Every click counts (or should it?) - Page 21

On January 26 2010 10:42 Dreadwave wrote:

Maybenexttime said simultaneous, what you are describing in your later posts in this thread isn't what he meant. With macro you have some room to do other things while the units are building, micro requires you to react to the opponent's micro actions/mistakes when they happen. If you are microing at three spots instead of one it is very easy to make mistakes because your screen cannot show more than one spot, if you happen to be watching one spot while your opponent is acting in another one you can't react to him as fast. Macro happens in cycles, and requires only attention at those moments, micro isn't like that..

Just reread what IdrA said:

Proper micro demands nearly constant attention, it is physically impossible to watch more than one spot constantly in BW/SC2, so you will have to switch between multiple locations rapidly. The more locations you attempt to monitor at once the greater the chance that you will miss something important and are too late to respond. Therefore engaging at multiple locations at once increases the risks of mistakes, nevermind that splitting your army is itself a risk because if your opponent doesn't he can beat your army by attack-moving over each small group. So yes, multiple simultaneous engagements change the risk-reward ratio, even if you have the skill to actually do it well.
If your opponent splits his army in three parts, you can split yours in two and crush two of his armies at once and then destroy the last one with the leftovers. This is strategically superior even if you actually have the ability to win the three battles at once through micro.
This is not a new argument, pretty much every later MBS thread had people come in and claim that people would now battle at multiple spots at once, Maybenexttime has made the above argument to so many times that it's not strange he got sick of repeating it to people who don't want to understand what he's saying.

The way you mangled his point 3 is either means malicious intent or completely missing his point. He's not arguing against multiple views, he's arguing that having many simultaneous battles is more confusing for the audience.
He's not talking about technical barriers, he's talking about human limitations, with a proper studio setup anyone can do the screen within a screen thing. Some leagues already do the double fpview, but only earlygame because there isn't that much going on then.
If the game is set up so that multiple simultaneous battle occur frequently, it's going to to make the game harder to follow for more casual spectators which will reduce appeal for them. It doesn't really matter if they show all the battles at once or only show one, it would be more demanding on the viewer either way.
You can't argue against this by stating that some people on this site watched two fpvods at the same time and liked it, the people that come to this site are not really representative of the total potential playerbase. He's saying that the game will be more confusing to those people who don't play/watch a lot of SC2.

The more casual players/viewers will be a large part of the potential audience and if you alienate them the game will fail to get sponsors after a while because the audience will be too small to make money from broadcasting the games.

So because you don't like the reality he is describing he should use his imagination? You 'fixing' his post and suggesting it is a lack of skill and playing Terran that prevents him from agreeing with you is hilarious when he quoted IdrA saying the same thing. IdrA plays Terran for CJ, don't you think he would know a thing or two about attacking multiple spots as TvZ bionic is all about that lategame?

On January 26 2010 20:32 beetlelisk wrote:


This thread is basically another MBS debate. Most of the players that achieved something in BW (and had chance to play SC2) agree that macro handicaps will make the game easier.
Now add new pathing AND ~255 not 12 units that you can select at once and suddenly you get HUGE amount of time to do things freed.

I don't understand why you need to imagine action happening in more than 1 place as something that always has to sacrifice power of your army and happen in exactly the same time at all spots.
Saying that it won't happen for example in case of muta harassment because zerg most of the time make 11 mutas [edit - like randombum wrote on page 18] is ridiculous to me. OF COURSE NO ONE IS GOING TO BLATANTLY SACRIFICE ANYTHING FOR SUCH A SMALL GAIN.
Don't you remember games where zerg was microing 2 groups of mutas in different spots and killing terran with them?
Action happening in multiple spots doesn't have to mean battles, it can as well mean better scouting.

You described micro and unit control the way it happens in BW - it's limited to 12 units at once and since the most important thing to keep doing is macro it's really hard to split your force and still use in efficent way - this is what I meant by lack of imagination.
Splitting your force is mostly limited to Storm drops, recalls, sacrificing cheap units like lings or vultures to damage expos and destroy peons.
Now notice a lot of changes done to units in SC2 - warp in mechanic, Stalkers and blink, Colossi ignoring cliffs, Reapers, increased need fro Dropships because only they can heal and among many more other things Banshees having (in last builds) almost 3 times as strong attack as Wraiths have - 2 Banshees can be equivalent to 5 mutas!

In short there is going to be so many new ways to use your units that, for me, saying you are limited to one spot at a time (after hundreds of threads bashing mbs) shows at least limited imagination. If someone acts like he's the shit on top of that, asking himself like a Korean progamer and answering to himself it simply pisses me off.

edit: I wrote about average spectator getting confused in my previous post.

On January 27 2010 10:31 Dreadwave wrote:

It doesn't matter that you can now control more than 12 units at once for micro in more than one spot, you're ignoring why it is still physically hard to do it even with MBS+AM+UUS, hint: you can only be in one spot at once and units die in seconds. It already happens in BW, but only when it is worth it because splitting your force is a huge risk. I also explained why you can combine 1 macro and 1 micro task more easily than two micro tasks, I never said that microing in multiple spots is not feasible because of macro, I said it isn't feasible because microing in multiple spots at the same time is really hard even if that's all you have to do.
None of the units you named change any of that, you're still investing money/time in harass that could have been spent on your main army. You're still investing in a tech that has to pay for itself
I get the impression that you don't understand BW much when you don't even mention the armysplitting that occurs in all the Terran matchups, I even mentioned TvZ where army splitting is really viable(necessary even) because mnm are so ridiculously cost-efficient and Zerg tends to expand like wildfire.

