EPTEvery click counts (or should it?) - Page 15
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RaptorX
Germany646 Posts
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Qikz
United Kingdom12022 Posts
On December 28 2009 00:34 RaptorX wrote: I would actually like that they increase the number of units that you can select (to 20 or something like that) but not to allow INFINITE unit selection in just 1 hotkey... for me that is kind of not Starcraft.... That reminds me of Age of Empires, and I think that even in AoE they have a limit iirc. I don't understand how you can't like IFU. What's the point in having 5 hotkeys for groups of marines when you can just have one? It's more convinient and way less confusing. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17183 Posts
Was very convenient without the usual confusion IUS could cause. | ||
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
On December 27 2009 18:43 L wrote: I don't practice MMA, nor have I played the game so I can't really answer your question; There's way too many important factors that I simply can't comment on. If your argument is, however, that the physical requirement is analogous, and that it is also the reason for the success of both SC and MMA, I will have to disagree with you. SC was popular and a spectator sport far before the macro envelope was pushed; As I argued when we had the threads commenting on the removal of the lan option, starcraft's appeal was originally grown out of its ability to be a fun social lan game; sponsorship and pushing the limits of play followed that, not preceeded it. Translation wawawawa you hate macro. No, what my posts indicate is that I want to make macro and management have far more decision based qualities associated with them and have the difficulty and mechanical requirements stem from that. If you're so intent on reading in something which isn't there, you might as well not bother selectively quoting me; just make stuff up and attribute it to me. Well why don't you make micro decision intensive too? because right now in all rts's ever made it's not decision intensive at all. There are SOME decisions. but there aer SOME decisions in macro also. For example what you build out every gateway, and also positioning gateways in such a way so it's easier to go through all of them. And if you're doing micro that's not decision intensive, why not just automate it, or have just a separate button for it like you want to have with macro? You didn't PROVE shit. You're saying you've made arguments that you've never actually made. Forget logical phallacies you're just lying, or you just don't understand what a "proof" is. Yep, sure is. Have I been against mechanical requirements, or against poor interfaces creating unneeded mechanical requirements? Well how about I present you with A BETTER!!! interface!!! mutalisks have a "mutalisk micro button," and when you activate it mutas start micro'ing all on their own. No different than what you're suggesting for macro. Yeah, that's horrendously false. You should probably play a number of micro based games; there's a lot more decision making than 'should I micro' in most games. The reaver example I mentioned alone is enough to demonstrate. If your opponent force fired the maynard path, your best option would be to manually dodge with your probes. If your opponent force fired the most likely dodge spot, your best option would be to do nothing. If your opponent fired the scarab normally, dodging might salvage an otherwise dud scarab. So which do you choose? Well, that would depend on what you anticipate your opponent to do and the likelihood of each of his choices, and thus the decision is interactive. ... Except no. Pretty sure if the reaver is blocking the maynard path you do what you always do... you run away from the reaver (and subsequently the maynard path.) the only difference is you can't use the mineral walk because of this... Plus... you're talking about harassment. Telling your probes to run away is barely micro. I mean I guess it is because you're telling your units to move, so you're controlling them, but the amount of effort that it takes is just an infinitesimal portion. Most of the time you now spend micro'ing would qualify under your idea of "battling the interface." But you didn't specify an RTS; you simply stated that there can be no strategy without a mechanical requirement. I proved you wrong. If you're wrong with the general statement, then you need to prove that RTS games are somehow different, so you try with a case study, but you make a fundamental error: I think it's pretty obvious how the interface is different. I told you. the interface is that you can only place a piece in a way that captures opponent's pieces. How is this the rules of the interface? because physically you can go ahead and slap pieces into the corners of the board straight from the beginning of the game, but IT'S AGAINST THE RULES. Similarly in RTS the interface is the set of rules which defines just how many actions you have to do with the interface in order to do something you want in the actual game... You attempt to state that the goal is to find a strategic, mechanically friendly RTS game. First off, just how mechanically friendly do you need to be? If the threshold is 'easier than SC1', then SC2 fits the bill. If the threshold is 'y'all can basically macro everything and redesign your own UI', then supreme commander works. Total annihilation similarly fits the bill, but its far older. If you want to go the middle route, there are still a number of games that work; Tiberian sun was played quite competitively for a long time until the servers were shut down, for instance. Universe at war was completely stillbirthed because they wanted to use games for windows live and charged a fee for proper matchmaking, but its value as a game had plenty of really fun strategic options available which were relatively easy to get along with. Even the most mechanically demanding aspect of the game, sucking shit up with hierarchy walkers was more interactive than a unit selection limit, because it forced you to react and choose different paths for your resource collectors all on the fly. I would also suggest you try out Rise of Legends; the amount of decision making and the interactivity of the micro is off the charts. Either way, my suggestions mean nothing in your framework: you use the term 'good' RTS, which lets you essentially badmouth every RTS that don't fit your argument. That's pretty much exactly what you move to do, while displaying quite a bit of ignorance about a number of the games along the way. None of those