"Gamers also become good at these unintuitive systems, which seems to be another reason for resistance. That debate happens in StarCraft. There is a unit selection limit, and you can only select certain number of units at once, but now, in modern era, we could have that anything we want. Maybe you could select hundreds of units in StarCraft II, but there are some players who are absolutely against the idea of making the limit whatever they want, because there is a skill in selecting the units you need to select in a game of StarCraft, particularly under time pressure.
Someone can make this argument, but I disagree with it. What these players are really saying is that they want a skill test in the game, which is fair enough, but they are also demanding that the test of skill be a specific skill test that they have all mastered. I think that's not only greedy and self-centred, but short sighted ― there are many ways to test a player's skill in a game like StarCraft, so why does it have to be a test of your ability to manipulate the interface?"
Sirlin is still talking about SC2 eh. He even attended the Berkeley SC class right? I agree with him a little but maybe SC2s interface will bring a whole new way to test a players skill. Maybe it won't be the interface at all but something new and fun.
As usual, he doesn't even bother to try to understand what we're actually arguing for. I had little respect for him to start with, but now I have even less.
It isn't like being able to put your entire army into control group 1 and then sending it to your opponent's base is going to guarantee you wins. Anybody who has watched noobs conga their lings into a wall can attest to that. Going by the quote they're making it out to sound as though the old limit of 12 units to a control group makes it any more difficult for new players or less difficult for the old. Whether you could assign 30 units to a group or not, the skill resided in being able to break down your army into distinct control groups and manage them properly. It sounds like this will remain true for SC2. Even the matches we've seen in Battle Reports seem to be played with a familiar fluidity though we aren't able to fully observe the control involved. I suppose I can't agree or disagree with Sirlin because it currently sounds like a non-issue. I've seen so little of first-person gameplay, especially on a professional level, to formulate a solid opinion.
According to Sirlin, Warcraft 2 did not have micro, players just patrolled and ignored their units apparently, and SC didn't until Zileas invented it. When challenged on this, he forwarded the e-mail to Zileas who then told me that yes, he did in fact invent micro.
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.
I think he's wrong. The ability to use the interface is the physical part of starcraft. Remove that and it turns into a pure strategy game. Perhaps limited unit selection is part of an outdated interface, but having skill outside of actually being able to control buildings and units is useless.
Its like saying being able to dribble, pass, and shoot is a bad skill test in basketball because the good players have mastered this and there's plenty of other ways to test players in basketball.
In some ways i think the idea that the skill set for sc2 will be slightly different is true and it will take us all time to get used to it. While it is true that you can have infinite unit selection, you will still have to have sub groups hotkeyed within your army because so many units have some sort of micro involved. Group selection makes it easier to 1a your way across the map, but once u get in combat, it will have to go back to using all your hotkeys. This i think, accomplishes the goal of having distinct possible playstyles.
For example, a terran ball marches across the map, you can just 1a click, but when you engage an army you will want to have hotkeyed your hellions to position correctly in front of your tanks and hold position. You will want to have your tanks hotkeyed to be able to siege and unsiege quickly. You will want to have medivacs/mauraders together, yet seperate from ghosts so you can emp/nuke/stim appropriately.
For players who just aren't that good like me(D+ on a GOOD day) we get the awesome feeling of attack moving a huge army so we can feel heroic like our favorite pro player. I get why people don't like the new mechanics/interface, i just think in the end, we will all get used to it and agree it was the best thing to do for the game.
I totally agree with randombum. I play StarCraft because of how difficult it is. Your macro can always be better, you could always be a little faster, and it seems to me like sc2 is going to lose too much of this feeling.
Sirlin needs to actually play some starcraft before he can understand why his SF analogy doesn't work here, I don't know what has kept him from putting in some time learning the game over the past 2 years.
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.
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.
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.
On December 21 2009 16:54 Kaneh wrote: 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.
Starcraft wasn't designed with fastest speed in mind. "Normal" was supposed to be normal! Even the original ladder was played on the "fast" setting. Starcraft requires such high dexterity because that's what the community wanted, not what Blizzard intended. Even in e-sports we still value physical attributes, interestingly enough.
There are a few steps to general unit control (i.e. mechanics).
1) Knowing/Deciding what your units should do. 2) Knowing/Deciding how to best approximate your desired unit behavior as orders within the Starcraft interface. 3) Executing those orders.
