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Boxer and Bisu complained that strategies get exposed due to replays.
Q) What about making replays optional when you create game? (assuming it's possible)
Replays MADE starcraft. Is making it OPTIONAL compromising too much?
The Bad
1) less replays (because replays = fun and helpful)
2) not being able to watch is annoying. (but you don't have to join these games)
3) hacker heaven (but b.net 2.0 is 1 CD = 1 account)
The Good
1) there will still be replays. People may not join games with replays off (people don't like gosus). Filter can be added to search parameter to make it convenient.
2) if you don't want to share it (having decided before the game), you don't have to.
3) more fun to watch (e-game is professional but also entertainment.)
4) don't have to worry about replays leaking.
Other
1) tournaments may need replays to regulate. They can require replays.
2) in offline setting, they can disable replay option.
* most people replied as tho replays will die. I don't think it will be too different.
Poll: Is this a good idea?
(Vote): Yes. SC2 will be fine with this option.
(Vote): No. By making replays optional, SC2 will be worse.
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Boxer: Personally, I’m not so hot on the replay system in Starcraft. For a strategic player like me, it’s the worst feature ever. After you create a strategy and use it in a televised game, players watch the replay and dissect it immediately. Honestly, it’s hard to find a counter just by watching VODs. But if you give progamers a replay, they figure it out in no time at all. It really kills the motivation of whoever thought of the strategy.
Bisu: I agree with Boxer. I’d rather Starcraft 2 not have a replay function. Though I don’t use strange strategies that often, replays help people figure out the general flow of my playstyle.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=102321[Interview] Boxer and Bisu, Magazine-S
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If Blizzard allow this option in SC2, the hackers will be able to cover up their evidence.
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true...
i guess it'll only work if blizzard makes b.net hacker free :/
or some other way that admin can spot hacking, which doesn't sound too practical.
aren't blizzard charging b.net anyway, under the premise that they'll maintain the server at a very high level? But this doesn't guarantee no hacking.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Their wishes in this regard are completely inconsequential. Watching replays is fun + if they play someone, he has every right to save the replay to review his play, they can't say "oh, hey, you can't save this replay because I'm so much more important than you".
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what about hackers, I really REALLY doubt there will be any, since you can only have 1 account per cd and theres no lan, so there wont be any other servers, just 1, b.net 2.0. That means if u hack and get cough you lose the money you spend on cd. I don't think anyone could risk like that.
what about the replay thing, I think you should still get the replay every single time, but in the game room, you could select if you want to be included in other person's replay or no. if you uncheck the box, the other played would still get the replay, but only with himself in it(well, your oponent is under FOG, you still see what u saw during the game). That way you can see your own game flaws, but u can't analyse your oponents builds etc. I think its the only alternative. :}. What do u think?
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I don't think Boxer and Bisu's concerns apply to those playing on Battlenet to the same degree at all so I don't think Blizzard has to implement it for us. Perhaps it should just be an issue for Kespa or whoever to not allow players in professional matches to save replays of their matches.
Edit: Proom's suggestion makes sense as well, though I'm not sure this feature should be enabled for people on Battle.net, seeing as it would slow the progress of beginners, for what benefit? So that D+ players can hide their 6 rax in to 2 fact into 6 port into cloaked wraith builds from the D- players they beat?
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The biggest problem I see here is that it actually is possible to just create the replay anyways, because the actions a player makes HAVE to be sent to his opponent. So all you'd have to do is either modify SC2 a bit to ignore the "don't save replay" thing, or hack some code that reads the game data and saves it as a replay by itself.
Obviously both of these can be dealt with through decent anti hack systems. But Blizzard will have to work hard for that.
I don't really get why the progamers complain, though. At least in their current way of playing - offline matches - it is easy to keep replays off public. New strats are mostly practiced with teammates.
Even though SC2 will always be played (in some way) online, I still think that many tourneys will be "offline" (at least for some time). When you have control over the computers the players use, you have control over replays. The tourney host just has to make sure that the replays are not spread. If qualifiers are online and the final rounds are offline it's not such a big deal either imo.
Well, and if whole tourneys are fought online, there are much bigger problems. Smurfing, hacking etc. It probably would also be bad for business - fans want to see their stars live.
So, I think this is mostly an issue to discuss with tourney hosts.
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Germany2896 Posts
Over bnet it won't work anyways(a client side hack can remove the restriction). And for pro-games kespa can simply set a policy that replays may not be taken home by the players.
@ProoM that's technically impossible. The players can simply hack their starcraft client when watching the replay offline.
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So what they're saying is.
"We're so awesome, nobody deserves a chance to counter us!" ?
Imo this is just plain silly, how are you supposed to learn from your mistakes and to counter a specific build if you can't even see what your opponent did?
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lol worst suggestion ever.
You need replays.
A game like StarCraft lives because people are watching other people playing and learning with their strategy. If you stop replay saving, the game would die.
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On October 05 2009 22:36 MaD.pYrO wrote:
So what they're saying is.
"We're so awesome, nobody deserves a chance to counter us!" ?
Imo this is just plain silly, how are you supposed to learn from your mistakes and to counter a specific build if you can't even see what your opponent did?
It would be exactly the same in a real life battle. In any case, it's not like you can't come up with a counter, it would just be a more difficult procedure involving only information you might find from VODs, (which Boxer and Bisu are okay with). It rewards people who come up with innovative strategies and those who can analyze their opponent's play with limited information. It would ensure that whatever innovation you make is not nullified in a a matter of days.
Edit: Bear in mind that I think this suggestion only applies to progamers, as I have said above it would have serious negative consequences for those playing on Battle.net. Essentially the only change would be that the progamers themselves do not get the replays of their matches, only the VODs. So no change for the public at large who don't get the replays anyway.
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Nah, I think they have a point, if they were playing online. I remember that in 1.07, new things would go around much more slowly. Even some good players back then (eg. NTT) were against the introduction of replays (at all). It gives the innovator an edge for a little bit more time than 1 game. But just playing offline, like the pros do, will also be fine. Just hope not too many big tournaments will be held online.
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if i was a progamer, i'd be pissed
but since im not, i'm perfectly willing to copy their strategies that they took ages to develop and perfect.
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bisu is a hypocrite because you know damn well he learned from replays himself.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
If your strategy only works when NOONE in the whole world has yet seen it, make a better strategy.
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I see where they're coming from, but then both players would have to have replay saving disabled, and it might be hard to find games where the other person actually allows you to not let them save the replay.
Also, it can't be too great of a strategy if it's countered easily. There should always be adaptation in your build according to what the enemy is doing(except for your standard very beginning build, etc). I say this because you can't really hard counter a flexible strategy, which should be common nowadays. For example, the guide on TvZ 1 base tank push I made recently. You don't need replays to know the general idea of what the other player did, so you should immediately have some idea as to a counter for what they are doing if they do it again. When players start adapting properly and proceeding with a safer 2/3hatch muta, it begins to destroy this build. As the Terran, there isn't really any adaptation in the build you can make to keep the opponent guessing.
I don't know if anyone understands what I'm getting at. I guess if your strategy suddenly sucks because your opponent knows what you're doing then it's not flexible enough to be a good build.
Another example is a 2fact in TvP. The Protoss can know everything about this early push but still lose to a good 2fact. There is some flexibility in this build(2 addons, 3 tank 1 vult, 1 tank 3 vults, etc, etc) that you can work with as well. Let's say it was 2003 and Boxer didn't want his revolutionary 2fact build exposed, even though it is known to everyone now, it is still a viable build.
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On October 05 2009 23:30 BluzMan wrote:
If your strategy only works when NOONE in the whole world has yet seen it, make a better strategy.
Boxer vs Hiya on Bluestorm.
Sorry, but I'd like to see more games like that rather than fewer.
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On October 05 2009 23:47 L wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2009 23:30 BluzMan wrote:
If your strategy only works when NOONE in the whole world has yet seen it, make a better strategy. Boxer vs Hiya on Bluestorm. Sorry, but I'd like to see more games like that rather than fewer.
link please  (or atleast the date)
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What if disabling replay saving for your opponent would also disable replay saving for yourself? That way there is a downside to making such a choice. They can't copy you, but you can't find out why you lost.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 05 2009 23:53 ProoM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2009 23:47 L wrote:On October 05 2009 23:30 BluzMan wrote:
If your strategy only works when NOONE in the whole world has yet seen it, make a better strategy. Boxer vs Hiya on Bluestorm. Sorry, but I'd like to see more games like that rather than fewer. link please (or atleast the date)
http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/8311_BoxeR_vs_HiyA/vod
Not the best example I think.
Boxer vs Oov on requiem from Ever 2004 would be a better choice, or.... maybe Boxer vs Yellow on Dream of Balhae.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 05 2009 22:42 searcher wrote:
It rewards people who come up with innovative strategies and those who can analyze their opponent's play with limited information. It would ensure that whatever innovation you make is not nullified in a a matter of days.
No it doesn't. It lets a mediocre player ride a halfway-decent build to a much higher level than he should, for lack of a counter.
Lack of replays encourages complacency, as whoever is number 1 doesn't need to innovate until someone figures out his build. It also lets a lot more crappy builds float around, because of how long it takes to realize how fragile they might be. The way it is now, only the really versatile builds, like 5 hatch hydra, stick around.
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So much whine against the No-replay function, fascinating.Having the ability to disable replays function is in the interest of the game itself. It adds longevity to its lifespan and makes it more interesting during its lifepsan.Just look at WC3. With every patch, the new strategies which came with balance changes were played out within a week or two. Rarely does one see innovation in a game besides with oddballs such as TH000. Ultimately making the game extremely repetitive (which obviously isn't the only reason I might add).
Even without a replay function people will figure out BUILDS rather quickly.There are only so many possible combinations out there. What is upsetting for a progamer is that a replay reveals exactly when he/she moves what unit to which location. Basically sharing every nuance of their game with the entire community. Every nice "move" they come up with can be used maybe twice. After that, everyone will have studied your replay already. Players just amass this library in their head where they don't even have to have played against it and already know what is coming where at which time. Obviously very good players will be able to anticipate unknown strats/unit movements, but replays really just make it that much easier for everyone else.
Only because you played against an opponent doesn't mean you deserve to know what he did when with which unit. Seriously, where did you get that idea from? If you scout properly and lose, you can put the pieces together yourself.
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On October 06 2009 00:14 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2009 22:42 searcher wrote:
It rewards people who come up with innovative strategies and those who can analyze their opponent's play with limited information. It would ensure that whatever innovation you make is not nullified in a a matter of days.
No it doesn't. It lets a mediocre player ride a halfway-decent build to a much higher level than he should, for lack of a counter. Lack of replays encourages complacency, as whoever is number 1 doesn't need to innovate until someone figures out his build. It also lets a lot more crappy builds float around, because of how long it takes to realize how fragile they might be. The way it is now, only the really versatile builds, like 5 hatch hydra, stick around.
So you think it's a good thing all players do either 1 of a possible 3 things every game? Personally I like seeing crazy builds from pros a lot more. Nowadays it's either 2 hatch muta, 5 hatch hydra, 1fac into CC or klazart's bisu build for 80% of the time. Boxer used to do a lot of new stuff in important games, but it's a lot harder to do that now there are a couple of flexible builds everyone uses...
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i think their quotes are taken completely out of context. i think they maybe mean reps during large tournaments where their next opponent may go watch the replay of their previously played game?