RTS are really strategic. They all have for the most part degenerated strategically, and if they had the same amount of people playing them as there are playing starcraft, then they would have most definitely degenerated completely by now. What's more, a lot of the games you mention simply serve to demonstrate my point further; Is WC3 a better game because of its unit selection limit, or was the game simply poorly designed? Would WC3 have changed its character because of 'how easy' its interface was, or was it the gameplay mechanics themselves that led to the 'flaws'? Would WC3 have been a better game if the interface only allowed you to select 4 units at a time? Or would WC3 have been a better game if it gave you more exciting and interesting ways of interacting with your opponent? WC3 doesn't allow for macro gameplay, and splitting your army, and therefore lacks multitasking. It doesn't necessarily lack mechanical requirement, but strategically it is dead, and stagnant. No? Obviously. You're right... a game developer not understanding how the games work competitively is news emirite? | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17183 Posts
On December 28 2009 01:59 Kiarip wrote: WC3 doesn't allow for macro gameplay, and splitting your army, and therefore lacks multitasking. It doesn't necessarily lack mechanical requirement, but strategically it is dead, and stagnant. No? No. And please don't get me started on this one... | ||
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KvkG
United States65 Posts
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
On December 28 2009 02:03 Manit0u wrote: No. And please don't get me started on this one... i don't want to start a discussion about this at all, but admittedly I dun play that game much especially nowadays, but haven't some matchups degenerated into imbalance, while others are largely about luck (items and starting positions,) and in pretty much all match ups there's a pretty standard ideal unit combination that you start building up in the mid-game with a few small variations based on player styles, no? Obviously I'm not saying it's void of all decision making. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
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Manit0u
Poland17183 Posts
On December 28 2009 02:12 Kiarip wrote: i don't want to start a discussion about this at all, but admittedly I dun play that game much especially nowadays, but haven't some matchups degenerated into imbalance, while others are largely about luck (items and starting positions,) and in pretty much all match ups there's a pretty standard ideal unit combination that you start building up in the mid-game with a few small variations based on player styles, no? Obviously I'm not saying it's void of all decision making. Now let me rephrase this a bit and write about StarCraft instead of WC3: I don't want to start a discussion about this at all, but admittedly I don't play that game much, especially nowadays, but haven't some matchups degenerated into imbalance, while others are largely about luck (BO win, misclick) and in pretty much all match ups there's a pretty standard ideal unit combination that you start building up in the mid-game with a few small variations based on player styles, no? Obviously I'm not saying it's void of all decision making. Sounds familiar? Every game played on a certain level has to develop into just a few mainstream strategies which give you the highest chance of winning so adding more units/possibilities won't impact the number of strategies used at the highest levels of play in any significant way. Gameplay in WC is different than SC but there are many similarities aswell. Ad just to point a few false statements you made in your previous posts: WC3 doesn't allow for macro gameplay - human FE macro in WC3 is quite damn hard, gave me a lot more trouble than SC since you're overflowing with resources and you are more limited in the ways of spending them which requires quite a lot of creativity and wise resource management, the same goes for early NE tech into mass production later on. The switch from very few units + heavy tech while keeping a constant harassment of the enemy (required to stay alive with small army) -> mass production of high-tier units and huge battles, makes for quite an impressive transition in gameplay and macro in just one match and if you fail in any of that you're punished severely splitting your army - key factor in playing undead and nightelf to some extent lacks multitasking - less production doesn't mean less stuff to do all around the map The problem with WC3 is that it's less "obvious". You need quite a lot of knowledge and understanding of the game to notice all the tiny details which are going on "behind the scenes" and have huge influence on the game (comparable to hidden tech in SC which is still more obvious to spectators than many things in WC3). | ||
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
On December 27 2009 19:46 EatThePath wrote: First, briefly: L, you are kicking ass. I hope you keep going as necessary, even though theatrics isn't helping the persuasion. Onward: Kiarip, I'm going to single you out because you are a convenient package of wrong. Sorry, it's not personal. If I seem combative it's because I can't address the subject matter more diplomatically, I'm not trying to be a jerk. No, you're one convenient package of wrong. Your arguments are going backwards from the point you're making to why you're right. I can't believe you are trying to say Go is not strategic. I didn't say it wasn't strategic The interface is placing stones with your fingers. The rules are "you can place one stone per turn". Those are completely separate. However, I see why you want to conflate them in your head. IT IS THE INTERFACE, but it's not the equivalent of an RTS interface. You can say that an RTS interface is pressing keys, but that doesn't at all explain what you have to do. The equivalent of a mechanically requiring RTS interface in GO is rules such as those that only let you place pieces in such a way that you capture your opponent's pieces. You said the interface is only placing stones with your fingers. But if this is so then I can just place stones into the corners straight from the beginning. The interface we're talking about in RTS has to do with what you can do (what happens in the game.) And what you have to do while manipulating the keyboard/mouse to cause these actions ( the actions that happen in the game.) In starcraft you can not select more than 1 production structure at the same time, and in order to go through all of them you need