I don't remember any games were Zerg was using muta micro in two locations, I do remember Jaedong(vs Flash gom final Blue Storm) and Savior(vs Nada on Neo Medusa) microing two groups on the same mineral line, how about a link to the VOD? Attackmoving in one spot and dancing in the other doesn't count... Note that in the games I mentioned Zerg was already winning with no vessels in sight so he might as well show off a little.
What randombum said actually completely destroys your reasoning, he's saying that splitting your army/harass is only viable if making the extra units is actually worth it. Which just happened to be exactly what I'm saying. You'll only see more than 11 mutas vs bio if it's something like crazyZerg or Zerg somehow manages to delay/snipe vessels enough.

And now I totally see why Maybenexttime got so annoyed with you, you ignored almost everything I wrote. My post already addressed all your other posts about spectator confusion. Why do you even bother to respond if you're not going to address any arguments? Your whole argument once again comes down to stating that everyone who disagrees with you lacks imagination when you don't even show a basic understanding of their arguments and which shows true your continual misrepresentation of their positions.

On January 28 2010 09:53 beetlelisk wrote:


I need to split your post and my reply into parts, so I'm just going to quote you few times, putting in bold parts I want to respond to. Let's start with things I agree with more or less.
After rereading last few pages I can see that overreacted in the way I "fixed" maybenexttime's post and put a sentence in caps marking randombum's view on splitting mutas (more about it later anyways). I pulled it too much out of context, without reading all (or not reading whole) posts that needed to be read before writing that. In context I put sentence in caps, it makes almost no sense actually.

However I think you misunderstood what I meant by lack of imagination. Like I wrote my bad manner was limited to "fixing" and writing in caps but by words "lack of imagination" I did not try to insult anyone. You found my first post in this thread repelling and assumed that insulting is my main motive, I bet that in the post I'm quoting now you based your judgement mostly on part in caps lock and thought there is no need to read any other post I wrote to reply to someone else than you... you did not read post where I put Flash vs Movie game as an example of army split and good way Movie's attack was shown by observer.


I need to go offtopic and write more about ways things regarding SC2 are being discussed.
Right before your last post I tried to write about micro and macro players - I am micro player, you are macro player. We value BW the most for different things. What for one of us is totally doable and completely understandable for the other isn't, at least not as much.
Maybe it's not just the condescending tone maybenexttime likes to use and he is "sick of repeating to people who don't want to understand what he's saying" but at the same time I am sick of exactly the same thing. Chill wrote that "Starcraft players are some of the most closed-minded gamers on the planet." not so long ago, funny pics thread getting dominated by imperial versus metric system quarrel is great showcase of that.

I have no intention to be another butthurt nerd venting off and growing e-penis to fix his self-esteem. I find people who do that annoying so much I can and did request banning them.

[end of part 1 I need to go to sleep]

edit: talking about dicks in sidebar - jesus christ it's your browser people :O

On January 26 2010 20:32 beetlelisk wrote:


This thread is basically another MBS debate. Most of the players that achieved something in BW (and had chance to play SC2) agree that macro handicaps will make the game easier.
Now add new pathing AND ~255 not 12 units that you can select at once and suddenly you get HUGE amount of time to do things freed.

I don't understand why you need to imagine action happening in more than 1 place as something that always has to sacrifice power of your army and happen in exactly the same time at all spots.
Saying that it won't happen for example in case of muta harassment because zerg most of the time make 11 mutas [edit - like randombum wrote on page 18] is ridiculous to me. OF COURSE NO ONE IS GOING TO BLATANTLY SACRIFICE ANYTHING FOR SUCH A SMALL GAIN.
Don't you remember games where zerg was microing 2 groups of mutas in different spots and killing terran with them?
Action happening in multiple spots doesn't have to mean battles, it can as well mean better scouting.

You described micro and unit control the way it happens in BW - it's limited to 12 units at once and since the most important thing to keep doing is macro it's really hard to split your force and still use in efficent way - this is what I meant by lack of imagination.
Splitting your force is mostly limited to Storm drops, recalls, sacrificing cheap units like lings or vultures to damage expos and destroy peons.
Now notice a lot of changes done to units in SC2 - warp in mechanic, Stalkers and blink, Colossi ignoring cliffs, Reapers, increased need fro Dropships because only they can heal and among many more other things Banshees having (in last builds) almost 3 times as strong attack as Wraiths have - 2 Banshees can be equivalent to 5 mutas!

In short there is going to be so many new ways to use your units that, for me, saying you are limited to one spot at a time (after hundreds of threads bashing mbs) shows at least limited imagination. If someone acts like he's the shit on top of that, asking himself like a Korean progamer and answering to himself it simply pisses me off.

edit: I wrote about average spectator getting confused in my previous post.

On January 29 2010 07:46 Blyf wrote:
Every time I see this thread in the menu to the left, I think it says "Every dick counts", because of the font making c and l look like a d.

On January 31 2010 06:47 Kim Jong Tassadar wrote:
I would have to agree with Sirlin. Yes, it is very impressive that people have mastered the interface that was in place in SC. And they should be lauded for that. But imagine how different the strategies could be if unit selection was no longer limited. Why shouldn't we at least explore these possibilities. I don't know how blizzard is going to do this for SC2, but I feel it would be wrong of them to say that they are still limiting it to 12 units just because that was the way it was always done. That would be like Gears of War not having a cover system just because the shooters that came before it didn't, and the top players at those games had mastered defensive play without a cover system built in.

On January 22 2010 18:35 pioneer8 wrote:
Expect in SC2 pro matches the mineral count to rarely go above a few hundred, even late game.

I think it will make the game all around much better.