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On October 06 2009 01:15 stanners wrote:
i think their quotes are taken completely out of context. i think they maybe mean reps during large tournaments where their next opponent may go watch the replay of their previously played game?
i have addressed that. But I was not aware of it when I first started the forum. So it deviated a little, but it's still relevant.
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studying the opponent is a part of any sport out there
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United States12235 Posts
On October 06 2009 01:46 DN2perfectionGM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2009 01:15 stanners wrote:
i think their quotes are taken completely out of context. i think they maybe mean reps during large tournaments where their next opponent may go watch the replay of their previously played game? i have addressed that. But I was not aware of it when I first started the forum. So it deviated a little, but it's still relevant.
It's actually much more critical in the middle of a tournament, where you may have developed an exclusive strategy for that event. You would have a hard time using that strategy with any success again in the same tournament because it can be dissected so quickly and studied so effectively. It's less of a concern across different leagues because nobody expects to be able to ride one strategy to victory across an entire league, someone will have figured out a counter within a day or two. Replays can cut that counter-development time down to just a few minutes. They do have some cause for concern.
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United States4796 Posts
I think that's how the game evolves.
By people being forced to come up with new strategies. I mean, isn't that where most good strats today come from? Because the old ones all got countered?
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No it doesn't. It lets a mediocre player ride a halfway-decent build to a much higher level than he should, for lack of a counter. Who are you to determine how 'mediocre' a player is? If he's winning games, he's winning games. If the player has poor mechanics but is winning on the brilliance of his unorthodox play, then that's part of his strength as a player. Labeling him as 'undeserving' despite the fact that he's winning games with something he invented is absolutely silly.
The development of the competitive scene of Red Alert 2, for instance, was largely fueled by the fact that the build orders and tactics were all mysteries, and that it was fun to explore different openings and tactics instead of simply carbon copy a 'perfected' build.
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I am ESL admin and have been admin to some of their professinal leagues like ESL Pro Series and WC3L. In all of these leagues replay uploading is a mandatory, you even get penalties (less prize money) if you don't.
Replays are needed because:
- they prove that the game has in fact been played
- they prove who the winner was
- they can be used to detect cheating
- they are needed in case you have a conflict like someone with a clear advantage disconnected
- they also provide a lot of entertainment 
You also have to keep in mind that people that host games often tend to fck up, so allowing them to chose if a replay is being created is a bad idea. From a semi-pro admins perspective, replays for every game are a MUST HAVE.
Besides, replays of the KeSpa tournaments barely get released anyways, so i don't really get what the big problem is.
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I think that there should be the option to delete ur replay as soon as u get it
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So I guess football teams should also complain that everyone around the world can see and analyze their strats? They should totally ban live feed / video recording and only allow people who come to the stadium to view then.
Seriously though, it's a non-issue. Builds are builds. Yes, they can give you that competitive edge at the start, but the mark of a great player is his ability to innovate and adapt to his opponent's strat during the course of a match itself.
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While I can understand where Boxer is coming from, I think that replays are something that's brings more benefit than harm. Having people analyze your strategy is just a reality of sports. Part of being a pro is knowing that everything you do will be taken apart piece by piece and studied intensively by the competition. But being able to watch how others play has a big role is developing the metagame and allowing players to learn and improve.
Besides, cookie-cutter strategies will get discovered regardless of replays being allowed or not. Allowing them to be disabled merely delays the inevitable. Balancing the game is a much better long-term solution than anything else.
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On October 06 2009 03:17 Ziel wrote:
So I guess football teams should also complain that everyone around the world can see and analyze their strats? They should totally ban live feed / video recording and only allow people who come to the stadium to view then.
Seriously though, it's a non-issue. Builds are builds. Yes, they can give you that competitive edge at the start, but the mark of a great player is his ability to innovate and adapt to his opponent's strat during the course of a match itself.
What a dumb comparison.
And the whole point is that with replay analysis innovation gives less of an edge because every scenario will be played out and countered more quickly.
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On October 06 2009 03:59 timmeh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2009 03:17 Ziel wrote:
So I guess football teams should also complain that everyone around the world can see and analyze their strats? They should totally ban live feed / video recording and only allow people who come to the stadium to view then.
Seriously though, it's a non-issue. Builds are builds. Yes, they can give you that competitive edge at the start, but the mark of a great player is his ability to innovate and adapt to his opponent's strat during the course of a match itself. What a dumb comparison. And the whole point is that with replay analysis innovation gives less of an edge because every scenario will be played out and countered more quickly.
Because to play out those scenarios and counter an unorthodox build does not count as innovation?
No, innovation has more of an edge than ever because players will be forced to analyze builds and come up with new timings to exploit that much more. It could potentially mean that SC2 hits a point like modern BW where we have a good amount of staple versatile builds sooner, but that's inevitable. To remove replays would simply be artificially prolonging the period of time before such a state comes into being. Besides, the amount of variations during such a steady state would be one of the ways we can judge the merits and balance of the game.
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Don't know about Boxer , but i've never watched a replay to analyze someone to beat him . If i lose once or twise to a strategic build i'll just be more prepared for the build next time . If i keep losing to it means i'm beeing outplayed . Creativity ends the moment you use the same build twise on the same person .
Watching the replay does give you a thorough analysis of the build , but even by watching the vod you can get the idea behind it . I doubt players even watch replays that much to analyze someone's build to beat it these days , but if you wan't to copy it thats the way .
That way thought July would have won a hell of a lot more games with just muta stacking and damn good micro until someone figured it out .
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United States47024 Posts
On October 06 2009 00:58 aseq wrote:
So you think it's a good thing all players do either 1 of a possible 3 things every game? Personally I like seeing crazy builds from pros a lot more. Nowadays it's either 2 hatch muta, 5 hatch hydra, 1fac into CC or klazart's bisu build for 80% of the time. Boxer used to do a lot of new stuff in important games, but it's a lot harder to do that now there are a couple of flexible builds everyone uses...
On October 06 2009 02:12 L wrote:
Who are you to determine how 'mediocre' a player is? If he's winning games, he's winning games. If the player has poor mechanics but is winning on the brilliance of his unorthodox play, then that's part of his strength as a player. Labeling him as 'undeserving' despite the fact that he's winning games with something he invented is absolutely silly.
A lack of replays means that a player can get away using a single unorthodox build longer, even if it's crappy, and has a lot of holes, because it takes time for people to find the holes.
Having replays doesn't prevent the development of GOOD builds, and players who play unorthodox are encouraged to switch it up MORE often (players like UpMagic who regularly come up with varied, unorthodox builds still do just fine). What it does is prevent a player from sitting on ONE build and winning games with it just because no one can watch a replay in detail and notice the holes in its timing.
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On October 05 2009 23:08 Sadist wrote:
bisu is a hypocrite because you know damn well he learned from replays himself.
Yeah otherwise Savior would have still owned him and probably own everybody else . Boxer learned from replays too more or less . Stable builds will still be invented even without replays .
It looks like Boxer and Bisu want more credit then there are already geting for their builds which have been invented by watching replays and practising with players who have more knowledge of their main races .
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I feel like the game will reach a boring and stale state like what we have now with StarCraft 1 much faster with replays. 90% of games today play out in one of a few very established way. If you like that mechanical challenge, fine, but it takes the strategy out of an RTS when all you're doing is reacting. Even today, foreigners have trouble getting replays of top players and so it's difficult to mirror something exactly and we end up doing things our own ways.
Personally, I love replays, they help me become a much better player. Looking at the big picture, though, replays contribute greatly to the stagnancy of a game. The StarCraft of today is far more predictable and thus, to most, more boring than it could otherwise be. If StarCraft 2 reaches that point in 18 months, who will still be playing it 18 months later?
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Can you really say that? Even when we said that ZvP has developed to a steady state where people invariably 3hatch lair into 5hatch hydra, we still ended up with a thread pointing out a dominance of Z in the ZvP matchup, long after the development of the build. The Bisu build was supposed to have been the PvZ killer that every P would do to the doom of Z, yet that didn't happen either. Without replays, we would see much longer reigns by particular builds, how is that any better than the situation that people are fearing?
People are too quick to claim that replays will create a state of stagnation when we don't see that even in the original SC. Not releasing replays is just a way to artificially slow down that progression, a path toward an end that we are not wholly sure of yet.
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A lack of replays means that a player can get away using a single unorthodox build longer, even if it's crappy, and has a lot of holes, because it takes time for people to find the holes. Even if its crappy compared to what? If the holes are covered because of lack of experience, then a more experienced player who's seen the same type of unorthodox play will be better suited to deal with it.
Why should unorthodox players have to switch it up more? As far as I can tell, they've never dominated to the same extent as mechanically flawless players, and any innovation performed by dominating players almost immediately becomes the 'one build' you refer to next.
What it does is prevent a player from sitting on ONE build and winning games with it just because no one can watch a replay in detail and notice the holes in its timing. But that's simply not what happens. Players regularly DO sit on one build, and innovative players rarely get by with unorthodox play after a map is 'solved'. We simply DO NOT see Boxer v. Hiya moments anymore, because the moment someone sees someone going bio in a TvT on blue storm, its pretty obvious why and how they're playing.
What happens if that one game turns into 5 and you see successive players trying to work out what's going on, or try something novel of their own? Wherein you have a complete shakeup of the development of a matchup on a map because of a new, unexplored build? You get more jaw dropping moments like when Flash solved Katrina. More 'oh shit savior proxied a goddam hatchery to get overlords out to stop DTs from raping his hydra bust'. More 'wow, boxer is going bio on bluestorm in a tvt'.
That's why maps are switched up in the first place; to produce novel games, something interesting to watch and interesting to play.
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Sweden33719 Posts
You realize, of course, that it would be pretty fucking obvious even without the replay?
On October 06 2009 05:50 FaZ- wrote:
I feel like the game will reach a boring and stale state like what we have now with StarCraft 1 much faster with replays. 90% of games today play out in one of a few very established way. If you like that mechanical challenge, fine, but it takes the strategy out of an RTS when all you're doing is reacting. Even today, foreigners have trouble getting replays of top players and so it's difficult to mirror something exactly and we end up doing things our own ways.
Personally, I love replays, they help me become a much better player. Looking at the big picture, though, replays contribute greatly to the stagnancy of a game. The StarCraft of today is far more predictable and thus, to most, more boring than it could otherwise be. If StarCraft 2 reaches that point in 18 months, who will still be playing it 18 months later?
Faster? Yes. But this is inevitable - unlike SC1, we'll have thousands of people going 100% full steam ahead from the very first second the game is released.
But keep in mind that for the first year, the game will undergo many balance patches, and after that you'll have an expansion, followed by another year+ of balance patches... And after that? ANOTHER expansion and ANOTHER year+ of balance patches.
There's a minimum of what... 4 years of huge balance changes before the game can even BEGIN to stagnate.
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On October 06 2009 05:59 Ecael wrote:
Can you really say that? Even when we said that ZvP has developed to a steady state where people invariably 3hatch lair into 5hatch hydra, we still ended up with a thread pointing out a dominance of Z in the ZvP matchup, long after the development of the build. The Bisu build was supposed to have been the PvZ killer that every P would do to the doom of Z, yet that didn't happen either. Without replays, we would see much longer reigns by particular builds, how is that any better than the situation that people are fearing?
