Every click counts (or should it?) - Page 2

On December 21 2009 17:46 heyoka wrote:Its funny that he brought up the unit selection limit specifically as that seems to be the one interface change no one gives a shit about.

No matter how good the interface is everyone will still be struggling to keep up with everything. The games focus is of course shifted based on how easy different things are to execute, but theres no "right" ideal on what should be the main thing everyone uses their time on. Its just preference.

On December 21 2009 16:14 251 wrote:
Sirlin is really easy to understand when you look at it from a fighting game perspective. Unfortunately starcraft isn't a fighting game.

But I can relate my own experiences of just playing SF4 on xbox live to this argument. I played a lot of street fighter 2 growing up but I wouldn't call myself 'tournament worthy'. But all SF characters have special moves that require an amount of dexterity and skill to pull off. Like if I'm playing with Ryu in SF4, my opponent's low on health, and I want to shoryu focus cancel into my ultra, if I flub this up on the 360 controller, it doesn't land, and I end up losing the match due to this missed opportunity, then I wrestled with the interface which eventually lead to me losing the game. Sirlin came up with HD Remix which had easy inputs for the special moves to attract a new audience, I don't know how successful this was, but obviously he wants people to be able to do the moves they want to do cleanly to allow for the best competition possible among a wider audience.

Which makes me think about a game I was easily more skilled at than these games, super smash bros melee. The interface is simple yet refined. Controls are tight and responsive, and all moves being intuitive and easy to do doesn't hurt the gameplay nor the competitiveness. (yes I know wavedashing and L-canceling and whatnot take some precision to do, but I wouldn't compare the technicality of it to a move list from street fighter). Anyway, despite how blanced, fun, and competitive Melee was, Nintendo (or the new company Sora) kind of messed up a perfect formula with the sequel, Brawl, by lowering the game speed, changing the physics engine, making it harder to kill quickly, stickier edges, etc.

Which brings me back to SC2 and the nature of good game design vs bad game design. A 'good game' (such as melee) can have a simple interface and very intuitive controls, and it doesn't hurt the competitive nature of it because a. everyone's on the same playing field b. the game is inherently well made, is balanced, etc. In contrast, a worse game for competitive play (such as Brawl) suffers because while the game has the same interface and controls, it is not as balanced (see metaknight) and has characteristics that don't welcome high level play, or a significantly (drastically?) lower skill ceiling.

SC2, to me then, relies on what should be two obvious factors. Is the game naturally 'good' - well designed, balanced, polished, welcomes competitive play - and we know Blizzard is designing this game with all these characteristics in mind. Of that we can be assured. And second, does the intuitiveness of the interface lower the skill ceiling to a point where the game suffers in 'high level' competitive play (Brawl), or does it complement it to allow for depth in strategy, positioning, etc (Melee).

I can definitely see Sirlin's argument and I'm not necessarily against easier inputs in a game. In Street Fighter's (and almost all 2d fighters) case its just been a formality for so long that its integrated as part of the accepted gameplay. I don't feel like I would be mad if a player using the easier inputs in HD Remix beat a player using the traditional inputs, so long as his spacing, gameplan, and execution were all strategically sound.

I'm NOT good at Starcraft. Probably high D at best. I like to play Terran but I still find myself 'wrestling' with the interface when playing on iccup (full use of the F keys, hotkeys, unit control, etc). And to me, that is a formality of starcraft. If you're planning on playing competitively, don't you want to have ALL of these things down before even getting in a match? If you don't, then you're simply not playing at your full potential. I've come to learn at D level, mechanics (ability to macro properly and control attacks and defend properly), far above strategy or even a perfect build order, is what wins games. So to me its the most important step. The games I'm good at are the ones that have controls that feel perfectly natural.

This topic seems sooo old, but I never really wrote my thoughts about it relating to my own experience with competitive games, so thought I might as well chime in while I could. I hope it made some sense and I don't get flamed too bad.

On December 21 2009 16:54 Kaneh wrote:
What he (Sirlin) is saying is he'd rather have more strategy and less dexterity.

What some here are saying is they're rather keep the dexterity.

What puzzles me is why a strategy game would require such high dexterity before you even got to competing in the strategy aspect of it.

On December 22 2009 01:00 Kaniol wrote:

Because StarCraft is not "only" strategy. It is REAL TIME strategy. So you have to have BOTH strategy required by strategy-type games and dexterity obviously required by real-timed games. Not that hard to understand when you properly categorize game, eh?

On December 21 2009 18:10 IdrA wrote:

its because hes never bothered to understand why people argued against mbs and automining and easy micro, he just assumed it was stubborn attachment to the old interface, which would included limited unit selection.

TL: To follow that up, what types of challenges do you face when trying to balance the needs of the casual player versus the rage of hardcore players like in the progaming community. You had mentioned the macro mechanics being a big one.

Dustin Browder: Sure that's definitely a big one – it's a place where we feel we can definitely do better but it then does break other systems. You know a great example I love reading on Teamliquid and elsewhere were not so much that you guys were missing clicks – some people said that and I didn't agree with that – but that we were missing the difference between a macro player and a micro player. That we were destroying the sense of style of the player. I could be playing a micro game and you could be playing a macro game with both the same race, and we are still playing a very different game from one another. And when I saw that I was like “Ohh!” I was opening my eyes like “Thanks! THERE IT IS! That's great! That's genius! That's exactly what we need to try to accomplish”.

On December 22 2009 01:14 Archerofaiur wrote:



Just on the subject

On December 22 2009 01:25 edahl wrote:


Please stop quoting that. First off it has no actual content, and is not really an argument for anything, it's just a cute anecdote.

Secondly, what you seem to think it says has been rebutted time and time again without a proper response.

If Starcraft were, at its core, a terrible game then it would need all these execution barriers separate good from bad players. Maybe it's not a terrible game though. Maybe there is actual strategy in it and letting everyone be on about the same level of APM (by making the maximum useful APM fairly low) would result in a fine game that's inclusive rather than exclusive.

It's ironic that hardcore starcraft players take the stance that their own game is terrible and that only by adding a layer of intentionally bad interface does it become good.

-Sirlin

On December 22 2009 01:32 Archerofaiur wrote:
I know that you are going to try and discredit Dustin's statement because it doesnt align with your views of whats good for Starcraft but for the sake of arguement go ahead.

On December 22 2009 01:43 edahl wrote:


It had been done, by more people than me, in this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=107980&currentpage=3

You know, the one you made but didn't really follow up on when you met a counter argument. You're falling into the trap of a religious man quoting his bible. For gods sake, if you have a point, just present your argument.

On December 21 2009 20:08 Boblion wrote:
Sirlin has no clue about Bw or competitive RTS.

I don't want to be rude but i also think that he is an ignorant idiot.

On December 22 2009 01:56 IdrA wrote:

save your time, discussions with him arent very productive

On December 22 2009 01:43 edahl wrote:


It had been done, by more people than me, in this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=107980&currentpage=3

You know, the one you made but didn't really follow up on when you met a counter argument. You're falling into the trap of a religious man quoting his bible. For gods sake, if you have a point, just present your argument.