All three steps must occur quickly and precisely for good control. #1 is tactical thought, honed to occur subconsciously for faster processing. #2 is a translation job, converting #1 into the language of Starcraft. #3 is physical execution with mouse + keyboard.
#1 is uncontroversial. #2 and #3 are the point of contention. Some players see them as merely a means (or an obstacle) to the perfect expression of #1, and therefore they should be as convenient and clean as possible. Others see value in them as a process, or for the way they affect step #0 - prioritizing focus. If you can perform a round of production by pressing "5m", you never have to decide whether or not to pop away in the middle of a fight to build more stuff. (Or queue units beforehand, which is less efficient.)
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.
You're copying several years of hundreds of players' strategic developments (on top of thousands of years of theory in war/competition, which often apply). If you were building your own strategies from scratch, they would be far more important than your ability to point at a screen with a mouse. (Which is not that big a deal for a habitual user of the PC.)
StarCraft is a game where you need to be fast, not only in your head but your fingers too. why should it be different in StarCraft 2 ? There are other games.
The thing I like about infinate unit selection is not that I can select all my units and 1a to victory. It's so for example I'm going M&M - Marine Marauders with Medivac support. It allows me to hotkey all 100 or so marines under one hotkey but still seperate the marauders and medivacs for obvious reasons.
It just gives you the oppurtunity to be able to play without having to have 50 million groups of units hotkeyed to move everything. Of course you'll still be select dragging certain units to stim or whatever.
It doesn't remove any form of skill level but just changes the way it is used now. In Starcraft as of now the only way to control large armies is to click drag things to move. Now rather than that it gives you the option to just have bigger amounts of units under one hotkey but still gives you the option of selecting smaller groups.
Just because it's there doesn't mean everyone is going to be using it to just 1a. Since 1aing an army into the opponent if he's using smaller groups is going to get you killed.
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.
Edit: And its not just focus between using the interface and strategy... But the strategies change with the interface.
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.
Yeah, I found this fun as well.
What I don't get is you a person cannot see what mechanics are. It's like this: In SC you try to win by executing a strategy using tactics, unit composition, etc. etc. etc. Everybody can do that at some level. It only requires a bit of practice and ability for somewhat high level thought. By just trying and retrying you can pretty much creating a strategy by force.
To circumvent this, we let our players juggle why they play the game. If they don't care to juggle, that's OK, but they'll lose the game, so the only way you can deserve to actually be in the game for another two minutes is if you juggle. If you're good at juggling, you should be ready for the top, and all you need to do is to learn to put your newfound juggling skill by learning all the subtleties of SC.
You might call SC "Strategic and Competitive Juggling". If I ever write a thread qq-ing about the difficulty of juggling, and how they should make it easier and more intuitive, please shoot me.
EDIT: The guy over me wrote
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.
This is an important point which should not be forgotten. The absolute newbies want the macro to be easy for a quick way to catch up with an 11 year development in a game, instead of just sitting down practicing macro for a few weeks. What this does is shifting the focus to micro instead, which is equivalent to locking the game in to the state it was 11 years ago, way before iloveoov etc., which is equivalent to making it WC3 without heroes and creeps. The micro is going to be just a difficult as the macro is now, and there is a reason I don't play WC3.
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.
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 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.
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?
Exactly. I have no idea why people would like SC to be more like Chess, when it is in fact Speed Chess.
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.
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.
Just on the subject
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”.
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.
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”.
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.
Sirlin may not be well known in the RTS community, but in the fighting game community... yeah. He is a tool. He does actually bring up some good points but... he talks way too much about things he does not even understand well..
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.
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.
Just on the subject
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”.
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.
Its the clearest evidence for why they are adding macro mechanics. It encapsulates the two schools of thought that came out of the MBS wars. One group believed that AM and MBS were destroying macro gamplay. They other group felt AM MBS and Unlimited Unit Selection were going to make the game too easy. Dustin states in clear language that he disagrees with the claim that starcraft needs clicks for clicks sake.
Secondly, what you seem to think it says has been rebutted time and time again without a proper response.
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. Last time we had SCL people saying Dustin was poorly translated, then they tried to say he was talking about something completly different and then they just said "well hes saying that but hes wrong"
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
save your time, discussions with him arent very productive
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.
