EPTDisclaimer: Somebody made a post on this, but I think that mine addresses something different entirely, with the only similarity being that they both have automine. My issue is not necessarily "dumbing down the skill level" but moreso how it is done.
Another Update: this is not pointless whine about how automine is useless. I believe it has a place in the game, but I disagree with its intended purpose. Blizzard could have done better. If you have come to complain about how it's useless whine on a pointless feature that doesn't change the skill cap, I respectfully request that you please take that complaint to a thread that discusses such a thing.
Another update: I guess I will add a TL;DR with my most recent thoughts at the bottom.
And I guess this could be a blog, but I thought more eyes might see it here... if it should be, then move it to blog please?
My thoughts on Auto mine and “Worker Count” per base, and why it is a fundamentally flawed way of reducing the skill level of the game for casual players
(Putting this at the top: I am aware that the auto mine is also a bug fix for people who load late into the game. But this thread is still relevant if there is ANY hint of this decision being made for new players)
Introduction
First of all, I am immensely enjoying the HOTS beta, and I am in no way taking this for granted or anything. Secondly, I would like to say that I amaware that these functions can be “disabled” through the options. The point of this post is why Blizzard is attempting to make the game easier (in my eyes) and also why they are going the wrong way about it.
The Changes
For anybody who hasn’t played the heart of the swarm beta yet, there is a new function that automatically sends your initial six workers to mine minerals. Essentially, it boxes your workers, and right clicks on the middle mineral patch and they all get to work. I believe that Blizzard’s intention in this is to show newer players the concept/idea in the beginning of the game. Much like the auto-mining and unlimited selection implemented with Wings of Liberty, it could be argued that a function like this is intended to make the game more available for newer players, and easier to understand.
The second change is the “worker counts” per base. Basically, if you have 14 workers mining minerals, then it displays “Worker Count: 14/24” over your Nexus/CC/Hatchery. And for Gas, it displays “Workers: 1/3” over each individual gas. This change by itself isn’t as big of a deal as the initial change, but I will try and address it as well.
The “Idea” behind the changes
Blizzard wants to make the game easier for casual players. This is evident with the relative dumbing down of mechanics compared to Brood War. By queuing workers to go mine for you, I think that Blizzard intends to lead you into the idea that “oh, my workers need to mine minerals.” This in itself is a good idea, but I think it is badly implemented (my solution later).
With the worker count tooltip, blizzard wants to give you the idea of “oh, I shouldn’t have more than 24 workers.” If you know that you have 25/24, it seems reasonable for somebody who has never even played the game to say “one worker is going to waste.” This idea is to help lower level players manage their economies – now you won’t get bronze players who know how to produce SCVs, but have 37 on one base, and 4 on the other. While this idea isn’t necessarily flawed, and it could even be relevant in the game, I’m not sure it has a place either.
The Inherent Problem (As I see it)
So, we want to make the game easier for new players. We can do this by sending their workers to mine right? I disagree. There are two main problems with this. First, a new player needs to understand how their workers are getting to the minerals. Let’s think about (in Wings of Liberty) the actions that need to be performed in the first five seconds of the game.
1) Send workers to the minerals to mine
2) Queue a worker to build
3) Rally your nexus to the minerals
Now, think about what is inherent to an RTS. Even somebody who has never played Starcraft II before should know that at the heart of any strategy game is the need to obtain resources and turn those resources into an army. Therefore, it should make sense to (at some point) tell your workers to mine. The hardest part should be realizing that those 6 little bugs/machines/people are workers. But that’s different. This information should be inherent to anybody trying out RTS. Taking that assumption is the basis of my post.
Now, let’s think about what is NOT inherent. Rallying workers. Even if you know that you need to gather resources, not as many people may gather that you need to choose your nexus and right click on the minerals. And even worse, the new change may make this problem even harder to understand. If your first six workers go straight to mine, a new player might assume that this is always the case (rational to me at least). This means they should not need to set a rally! So they build there worker, and all of a sudden it pops out and doesn’t do anything, and they are confused.
