, the other doesn't, they cant even compete), the infestor is more interesting than the BW queen (as proof: one is used, the other only used for gimmicks like mass spawn broodling).
you said:
Oh, so I guess Blizzard doesn't have the ability to buff the Carrier in any way?
response:
wouldn't help. the carrier is already as strong as it needs to be, buffing it much would make it overpowered or wouldn't do anything.
the reason why the carrier has become flawed design is because of the colossus being targetable like an air unit.
why build carriers in PvP? afterall games end too fast.
why build carriers in PvT? they already have the counter ready.
why build carriers in PvZ? they already have the counter ready.
but why do they have the counter ready? because colossii are dangerous.
shouldn't it be "because carriers are dangerous"? colossii are better than carriers, thus more dangerous.
isnt this an issue with colossii instead of with carriers? yes, if this was the only reason.
well whats the other reason? marines and marauders is the main strategy in TvP (not because of colossii, but because of the early units being weak for protoss), and marines hardcounter carriers. corruptors are needed to make broodlords, which are popular in ZvP, so Z has the counter ready even if there wouldn't be any colossii.
buffing the carrier doesn't help, the matchups have develped to a point where carriers are a bad choice in almost every situation. would it change in HOTS? maybe, but that's irrelevant. tempest is still of better design. nostalgia is the only reason to keep the carrier.
you said:
TvT had some positioning play with tanks, and now Blizzard says here, this new unit allows you to 1a into tanks.
response:
they had reason to add the warhound. if you dont like it, tell them how they should have made mech viable vs protoss instead. thats why they added it. and I doubt the warhound will ruin the positional aspect of TvT. of the videos that have been released so far the odds have always been stacked so high in the warhounds favor its disgusting. the tanks have been placed in horrible position, the army values havent been close to equal, etc.
the reason why warhound looks so powerful in demonstrations is because its demonstrations. they want to show it powerful.
Explain the custom maps that do nothing but add real micro to units, and yet Blizzard cannot or doesn't want to add those things. Don't even get me started on the Oracle... just wow.
response:
they add microby making the game less responsive, I have already talked about why this is not optimal.
instead of saying "just wow" please tell us what is bad about it. it looks fine to me, its annoying for the enemy, has some use as an army support unit, gives protoss interesting harrass options... what's so wrong with it?
The excuse that SC2 is still in its early years is not true. SC2 had an extremely huge and massive head start to BW. People came into that game trying to figure it out right away, with full knowledge of how RTS games work and with all the knowledge of BW. With a pro scene emerging even during beta, and competitive 1v1 ladder matchmaking from the start. SC2 won't get much deeper if core things about it don't change.
response:
its not an excuse, its a very probable statement. people said the exact same thing that you said 2 months after launch of starcraft 2. including that the game wouldn't get much deeper. remember, this is back when 4gates were just starting to get fairly easy to hold and scouting was a matter of "cheese or no cheese?" and had nothing to do with finding the enemy build.
were they right? no.
do you have any more credibility than they did? no.
do I take your word for it? no. No choices made by Blizzard without good reason? What about NO high ground mechanic? Or the purposely clumping units?
response:
1. removes random factors from the game, as a matter of fact part of the feedback they got for SC2 was that the community didn't want random factors like the high ground mechanic. but I agree they should have kept high ground mechanic in some other form, like damage reduction. point is they had reason.
2. improves responsiveness. makes it easier to channel intent into the game Of the games I've played in Starbow, I find it way more fun and deeper than SC2.
response
you are right. starbow feels more fun and deep than SC2.
right now.
I enjoy reading about it, I enjoy playing it, I enjoy watching it.
but it retains many of the same flaws that BW had. I have already talked about these previously.
and the reason why it feels deeper than SC2 is, unfortunately, because it implements a lot of these flaws.
why? because they are shortcuts.
they create detail and exceptions (example: overkilling, bad pathing, reaver micro, hold fire lurkers, muta stacking, non-smartcasting) that quite frankly is not necessary for the game, but they give the illusion of depth. true depth comes not from added detail, but from having the game create the detail itself. an excellent example is the game "go" which I have mentioned in previous posts, praising it for the strategic depth. it has simple rules but has the most complex and deep strategy ever created by mankind.