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.
save your time, discussions with him arent very productive
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.
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.
I checked that thread. Sure enough I addressed your claims. Turns out you went with the "oh Dustin is just wrong" discrediting tactic. For instance in one scenario you argued taht Starcraft already had playstyles and that they melded together so therefore you couldnt have a "just macro" gameplay. Which is of course missing the point of what dustin said.
First unlimited selection and a little more easier interface isn't BAM gonna turn sc into wc3, espicially if they keep the auto clump mechanic (and belive me this is one tough mechanic to micro ). But I really see why it's kinda worrying that the game UI is gonna get more availible for larger masses (because some people just don't want to train as much) though there is 2 things to consider. 1: If it's hard to get into the game then the chances of the game being an accepted E-sport worldwide is gonna get smaller. And the game could really need a little tweak cos it's really irritating when the game is stupid for no reason (like why can I only have F2 F3 F4 but not F1 as screenhotkey) 2: when u just do 1 ctrl+click then A-move instead of 5 ur just gonna go do something else to make you win it's not that big a diffrence.
Second (personal experience warning) I love watching sc and I think all progamers are awesome and I thought "this is the best starcraft to watch there is". Then I watched the old-school tournament with boxer and yellow and nada and I was blown away. Because they where so much more variated in their micro and gameplay. If todays sc progaming where the rainbow then old-school was ultra-violet, beyond imagination and that is why i wonder why sc is supposed to be such a no-brainer untill your battling with the best. I often get frustrated when I see pro zergs doing the same stupid drops over and over again like machines even though it obviously is hopeless.
My point is that maybe if we take away all that unneccesary ui maybe progamers will have time to show ther mind in the gameplay. And I dont think SC:BW is the perfect game because the perfect starcraft would be one where mind and mechanics is equally visible and important in the game. And right now scbw is alot of mechanics (savior is complimented for his micro/macro and mindgame but JD generally gets credit for his micro/macro even though he probably is very clever)
young people play sc:bw old play chess both will hopefully play sc 2 ^^
The real good point he has made and what should we argue about is this imo:
What these players are really saying is that they want a skill test in the game, which is fair enough, but they are also demanding that the test of skill be a specific skill test that they have all mastered. I think that's not only greedy and self-centred, but short sighted
On December 22 2009 01:56 IdrA wrote: save your time, discussions with him arent very productive
Lets take a second to examine which one of us is really using old unproductive rhetoric.
On December 21 2009 17:37 IdrA wrote: if you want pure strategy play chess
The MBS Wars are over and with them these brand of false statements. The centralists won. Not the "interface must be exactly same as SC1" crowd and not the "everything should be automated" crowd. Niether extreme was correct.
Unlimited Unit Selection, Automining and Multiple Building Selection WILL be in Starcraft 2 and no force on Heaven or Hell can stop that.
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
Please do not drop rational pieces of argumentation into this discussion. We had such a good run of being able to dismiss an argument with very little emphasis on its content, and a strong focus on how 'stupid' the person making it is.
On December 22 2009 01:40 RoieTRS wrote: I'll just leave this here:
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
Please do not drop rational pieces of argumentation into this discussion. We had such a good run of being able to dismiss an argument with very little emphasis on its content, and a strong focus on how 'stupid' the person making it is.
If only the world worked that way.
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing. I believe that I am the only one that thinks this way.
Blizzard should make the interface so raw as is possible, to make this game non-usual. I don't think, that non-confortable interface as it has place in sc: bw will make this game not attractive for casual gamers.
What these players are really saying is that they want a skill test in the game, which is fair enough, but they are also demanding that the test of skill be a specific skill test that they have all mastered. I think that's not only greedy and self-centred, but short sighted
If SC2 were keeping the 'magic box' mechanic, or making Patrol/Hold Position react faster than Attack Move, I would understand this complaint. Those are quirks of the Starcraft engine that really aren't ideal.
But giving precise instructions, quickly, is intrinsic to the idea of real time video games, and the mouse is the best known tool for doing so in RTS/FPS.
On December 22 2009 01:40 RoieTRS wrote: I'll just leave this here:
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
Please do not drop rational pieces of argumentation into this discussion. We had such a good run of being able to dismiss an argument with very little emphasis on its content, and a strong focus on how 'stupid' the person making it is.