People are too quick to claim that replays will create a state of stagnation when we don't see that even in the original SC. Not releasing replays is just a way to artificially slow down that progression, a path toward an end that we are not wholly sure of yet.
And why is it not dominating as people thought it would? Because it is just a build. Artificially slowing down progression doesn't necessarily make the game worse.
I do agree that a steady state in strategies can make balancing easier. But the same can be said about about unorthodox strategies which exploit imbalances
I don't see why people call Boxer and Bisu hypocrites. Obviously they learned from replays as well. It was the only way to keep up with the progress others were making. Only because they do it doesn't meant they like it or that is a good thing to do. They are pro-gamers. It's a job. They will do whatever is legally or even illegally possible to give them an edge over other players.
As for people having an advantage because they have an unorthodox strategy. Honestly, I'd rather have someone dominate with such a strategy for a while than 80% of the pro-gamers play out standard builds every game.
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Yeah lets slow down the strategic advancement of the game so players can more effectively use one-shot strategies that fall apart if your opponent has seen so much as a single replay of them.
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As Dustin has explained, replays are an exellent way to improve your play. Analysing both your achievements and mistakes as well as how tge enemy took advantage of you when he could are both critical learning components. I don't care if private leagues have rules against saving replays, but over b.net (including the ladder) it should be 100% fine.
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Artificially slowing down a game is just a way to lie to yourself, to me, I'd much rather see cutthroat competition from each build leading to an eventual field of versatile (and standard) builds than to see one build dominate simply because people aren't provided the information to study it with. Though that's probably just a difference in opinion, as you said that you would prefer the opposite. Honestly, I am not much for larger differences. The fact that HBR creates a ZvP style that relies heavily on abusing lurks differs from what we'd see on another map, say, Destination, is enough for me.
To slow down the progression to a steady state artificially by denying access to replays could certainly contribute to variations as well, but at a great expense to quality demanded of Blizzard. Through the variety of maps we saw last year, we see TvZ's horizons broaden as it turned into a matchup that sports a great number of builds differing greatly. Instead of seeing such a variation created by not letting people optimize counter builds and adjust for the metagame, it reflects much better on the game itself should we be able to see that even with easy access to information.
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Brood War has been out since 1998. Thats over 10 years to figure out a game. With Starcraft 2 newer strategies will be used to better effect because the game will not be known to the same level Starcraft is right now. So basically i agree with FA. No need to worry to much about it
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Just because replays being uploaded is necessary for tournament administration doesn't mean those replays should be made public immediately. To be fair to the players in the tournament the replays could be held privately until after the tournament is over.
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And I just want to note that it is to make replay OPTIONAL, not to get rid of it completely.
A trend could develop where everyone always chooses to share replays, and other people won't join rooms that have replay option off, like how people never make or join team melee games. This is actually very possible because when people see that replays are not going to be shared, they will suspect a strong player or a clever strategy. And most gamers (at least the ones on b.net with "newbs only!") don't like losing.
And since there will be some amount of replays floating around, it won't be absolutely stagnant and frustrating. There will be certain group of people trying to figure things out and make them available, which makes strategies more valuable.
But also with the option to not share replays, someone who doesn't want to reveal the strategy for whatever reason can choose to hide it. But even if that's the case, it'll get exposed eventually.
And this option can be exercised according to the situation. If online tournaments need replays, then they'll require replays and contestants will save the replays. But in offline tournaments, by choosing to hide the replay, the gamer doesn't have to worry about the possibility of the opponent looking through the strategies.
I'm not saying that this option MUST be implemented. But I think these are some points that should also be considered.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
People, do you really think that watching replays make people that much better? A replay doesn't even tell you like 5% of what a build is like because it only figures one scenario out of a millon. A build is not really a cooking recipe - "bake at 200 degrees for 5 minutes" etc. It's more like a tree and you're only viewing one branch. Now as much as I enjoy people going awkward builds that get them a win or loss at 5 minute mark, anything that lasts beyond that mark is adaptive gameplay that can be understood only with like 100 games of practice. Replays tell you nothing of where the players made their mistakes, what went wrong, what did they change in their plans when their opponent surprised them or they saw an unexpected opening, replays only tell you how the game unfolded. It's clear as day considering the fact that both players, if they are serious, have builds that have been tailored for a win, but only one players wins.
I can understand Boxer being frustrated about specifically bred strats for a single important game against a well-studied opponent being leaked out of the training office. But that's more of a training office policy than game restriction. Restricting replay saving over Battle.net is stupid, and yes, since the client anyway inherently has all the info required, it's possible and probably even trivial to hack. Everything that comprises a replay is there in the network traffic, even the initial synch to figure the common RNG seed.
If anything, random map generation and/or playing on completely unknown maps might prolong the game's longevity, because they will support that breed of players we all love who tend to pull stuff out of their asses more often than practice a single strategy to clinical death. Now the algorithms needed to make a viable SC map were a bit too tough for 1998, but they will do fine in 2010.
Considering how important this feature is for game enjoyment (we all love watching reps for fun) I don't see a single opening that would allow it's removal.
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On October 06 2009 08:53 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
And I just want to note that it is to make replay OPTIONAL, not to get rid of it completely.
A trend could develop where everyone always chooses to share replays, and other people won't join rooms that have replay option off, like how people never make or join team melee games. This is actually very possible because when people see that replays are not going to be shared, they will suspect a strong player or a clever strategy. And most gamers (at least the ones on b.net with "newbs only!") don't like losing.
And since there will be some amount of replays floating around, it won't be absolutely stagnant and frustrating. There will be certain group of people trying to figure things out and make them available, which makes strategies more valuable.
But also with the option to not share replays, someone who doesn't want to reveal the strategy for whatever reason can choose to hide it. But even if that's the case, it'll get exposed eventually.
And this option can be exercised according to the situation. If online tournaments need replays, then they'll require replays and contestants will save the replays. But in offline tournaments, by choosing to hide the replay, the gamer doesn't have to worry about the possibility of the opponent looking through the strategies.
I'm not saying that this option MUST be implemented. But I think these are some points that should also be considered.
Everything you just said is a reason not to include such a feature. "Allowing people to opt out of replays won't be THAT bad, because people will circumvent it anyway."
More accessible information leads to greater preparation which results in a higher quality of games. That's all there is to it.
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But what is a 'higher quality of games'? Is it a higher quality of game experience, or is it more optimized gameplay?
In the case of optimization, the amount, and effect of metagaming increases with the slower divulgence of information which doesn't reduce the optimization, just changes where the optimization takes place. Even then, the effect isn't absolute.
You realize, of course, that it would be pretty fucking obvious even without the replay? In SC2, sure. But that begs the question why you need your opponent's information in the replay at all.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Oh an yeah, consider this scenario:
<scenario>
I'm a noobie that has shown some promise and I've just had my first sexual intercourse yesterday, the stars aligned perfectly and my country just won the World Soccer champ, so, even though I'm usually mediocre, today I'm on fire. Inexplicable luck matches me against Boxer and even though he executes some brilliant build vs me I get super lucky and manage to pull it off, winning a 45 minute long game full of thrilling action that is officially my best StarCraft for now or maybe even forever.
Now I'm just choking with excitement and guess what? I want to share it with friends. I want everyone to know that I've beat Boxer and in a very entertaining manner. And now click "Save Replay"... Stop! WHAT?
"Player Boxer has not allowed replay saving".
</scenario>
I can imagine people quitting the game after this. Don't rip people off their victories, like some other dirty business we all men do it, but never tell each other about it - we save our own replays. Memorable games that we sometimes watch. I would hate winning vs a better player and not being able to save the replay.
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On October 06 2009 09:05 Lysdexia wrote:
Everything you just said is a reason not to include such a feature. "Allowing people to opt out of replays won't be THAT bad, because people will circumvent it anyway."
More accessible information leads to greater preparation which results in a higher quality of games. That's all there is to it.
read again.
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On October 06 2009 06:46 FrozenArbiter wrote:You realize, of course, that it would be pretty fucking obvious even without the replay? Show nested quote +On October 06 2009 05:50 FaZ- wrote:
I feel like the game will reach a boring and stale state like what we have now with StarCraft 1 much faster with replays. 90% of games today play out in one of a few very established way. If you like that mechanical challenge, fine, but it takes the strategy out of an RTS when all you're doing is reacting. Even today, foreigners have trouble getting replays of top players and so it's difficult to mirror something exactly and we end up doing things our own ways.
Personally, I love replays, they help me become a much better player. Looking at the big picture, though, replays contribute greatly to the stagnancy of a game. The StarCraft of today is far more predictable and thus, to most, more boring than it could otherwise be. If StarCraft 2 reaches that point in 18 months, who will still be playing it 18 months later? Faster? Yes. But this is inevitable - unlike SC1, we'll have thousands of people going 100% full steam ahead from the very first second the game is released. But keep in mind that for the first year, the game will undergo many balance patches, and after that you'll have an expansion, followed by another year+ of balance patches... And after that? ANOTHER expansion and ANOTHER year+ of balance patches. There's a minimum of what... 4 years of huge balance changes before the game can even BEGIN to stagnate.
I think thats too hopeful thinkg Blizzard will release the next part of the sc2 trilogy a year later (I would be happy if they did though :D). But I do agree there are going to be balance changes alot because the game will NOT be balanced on release. I bet it will take awhile before all the sc2 strategies are figured out and like you just said expansions will change it alot as well (new units and stuff like that).
Sc2 will live very long imo I don't see it failing and most people who have played it said its a lot of fun so yea ^^.
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I can't even believe that this is being seriously discussed. I've played games where people can ride out a few tourney wins on stupid gimmicks when a new game comes out just because there's so much to learn and so little access to information, no replays, definitely no bwchart type tools, and few vods and high level players never really post up strats in most game communities unlike starcraft. Instead we just have scrubbies doing stupid gimmicks that get them a tournament win or two. No replays decreases the overall skill levels of EVERYONE in the whole game, including the pros. It's terrible for the community and it hurts everyone.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 06 2009 09:13 blade55555 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2009 06:46 FrozenArbiter wrote:You realize, of course, that it would be pretty fucking obvious even without the replay? On October 06 2009 05:50 FaZ- wrote:
I feel like the game will reach a boring and stale state like what we have now with StarCraft 1 much faster with replays. 90% of games today play out in one of a few very established way. If you like that mechanical challenge, fine, but it takes the strategy out of an RTS when all you're doing is reacting. Even today, foreigners have trouble getting replays of top players and so it's difficult to mirror something exactly and we end up doing things our own ways.
Personally, I love replays, they help me become a much better player. Looking at the big picture, though, replays contribute greatly to the stagnancy of a game. The StarCraft of today is far more predictable and thus, to most, more boring than it could otherwise be. If StarCraft 2 reaches that point in 18 months, who will still be playing it 18 months later? Faster? Yes. But this is inevitable - unlike SC1, we'll have thousands of people going 100% full steam ahead from the very first second the game is released. But keep in mind that for the first year, the game will undergo many balance patches, and after that you'll have an expansion, followed by another year+ of balance patches... And after that? ANOTHER expansion and ANOTHER year+ of balance patches. There's a minimum of what... 4 years of huge balance changes before the game can even BEGIN to stagnate. I think thats too hopeful thinkg Blizzard will release the next part of the sc2 trilogy a year later (I would be happy if they did though :D). But I do agree there are going to be balance changes alot because the game will NOT be balanced on release. I bet it will take awhile before all the sc2 strategies are figured out and like you just said expansions will change it alot as well (new units and stuff like that). Sc2 will live very long imo I don't see it failing and most people who have played it said its a lot of fun so yea ^^.