to select them one at a time. Similarly in go interface you can not just place your stones at random places on the board, and you have to wait for an appropriate situation to occur on the board. You see the time management aspect of starcraft as part of its strategy, and you see the strategy of a game as born from its rules. Time management is a huge part of the strategic depth in RTS, and how can it not be? If you can't do everything perfectly, then the most important thing becomes time/action management. What I call game strategy is the general strategy, that assumes a certain level of mechanics, and a certain level of efficiency of time management. Once those are established, it's possible to create a "strategy" or a plan for what major choices you're going to make while playing the game (like expanding, teching, powering, and in what order you're doing all of these.) So a "rule" of starcraft is "you must manage your time between micro and macro, etc". I understand that thought, but you're twisting things into a shape that supports your belief about the sanctity of starcraft. Time management while interfacing is an aspect of the meta strategy of playing starcraft. It has nothing to do with the the interaction of the abstract game elements, which, for instance, would be things like "a marine--range, speed, damage, rate of fire, hp, armor" or "a mineral pile with X minerals" or "the energy count of that comsat station". The interplay of the abstract game elements creates the primary strategy of the game. Um... Ok. I'm trying to translate it into my terms. i guess you're saying that time management is part of the meta strategy aka. strategic depth of the game, while ignoring time management (well not ignoring but assuming a constant level of mechanics and efficiency of management) is the primary strategy, or more or less what I call game strategy. Ok. fine. This is the strategy in real-time strategy. Time management is not illegitimate, obviously, but it is outside the operation of the game, but not the playing of the game. I disagree. The total strategic depth (the one that includes time management.) Will always be more overall encompassing than just Game strategy. I mean it includes game strategy by definition, but it also includes time management aspects. I don't see how you can argue with the statement that the total strategic depth is defined by the total decision making, and not just the "primary strategy" decision making. Your assertions about strategic depth are wild caroms stemming from this kind of confusion. On this topic, the strategy in games depends on their rules, and many deep games have simple rules. Many simple games are not deep, like TicTacToe. Often, complex rules with many choices make for deep games, but as a general principle of design, heaping on complexity to add depth is inferior to depth from simplicity, which is often described as elegance. Many long words. Some stuff about complexity. Look I see what you're saying here, but I'm arguing for a pretty BASIC ui. I don't see why you think that the game rules are SIMPLER when the UI is so complicated that it allows you to do more complex things such as selecting more than one building at a time. Also I don't see how the new macro mechanics in Starcraft 2 fit into this. If anything you're arguing my point. I'm saying, Starcraft 2? ok add new units, replace old ones, add new parameters for buildings, units and etc. but keep everything basic and the same. Instead they're adding new UI features that makes control easier, and trying to make up for it by adding fancy new features, macro mechanics and etc. I'm not fundamentally against "new features," but I'm against some of the new things that are added. Based on what you write about complexity, you should be against pretty much everything new that's added though. I mean nothing that they are changing makes the rule of the game actually simpler, only it's execution (in some aspects,) and I think you're confusing the 2. Games as systems often have very complex "behavior" based on an easy to grasp and often very limited set of rules of interaction. In analogy, consider the mandelbrot set, whose border is an infinitely variegated filigree of loops and branches. [pic]. This complex structure is defined by a very simple equation: z^2 + c. For another example of complex behavior based on simple rules, see Game_of_Life. OK more long words, and a mathematical analogy. Once again you're arguing my point. A very simple rule is something like this "you can select only one unit at a time" That's a simple rule for an interface. I'm not saying it would make an ideal game just because the mechanical requirements of such a game would OBVIOUSLY be really insane high. Similarly: you can only select one building at a time is also a simple rule. I don't see how being able to select more than one is even more simple, im not saying it's more complicated of a rule, but once again you're either arguing my point or you're making a moot statement. With the interface becoming easier to use, it's doing more things for you, and if it's doing more things for you, it's quite obvious that it's actually a more complex system. As a matter of fact one of my mottos against the new macro mechanics, those type of changes is "don't change something that's so simple, and works." I definitely agree though, I think there's some elegance to how Starcraft turned out with just such simple interface rules. What I'm trying to say is that your entire idea of strategic depth is flawed, and in this discussion you rely on time management as the mother of decision making. If that's your thing... cool... I guess. I find that pretty much not fun at all. Ummm. I've been over this. Strategic depth is caused by having options, and having to make choices, as options and choices is what gives the game an opportunity to flaw into different directions. If you need to do 10 different things, and you can do all 10 of them on time. Then you don't need to make a choice. If you need to do 10 and you can only do 9, you have 10 options. etc etc. Basically it's combinations. With this in mind I honestly believe that any RTS game will be more strategically deep, if mechanically you can only perform roughly half of all the things that you want to do. So if you know how combinations work mathematically, the decision making of allocating your time will always overshadow the decisions that you have to make for the game itself. Such is the nature of RTS, the real-time factor is just hugely powerful. A large reason why it's so powerful is that you can actually design, consider and think of "game strategies" while