This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
Now... making certain tasks easier, so that play can focus more on other aspects of the game, is a legitimate concept. MBS, intelligent unit rallying, and a stacking/unstacking toggle for air units are all examples of such, as is the Hold Position command. They do sometimes raise the question of whether or not certain plays should place a higher or lower demand on the player's focus, however. It's interesting and significant that a player can stack mutalisk, can disarm mines with only Dragoons, and can skip units over key barricades with workers, but only by committing a lot of focus to that one specific task. Pushing up a ramp, while slightly less flashy, is another focus-intensive and powerful play, and holding a ramp against harassment could be promoted to one if Hold Position were removed. (1 base PvZ could be even more exciting in the early game with such a change. As it stands, Zerg can't harry the Protoss until Protoss moves out.) A downside of making a powerful effect more focus-intensive is it often feels artificial, because it is.
Fighting games of course have no equivalent to these bad-ass moves, because fighting games have no multitasking. Once you can reliably perform a move in a fighting game, the only decision is whether or not it would benefit you - not whether or not it would benefit you and whether or not the benefit is worth the cost.
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
if you want a timed clickfest, play flash games. hurr hurr
Yes It's real-time. real-time strategy, not real-time execution clickfest. It's about making quick decisions in real time. You say people wanted fastest so they could click faster, could they not have wanted fastest so that they needed to think faster and have a more exciting game that way? I really doubt people put it on fastest because they wanted to click more, pretty sure that's a byproduct, not the reason. Like Sirlin said, why is everyone afraid of losing pointless APM? Why not let proper decision-making, map awareness, timings, positioning, and other mental decisions (that still require clicks) take precedence?
I don't get why everyone is so afraid of getting rid of pointless clicks. He's advocating that clicks SHOULD matter. Again, if someone has ridiculous control, why not let them attack 5 places at once with great micro instead of forcing them to spend clicks macroing? why not let them focus on fighting to get another expo up instead of spending clicks telling their workers to mine? That's his point.
Yet another reason to get rid of all these pointless clicks is that it lowers the entry bar. It's really easy for someone to see why they're losing when you can attack five places at once and he can only focus on defending one place. The evidence of being skilled at control is right there for everyone to see. If noobs wanted to get into the game, it's really easy to understand how to get better and it's not some ridiculous grind to get your mechanics up to par before you can even try to do something.
Sirlin himself admitted himself he doesn't know much about the intricacies of starcraft. But he does know about games. He isn't using familiar terminology, but if you actually think about what he's saying and try to see what it means in starcraft it applies really well.
great APM and dexterity are important skills to have, but they shouldn't be such a massive requirement for playing the game, they should just make you better at it.
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
Proper punctuation (and high language, for that matter) is not automatically an attempt to appear smart. Relinquish such notions.
On December 22 2009 06:14 Kaneh wrote: Why not let proper decision-making, map awareness, timings, positioning, and other mental decisions (that still require clicks) take precedence?
On December 22 2009 05:25 bEsT[Alive] wrote: Here we go again.
On a side note:
On December 22 2009 04:33 RoieTRS wrote:
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
On December 22 2009 05:25 bEsT[Alive] wrote: Here we go again.
On a side note:
On December 22 2009 04:33 RoieTRS wrote:
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
God, another Sirlin thread? We've been through this already.
Sirlin thinks of execution in a fighting game sense, ie. either you have it or you don't. If you don't have it your options are inferior compared to the people who do, so you're not really playing the true game. Ergo we must want SC2 to be difficult mechanically because we've already "mastered" the execution and we just want to force people who haven't to do the same before being allowed to play the game.
Of course this doesn't apply to SC at all. Execution for any task beyond one's build order is more than just a binary state of doing it right or doing it wrong; there are a million different levels of effectiveness. If execution in fighting games is a bar that you have to pass before you can play, execution in Starcraft is an endless slope that every player is climbing. Even at the top level players don't perform any complex task ideally, and how well each player does different things varies greatly. The mechanics aren't simply something you learn and then you can play the game, mechanical competition is always a part of the game in itself and it's impossible for human players to perfect it.
Do you even know what backing off means? If you want to continue this discussion more PM me instead of creating a cesspool of shit on an already shitty thread, but don't expect a response anytime soon.
That's what we call backing off chump.