Just going by their official "1 to 1.5 years between expansions". It's about the time between WC3->TFT and SC->BW as well.
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I think the only viable method for compromise between the 2 sides (both sides have good points) is by making a lock system on the replay u just played. After the game finished, there is an option to save replay or not. There is also another option to save confidential replay and it requires you to put in a password to lock the file.
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If replays werent introduced boxer would have won like 10 osl by now lol.
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On October 06 2009 09:48 fearus wrote:
If replays werent introduced boxer would have won like 10 osl by now lol.
Boxer fell from the top not because people were able to analyze his replays and copy/ counter them. (It probably contributed though. But lets not mention the fact that the some stuff Boxer did was so unique that people didn't even try to copy them) When Boxer was at the top, the professional sc was played in terms of micro. The age of Macro showed that Macro > Micro which really brought down Boxer because it undermined his entire playstyle. Macro killed Boxer, not replays
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starcraft is played with a keyboard and a mouse.
if one can watch every step of the game infinite times,
one would eventually learn to mimic it.
if people watch infinite number of games,
by trial and error, the best strategies will be figured out.
The one with the best macro.
replays made macro kill boxer
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i think kespa can just limit the release of replays. i mean they can control just about everything progamers do except when to expand.
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I think no-one here is advocating the the removal of replays in its entirety but just having the option to if one would like to keep his unique strategy (not build order) concealed.
Build orders and strategy will even be open to analysis with just VODs anyway. But at least they don't reveal every click a player makes.
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On October 06 2009 16:55 timmeh wrote:
I think no-one here is advocating the the removal of replays in its entirety but just having the option to if one would like to keep his unique strategy (not build order) concealed.
Build orders and strategy will even be open to analysis with just VODs anyway. But at least they don't reveal every click a player makes.
Strategy can be figured out instantly from a VOD or even just by playing a game against that strategy. Doesn't matter if there are replays or not.
About unique builds: just don't use that build in a public game, and instead only in games against teammates and in offline tournaments where the tournament host can control the release of replays. There are various reasons why offline tournaments are pretty much the only way to go when money is involved. And seriously, you wouldn't want to use your best builds in anything but the final rounds of an important tournament, or else you risk it being disclosed and figured out, even if there are no replays.
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This may okay to consider for progamer level, but for bnet and everything, this is practically asking for hackers, all other abusers and super bm people to get away with whatever they do.
So at amateur level this is a step backwards, but I do agree that this function would be good for progamer level.
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Maybe there could be an option to create games with or without replay saving. If you don't want to have your replays all over the net, create games with no replay saving or joing games that have replay option disabled.
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i agree that most of the strategies can be figured out from VOD's.
however, something subtle like when exactly to postpone worker production will be harder to spot in VOD, whereas in replays, absolutely everything is revealed.
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No replays would be better. The koreans know what's up!
Optional is a good idea.
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Absolutely ridiculous suggestion. Keep in mind that Blizzard thoroughly looks at this forum. Posting stupid suggestions like this can mess up their way of thinking and opens up possibilities for making SC2 worse than it is now. They've made enough mistakes of this kind so far, including making people update their copy of Starcraft 2 every once in a while and disabling LAN games. Now you want them to disable replays? Are you trying to drive every future potential SC2 customer away from this game or what? Please think about the consequences before posting this kind of stuff.
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On October 06 2009 09:11 BluzMan wrote:
Oh an yeah, consider this scenario:
<scenario>
I'm a noobie that has shown some promise and I've just had my first sexual intercourse yesterday, the stars aligned perfectly and my country just won the World Soccer champ, so, even though I'm usually mediocre, today I'm on fire. Inexplicable luck matches me against Boxer and even though he executes some brilliant build vs me I get super lucky and manage to pull it off, winning a 45 minute long game full of thrilling action that is officially my best StarCraft for now or maybe even forever.
Now I'm just choking with excitement and guess what? I want to share it with friends. I want everyone to know that I've beat Boxer and in a very entertaining manner. And now click "Save Replay"... Stop! WHAT?
"Player Boxer has not allowed replay saving".
</scenario>
I can imagine people quitting the game after this. Don't rip people off their victories, like some other dirty business we all men do it, but never tell each other about it - we save our own replays. Memorable games that we sometimes watch. I would hate winning vs a better player and not being able to save the replay.
this is actually a very unique and good point.
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i tihnk its pretty dam selfish replays are an intregal part of this game. The person with the football analogy pretty much summed it up! every sport has replays and training film i dont know what is the big fuss really.
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I will admit i do miss that oohhh and ahhhh feeling I used to get when someone would break out some crazy stuff no one had ever seen before. Also I used to really enjoy that almost martal arts feel BWs hard in the early days before replays. Where you almost had to find a master to teach you to get better lol. Then again i know i also have enjoyed watching alot of reps too.
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On October 05 2009 22:34 MasterOfChaos wrote:
Over bnet it won't work anyways(a client side hack can remove the restriction). And for pro-games kespa can simply set a policy that replays may not be taken home by the players.
@ProoM that's technically impossible. The players can simply hack their starcraft client when watching the replay offline.
Well you COULD make Starcraft only work online but that's ridiculously impractical as well. 
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On October 07 2009 03:09 spkim1 wrote:
Absolutely ridiculous suggestion. Keep in mind that Blizzard thoroughly looks at this forum. Posting stupid suggestions like this can mess up their way of thinking and opens up possibilities for making SC2 worse than it is now. They've made enough mistakes of this kind so far, including making people update their copy of Starcraft 2 every once in a while and disabling LAN games. Now you want them to disable replays? Are you trying to drive every future potential SC2 customer away from this game or what? Please think about the consequences before posting this kind of stuff.
Blizzard knows more about what they are doing than you do. You think you're so smart that Blizzard should just listen to you, eh? Because they are so gullible that they might look into ideas that you find stupid?
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On October 07 2009 04:32 Equinox_kr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2009 22:34 MasterOfChaos wrote:
Over bnet it won't work anyways(a client side hack can remove the restriction). And for pro-games kespa can simply set a policy that replays may not be taken home by the players.
@ProoM that's technically impossible. The players can simply hack their starcraft client when watching the replay offline. Well you COULD make Starcraft only work online but that's ridiculously impractical as well.
SC2 does only work online. (With the exception of 'guest' singleplayer mode in which you can not gain achievements etc).
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Osaka27149 Posts
Im against things that further divide the pool of players into separate categories.
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10387 Posts
Replays will be far more in-depth in SC2 right? That should be a huge concern for all pros, because that would not only make strategic players far weaker, but it'll also be used against every top player to find every tiny crack in their armor to exploit and abuse. With the decrease of mechanical skill requirements, it becomes even easier for unknowns to topple top players. This is assuming that SC2's replays are very in-depth, which I think they are.
Rather than disabling the replay feature, there should be a choice between saving the replay as a "basic" replay option like that of BW's, and the normal replay option which will be super in-depth and everything.
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On October 07 2009 13:14 ArvickHero wrote:
Replays will be far more in-depth in SC2 right? That should be a huge concern for all pros, because that would not only make strategic players far weaker, but it'll also be used against every top player to find every tiny crack in their armor to exploit and abuse. With the decrease of mechanical skill requirements, it becomes even easier for unknowns to topple top players. This is assuming that SC2's replays are very in-depth, which I think they are.
Rather than disabling the replay feature, there should be a choice between saving the replay as a "basic" replay option like that of BW's, and the normal replay option which will be super in-depth and everything.
Yes, I actually I like this idea a lot. Having the option of saving the replay without food counts, minerals, gas or even units being built or things being upgraded being shown.
I think if the decision had to be made, this would be the best compromise for both parties, unless there is a way to make it so that you can only save the replay with the fog of war up and you can only see what you did, not anything the other player did.
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I don't want replays. While I enjoy watching them, I think I can put aside my personal enjoyment of replays in favor of preservation of strategical integrity of the game. It would also extend the lifespan of the game; as it stands, every one will watch the first season of progaming competition and immediately implement whatever strategies they see in replays, and the game will become a very stagnant with 90% of the player base insisting that "ABC is the RIGHT way to play, ZXY is for noobs". Compare modern starcraft to how it was 5 years ago (which was already quite methodical); it has become extremely mechanistic.
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Besides giving the possibility to make game with or w/o replay saving option(that way if you join a game with no replay option, you know you are not going to be able to save the game, and if you don't like it, go find a game somewhere else), strictly focusing on the issue that a player should be able to save his own replays, maybe there could be an option so the replay can only be watched by the players who played the game, with some sort of ID recognizing system.
Taking in count that no multiple accounts will be allowed, this seems a pretty good option.
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Unless the replays are hosted on a Blizzard server, which is unlikely, it will be impossible to restrict access to replays. Any ID limitations would have to be saved in the replay file, and it will only be a matter of time until the specs of that file have been found out, and a tool to fix the restrictions of a replay is written. A very short time.
The same thing applies for replays without food counts, unit production and so on. You can easily fix the file to allow it again as long as there is the option to show it if all players agree, and that option WILL be there or else they were working on tons of replay features for nothing.
And again, I don't think this is suc a big deal for the proscene as it sounds in the OP. To disclose strategies, pros would have to use the strategy in a game against someone who they cannot trust and outside of a regulated tourney. Then another pro has to get his hands on that replay. If a mediocre player could beat a pro just because he has a replay of his strategy, something is wrong with the strategy in the first place.
Considering that pros mostly practice their best strats with teammates (because you can coordinate training better, practice certain situations...), replays of those strats souldn't be open to the public anyways. And I am sure that you won't be able to spread the replays of bit offline tourneys just like that. If they get out after a month or two it doesn't hurt anymore.
So the only place where I would accept a no-replay-saved feature would be tourneys. But for anti-cheating purposes the replays would have to be submitted to the tourney host (online tourneys of course).
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As the OP stated, this is the interview where this replay business came up:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=102321¤tpage=4
One important point I think that wasn't quoted was "Boxer: The time at which the skill level of progamers started to become more even coincides with the introduction of replays. I think it’s a responsibility of progamers to research a variety of strategies and playstyles, but nowadays everyone plays the same way. I think it ended up just making Starcraft less fun."
After reading this whole things and everyone's points, it seems that it would be good to have a replay disable option, and when you see a game in the lobby or when you join it, it says "Replay saving disabled" in red text somewhere noticeable.
This would not be the end of replays though, everyone can just join games that enable replays, there is nothing stopping them. Then for progamer level, they could disable replays and be happy that their strategies are safe and everyone at amateur level can enable or do whatever they want.
I honestly see no harm coming out of this feature except if someone does a really tricky cheese that pwns for a while, but anyway a VOD will show the rough idea of what the player did, and remember, there will still be an abundance of replays of amateurs around.
So I say go for it Blizz!
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Strategies will inevitably going to be figured out, but at a much slower rate if there is an option to disable replays before game.
Once someone uses a very creative/effective strategy in a TV game, other players can watch that VOD over and over again to see the main lines of the strategy, but it will be way more tedious and harder.