you're not in a game, where you don't have a time constraint, and the point of this is so that you DON'T have to make those decisions when you actually go into the game. Hence the point of build orders, and etc. Bit by bit they solve the game in terms of "game strategy," but when you look at total depth of the game, it's actually exponentially more complex so it's in no danger of actually being totally solved. Allow me to make an analogy. This is how I see the overly tedious mechanical tasks of macro. Imagine you were going to play a game called "hedge swashbuckle". It works like this. You and one opponent wake up from sleep inside a labyrinth. You each have a sword. When you eventually run into each other, you swordfight, and whoever lives wins. However, you must absolutely focus on your sword arm or else it goes completely limp. But, the same is true for your lungs; you must focus completely in order to draw each breath. So, you can either wield your sword or breathe, but not both. Playing a game of starcraft is like wandering through the maze, wondering if the other swordsman is just around the corner. Should you pause here and risk being caught off-guard with your defense down, in order to take a breath, or in one or two more steps? Should you take shallow breaths quickly and often, or long, sustaining breaths? However fun hedge swashbuckle might be, it is definitely LESS FUN if you have to worry about when to breathe. Imagine playing a game of basketball like this! Of course, if there were not normal basketball, it would be preferable to have at least a version with the weird breathing thing. In this case some people would go to the trouble of learning to play it with skill, and it'd be more fun than playing hop skotch, or buttons. But if you had the choice to play normal basketball, why wouldn't you just do that? You're arguing that the only true way is weird breathing basketball. Um... well. I'm not sure what to say about this. It sounds absolutely wrong. Let's start. I'm not even sure what the analogy breathing, and fighting would be. I guess in your swashbuckle example the problem is that you need to breath, but then you need to fight. So how would this play out? I guess you'd find an optimal breathing to hand control ratio, and you'd switch back and forth, and thus by playing this game, you would optimize the style of sword fighting while also controlling one's breathing. I don't know why the maze is there, it seems like it would only inject luck into the game, or promote camping. I don't see how it relates to starcraft. It sounds more like an FPS, because the element of surprise seems to be really strong in this situation, because I guess with a maze you never know when the opponent is going to come out. But in stracraft you do. In a way you know where your opponent is, because you make actions which will both push you towards a confrontation and pull you farther away from it. I guess breathing is like macro, and hand control is micro? Well if it's a maze then as i said there will be luck, but that's a bad analogy to starcraft, since in starcraft when you "move in the maze" you know whether you're coming closer or farther to a confrontation, so you will actually know when to switch to swordfighting (micro,) and when you can breath (macro,) so yeah... Maybe I just missed the point of this analogy sorry. The basketball one seems kind of strange. I mean you can actually DRIBBLE the ball without having to concentrate on it once you get good enough (hence mechanics.) Why would you need to concentrate on breathing? I mean... basketball already HAS mechanics. Tons of them, why would you want to insert breathing as mechanic. Also I think you're missing the point here. You're saying needing to control your own breathing only becomes a mechanic when you need to worry about it... but it's always a mechanic, we're just so good at it we can do it at the same time as other things. I guess maybe you want to argue that apm-intensive micro/macro should be automatic kind of like our breathing, but now you're comparing living to... playing starcraft? I mean this is a pretty philosophical topic. I don't know how to answer it. I will admit that personally for me living isn't interesting just because I have to balance all the things that I need to do mechanically, but then again being able to time manage in life is still one of the most rewarding abilities so... I don't know. Also if breathing was hard, then basketball wouldn't be invented in the first place, and neither would starcraft probably, because the point of the games is to create a challenge, and if breathing required constant concentration then Starcraft, and basketball would be way too hard to be exciting to watch/play even at the highest level. Starcraft is exciting to watch at the highest level right now, as is basketball, and even sword fighting possibly, so yeah.. I don't get your analogies. Frankly, you're just wrong to call on-the-fly time management strategy. I'm not calling it game strategy, but I'm saying it adds total strategic depth. It skews the effectiveness of different game strategies based on the player's personal strengths, and forces him to make more individual decisions that he can't just read in a book. You might apply a strategy to the task of managing your clicking business within the interface, in the hope of making it more efficient and decreasing instances of units engaging while not under your watch. It does add a lot of decisions which affect the outcome of the game, but those decisions are at worst like picking black or red in roulette, and at best low-information judgement calls. No... those decisions include game sense, and just overall goodness of a player. Why are there players with 250 APM that are D, and players with 150 APM that are B? Hell, sure maybe the 250 APM player is spamming but his EAPM could still be higher than 150. They could both be using the same game strategies... I'll this question for you. A huge portion of it is that when the game reaches a point when neither can player can do everything they want to do the better players knows what's MORE IMPORTANT. Worse player may also make some bad calls, but then he'll post the replay on teamliquid, and people will tell him what those bad calls were. like "you should have waited until x more lurkers before trying to break out of his push contain" in tvz or something like that, but time/action management isn't something that will be addressed, so even when the D player finds himself in that situation again and actually waits for x more lurkers he still won't be playing as good as the slower B player. They are not