I could tease you all day if I really wanted to, but considering you have the mentality of a three year old... why bother? Continue playing the ass clown all you want. I recommend you do it on your own time though. Props.
No point arguing with half wits.
Here's some logic for you: turn off your computer and look the other way.
Actually, I think I am one of the few here that actually agree with sirlin, however, I am one of those selfish people who like doing 10 actions to accomplish one thing.
I love it when someone tries to appear smart by using proper punctuation and failing.
Lesson of the day. I wonder how long it takes for this topic to get closed.
"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
That was said by Kurt Vonnegut. You're right--but honestly, who gives a fuck?
Zergski, what kind of answer were you looking for anyway? Was I not clear?
Obviously I do when some premature ejaculation tries to appear clever by using punctuation to make a point.
I'm familiar with the German's works and personally I don't care what he has to say on the matter. FYI, I didn't learn that in college. In Canada we're taught that around Junior High.
On December 22 2009 07:44 bEsT[Alive] wrote: No more free lessons.
TY for your contribution.
Zergski, what kind of answer were you looking for anyway? Was I not clear?
Obviously I do when some premature ejaculation tries to appear clever by using punctuation to make a point.
I'm familiar with the German's works and personally I don't care what he has to say on the matter. FYI, I didn't learn that in college. In Canada we're taught that around Junior High.
zergski.... kekekekeke
OT: I think the increase -> 36 (?) units in a control group is fine because:
1. the max supply limit is like infinity 2. for a good early game flank or other strategic maneuver, it would probably still be more useful to have 10-12 units in a control group
On December 22 2009 07:44 bEsT[Alive] wrote: Obviously I do when some premature ejaculation tries to appear clever by using punctuation to make a point.
Oh for the love of god someone using a pair of commas in no way implies that they are some sort of pretentious pseudo-intellectual trying to make themselves look clever. I'm having difficulty imagining the type of insecurity that would compel you to get hostile over that.
On December 22 2009 07:44 bEsT[Alive] wrote: No more free lessons.
TY for your contribution.
Zergski, what kind of answer were you looking for anyway? Was I not clear?
Obviously I do when some premature ejaculation tries to appear clever by using punctuation to make a point.
I'm familiar with the German's works and personally I don't care what he has to say on the matter. FYI, I didn't learn that in college. In Canada we're taught that around Junior High.
Just saying that you're a fucking douchebag for the post that started this all. Everyone knows how to use a semicolon, they just don't want to look like arrogant fucks on an internet forum, and I'm sure we all learned it in junior high or sooner. Basically, nobody wants unsolicited punctuation advice on matters as trivial as a comma, especially when you couple it with the retarded assumption that he was doing it "to sound smart".
It seems to me that a lot of people on both sides are completly missing the point. Actually the dexterity challenge will remain unchanged here, exept that it will be complemented by an extra strategic part. People will have to decide how to make their groups based on how they want their units to react and move together, not on the limitation of the UI.
I'm pretty sure everybody will get nuts the day a Zerg PGM will manage to get rid of the unit clumping and break through a line of siege tanks with 10 sub-groups of zerglings.
The MBS Wars are over and with them these brand of false statements. The centralists won.
Because you say so? I watch in amusement as you award yourself the crown of Benefits of Stupid Macro mechanics communicator in chief.
Sirlin views SC too much through the lens of fighting games and applies a broad brush from his point about interfaces missed the subtleties and importance of some of the macro mechanics. I don't think I've seen anyone argue against unlimited unit selection, it seems like an improvement, people take issue with the MBS and automining nonsense because it trivialises an important timing skill in the game. Playing SC well has a rhythm and tests how well you keep it while under pressure. It's a great loss to take that away, especially when it's replaced by such junk macro mechanics that are little more than an admission that the real reason for adding automine is to aid newbies, just like moving DTs and Lurkers higher up the tech tree.
Everyone's aware of what Blizzard are doing ta, that doesn't change some people's view that it's stupid. The debate is if it's a good idea or not, not something that really impacted Blizzard's direction. I'm aware of their comments about reading TL before you quote them.
Centralist? What is the extreme beyond AM and MBS that anyone seriously suggested? No one ever argued for scripted automation of the game. You're just using that as a cute bit of rhetoric to make the position appear like a reasonable compromise.