I respect broodwar because it was an excellent game, magnificent for its time.
I respect SC2 because it has enormous potential.
I respect starbow because the effort deserves respect. but unfortunately I do not see it ever becoming a better game than starcraft broodwar was, at the same time I can see SC2 eventually trumping both of the others.
what I hope will happen, for the sake of everyones state of mind and to minimize frustration, is that starbow becomes a finished product before SC2 overtakes it in sheer gameplay enjoyability (not saying this is soon), that there then becomes a medium sized community which will play it and develop the metagame of starbow to a point where it can compete and survive against other games, keeping it alive for possibly years and maybe even become its own major esport.
but the odds of this happening is, sadly, not very good, but its there. something similar happened with DOTA, but it didn't have any competitors at the time.
it is unfortunate, but I have a realistic view of things, for example I know I am nothing special. I'm not smarter than any other, I'm not better, I'm not faster, I'm not unique. and neither are you, whoever you are. we are all simply different, not unique.
regardless, I will help where I can. why? because I want to. I don't need any other reason.
On August 25 2012 20:03 Kabel wrote:+ Show Spoiler +@Roblin multiple building selection/unlimited controlgroup selections/smartcast/improved pathfinding
why did they add it you ask? it makes the game noob-friendly you say?
exactly. it makes it easier to channel your intent into the game and have it happen. is this bad? absolutely not. ease of use is among the most basic signs of good design, not of bad design. blizzards intent is to have the game be a battle between the minds of the players, not a struggle to make the game do what you want.
I salute this. Very well said. But I would say that making a game easier and more user friendly is not the same thing as removing boundaries from the game. A game can be easier to play while still having good boundaries. I am referring to the unlimited unit selection & the unit pathing. I understand their intentions of it. They want to make the game easier to play for everyone. But they took away a fundamental restriction in the game. No matter what type of game you play, all are based on restricions or rules. And the restriction is what makes a game fun and challenging. For some reason, Day-9 and many others like to compare Starcraft to Chess. I´ve said this before and I say it again: No matter if Chess allowed you to move all your pieces during your turn, or just one piece, the game would still be as easy to play. You have the same patthern thinking, you have the same mechanic of moving pieces across the board. A 7-year old would still be able to learn chess. It would not make the rules harder. But I would argue that it would make the game less challenging. By moving 1 piece per turn, if you want to channel your intentions into the game, you need to overcome obstacles and figure out a plan to bring your intentions alive in the game. The opponent will block your pieces and you need to have a step-by-step thinking. If you could move all your pieces on one turn, your intentions would be so much easier to channel into the game. But it would be less challenging and in my opinion more boring. I would argue that this is true in SC2 to some degree. They have removed the step by step thinking, even if the steps here are short as seconds. You are not controlling many small armies, you are for the most part controlling one big army. You are not moving 1 piece at a time, you are moving many pieces at a time. Unlimited selection & the unit pathing contributes to unit clumping since it creates no distance between your units. By packing units tightly together, its actually very hard for players to channel their intentions into the game, and do beatiful tactical moves on the enemy army. I watched a BW stream earlier. The Protoss army was moving over the map. The Zerg player saw a weakness in the Protoss army, used his zerglings to run in and snipe 2 High templars and then moved out again. This weakness was created due to units not standing to close to each other and the fact that Protoss player was moving 5-6 hotkeys of units over the map.. Small gaps are created. Just as in chess, you can find pieces that are vulnerable. Its up to the Protoss player to protect his High Templars better. Maybe I am wrong with this, but I never see Zerglings snipe High Templars in SC2, and the Zealot bodyguards are always close to them automatically. There is no or a very narrow space to find weaknesses in the SC2 armies. A progamer would probably bash me for this statement. But since we are talking about making the game easy, must a game really need a pro-gamer to be able to detect and take advantage of microscopic distances and weaknesses in the enemy army? Wouldnt the game be even more user friendly if it allowed players to make misstakes when moving their armies and actually take advantage of misstakes done by the opponent? And thus, would a "dumbed down" mechanic like limited unit selection actually make the game harder to play or enjoy, even for noobs? (Its not a rhetorical question to state my case, Im actually asking) the game does what you want it to do quickly, efficiently and responsively. dumbing down the AI, which is what most SC BW fans and amateurs want blizzard to do is an extremely artificial and design-wise bad way of introducing difficulty. I´m curious to hear more about this. What is your definition of dumbing down the AI? when I look at the choices that developers make I try to see the intent behind why it happened. if there is any plausible explanation, any at all then I will generally support the choice (odds are the developers have done their research thoroughly, I don't need to do it as well).