strategic like designing a counter to the 5hatch hydra-bust plan (how many cannons do i need to build?), because you have no way to imagine beforehand whether one way or the other is better, you can only learn from the outcome of your choices. Um... yeah but the game needs to be strategic INSIDE THE GAME. that's actually a huge point of mine. If you can design strategies outside the game itself, to what extent does it actually test your skill? Because even if you design an absolutely insane build order, and you use it to win a game, that game is gonna find itself in the replay section really fast, and soon everyone is going to be using your build, and then those people will also be winning games, but would that mean that they are insanely good players? No. and in the current starcraft those players won't even get "magically better," and they won't necessarily be winning all that more games just by copying a build-order, because there's sooo much more to the game's decision making than a build order and just "general game strategy/plan," and that's the way it should be no? Despite this, you have a valid point in that the freshest aspect of the game is this continuous "attention gambling", wherein higher and more focused APM is like having more chips to spread around, yet you still need to place your bets. It's not gambling, hence good players' consistency. But it's not like starcraft was designed this way intentionally. Nobody thought "ten years hence, there should be a reward for mechanical ability inherent in the playing of the game, once the primary strategy features have been figured out". And the existence of liquipedia doesn't mean there is no new strategy to be found. The dynamics of the racial and economic balance have been outlined quite well, but in the details of timing and battle tactics there are ever more ways to gain an advantage. I agree that starcraft was designed like this unintentionally. But I think that it's not very unlikely for a game to immerge which has just the right interface. Because if you think about it. THe very first games had very simple interfaces which were very hard to use. Like the first dune only allowed you to select one unit at a time or something like that. So inevitably the interfaces started becoming easier and easier to use, so at some point a game would be made with the interface which is very close to the optimal interface for most strategic depth given the average human limitations, and it just so happened that the game was starcraft. I'm not saying that there's no more "game strategy" to be explored, but there's always a lot of strategy to be explored INSIDE every single "game strategy," because of all the small decisions that are made as you're trying to use your strategy, and I think we can both agree that if the game was ever to be solved the last portion of it that would actually be solved (if ever.) is the precise allocation of actions given a certain APM limit. My argument against liquipedia being strategy is only that if you have the build order handed to you, to what extent are you using strategy as you're playing if you're only executing what's written on a website? And if there were none of these many small decisions regarding the very execution of the strategy (which are probably impossible to completely include in the liquipedia,) then I would have to argue that there is in fact absolutely no strategy being used while executing a build order, and I don't see how you can claim otherwise, but luckily that's not how things are. Can the space of new strategies to dream up and employ be exhausted? Probably eventually, yes. And we've come pretty far since the game was designed. (Yes--it is a construct, an artifice, not some ageless entity with a true form projecting from the ether.) But the ability to maximize the engine of economic development while applying the power of your military to its fullest extent--that task, of multitask and macro betwixt micro--is lower hanging fruit for most of us compared to developing new strategies. This is compounded by a world of replays and VODs where you can watch the presumably "optimal" strategies employed by the best in the game. Of course you should spend your time learning to execute them properly, not thinking up new ones. And that's the way you it should be. Because even though you can claim that you don't have enough APM to execute progamer strategies, I would argue that you're actually missing a lot of the decision making that they are doing while executing the strategies which isn't so easy to see in the games themselves. If everyone and their mom would be in position to just come in and create a progamer level strategy then the game would be solved and broken really really fast, but it's not like this in this game or any game for that matter. In GO or chess you can't just come in and do that effectively, because a human mind can only think so many steps ahead, so you have to use a lot of the knowledge that has been recorded before you about the analysis of early positions (which is probably rather complete at this point in time at least in chess.) So really you already have to be an expert on all the nuances in order to think of something that's truly new and viable, and it is no different in starcraft, you have to have sufficient decision making regarding your execution in order to be able to design things that actually work. Obviously at a pro-gamer level there's people are playing for a living so they try to improve both their mechanics and their decision making, but if you look at like a B- level iccup player, some of them actually have relatively low APM, like 150. Tofu brings up a valid point about the "feel" of the game, in that altering that is a betrayal of the spirit of the experience. I completely sympathize with this. However, it's no reason to hold a new game back from clear improvements. The world changes. There are people who enact renaissance fairs, and I sympathize with that, but the majority of us don't advocate regressing back to that, even though jousting is fucking awesome. If you want to argue that the changes in sc2 deplete strategic depth due to time management, that's wrong as I've explained. Plus, it's an aspect of the game that many consider obsolete, even as we cherish it. I don't necessarily sympathize with this point fundamentally. If starcraft was complete garbage i would be all for changing it completely. But since it's actually really good, I think that the devs really need to think twice before changing things. Not just because it's gonna make a lot of people upset (which is probably their bigger motivation,) honestly I