On December 22 2009 10:03 ix wrote: Centralist? What is the extreme beyond AM and MBS that anyone seriously suggested? No one ever argued for scripted automation of the game. You're just using that as a cute bit of rhetoric to make the position appear like a reasonable compromise.
Manual Mining, 12 Unit Selection, Single Building Selection
Centralist AM, MBS, Unlimited Selection AND New Macro Mechanics
The centralist position being the same as the extreme with some stupid bolt ons? It's not central as it possesses all the features of the extreme easy macro position and a poor facsimile to represent the manual macro position with none of the features from the manual macro position. It's a weak compromise to add the newbie friendliness they think they need to force on better players with a sop for better players. As I've said having the newbie helper features up to a limited level on the ladder would be superior, most players will never even reach the point where they experience the transition, it's better than imposing stabilisers on better players. The idiocy of the macro mechanics is demonstrated by what an utter hash of them Blizzard is making. They're not good because it's a bad idea, not because Blizzard isn't trying hard enough.
On December 21 2009 16:54 Kaneh wrote: 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.
Street Fighter ironically is exactly the same way. Until you have mastered the execution, dealing with strategy is basically pointless.
On December 21 2009 15:45 Lokomis wrote: Going by the quote they're making it out to sound as though the old limit of 12 units to a control group makes it any more difficult for new players or less difficult for the old.
I remember getting really frustrated with the game for not letting me select more than 12 units at once. I think I googled to try to find out how to fix that "bug". Reminds me of the guy who bought a 1992 Dodge Viper in the middle of the summer and then couldn't figure out how to turn on the air conditioning.
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
I don't know where you got this idea of a .5 second delay between commands, but I don't think anybody is suggesting that.
Also, Sirlin is an idiot for thinking we should trust subconscious knowledge. I'm sure Sirlin would love to be put in jail for fraud based on the testimony of an expert that couldn't even say what he thought made him think Sirlin was guilty.
Also, who is this Zileas guy that supposedly invented micro? I ran into his name yesterday on the High Templar page on battle.net:
"Can you see the High Templar in this picture? In this game, top ranked Protoss player Zileas hides a High Templar behind the trees to the left of the Zealot. From this location he can use Psionic Storm without giving away his position."
On December 22 2009 12:02 Pyrrhuloxia wrote: Also, who is this Zileas guy that supposedly invented micro? I ran into his name yesterday on the High Templar page on battle.net:
"Can you see the High Templar in this picture? In this game, top ranked Protoss player Zileas hides a High Templar behind the trees to the left of the Zealot. From this location he can use Psionic Storm without giving away his position."
Note: Summary is from personal recollection and may be 100% inaccurate/biased.
Well his real name is Tom Cadwell. He used to be a "good" player (known for shuttle/reaver micro iirc). I use the term "good" loosely because by today's standards he would probably be D ranked. Because of his fame as a good player (??) he ended up getting employed by blizzard for awhile for whatever reason. At some point he quit blizzard and worked for Ethermoon Entertainment which set out to make Strifeshadow which was supposed to be the ultimate competitive RTS or something (http://www.ethermoon.com/bios/zileas-bio.phtml). Such grand ambitions... such abject failure. Some matches were played and written about on battlereports.com, but overall the game and company didn't make it. After that he started working for Riot Games, helping develop League of Legends (a dota-clone).
So I read almost every reply in this thread (admittedly not every single one, but at least 85%) and I couldn't find a single post telling me why it is that people are against some of these enhancements to the UI. Could someone fill me in? It seems reasonable to me to use any advancement in the speed of computers to put things into the game that would have gone in the original if they had had the capacity to do so, but I also feel that I must be missing some sort of information given the firm opposition I have read in this post.
I'm relatively new to the TL/competitive BW community, (although I have been playing casually for a very long time) and must have just missed all of this debate on MBS that has been referenced so much. Sorry if someone already layed out the argument here and I missed it. Also I have no idea who this Sirlin is, but I have learned today that he is apparently a huge tool.
TL;DR: I missed it: why is everyone so opposed to this stuff?
On December 22 2009 12:11 quiong wrote: Note: Summary is from personal recollection and may be 100% inaccurate/biased.