When people see one good strategy on TV, even though they don't have the replay, they can practice trying to imitate it, and once you got hundreds/thousands of people trying to mimic some strategy, it will eventually be figured out to almost exact detail.
Disabling replays won't make a progamers impossible to figure and imitate, it will just avoid a replay with that strategy from spreading all over the internet in a matter of days, thus expanding that strategy's exclusivity lifespan a whole lot.
This rewards making an effort for creativity, since it is harder to just copy someones strategies and just focus on mechanics like crazy, and pros will get a sense that any strategy they develop with hard work won't become just a one time element of surprise, but that it would take some more time to be figured out, so the payoff is much bigger.
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On October 07 2009 20:26 RamenStyle wrote:
This rewards making an effort for creativity, since it is harder to just copy someones strategies and just focus on mechanics like crazy, and pros will get a sense that any strategy they develop with hard work won't become just a one time element of surprise, but that it would take some more time to be figured out, so the payoff is much bigger.
That is a really good point, probably one of the better ones on the for side of having the replay disable option available.
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Aren't the pro gamers not allowed to put replays anywhere anyway? How can we copy strategies from pro's when they don't release the replays? The people who figure it out will have to watch the vods over and over again anyway. I think the replay disable option would be dumb as one of the things I hated about aoe3 was the fact is if you had an epic game but you didn't record it you could never watch it again. Way more pro's then cons imo.
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On October 07 2009 22:46 blade55555 wrote:
Aren't the pro gamers not allowed to put replays anywhere anyway? How can we copy strategies from pro's when they don't release the replays? The people who figure it out will have to watch the vods over and over again anyway. I think the replay disable option would be dumb as one of the things I hated about aoe3 was the fact is if you had an epic game but you didn't record it you could never watch it again. Way more pro's then cons imo.
boxer is complaining about the offline tournament situations where opponents instantly review the replays of the previous games.
that particular complaint is targeted to a narrow situation, but the implication of a bigger scope can be thought of.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 08 2009 00:23 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
boxer is complaining about the offline tournament situations where opponents instantly review the replays of the previous games.
1) If you play the same build multiple times in a set, you have no reason to complain about your opponent being given a chance to figure it out.
2) If it's in the narrow span of a set, shouldn't a player be rewarded for being able to analyze and evaluate the game in such a short span of time?
On October 08 2009 00:23 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
that particular complaint is targeted to a narrow situation, but the implication of a bigger scope can be thought of.
What bigger scope? If Kespa keeps control over where replays go post-game, I don't see how there needs to be a "bigger scope".
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On October 08 2009 00:23 DN2perfectionGM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2009 22:46 blade55555 wrote:
Aren't the pro gamers not allowed to put replays anywhere anyway? How can we copy strategies from pro's when they don't release the replays? The people who figure it out will have to watch the vods over and over again anyway. I think the replay disable option would be dumb as one of the things I hated about aoe3 was the fact is if you had an epic game but you didn't record it you could never watch it again. Way more pro's then cons imo. boxer is complaining about the offline tournament situations where opponents instantly review the replays of the previous games.
Since it's offline, stopping people from doing that is simple. If that really is all there is to this, it is by far outweighed by things like easier hacking, additional effort to find a game, etc.
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Sweden33719 Posts
... I think this thread is insane.
Disabling replays wtf.
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I don't understand how giving people the option to control how they are recorded is insane.
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On October 08 2009 05:43 L wrote:
I don't understand how giving people the option to control how they are recorded is insane. Insane may be an overstatement but you definitely shouldn't be able to control whether or not the OTHER person records the game.
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The problem is that your opponent can control if you are allowed to save a replay of your game (against him).
And simply saying "then don't play that guy" isn't going to make this a good idea. As manifesto7 said, it divides SC gamers into 3 groups groups, those who want replays, those who don't want them, and those who don't care.
By the way, has it been mentioned yet that you won't be able to watch the replay yourself if you disable replay saving (it would be totally unfair if you could but your opponent could not)? I guess there are times when you would want to check what went wrong with your build. And you can't place the disable-replay-button in the after game screen, because that would be even more ridiculous. "Will he allow me to save the replay or not?"
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I think it's pretty obvious that to please both the noobs who copy everyone else's strategies instead of playing the game for themselves, and for those who invent strategies on their own, the replay feature should be optional. A pre-set game setting, like the game speed or map. If you want to play with replays, join the game that allows replay saving. If you have created your own strategy that you don't want every moron on battle.net to duplicate for years to come, join the one that doesn't allow replay saving.
It's nice to have a replay of a great game you played, to watch it and be proud, or show others your victory. If there was a setting that allowed the player to view only what was visible to him in the game, I would choose that option every time. That's how I want people to see the game, as it was played, from my perspective.
It would be nice to be able to share a replay just once, with whoever you choose. Right now, when you host a replay, whoever joins the room has it in their download folder and can view it over and over to copy exactly what you did. It would be nice to be able to control the exposure. Share it once, show only what needs to be shown for entertainment. It doesn't have to be used for strategy stealing.
I miss the days when there were no replays, and creative strategy was still part of the game. It's less and less a game of strategy when the way to win is to download the latest Bisu replay and imitate his every move.
Boxer struggles now, because I believe his main strength was his creative ability. Inventing successful strategies that no one else had seen. Thanks to replays, these can only be used once. The number of new strategies is quickly depleted, even in a game as complex as SC. Your hard work is public property, and every moron with no understanding of the game can memorize your every move after watching the replay, and do exactly what you did. Within a week, everyone on battle.net has either reenacted or played against this strategy that one player invented.
Yes it makes everyone more prepared to deal with anything that could be thrown at them. But at what cost? Once all the creative strategies have been used and are known throughout the community, the game has lost most of its strategy aspect, which should be valued above fast clicking, time spent memorizing the builds of professionals, micro and macro skills.
I know this isn't a popular idea among the remaining SC players, as StarCraft has no room for creative builds anymore. It's all been tried and proven, and there's nothing left to discover. We all know what works, and what doesn't. The only challenge now is executing these public domain builds perfectly, and there is no strategy in that.
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On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious that to please both the noobs who copy everyone else's strategies instead of playing the game for themselves, and for those who invent strategies on their own, the replay feature should be optional. A pre-set game setting, like the game speed or map. If you want to play with replays, join the game that allows replay saving. The problem here is with the matchmaking system. I can understand this option being harmless for custom cames, but it shouldn't be an available option for someone joining an AMM ladder game.
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On October 08 2009 03:01 FrozenArbiter wrote:
... I think this thread is insane.
Disabling replays wtf.
Yup. Even without reading the entire thread I can even call up one situation out of my head where automatic replays have decided a lot. It was during a WCG where one player was accused of abusing the system (which was not allowed) and the only way to check it out was to watch this replay (as none of the players, accused and accuser even bothered to save them). (If you know what Forestwalking in WC3 is then you're probably familiar with the situation)
Besides, who cares if their strats are going to be shown?
1. There's a lot of pride to be taken if your strat is considered "teh uber pwn" and swinging all over the internet (you're comfortable with it, because noobs can't execute it and other pros will prepare for it and you'll destroy them with something completely different).
2. People are going to see it sooner or later anyway.
3. If having a spy on your team is ok, but auto-saving replays is not, then you have a problem.
4*. You play a televised game and you worry about replays? o_O
* in case of pros only.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
I think it's pretty obvious that to please both the noobs who copy everyone else's strategies instead of playing the game for themselves, and for those who invent strategies on their own, the replay feature should be optional. A pre-set game setting, like the game speed or map. If you want to play with replays, join the game that allows replay saving. If you have created your own strategy that you don't want every moron on battle.net to duplicate for years to come, join the one that doesn't allow replay saving.
Way to make generalizations about the people who want replays and those who don't. Also, as has been stated, this further divides the community, which is a bad thing. Even if it was proven that having replays shortens the competitive lifespan of the game (a shaky statement at best), I would still say that having a healthier, united community overall would be better than splitting the community.
On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
It's nice to have a replay of a great game you played, to watch it and be proud, or show others your victory. If there was a setting that allowed the player to view only what was visible to him in the game, I would choose that option every time. That's how I want people to see the game, as it was played, from my perspective.
And that would be extremely limiting to someone who's actually trying to learn the game, and not just "copy builds". A good portion of what you can learn isn't just by seeing what's on your side of the table. How are you supposed to learn any form of timing if you can't judge what's happening relative to your own play?
On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
I miss the days when there were no replays, and creative strategy was still part of the game. It's less and less a game of strategy when the way to win is to download the latest Bisu replay and imitate his every move.
You're looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. You're also acting like replays of progamers come out every week, which they don't. Kespa limits the release of progamer replays. The only games that get out are through international events like Blizzcon and IEF, and practice games that get out like ICCup games. Leaked replays will still be leaked, and replays released by Blizzard will still be released by Blizzard. Whatever automated system you implement will always be circumvented by that.
On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
Boxer struggles now, because I believe his main strength was his creative ability. Inventing successful strategies that no one else had seen. Thanks to replays, these can only be used once. The number of new strategies is quickly depleted, even in a game as complex as SC. Your hard work is public property, and every moron with no understanding of the game can memorize your every move after watching the replay, and do exactly what you did. Within a week, everyone on battle.net has either reenacted or played against this strategy that one player invented.
Boxer struggles now because his strategic creativity gave him a static advantage, where the constant improvement of other progamers in mechanics gave them a steadily growing advantage. You can't change that. Surprise doesn't become more surprising the more you improve at it--macro, micro, and decision making do get better. That's inherent to the way strategic games are played. Chess players memorize openings and Go players memorize Joseki, because improving how you analyze known positions has more room to grow than having a few random surprises.
On October 08 2009 06:20 Kadoka wrote:
Yes it makes everyone more prepared to deal with anything that could be thrown at them. But at what cost? Once all the creative strategies have been used and are known throughout the community, the game has lost most of its strategy aspect, which should be valued above fast clicking, time spent memorizing the builds of professionals, micro and macro skills.
I know this isn't a popular idea among the remaining SC players, as StarCraft has no room for creative builds anymore. It's all been tried and proven, and there's nothing left to discover. We all know what works, and what doesn't. The only challenge now is executing these public domain builds perfectly, and there is no strategy in that.
Again, stop exaggerating. The strategic limits of Starcraft have not been exhausted. There are plenty of players like Fantasy, Upmagic, and Horang2 who are doing just fine off of primarily unconventional play. Having unconventional builds does not REPLACE strong mechanics and decision making--nor should it. A player who can play solid, unconventional openings in a game like Chess or Go still fall apart against a player with more solid mid-late game decision making. The same is true in Starcraft, and the same should be true in SC2.
What's more, any sort of causal link between replays and and mechanically-dependent play is basically unfounded. You could just as easily chalk up the copy-builds-and-train-mechanics style to aspects of Asian culture and teaching style just as much as you could to replays. It sounds absurd, but there's honestly no less evidence for that (given the way schooling and training in other areas is done in Asian countries) than for the cause being replays.
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this discussion is pretty moot. blizzard would never implement a feature like this
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I've posted my opinion already, but it wasn't a very detailed explanation so here's a better one:
Open information is always good for a competitive game, and for starcraft replays are essential to open information.