could care less about that, but because it's very likely that they're changing something that's really good into something that's not as good, that's my real concern here. To return to Sirlin, his viewpoint is based on putting the game elements in the forefront, not the way you access the game elements. This is perhaps biased, coming from a design perspective, focusing on the part of the game you make. In the play experience, there are always meta game elements. Sometimes these turn out to be fun, like getting your Twister opponents drunk. Sometimes, they aren't, but they arise in the pursuit of superior play, and since winning is fun, they pick up that luster. And I sincerely empathize with the phenomenon, and its ramifications. But there is a better way, and it involves leaving things behind. edit = typo fix Sirlin doesn't understand how RTS works. Fighting games are largely mind games, and reaction time, along with execution. If there's no execution, then your reaction time, and mind games won't get punished by the possibility of a poor execution. When there's mind games involved if you're being repetitive then you are actually doing the wrong thing. But in RTS, when you're repetitive in doing the right thing, you're doing the right thing, that's why in RTS you need to leave the hard mechanics because they create tons of choices to make not just regarding of what's the right thing ultimately, but what's the right thing with consideration that if you do it you won't be able to do something else, and so they provide more tests for players, and increase the skill differentiation in the game. | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
Translation wawawawa you hate macro. So you're reduced to trolling? Wow. Shocker. Well why don't you make micro decision intensive too? because right now in all rts's ever made it's not decision intensive at all. 1) I would. 2) Wrong. Again, feel free to go play any of the games I've pointed you to. Zero hour or WiC, simply by virtue of their support power systems provide a huge amount of decision making regarding the placement of your troops and the placement of said powers. The WiC examples are visual and immediate; Do you fake crossing a bridge using smoke (or without smoke? which should you pick? If you smoke he's more likely to A-10, but then you're more vulnerable to helicopters!) to bait an A-10 strafe? Or do you run straight through and reposition your units on the other side of the bridge so that they're placed in the best possible position to fight? What's the risk/reward of each choice? What's the probability that your opponent goes for it? What factors play into the choice? Are you ahead of your opponent? Is he ahead of you? Does he have a lot of resources for throwing A-10 strafes around? Have you made it a point to deny said resources? Etc. Its pretty obvious you simply don't have a relatively indepth experience with a wide variety of RTS games if you'd make a statement like the quoted one. You didn't PROVE shit. I did. Feel free to read the arguments that you've assumed weren't written. ... Except no. Pretty sure if the reaver is blocking the maynard path you do what you always do... 1) And if the reaver is dropped on the far side, which is the case most of the time, and the case which was being discussed? 2) Even if it is, and you try to run in a predictable manner, how is a guaranteed non-dud scarab something you wouldn't attempt to stop? It kinda looks like you're thinking that I said that the reaver was going to be placed IN the path of the maynard line and not shooting to it. Given your history of fantastic reading comprehension, this seems likely. the only difference is you can't use the mineral walk because of this... How is not being able to move your probes in the manner most likely to create a dud not a factor? How is harassment somehow not micro? Harassment is a perfect example of a situation which creates plenty of decision making opportunities. You know, the situations I'm advocating adding more of into the game, or making more viable in the game. Plus... you're talking about harassment. I mean, its almost comic how much you need to twist the meaning of words in order to keep your argument afloat. Well how about I present you with A BETTER!!! interface!!! mutalisks have a "mutalisk micro button," Awesome. I don't even know what that button would do, but once you tell me exactly what it does, i might be able to comment on it. Does it stack a group of muta without the need for an overlord/larva/trapped ling or some shit to be used? If so, thumbs up my friend. I think it's pretty obvious how the interface is different. Not really. You made the claim that there was no way that something could be strategic without a mechanically demanding interface. I presented Go. Your statement is false. You now need to make the argument that no RTS in particular is strategic without a mechanically demanding interface. In order to do so you wildly claim that no other RTS besides SC is strategic, despite the fact that many of them have a far larger strategic component than SC does. None of those RTS are really strategic. They all have for the most part degenerated strategically 1) Yes they are. 2) No they haven't. I haven't seen supreme commander solved; if it was, we'd know about it because you can automate pretty much everything in the goddamn game. Feel free to regale me of your knowledge of how solved tib sun and supreme commander are. Hell, feel free to tell me how solved dota and hon are; they're pretty moronically easy mechanically too AND they have no macro. Should be ZERO strategy according to your argument, no? WC3 doesn't allow for macro gameplay, and splitting your army, and therefore lacks multitasking. It doesn't necessarily lack mechanical requirement Oh wow, in this statement you admit far more than you probably want to. If the game isn't necessarily lacking mechanical requirement, yet it still lacks multitasking, that means that multitasking isn't exclusively composed of a high mechanical requirement. This is one admission you've refused to make throughout pretty much all of your argumentation, yet you inadvertently admit it here. If you're willing to not attempt to be a troll and go look at both sirlin's arguments and my past posts, you can probably clear up a bunch of misconceptions you have about the terms we're talking about. I'd suggest picking up where Tofu left off in terms of argument, since his position is worlds stronger than what you've presented. | ||
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Grumbels
Netherlands7028 Posts