Well his real name is Tom Cadwell. He used to be a "good" player (known for shuttle/reaver micro iirc). I use the term "good" loosely because by today's standards he would probably be D ranked. Because of his fame as a good player (??) he ended up getting employed by blizzard for awhile for whatever reason. At some point he quit blizzard and worked for Ethermoon Entertainment which set out to make Strifeshadow which was supposed to be the ultimate competitive RTS or something (http://www.ethermoon.com/bios/zileas-bio.phtml). Such grand ambitions... such abject failure. Some matches were played and written about on battlereports.com, but overall the game and company didn't make it. After that he started working for Riot Games, helping develop League of Legends (a dota-clone).
He won the brood war beta tournament and he was the best player during his prime so show some respect.
The idea that any one person invented such an obvious concept is ludicrous, I remember my friends and I 'inventing' micro in C&C multiplayer years before SC came out. Focus fire, formations to maximize fire power and dancing injured units are things most players come up with. I remember people microing Flash tanks in Total Annihilation, driving in circles around the bigger tanks, outpacing their turret rotation, again before SC even existed.
On December 22 2009 12:11 quiong wrote: Note: Summary is from personal recollection and may be 100% inaccurate/biased.
Well his real name is Tom Cadwell. He used to be a "good" player (known for shuttle/reaver micro iirc). I use the term "good" loosely because by today's standards he would probably be D ranked. Because of his fame as a good player (??) he ended up getting employed by blizzard for awhile for whatever reason. At some point he quit blizzard and worked for Ethermoon Entertainment which set out to make Strifeshadow which was supposed to be the ultimate competitive RTS or something (http://www.ethermoon.com/bios/zileas-bio.phtml). Such grand ambitions... such abject failure. Some matches were played and written about on battlereports.com, but overall the game and company didn't make it. After that he started working for Riot Games, helping develop League of Legends (a dota-clone).
He won the brood war beta tournament and he was the best player during his prime so show some respect.
Ok, first of all, I'm free to respect whomever I choose. But just in case it worries you, I assure you that Zileas doesn't give a crap whether I respect him or not, since I'm a nobody.
I'll grant you that my little summary there did not paint a rosy picture for Zileas. You've managed to detect my tone of slight disdain.
Sure, he was good during his prime, which is why Blizzard hired him in the first place.
But I don't think Zileas contributed much to the SC/BW community.
- He basically abandoned Starcraft at a time when the game was trying to find it's place as a competitive e-sport.
- Saw Starcraft as a flawed game and set out to make Strifeshadow, which was supposed to supplant Starcraft as the holy grail of competitive RTS
- Strifeshadow had no AI or single-player campaign, so for their game to be successful they were basically hoping to draw away the Starcraft fanbase
- In pretty much every Strifeshadow interview, they basically boast about how Strifeshadow is better in every way. While it's not directly starcraft-bashing, I personally find it difficult to read the interviews.
- Abandoned Strifeshadow as well. Don't know what happened there really, but the game didn't live up to the hype and people stopped caring/playing.
- Now works on League of Legends. Of course, any controversies with LoL is not Mr. Zilea's fault personally, so his current job is irrelevant to the topic.
TL;DR: Zileas started as a SC player like any other. But because he was good, he had some fame and influence. He found faults with the game and abandoned it, tried to create a new game designed specifically to suck away SC fans. I'm personally glad that today, SC is alive and doing well. Zilea's dream for SC is not Boxer's dream.
Oh, he also wrote some SC strategy guides. They're pretty hilarious to read. Obviously they're extremely dated now, but this is not his fault of course.
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
If you put Flash (375+ APM), Nada (375+ APM,) Casy (375+ APM,) and Light (375+ APM) on a team melee team 1500+ APM, they still wouldn't be at the "maximum useful APM cap." The concept is incredibly stupid because not only are the vast majority of Starcraft players not there, but not even A rank players or B team players or S class players or four S class players on team melee on a slowest speed game have "maximum useful APM."
Sirlin wrote: Someone can make this argument, but I disagree with it. What these players are really saying is that they want a skill test in the game, which is fair enough, but they are also demanding that the test of skill be a specific skill test that they have all mastered. I think that's not only greedy and self-centred, but short sighted ― there are many ways to test a player's skill in a game like StarCraft, so why does it have to be a test of your ability to manipulate the interface?
Because Starcraft is a game that involves mechanical skill. If Sirlin had his way, Jaedong would be unable to five-pool D+ players to death. News flash: Starcraft is not a pure strategy game. Seriously, "players who think Starcraft II should have mechanical skill have all mastered the interface." Yeah, all TL members have A-class mechanics.