Open information increases the quality of play as a whole by incentivizing preparation and increasing general knowledge about the game. The reason there's a higher incentive for preparation is pretty simple: more accessible information lets players know what to prepare for. Without replays it would be much more difficult to analyze a build and come up with a response. This is magnified in a game like starcraft where a strategy can have a huge number of small nuances that would be near impossible to discover without a replay.
People who say open information decreases strategy are very myopic. The players who came up with counters to boxer's shenanigans were just as "creative". In fact they were employing more strategy because they had to create something to beat a specific build, not a generic strategy that could work against anything if it wasn't properly dealt with. There's a name for this process. It's called the strategic evolution of the game. People analyze things that other people are doing and come up with ways to beat them, and as a result our collective knowledge of the game increases, as does the quality of games at all levels (as spectators we care about the quality of pro games).
All of the sweet strats people marvel over don't just materialize out of thin air. Someone analyzed what other people were doing and tried to come up with a way to beat it. This is only possible through openly accessible information.
Lack of information is what drives people towards generic strategies. Without information there's no incentive to prepare specific strategies because there's no way of knowing 1. if people are actually using the strategy you're preparing against and 2. all of the little nuances and tricks that could fuck up your prepared strat. The really exiting, high quality games played in the pro scene are frequently the ones where players prepared strategies specifically for that game, on that map, against that player. Without the ability to create such strategies, generic strats (either standard play or a universally applicable cheese) would be the only option.
I mean, just think about it. If before playing someone you had the opportunity to analyze their last 20 games to see what they did, and you had pro level knowledge to figure out what to do against that, would you do that or just roll with whatever standard thing you would do absent that information? This is magnified at the pro level where people know who they're playing farther in advance and have more time to sit around (with their coaches) and create strategies.
If after looking at all this information it turns out the player thinks playing standard is the best option then obviously that's what people will do, but having the information there dramatically increases the possibility for a new or unique strategy. And quality of play will still be higher just by virtue of the fact that everyone knows more about the game generally as well as more about the current metagame.
The other problem with the claim that open information decreases strategy is it relies on a flawed view of what strategy is and how strategy actually affects the outcomes of games.
Creating a strategy in starcraft is basically figuring out a goal then looking at what stuff you have available and deciding how best to use it to achieve that goal i.e. I want to kill my opponent fast so I'll build gateways in their main. This is obviously strategy, but not all or even most aspects of strategy can be reduced to this. In fact this process is very far removed from how most games are actually decided.
In order to understand how strategy is actually applied to real games, we need to take a step back in terms of what we think of when we think of "what stuff you have available". In the example I gave the stuff was gateways and the fact that you can build them in your opponent's main. In actual games this stuff is the range of strategies a player can use. Instead of saying "I want to kill my opponent fast" and then looking at all the potential choices they could make with regards to units and buildings and the placement of those buildings and arriving at building gateways in your opponent's main as a good way to achieve that goal, players say "I want to kill my opponent fast, so I will use the strategy of proxying gateways".
The difference may seem subtle but it's very important. When a player is deciding what to do in a particular game the set of "stuff" is NOT all of the units and buildings and various things you can do with them, it's the set of strategies you know. The buildings and units and such are of course the building blocks of those strategies, but that is unimportant to how players make strategic decisions in actual games.
So the strategic decision is not "I am going to build gateways in my opponents main", the strategic decision is "I am going to (use the strategy called) proxy 9/9 gate". In terms of it's relevance to actual games and deciding their outcomes, strategy is the decisions you make about your build (drawn from a set of builds you have previously learned, not created out of thin air) before the game and how you adapt in the game.
Once we start looking at strategy from this perspective it's obvious that more accessible information is essential for strategy. With more information players will have a wider range of potential builds, have more knowledge about when to use what build, and have more knowledge about how to adapt that build in a game.
Players knowing more builds from having watched replays of them or from creating a build to counter one they studied a replay of increases the number of strategic options players have, increasing the strategic depth of the game and the amount of strategic knowledge necessary to compete at a high level.
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Are you guys really serious? Disabling replays to hide your starcraft strategy?...I mean, c'mon, really?
If you are a good player then you shouldn't have to hide a one trick pony from the public.
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I don't mind disabling repays as option. Online tournaments / ladders can still require replays.
In poker, you don't get to see your opponents hands after you lost your money 
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On October 08 2009 14:48 zgl wrote:In poker, you don't get to see your opponents hands after you lost your money So annoying, I'm still trying to figure out what build order Ivey is using to get four 7s by 4th street
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The problem is practicality -- you simply can't get rid of replays.
If there was a way, I'd agree with Boxer. Many sports have this issue though.
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I was going to post, but Lysdexia pretty much refuted every argument against replay saving.
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On October 08 2009 13:41 Lysdexia wrote:
I've posted my opinion already, but it wasn't a very detailed explanation so here's a better one:
Open information is always good for a competitive game, and for starcraft replays are essential to open information.
Open information increases the quality of play as a whole by incentivizing preparation and increasing general knowledge about the game. The reason there's a higher incentive for preparation is pretty simple: more accessible information lets players know what to prepare for. Without replays it would be much more difficult to analyze a build and come up with a response. This is magnified in a game like starcraft where a strategy can have a huge number of small nuances that would be near impossible to discover without a replay.
People who say open information decreases strategy are very myopic. The players who came up with counters to boxer's shenanigans were just as "creative". In fact they were employing more strategy because they had to create something to beat a specific build, not a generic strategy that could work against anything if it wasn't properly dealt with. There's a name for this process. It's called the strategic evolution of the game. People analyze things that other people are doing and come up with ways to beat them, and as a result our collective knowledge of the game increases, as does the quality of games at all levels (as spectators we care about the quality of pro games).
All of the sweet strats people marvel over don't just materialize out of thin air. Someone analyzed what other people were doing and tried to come up with a way to beat it. This is only possible through openly accessible information.
Lack of information is what drives people towards generic strategies. Without information there's no incentive to prepare specific strategies because there's no way of knowing 1. if people are actually using the strategy you're preparing against and 2. all of the little nuances and tricks that could fuck up your prepared strat. The really exiting, high quality games played in the pro scene are frequently the ones where players prepared strategies specifically for that game, on that map, against that player. Without the ability to create such strategies, generic strats (either standard play or a universally applicable cheese) would be the only option.
I mean, just think about it. If before playing someone you had the opportunity to analyze their last 20 games to see what they did, and you had pro level knowledge to figure out what to do against that, would you do that or just roll with whatever standard thing you would do absent that information? This is magnified at the pro level where people know who they're playing farther in advance and have more time to sit around (with their coaches) and create strategies.
If after looking at all this information it turns out the player thinks playing standard is the best option then obviously that's what people will do, but having the information there dramatically increases the possibility for a new or unique strategy. And quality of play will still be higher just by virtue of the fact that everyone knows more about the game generally as well as more about the current metagame.
The other problem with the claim that open information decreases strategy is it relies on a flawed view of what strategy is and how strategy actually affects the outcomes of games.
Creating a strategy in starcraft is basically figuring out a goal then looking at what stuff you have available and deciding how best to use it to achieve that goal i.e. I want to kill my opponent fast so I'll build gateways in their main. This is obviously strategy, but not all or even most aspects of strategy can be reduced to this. In fact this process is very far removed from how most games are actually decided.
In order to understand how strategy is actually applied to real games, we need to take a step back in terms of what we think of when we think of "what stuff you have available". In the example I gave the stuff was gateways and the fact that you can build them in your opponent's main. In actual games this stuff is the range of strategies a player can use. Instead of saying "I want to kill my opponent fast" and then looking at all the potential choices they could make with regards to units and buildings and the placement of those buildings and arriving at building gateways in your opponent's main as a good way to achieve that goal, players say "I want to kill my opponent fast, so I will use the strategy of proxying gateways".
The difference may seem subtle but it's very important. When a player is deciding what to do in a particular game the set of "stuff" is NOT all of the units and buildings and various things you can do with them, it's the set of strategies you know. The buildings and units and such are of course the building blocks of those strategies, but that is unimportant to how players make strategic decisions in actual games.
So the strategic decision is not "I am going to build gateways in my opponents main", the strategic decision is "I am going to (use the strategy called) proxy 9/9 gate". In terms of it's relevance to actual games and deciding their outcomes, strategy is the decisions you make about your build (drawn from a set of builds you have previously learned, not created out of thin air) before the game and how you adapt in the game.
Once we start looking at strategy from this perspective it's obvious that more accessible information is essential for strategy. With more information players will have a wider range of potential builds, have more knowledge about when to use what build, and have more knowledge about how to adapt that build in a game.
Players knowing more builds from having watched replays of them or from creating a build to counter one they studied a replay of increases the number of strategic options players have, increasing the strategic depth of the game and the amount of strategic knowledge necessary to compete at a high level.
Nice post. I actually read every word of it, which is rare for posts this long.
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On October 05 2009 22:27 ProoM wrote:
what about hackers, I really REALLY doubt there will be any, since you can only have 1 account per cd and theres no lan, so there wont be any other servers, just 1, b.net 2.0. That means if u hack and get cough you lose the money you spend on cd. I don't think anyone could risk like that.
Of course there will be hackers. Do you even know why most hacks gets detected? Because they are made in public and anti-hackers find exploits and main companies (in this case blizzard) will do patches to fix these abuses.
There are alot of private hacks that will never be detected because there is no way for (i.e.) blizzard to find out how to prevent the hack.
Although with this 1 account thing there will be less hackers, until they find a way to make cracked accounts like with steam. (which probably won't take too long)
Edit: So to comment on the OT I am totally for this option although it may seem harsh to those who want to save replays - they can make separate browsing options so only replay-able games will be showed etc. and those replay-only players won't have to whine.
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On October 08 2009 14:48 zgl wrote:In poker, you don't get to see your opponents hands after you lost your money
It's up to them. Sometimes they will show you their hand and sometimes they won't.
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On October 08 2009 19:04 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2009 14:48 zgl wrote:In poker, you don't get to see your opponents hands after you lost your money It's up to them. Sometimes they will show you their hand and sometimes they won't.
Annddd that's the whole point of the thread and the replay disabling option, sometimes you get to see it, sometimes you don't!
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On October 08 2009 20:12 Suc wrote:Show nested quote +On October 08 2009 19:04 Manit0u wrote:On October 08 2009 14:48 zgl wrote:In poker, you don't get to see your opponents hands after you lost your money It's up to them. Sometimes they will show you their hand and sometimes they won't. Annddd that's the whole point of the thread and the replay disabling option, sometimes you get to see it, sometimes you don't!
BUT when you join a poker table you don't know if they will show their hand. You assume they won't, to be precise. And showing his hand is almost always just part of a player's strategy. He creates the image that he plays certain hands in a certain style, which can mislead his opponents.
If this no-replay option gets implemented you will know if you can save the replay before you play. That would be equal to your opponent saying "I will (not) show you my hand afterwards" and actually keeping that promise. The misleading part also doesn't ally to SC like that because in poker your strategy is largely determined by chance (you can't play one hand like any other), while in SC strategy is mostly determined by preparation.
In short: You can't compare replays in SC and showing your hand in poker.
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Well, my biggest qualm with censoring games is that it stifles the strategic development of the community. I'd rather the whole community have access to the most diverse repertoire of strategies and tactics, rather than benefit the few who think they're too good to be countered.