The interface is set anyway, and even then, sc2's interface is only minorly different from sc1 in the grand scheme of things - there are a few updates to the standard that dates to at least ~2002, so why all these philosophical arguments trying to prove whether you should be able to select one or more buildings at the same time? I realize that it's a defining factor in the skill-ceiling of the game, but why should it be such? It's such a meaningless difference from a philosophical point of view. From my point of view it's better to discuss what lack of MBS and no-AM effectively means: you are forced to return to your base and build units right there instead of remotely, which is what you'd be able to accomplish by having all production facilities accessable through a single hotkey. This is good because if there's tension between where to focus your attention on there´s potential for more depth. There are however many more solutions to this rather than simply switching to SBS. One might be to prevent hotkeying of multiple or single buildings, which is at least less annoying than SBS. (I guess these are bad ideas) Another are some of the macro mechanics Blizzard has come up with, warp-in being likely the best. edit: cleaned up post | ||
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itsMAHVELbaybee
292 Posts
I think people are just afraid of being beaten by randomness. | ||
TheYango
United States47024 Posts
On December 28 2009 05:43 itsMAHVELbaybee wrote: Keeping the unit selection to a specific number, is just ELITIST simply put, compared to a CASUAL standpoint of, "it's 2010, why the fuck can I only select X amount units?" when there have been tons of other RTS games that have implemented it no problem. Infinite unit selection is the least-complained-about interface addition. Anyone arguing against it has to be trolling. On December 28 2009 05:43 itsMAHVELbaybee wrote: I think people are just afraid of being beaten by randomness. In fairness, randomness is detrimental to the development of a competitive game, because it makes it harder to differentiate players by skill. Randomness, however, is also not really an issue with interface discussions. Making the interface easier to handle doesn't make things more or less random. | ||
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Severedevil
United States4830 Posts
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Manit0u
Poland17183 Posts
On December 28 2009 05:43 itsMAHVELbaybee wrote: Keeping the unit selection to a specific number, is just ELITIST simply put, compared to a CASUAL standpoint of, "it's 2010, why the fuck can I only select X amount units?" when there have been tons of other RTS games that have implemented it no problem. I think people are just afraid of being beaten by randomness. Being forced to select a specific number of units at the same time is ok. It's much more useful at the higher level of play though, when people start to compose their units properly within the groups. Having 20 zealots, 30 dragoons, 1 observer and 1 ht in the same group could be a real pain in the ass. As far as I'm concerned AoX did it perfectly with LNoU hotkeys and INoU superhotkeys (F-keys). It gives you a lot more control over your army since you can either move it in its entirety with superhotkey to get into the battle and control specific groups using standard hotkeys to micro them when you finally get there. INoU in normal hotkeys can accomplish the same task but it's harder for you to grasp the details (how many zealots do I actually have in this group? How many died?). I'm no pro, but that's how I'd like to have it in this day and age. | ||
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Lovin
Denmark812 Posts
HOLY FUUUUCK I'M A MARIIIINE!!! | ||
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
I did. Feel free to read the arguments that you've assumed weren't written. Where is your proof? quote the paragraph that's your proof. I think it's pretty obvious how the interface is different. Not really. You made the claim that there was no way that something could be strategic without a mechanically demanding interface. I presented Go. Your statement is false. You now need to make the argument that no RTS in particular is strategic without a mechanically demanding interface. In order to do so you wildly claim that no other RTS besides SC is strategic, despite the fact that many of them have a far larger strategic component than SC does. No.. I said taht RTS can't be as strategically deep without a demanding mechanical interface as it would be with it, and I also said that I can pin point a rule in a TBS game that you can provide that serves the same purpose as the interface in RTS and I did that for you in GO. 1) Yes they are. 2) No they haven't. I haven't seen supreme commander solved; if it was, we'd know about it because you can automate pretty much everything in the goddamn game. Feel free to regale me of your knowledge of how solved tib sun and supreme commander are. Hell, feel free to tell me how solved dota and hon are; they're pretty moronically easy mechanically too AND they have no macro. Should be ZERO strategy according to your argument, no? I didn't say they were solved. I said they degenerated strategically, not necessarily completely, but then even the best players in those games can't keep up with the mechanics of those games 100% so it's not like I said they're absolutely bad and I never said they were completely solved. But they did degenerate, even though they have a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller amount of people playing them for a significantly smaller amount of time than starcraft. 1) And if the reaver is dropped on the far side, which is the case most of the time, and the case which was being discussed? 