it's the principle of innocent until proven otherwise. no matter how much people bash the developers for what they did, the only way to truly invalidate a developers choice of action is to prove their motivation wrong or invalid.
and so far none of the changes that blizzard have made the last few years have been without good reason.
though there are some things they hold on to with perhaps unnecessary stubborness, those are all things which are intended to make the game better and are confirmed will never change. I agree. Its easy to just overthrow the game designers motives or thoughts by just simply not understanding them. I was like that too. I hated much of the stuff in SC2. Its so easy to hate the game one love. The developers are retards. They know nothing about design etc. But when I started this MOD I had to really dig deep into SC2 game mechanics and the intentions of the game. I am not saying that I understand it fully or that I agree with everything. Its just different philosophy, and I think the Blizzard SC2 team has a game philosophy that I do not share. Its a matter of taste regarding what one think is an enjoyable game. But loads of people still enjoy SC2 and the route Blizzard took with the game. After all, people who tries my MOD plays 2-3 games, says it looks good, it was fun and it has stuff in it that SC2 lacks. But then they go back and play ladder and are not interested in playing the MOD anymore. Why? Old habits? Or is SC2 simply more action-packed and more fun? No matter how good a game is in theory, the most important thing is that it is fun and gives you a good time. And I assume SC2 stimulates a lot of people. Even if Dustin Browder often is ridiculed by the community, there is a reason Blizzard hired him. He has developed lots of RTS games played by million of players worldwide. He knows how to make a game fun, even if it is not always brilliant design. But what do we have design for? Create a perfect mathematical complex and strategic deep beatiful game that no one plays? Or create something maybe more shallow that gives people a good time? @pzea469 And people that say "Hey that might not even make it into the game, we haven't started beta yet!". So what? The fact that this unit would make it so far into design that it has been presented to the public multiple times says a lot about the direction Blizzard wants to take the game in. I agree. The actual numbers and balance of the units are a second problem. The main issues are most of the concepts they keep presenting for the community. They seem to take a route I personally do not agree with atleast. But I do love the Swarm Host :D
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I agree with some things, not all.
but first things first: its fine by me if you completely ignore everything I say.
lets explain where I'm coming from and why I think the way I do: I am an individual whom suffers from a congenital disorder called dysmelia, what this means is that I, at birth, had a malformed or missing limb(s). in my case the left hand was missing, my arm ended in a stump, see where this is going? no? try playing starcraft with only the mousehand and 1 finger of the other hand (to simulate my stump). thats how I play. fun fact: I have finished the legend of zelda skyward sword and the legend of zelda twilight princess on the wii. I would say its a pretty impressive feat considering both requires a nunchuck, which I cannot control! I strapped it to my stump with velcro bands and clicked the buttons/controlled the joystick using the pinky of my right hands while simultaneously controlling the main controller.