The point of motivation on the innovator's part is moot. SC1 already has the replay feature and players like Boxer are still innovating regardless of its existence. Their motivation comes from a lot of things, and that competitive edge is still there. So, it seems like there is no real disadvantage to making all games savable, but plenty to lose if we allow censorship of games.
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Players knowing more builds from having watched replays of them or from creating a build to counter one they studied a replay of increases the number of strategic options players have, increasing the strategic depth of the game and the amount of strategic knowledge necessary to compete at a high level.
You set up a bunch of premises, then come to a conclusion that doesn't support them.
Having studied a replay does not increase the number of viable strategic options to a player; the game mechanics do that. What changes is the amount of effort people need to make certain options viable. The strategic options available to a player are always the same. What you're saying is that the strategic options available to a player will be more publicized and therefore more accessible.
If SC2 ended up being a 1 sided clusterfuck where 1 hatch queen was the best build and no other race could touch it, replays wouldn't magically fix an error which was implicit in game mechanics or map design.
There's a substantial difference between the amount of competitively viable playstyles and the amount of strategic options a player has. A player always has the option of going for a 200 probe rush, but that doesn't mean he's going to win. Ever. Its a strategy like the others, sure, but it isn't a viable one. As game knowledge increases, the amount of competitively viable playstyles nearly always seem to decrease in number as optimized methods of winning are found. The rate at which this occurs, and not the existence of these optimized methods, is what replay control changes.
So the question isn't whether or not we're going to hit the 'good' builds. Its what happens during that search for them. Given that we regularly switch up the maps that are played on, it seems like the onus is on keeping games fresh and new, rather than having people still playing on luna with hyper-practiced and refined builds, so why wouldn't we want to extend that period in which innovative players can ply their trade?
More importantly; why wouldn't you want someone to have the option of controlling what other people see about his play? Mani stated that he doesn't want replays to 'split the community' and that makes sense to a certain degree, but it also doesn't. Unlike different game modes which have substantial skill barriers between them, enabling or disabling replays is not a community forming option.
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A game is shared between both players. Both players have to decide for themselves if they want to save the replay or not and if they want to share it or not.
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United States47024 Posts
All this discussion is pointless. There's only one relevant issue:
Would including replays cause a significant portion of the potential player-base to not buy the game? Not really. As much as a lot of people may whine about it's effect on the competitive environment, that has almost no bearing on their own play experience. I don't think you'll enjoy a good game less just because Flash or Jaedong don't like it. And most players are at a low enough level that no one would give a damn about copying their "secret build".
Would removing replays cause a significant portion of the potential player-base to not buy the game? Maybe not, but it's certainly more likely than the former case. Not being able to go back and watch your victories and good games would be a big deal to a lot of people.
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If the option was allowed, then all competitive players would always choose to disable it. Losing any competitive edge, no matter how small, is an extreme disincentive for pros. Be prepared to see professional replays as rarely you see Korean commentary with English subs.
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8748 Posts
On October 05 2009 22:02 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
Boxer: ...For a strategic player like me, it’s the worst feature ever...
Hahaha, more like for a cheap strategic player. Come up with a strategy that can stand the test of time for a while.
If a strategy can be solved by watching one replay of it, it's damn shallow.
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It would suck if they remove replays because of a few cry babies.
Even in boxing, they watch how each other fight to better understand each others strats.
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again, the topic is not removing replays.
i don't know if you actually mean it that way, but it creates confusion.
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Replays are just a driving factor for increasing the skill level -quicker-. People will eventually beat any dominant strategy with enough time, trying to hide the game play in the dark is just dumb. Constant evolution of strategy is a good thing and proves how deep the game can be.
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On October 09 2009 12:09 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
again, the topic is not removing replays.
i don't know if you actually mean it that way, but it creates confusion.
I'd say it is about splitting ladder players into without-replay players and with-replay players, as well as about effectively removing replays for the most skilled players. If it actually does give players an advatage, they will make use of it. We're talking about money here.
But since professional players still want to use replays of their own games to improve, they will focus on playing teammates. Much like it is now.
It doesn't improve the game, it makes weak strategies survive a bit longer than they should and it splits the community.
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yes if it is only for progameing
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On October 09 2009 03:03 Cloak wrote:
Well, my biggest qualm with censoring games is that it stifles the strategic development of the community. I'd rather the whole community have access to the most diverse repertoire of strategies and tactics, rather than benefit the few who think they're too good to be countered.
The point of motivation on the innovator's part is moot. SC1 already has the replay feature and players like Boxer are still innovating regardless of its existence. Their motivation comes from a lot of things, and that competitive edge is still there. So, it seems like there is no real disadvantage to making all games savable, but plenty to lose if we allow censorship of games.
Wtf? The point isn't that he isn't able to come up with new innovative strategies anymore, it's that once he does come up with something ingenious it's quickly broken down, analyzed, and essentially made useless. What's the point of all the effort?
I'm all for removing replays. I don't see how removing it would be bad for the community because NO ONE will know the specifics of the strategy, only the creator would. It's not like we'll be incredibly behind anyone else in dealing with it. By leaving the analyzing work to us it would be a lot more fun.
I feel like I'm arguing against MBS or auto-mine. Grow some balls and learn the game.
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8748 Posts
On October 10 2009 05:20 BanZu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2009 03:03 Cloak wrote:
Well, my biggest qualm with censoring games is that it stifles the strategic development of the community. I'd rather the whole community have access to the most diverse repertoire of strategies and tactics, rather than benefit the few who think they're too good to be countered.
The point of motivation on the innovator's part is moot. SC1 already has the replay feature and players like Boxer are still innovating regardless of its existence. Their motivation comes from a lot of things, and that competitive edge is still there. So, it seems like there is no real disadvantage to making all games savable, but plenty to lose if we allow censorship of games. Wtf? The point isn't that he isn't able to come up with new innovative strategies anymore, it's that once he does come up with something ingenious it's quickly broken down, analyzed, and essentially made useless. What's the point of all the effort?
Wait, what are you saying takes a lot of effort? Coming up with a strategy that can be beaten after watching one replay of it, or analyzing a replay and breaking down the strategy it contains to beat it? The latter is a commendable skill that any competitive player needs while the former is no more than a very limited-use gimmick that the majority of competitive players can do without.
One-time-use strategies play a role in competitive play, both for the players and the spectators. But much more important is the role of innovative strategies that are used repeatedly, and adopted by many players, so that the game doesn't grow stale. Devising methods of making one-time-use strategies work better/longer than they should discourages the innovation of much deeper and more impressive strategies.
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Sweden33719 Posts
Any cheese that is useless after one watching of a replay is going to be useless as soon as it's been used in one televised game anyway...?
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Theres simply no way to do this without it being a complete and utter failure either way.
Any plan has a much higher % chancer of being perfectly executed if your enemy doesnt know about it until the last second of its execution.
But boxer makes it sound like its all about one time unconventional strats, when its about concealing your game.
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8748 Posts
I think that more information can be gathered from a careful analysis of a televised game than Bisu and Boxer are aware of. A televised game could be as useful as a replay in some cases but, as far as I know, pros don't analyze televised games that closely. In fact the trend at eStro, for games that couldn't be watched live, was to download and watch them at 2x speed.
By taking note of the state of the game and how much time has progressed, builds can be reconstructed and many of the unknowns of a televised broadcast can be figured out by a knowledgable player. Whatever can't be figured out is usually reduced to only a few options and testing can do the rest. But of course this process can't be described just as "watching a televised game" even though the televised game is the only primary source of information. At the end of the process, the same info has been gathered as from watching the replay. In fact, the idea is to create your own replay of the strategy.
So
Watching TV + Analysis = Watching replay
Sometimes the analysis isn't needed to know the counter of the observed strategy. But sometimes strategies that really deserve to be one-time-use strategies go on for repeat appearances with further success because players have a flawed approach for preparing for a match.
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i agree that strategy by itself can be uncovered by VODs.
however, replays reveal "finger prints" of the player:
- use of hotkey
- exactly when to rest worker production
- everything that happens during the game that would not be captured in VODs
if VODs reveal the general sense of the strategy,
replays give away the nature of the gamer.
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On October 10 2009 05:20 BanZu wrote:Show nested quote +On October 09 2009 03:03 Cloak wrote:
Well, my biggest qualm with censoring games is that it stifles the strategic development of the community. I'd rather the whole community have access to the most diverse repertoire of strategies and tactics, rather than benefit the few who think they're too good to be countered.
The point of motivation on the innovator's part is moot. SC1 already has the replay feature and players like Boxer are still innovating regardless of its existence. Their motivation comes from a lot of things, and that competitive edge is still there. So, it seems like there is no real disadvantage to making all games savable, but plenty to lose if we allow censorship of games. Wtf? The point isn't that he isn't able to come up with new innovative strategies anymore, it's that once he does come up with something ingenious it's quickly broken down, analyzed, and essentially made useless. What's the point of all the effort? I'm all for removing replays. I don't see how removing it would be bad for the community because NO ONE will know the specifics of the strategy, only the creator would. It's not like we'll be incredibly behind anyone else in dealing with it. By leaving the analyzing work to us it would be a lot more fun. I feel like I'm arguing against MBS or auto-mine. Grow some balls and learn the game.
If the strategy is unable to survive, then it is unable to survive. It's bad because the community doesn't have access to the nuances of the play. Learning is part of the game. Why stifle the communal progression of strategy to let the novelties stay alive a little longer? People are still committed to keeping the competitive edge, so they'll always be innovating. Your argument has way too many holes so you try to deflect by attacking my "skill" at the game.
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On October 07 2009 07:24 DN2perfectionGM wrote:Show nested quote +On October 07 2009 03:09 spkim1 wrote:
Absolutely ridiculous suggestion. Keep in mind that Blizzard thoroughly looks at this forum. Posting stupid suggestions like this can mess up their way of thinking and opens up possibilities for making SC2 worse than it is now. They've made enough mistakes of this kind so far, including making people update their copy of Starcraft 2 every once in a while and disabling LAN games. Now you want them to disable replays? Are you trying to drive every future potential SC2 customer away from this game or what? Please think about the consequences before posting this kind of stuff. Blizzard knows more about what they are doing than you do. You think you're so smart that Blizzard should just listen to you, eh? Because they are so gullible that they might look into ideas that you find stupid?
I demand justification for your statement.
Refrain from cowering behind O-almighty-Blizzard and come up with counter-arguments formulated personally. Now. why, exactly, would you mock me by depicting me as some arrogant fool who overestimates his own cerebral capacity? Please indicate directly which part of my argument is flawed, if you can.
Am I wrong in saying that the Team Liquid Forum has in the past influenced Blizzard Entertainment's decisions in developping Starcraft 2?
Can you actually come up with argument on how tightening replay rules will NOT make some people upset?
Can you actually come up with argument on how updating SC2 and buying copies every time you change PC's will NOT piss people off/ will NOT be a pain in the ass?
If you can, good for you. Next time, start by doing that first instead of acting like "Blizzard's pet". Lay off my ass now. Let me express my opinion, and don't turn me into a troll; everyone has a right to opinion, and freedom of expression right? Maybe not where you come from but as for the rest of the world.
Follow Up: Premise: Since TL has shown in the past that it can influence Blizz's decisions in SC2 development.