2) Even if it is, and you try to run in a predictable manner, how is a guaranteed non-dud scarab something you wouldn't attempt to stop? It kinda looks like you're thinking that I said that the reaver was going to be placed IN the path of the maynard line and not shooting to it. Given your history of fantastic reading comprehension, this seems likely. honestly I thought that you make the scarab dud by either having it not explode for too long or something like travel too far, hence why I said you run away from the reaver without clumping up your workers. regardless.. you test a couple of things, you figure out how it works, and that's it, from that point on it's a completely mechanical action. Also what do you mean athe reaver is shooting to the maynard line? reavers can attack ground? I thought you mean reaver was placed in a way such it's really close to the maynard line if maynarding was to occur. You didn't make yourself that clear. Oh wow, in this statement you admit far more than you probably want to. If the game isn't necessarily lacking mechanical requirement, yet it still lacks multitasking, that means that multitasking isn't exclusively composed of a high mechanical requirement. This is one admission you've refused to make throughout pretty much all of your argumentation, yet you inadvertently admit it here. Um... well I'm going by an arbitrary definition obviously, but in my arbitrary definition multitasking is composed of a high mechanical requirement in multiple aspects of the game. WC3 has quite a bit of mechanical requirements in its micro during fighting, but during those times you mostly focus on the fight itself, because there's like a billion abilities that you have to use while focus firing, and all that stuff (purely mechanical btw not all that much decision making,) so it's not necessarily multitasking, it's just stringing abilities, which is still mechanically intensive. It's multitasking to a very small degree I guess because you're using different units, and there's some things that you have to do at the same time, but since they are occurring in the same situation (the fight,) the majority of decisions between "what to use first," are not really decisions, because the abilities have pretty constant relative strengths which vary based on like rather obvious factors. It's like storming/stasising in pvt. What do you do first? well there's no real decision here I mean there could be, but your subconscious recongnizes a pattern really fast about when it should do what first, so there's no real decision making involved. So yeah, I think that in order to have a lot of decision making in RTS you need to have multitasking, and mechanical requirements are needed in order to have multi-tasking. nowhere did I say though that if mechanical requirements exist, it automatically implies the existence of multitasking. The converse of a true statement isn't necessarily true. I think if you remove the mechanical requirements for macro like you want to there will be much less real decisions to make since they will mostly be between micro and micro. With a good mix of both there are more decisions to make, because consequences of both are of completely different nature but are both beneficial, so you have to weigh them against each other. Awesome. I don't even know what that button would do, but once you tell me exactly what it does, i might be able to comment on it. Does it stack a group of muta without the need for an overlord/larva/trapped ling or some shit to be used? If so, thumbs up my friend. eh it could be something like this: keeps mutas stacked, and you press the button and click on the ground, and the mutas move forward until they find the first enemy "military unit" once they see it and reach the poitn at which they can attack it (maximum range) they use the hold position command, then go back a certain distance, and rinse and repeat. basically micro'ing the mutalisks for you. this is just from the top of my head, I'm sure there could be something even easier to use where u just point at the guy's base and the mutas come in and micro away from every single thing that can attack them while killing everything. How is not being able to move your probes in the manner most likely to create a dud not a factor? How is harassment somehow not micro? Harassment is a perfect example of a situation which creates plenty of decision making opportunities. You know, the situations I'm advocating adding more of into the game, or making more viable in the game. I mean, its almost comic how much you need to twist the meaning of words in order to keep your argument afloat. I already wrote what I meant about the reaver. As for harassment, I agree requires SOME decision making. Did I not say so before? But the reason taht I don't consider it micro, isn't becauses it doens't necessarily involve micro, but because the amount of micro that it involves is completely infinitesimal in relation to the micro that you do when you're like fighting. When you're basically just dancing your units, and trying to create flanks, concaves, surrounds and etc. The thing is all those things are completely mechanical in nature, and are pretty mindless with no decision making to go along with performing them, so if you want to get rid of everything that doesn't involve decision while performing it where are all those actions and all that attention going to go? It's going to go to the few things that require thought, and thus destroy all the decision making which is involved in actually choosing what you're gonna do out of the things that act as what you call "APM sinks," because really pretty much everything that requires a decision in management is so mechanically easy that you will be doing it perfect every single time. As for it being comical how I'm trying to twist the meaning of words? that's exactly how I feel about you. It's getting a little disgusting how you're quoting a single line, and reply to it as if you have rebutted an argument... Being forced to select a specific number of units at the same time is ok. It's much more useful at the higher level of play though, when people start to compose their units properly within the groups. Having 20 zealots, 30 dragoons, 1 observer and 1 ht in the same group could be a real pain in the ass. As far as I'm concerned AoX did it perfectly with LNoU hotkeys and INoU superhotkeys (F-keys). It gives you a lot more control over your army since you can either move it in its entirety with superhotkey to get into the battle and control specific groups using standard hotkeys to micro them when you finally get there. INoU in normal hotkeys can accomplish the same task but it's harder for you to grasp the details (how many zealots do I actually have in this group? How many died?). I'm no pro, but that's how I'd like to have it in this day and age. I agree, I have nothing against multiple unit selection, not like it would help all that much during combat, except with like marines where u can double click one of them ,and select like 50 to stimpack all of them (if that's even a good idea,) but marines right now are actually maybe even a little too hard to use since you have to group them from medics and all in order to have stimpack available =/ | ||
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On December 28 2009 06:43 Kennigit wrote: I'm about to read all 15 pages of this horrendous thread....if i don't make it...i love you all. God speed Kennigit. God speed. | ||
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