+ Show Spoiler +
Spoiling out because it's not needed/overblown on second glance.
Not only do they not know why their worker is moving, they don’t know how to get it to the minerals (this has already been done for them). They know they need to gather resources, but they have not seen that they need to actually make workers go to the mineral line.
So: the worker automine causes two problems. First, it performs a function that should be basic knowledge to somebody playing a RTS (I need to gather resources). Secondly, it removes the “idea” that the player needs to rally workers to the mineral line. It creates the impression that this is automatically done.
NOW………..
We get to the mineral count/base idea. I think this idea could work. As a masters player who sucks at it, I actually like the idea of it. But I don’t think it should be in the game. This is why: The majority of information in the HUD of Starcraft II is graphical, not text based. You have a minimap. You have unit portraits to count, not “10 zealots, 5 sentries, stalker.” Fungal growth has a portrait and a tooltip, but not many people actually bother using the tooltip, they know what the spell is by the picture. And in the idea of grid layout for hotkeys, the spells are arranged in such a way that they form a logical “grid” – all graphical representations.
So in a game where we have all of our information “outside the game” displayed in a graphical way, we now have information being displayed to us in a textual way. There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with this, and this is where my opinion is much less logical/rational and more a matter of consistency, but I believe that the “Worker count per base” idea interferes with the consistency of the game and just does not fit into the general flow of Starcraft II. The information is just projected incorrectly.
My Solutions
Now let’s revisit the core problems. We know that (if you take my logic) the automine interferes with both knowledge of needing to rally troops, and the idea of how to get workers to mine. Additionally, the idea they’re trying to implement is something that is much more ingrained into the idea of an RTS than say, rallying troops. So, my solution is this: Instead of making units automine, require players to send their own workers to the minerals.
+ Show Spoiler +
This is irrelevant because it's already in the game
How many players in bronze-silver do you see without worker rallies? I have seen plenty of games (from my friends and otherwise) where they don’t rally new workers to minerals, nor do they know how to set a rally. By automatically rallying your workers, the new players can be aware that newly created workers are rallied to minerals when they see a worker “walk” to the mineral patch. This doesn’t affect anybody over gold in any way whatsoever, and I think it’s an excellent way to cover one of the crutches/confusions of being new.
This makes the game (in my opinion) even more user-friendly than the current implementation, while being non-obtrusive to better players. It also provides no tangible in-game benefit to players who have it enabled versus disabled. Yes, you can disable the auto-mine and worker count per base, but doing so (in a way) can disadvantage you. I don’t think you should have options that should hold inherent advantages/disadvantages.
Worker Count per Base fix
As for fixing the worker count per base, I think it should be used as an observer tooltip only. The observer function of the game exists to make casters capable of analyzing the game in an effective, and engaging way. And it is textually based. You can see the number of workers, total income, workers lost etc. All of these are effective tools for casters to analyze and illustrate the advantage/disadvantage that one particular player is at.
That’s why I think the “Worker count per base” should belong here. It allows a caster to say “MarineKing has 22 workers at his main base, but only 10 at his expansion. To maximize his economy, he should have 16 at both bases.”
Why are these different from auto mine and unit select?
There are differences, again in my opinion, between these changes and the changes with Wings of Liberty. Wings of Liberty removed mindless mechanical things like telling each individual worker to mine, and have 12 army hotkeys that all needed to be moved at once. Those are sensible changes (whether or not they dilute the game too much is a different matter and not one I want to have discussed) that simply remove “mindless” mechanical things.