Premise2/Conclusion1: And, since it is therefore important to be careful about what you suggest in this forum, due to the risk of counter-productiveness being present by complicating things,
Conclusion2: This thread is counter-productive in Blizzard's development of the game as it might make it worse for the reasons given above. Previous experience shows that Blizzard is in a trend where they tend to fiddle with administrative stuff like Battle.net and copies of SC2 and updates. This is a dangerous suggestion that has high chance of making the game experience more disagreeable. We all care about the quality of SC2, reason why we are here, arguing over things. Making efforts to differentiate SC2 from SC1 is great, but this is certainly making it simply worse.
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1. There are better ways of dissecting Progamers' strategies than replays: commentators thoroughly go through meaningful parts of games after a match is over.
2. FA beautifully rounded point1: broadcasted plays will spoil that strategy's secretiveness anyway.
3. What's wrong with sharing with the world?? Going up ladder by selfishly hiding your tactic? Boy, you're a real winner.
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On October 12 2009 20:56 spkim1 wrote:
1. There are better ways of dissecting Progamers' strategies than replays: commentators thoroughly go through meaningful parts of games after a match is over.
2. FA beautifully rounded point1: broadcasted plays will spoil that strategy's secretiveness anyway.
3. What's wrong with sharing with the world?? Going up ladder by selfishly hiding your tactic? Boy, you're a real winner.
Boxer himself specifically pointed out that replays allow more much easier and quick dissection of strategy/BO/etc.
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This is how I see it, you can copy a build order/strategy from an someone, but you aint ever be able to execute it the same way. Therefore I vote No.
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It's rather interesting. I mean, when the Bisu first used the Bisu build against Savior it was very new, innovative and rather powerful. But very shortly after, the Bisu build became countered and is now practically obsolete. I mean, Bisu himself doesn't really used the Bisu build anymore, he goes Sair/Reaver most of the time. Now, I'm not saying that the build wouldn't have been countered if replays weren't available, but perhaps its lifespan as an extremely viable build against Zerg would've been longer had progamers not been able to dissect the strategy so fast.
At the same time, replays are a part of the game. Figuring out ways to nerf opposing strategies is also part of the game. With that said, replays are also extremely helpful in allow lesser players (like me) learn nuances of the game it would otherwise be harder to experience. Personally, I find replays to be more helpful than harmful...but then again I'm not some progamer who thinks up of amazing metagame changing strategies so... :\
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Since it only affects the pros, i say yes. Looking at a VOD and a replay is very different and it's lame that a hard-thought strat is fully revealed in just one game.
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People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 25 2009 22:43 4clovers wrote:
People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal.
Yes and what happens when I play vs someone with replays disabled in the ladder? I can't save my own game? Fuck that shit.
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On October 25 2009 23:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2009 22:43 4clovers wrote:
People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal. Yes and what happens when I play vs someone with replays disabled in the ladder? I can't save my own game? Fuck that shit.
Make it an option for non-ladder games only. That way you know its a non-replay game prior to picking it.
Problem solved.
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On October 11 2009 05:45 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
i agree that strategy by itself can be uncovered by VODs.
however, replays reveal "finger prints" of the player:
- use of hotkey
- exactly when to rest worker production
- everything that happens during the game that would not be captured in VODs
if VODs reveal the general sense of the strategy,
replays give away the nature of the gamer.
You sorely underestimate how much a smart player/person can deduce from watching a VOD. VOD's are still real time so you know exactly when an attack will come and exactly how many units the person had.
Nal_Ra.... would be able to tell you exactly how many probes you have, when you built your gateway, and your general build order simply from the amount of freaking zealots he sees sitting at the front of your base. He can do that because he's DONE it before and explained to the crowd how he came to that situation.
Nal_Ra and a slew of other progamers have such a huge grasp on the exact intricacies of the game that they only really need fragments of a VOD to figure out builds.
Hotkeys are pretty much preference. Rest worker production will be known by how many units you have as per my explanation above.
VODs capture just about every important moment in a game nowadays as it stands.
This will make no difference. Take replays away and the real innovative players that grasp the concept of the game will still be able to completely dissect strategies as they do now.
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On October 26 2009 02:01 Jayme wrote:
You sorely underestimate how much a smart player/person can deduce from watching a VOD. VOD's are still real time so you know exactly when an attack will come and exactly how many units the person had.
Nal_Ra.... would be able to tell you exactly how many probes you have, when you built your gateway, and your general build order simply from the amount of freaking zealots he sees sitting at the front of your base. He can do that because he's DONE it before and explained to the crowd how he came to that situation.
Nal_Ra and a slew of other progamers have such a huge grasp on the exact intricacies of the game that they only really need fragments of a VOD to figure out builds.
Hotkeys are pretty much preference. Rest worker production will be known by how many units you have as per my explanation above.
VODs capture just about every important moment in a game nowadays as it stands.
This will make no difference. Take replays away and the real innovative players that grasp the concept of the game will still be able to completely dissect strategies as they do now.
your point is valid. Though inconvenient, VOD can reveal a lot about the player, when carefully analyzed. So even innovative strategies only available on VOD can be broken down at a similar pace as they are now. This may require a careful scrutinizing however, especially when dealing with large database.
But it is still true that disabling replay can help in tournaments, where this will prevent the opponent from viewing the replay right after a game in a series. The option also still applies every other situation that does not deal with VOD's.
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United States47024 Posts
On October 26 2009 10:03 DN2perfectionGM wrote:
But it is still true that disabling replay can help in tournaments, where this will prevent the opponent from viewing the replay right after a game in a series. The option also still applies every other situation that does not deal with VOD's.
The thing is, why would you WANT that? Analyzing replays within a set is a skill. Having the option to do so encourages players not to play the same build all 3-5 games of a set. Having the immediate option to watch your replay before the next game encourages more intelligent analysis and more variation of play within a set, so I fail to see how it's bad.
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 26 2009 01:02 L wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2009 23:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:On October 25 2009 22:43 4clovers wrote:
People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal. Yes and what happens when I play vs someone with replays disabled in the ladder? I can't save my own game? Fuck that shit. Make it an option for non-ladder games only. That way you know its a non-replay game prior to picking it. Problem solved.
Honestly I don't think anyone should ever be able to decide whether I save a replay of MY game or not. If they ask me not to, I'd consider it but probably save it anyway if I have a reason to.
Honestly, I think this whole discussion is silly - there's at least two people involved in a game, why should one party be able to tell the other he can't save the replay? Meh.
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I agree with FA here. Just say you are in a game following your own personal standard build ehh all of a sudden your oponent does a tech switch to which you react in a way in which you have never reacted before and find that it was so effective that you wish to learn from your own play. Why should your oponent be able to decide that you can not save your replay. Replays can be used to improve your own playstyle as much as they can be used to analyse an oponents build.
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I can't help but wonder if these guys would have nearly the fame/money they do now had it not been for replays.
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Sounds like a good idea to me.
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On October 26 2009 10:36 FrozenArbiter wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2009 01:02 L wrote:On October 25 2009 23:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:On October 25 2009 22:43 4clovers wrote:
People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal. Yes and what happens when I play vs someone with replays disabled in the ladder? I can't save my own game? Fuck that shit. Make it an option for non-ladder games only. That way you know its a non-replay game prior to picking it. Problem solved. Honestly I don't think anyone should ever be able to decide whether I save a replay of MY game or not. If they ask me not to, I'd consider it but probably save it anyway if I have a reason to. Honestly, I think this whole discussion is silly - there's at least two people involved in a game, why should one party be able to tell the other he can't save the replay? Meh.
If you don't want to join the guy's game. don't. No one's forcing you. If the guy doesn't want to play if you can record the replay, nothing stopping you from finding another opponent and him from finding someone who's cool with it.
Why are you so against giving someone a choice? Because you think you should be able to record your game despite both parties agreeing not to?
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United States47024 Posts
On October 26 2009 12:30 L wrote:
If you don't want to join the guy's game. don't. No one's forcing you. If the guy doesn't want to play if you can record the replay, nothing stopping you from finding another opponent and him from finding someone who's cool with it.
You're being matched on a ladder with random people. How would you know if someone would let you save replays before playing? If you make it an auto-matchmaking option, as has been said before, it serves to further split the community between "casual" and "competitive" which is worse than whatever detrimental effect you might presume that saving replays has.
On October 26 2009 12:30 L wrote:
Why are you so against giving someone a choice? Because you think you should be able to record your game despite both parties agreeing not to?
That's not comparable. If replays are allowed, then both player's choices can be followed - the one who wants to save replays can, the one who doesn't can choose not to. In the case that replays can be selected as unsaveable, the one who says no supercedes the one who says yes.
If leagues want to deny replay propagation, that's fine. Kespa does it now in Starcraft. It SHOULDN'T be hard-coded into the game, however, because for the majority of players, it hurts more than it helps.
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You're being matched on a ladder with random people.
Make it an option for non-ladder games only.
I already talked about that.
If replays are allowed, then both player's choices can be followed Err, no. If one player doesn't want a record of the game being distributable at all, he has no choice at all. He's essentially forced to rely on the goodwill of his opponent which just creates drama; I've seen plenty of this happen.
And if both parties agree they don't want a replay being put out why should we stop them?
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Sweden33719 Posts
On October 26 2009 12:30 L wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2009 10:36 FrozenArbiter wrote:On October 26 2009 01:02 L wrote:On October 25 2009 23:48 FrozenArbiter wrote:On October 25 2009 22:43 4clovers wrote:
People, get the idea through your thick skulls.
disabling replays is only something that progamers will do. everyone else will still save replays like normal. Yes and what happens when I play vs someone with replays disabled in the ladder? I can't save my own game? Fuck that shit. Make it an option for non-ladder games only. That way you know its a non-replay game prior to picking it. Problem solved. Honestly I don't think anyone should ever be able to decide whether I save a replay of MY game or not. If they ask me not to, I'd consider it but probably save it anyway if I have a reason to. Honestly, I think this whole discussion is silly - there's at least two people involved in a game, why should one party be able to tell the other he can't save the replay? Meh. If you don't want to join the guy's game. don't. No one's forcing you. If the guy doesn't want to play if you can record the replay, nothing stopping you from finding another opponent and him from finding someone who's cool with it. Why are you so against giving someone a choice? Because you think you should be able to record your game despite both parties agreeing not to?
It better say in big bright red letters "NO REPLAYS" next to the game name or I'll be pissed when I play an epic 50 minute war and can't save it.
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On October 26 2009 21:19 FrozenArbiter wrote:
It better say in big bright red letters "NO REPLAYS" next to the game name or I'll be pissed when I play an epic 50 minute war and can't save it.
Operant conditioning will fix your problem in no time.
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You know of course that AMM won't let you set any options like choosing your matchup, map (to an extent, you'll be allowed to discard few maps from the map pool), opponent or replay saving anyway?
Besides, I really think that disabling automatic replays or any form of replays is a very, very bad idea. It would cause more frustration, confusion and problems than it's worth.
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You will always be able to keep your own Replays. No way around it. Replays are THE tool for self analysation, reflection and improvement, Blizzard is VERY conscious of the effect the introduction of replays had for the original Starcraft.
They especially introduced tools like the income watch to improve the quality of replays and might even have a tutoriual section for "replay reflection". They even said they would try to support export to video for commentarys in a expansion.
If secrecy were a legimitate concern TL.NET would have to prove it and close the Strategy and the Replay section - fat chance.
The only way to keep a Replay secret is if you get your opponent to agree postgame. Just like now.
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EPT