I have accepted since long ago that I will never be a sportsman, I will never be at the level of the proffesional esports player, I will never be a fast typist and I will never be able to tie my shoelaces quickly (trust me, I have weird problems in life).
so I'll just come right out and say it clearly: I like games where the act of making my move matters less than what move I make. why? because games where I need to use a ton of hotkeys are very very hard for me! I hate first person shooter games. (so I rotate and aim with the mouse, keep my stump over the WASD keys, strafe with Q and E, jump with... umm... with what? right mouseclick? YEA, that seems good! okay, now then I crouch/reload/lean/scope/toggle asorted options/choose weapon with... I'm gonna have some problems here.)
I love chess, I love go, I love othello, I like mastermind, I like puzzlegames (since I can retry puzzles until I succeed), I like strategy. I like problem solving. I like math. I like psychology.
I played starcraft broodwar, though I were never very good at it, and I liked it. I am confident I, and practically anyone else, can reach masterleague in SC2 with practice, but I doubt I am physically capable of getting any higher. is that fair? I try not to care about that. developers can't cater to me, I know that. only 1 in 1000 are born with dysmelia, I have to make do with what I have, not whine about what I want.
while these are my honest opinions, I do not expect anything to be catered to me or my thoughts. I am part of a tiny minority and simply not an eligable target audience.
in short, feel free to ignore my opinions if they do not match your own.
this is why I am quite insistent that I absolutely refuse to give recommendations or suggestions as to what to do when kabel sends me PMs, because I am biased. instead I give general advice and multiple choices, that way I hope to spark some of his own creativity, which will let him build onward using his method, not mine.
now, onward to your post.
you said:
[reasoning]
And thus, would a "dumbed down" mechanic like limited unit selection actually make the game harder to play or enjoy, even for noobs?
response:
yes. especially for noobs.
because the most "skilled" (those that can channel their intent better) will get the advantage in the way that they can create more compact deathballs.
to take your example: a player managed to take advantage of the enemies army placement in such a way that he sniped a couple high templars. the protoss player didn't want the gap to be there, it was something which the engine created by itself, the protoss even tried to avoid it happening by moving his entire army at the same time (an impressive feat in itself in broodwar I might add) but he was unsuccessful in his attempts of making a deathball, so there was an unintentional gap.
you said:
I´m curious to hear more about this. What is your definition of dumbing down the AI?
response:
anything which makes units less responsive or harder to get to do what you want them to do.
you said:
No matter how good a game is in theory, the most important thing is that it is fun and gives you a good time. And I assume SC2 stimulates a lot of people. Even if Dustin Browder often is ridiculed by the community, there is a reason Blizzard hired him. He has developed lots of RTS games played by million of players worldwide. He knows how to make a game fun, even if it is not always brilliant design. But what do we have design for? Create a perfect mathematical complex and strategic deep beatiful game that no one plays? Or create something maybe more shallow that gives people a good time?
response:
you are exactly right. games are made for the enjoyment of the players first and foremost.
SC2 was designed so anyone, even I, can play it and do well, as long as our strategic thinking is better than the opponent.
in essence, SC2 is going in the direction of strategy, and away from tactics. while tactics are still an important part of the game it is a smaller part of the game than it was in broodwar, and this is something that some people don't really like.
but there are some very undeniable facts: the starcraft 2 scene is bigger than the broodwar scene. why? because it caters to the larger audience. a massive amount of people (the majority, in fact) exclusively watched starcraft broodwar. they didn't play it.
in starcraft 2 the majority of those that watch the game also play the game, more or less often. starcraft 2 is less enjoyable to watch than broodwar was, this is true. but starcraft 2 is more enjoyable to play than broodwar was. at least to most people.
swarm guardian and upgrade stuffs:
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I have already sent you a PM of a bunch of stuff for these previously, I'll just comment on those you posted.
if you want I can post those that I sent, but out of context and in light of the new nydus worm change some of them may very well sound quite silly.
out of those you mentioned I would say monster bunkers sound good, the others sound meh, just make sure to actually give them a massive enough boost to warrant the upgrade. perhaps give them a tradeoff penalty too? like "can no longer be salvaged"
upgrading orbital command spells sounds promising though, perhaps increased detection radius for scan?
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