Being able to automatically mine minerals IS mindless, but it is also the POINT of a strategy game. There isn’t anything to do at the beginning of the game, so it isn’t something to worry about. Knowing how many workers you have per base is NOT mindless, and that’s why it should not be provided. Learning to manage your economies is a skillset that must be developed. Anybody can mindlessly tell workers to mine minerals (like in BW) so this was removed. The only prerequisite to doing this is the APM necessary for it. Managing an economy properly is a mental aspect of the game that requires you to learn the optimal saturation for a base, and then using that to gain an advantage. Unlike no automine in brood war, it requires a conscious, active thought process throughout the course of the game, constrained by more than just APM.
+ Show Spoiler +
Conclusion
I don’t have much of a conclusion, and I don’t want much of a TL;DR because you should read this and give your opinion. I put work into it, you should take some time to read it Thank you TeamLiquid and Battle.net for reading, and hopefully you have some nice thoughts for me in return.
I'll edit this for clarity and spacing, unfortunately "tabs" didn't follow through from word. And maybe add pictures when I'm home and can access SC2
I don’t have much of a conclusion, and I don’t want much of a TL;DR because you should read this and give your opinion. I put work into it, you should take some time to read it Thank you TeamLiquid and Battle.net for reading, and hopefully you have some nice thoughts for me in return.
I'll edit this for clarity and spacing, unfortunately "tabs" didn't follow through from word. And maybe add pictures when I'm home and can access SC2
1) Auto mine is an acceptable (but poor) fix to the "entering a game late" scenario.
2) Auto mine serves two functions: fixing that bug and helping new players. Tooltips would be a MUCH more useful method of helping new players with the game, and they would be much more all encompassing than simple auto mine. It's a win-win for both new players and "elitists"
3) Worker count per base interrupts with the idea of "microing" your economy.
4) Completely subjectively: I don't like WC/B because it interrupts with the feeling of the game in my opinion. WC/B is much more subject to opinion than my ideas about automine, as I see it. (Need of a tooltip that is)
5) Ultimately I would be ok with both changes going through (particularly WC/B because I still do it badly at masters) but I still dislike the change for the function it's intended to serve.
Another solution I saw: Instead of automated WC/B, just provide a numeric value after you box workers. It seems like a reasonable compromise between the two. Such a thing already exists (check out here) and something like this could probably be implemented into HOTS, for a more subtle way of giving a quick numerical number, while still requiring an action on the users part.
EDITS: Something that should be mentioned!
On September 06 2012 06:40 BlackPanther wrote:
I think the reason its implemented is because there is usually some lag that occurs when you enter the game. There are times where you can be delayed by as much as 4-5 seconds when the game starts.
I think the reason its implemented is because there is usually some lag that occurs when you enter the game. There are times where you can be delayed by as much as 4-5 seconds when the game starts.
I have heard about that. In that case, I still think Blizzard should change the idea of how to make it easier to new players. I should address that in my OP because I actually have a friend with this problem. That said, it should be something that Blizzard should be able to fix, but it's a good point. This is definitely something worth considering, but in that case you get the "problem" that newer players run into of not realizing workers need to be rallied to minerals.
My other argument to this: Every business decision is made to maximize profit in a way. Balance is changed because blizzard wants to keep people in the game, and raging is bad for staying interested. I think these decisions may be designed with the load drop for the same reason, but to also help out new players.
EDIT 2:
On September 06 2012 06:41 corpuscle wrote:
HotS automatically sets your rally point to minerals for you at the beginning of the game, just in case you didn't realize.
It's more appropriate to say "what if a new player makes an expansion like the game tells them to and doesn't understand why their workers aren't mining automatically from their new base."
HotS automatically sets your rally point to minerals for you at the beginning of the game, just in case you didn't realize.
It's more appropriate to say "what if a new player makes an expansion like the game tells them to and doesn't understand why their workers aren't mining automatically from their new base."
Also a flaw in my research abilities. So blizzard does what I wanted them to. That's good heh. But I still think that if the objective is to help new players, something like tooltips is necessary, because then the question IS why their nexus doesn't queue to minerals after an expansion.