Hell, if Sirlin was in charge of things, Backho would lose to the majority of D- zergs on ICCUP.
tl;dr: Sirlin has no idea what the fuck he's talking about.
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
Exactly. This is also what makes me so angry about his reasoning. The whole point is that the "Maximum useful APM" is supposed to be an unreachable goal. It's supposed to be at least twice as high as what any human can perform. This makes time a resource in the game. Since you APM and attention can't be everywhere and do everything you want in the mid/lategame you will have to prioritize when you macro, which battles to focus on etc etc. THAT is a huge part of the skill that is Starcraft and that just went right past Sirlins face without him even blinking.
the thing that makes me really mad whenever this topic comes up is when the point is made "but it's a real time strategy game! its about strategy"
seriously, the logic is so fucking horrid. 'starcraft is an rts, but starcraft isnt enough of an rts, lets make starcraft more rts'. the genre comes last. i don't care what sirlin wants to call it, what box he wants to put it into. you don't assign a game a genre and then push it around so it fits your conception of that genre.
strategy is a component of starcraft. just becuase the word is in some description of a family of games somebody arbitrarily places starcraft in doesn't mean it should suddenly become the most important point of the game or any point at all for that matter. if strategy is not important enough then simply don't call it an rts, don't change the game!
starcraft is execution heavy. starcraft is an rts? rts' should not be execution heavy?? starcraft would be better if it wasnt execution heavy???
ok sirlin, you've made it clear what you think is ideal for an rts. fine. starcraft is not an rts then. kindly fuck off?
What these players are really saying is that they want a skill test in the game, which is fair enough, but they are also demanding that the test of skill be a specific skill test that they have all mastered. I think that's not only greedy and self-centred, but short sighted
It isn't a good point at all. He assumes that people advocate a difficult interface because they want there to be some skill involved in playing. That seems reasonable to me. But he also assumes that they want this 'test of skill' specifically because it's one they have already mastered. Why should this be? Why can't they prefer this just because it appeals to them? I am a godawful starcraft player and I would rather the interface remain unchanged. The ad-hominem at the end just looks like an attempt to villanize the high level players that (presumably) disagree with him.
If preferring a complex interface to increase the skill required to win is short-sighted, then what is the baseless assumption that this preference is advocated from a position of greed?
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
Exactly. This is also what makes me so angry about his reasoning. The whole point is that the "Maximum useful APM" is supposed to be an unreachable goal. It's supposed to be at least twice as high as what any human can perform. This makes time a resource in the game. Since you APM and attention can't be everywhere and do everything you want in the mid/lategame you will have to prioritize when you macro, which battles to focus on etc etc. THAT is a huge part of the skill that is Starcraft and that just went right past Sirlins face without him even blinking.
Sirlin aknowledged the fact that SC and SC2 will have different way of testing the skill of the player, he is just "wondering" why so many SC players want to keep having them in SC2 rather than fresh new ones based on a better interface.
Realize that even in a game like War3, kind of slow and macroless (true for a lot of MU) compared to SC and essentialy based on micro, Grubby and particulary Moon have been dominating the scene like no one in SC has ever been able to do so. Maybe with MBS and automine people will be able to focus their attention on more battles (it was nothing to do with the maximum unit selection, whatever), but why would it be necessarily bad ?
People wouldn't twiddle their thumbs, they will just focus their attention on different things, the maximum useful apm will remain unreachable. In the end what would differentiate the skill of the players will still be their multitasking and their macro/micro.
By the way, the notion itself of "maximum useful APM" is a non-sense, every move you make in a RTS is based on a certain anticipation thus probability, and those probabilities change each +epsilon time, the maximum useful APM is INFINITE, no matter what the RTS is.
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
Exactly. This is also what makes me so angry about his reasoning. The whole point is that the "Maximum useful APM" is supposed to be an unreachable goal. It's supposed to be at least twice as high as what any human can perform. This makes time a resource in the game. Since you APM and attention can't be everywhere and do everything you want in the mid/lategame you will have to prioritize when you macro, which battles to focus on etc etc. THAT is a huge part of the skill that is Starcraft and that just went right past Sirlins face without him even blinking.
Sirlin aknowledged the fact that SC and SC2 will have different way of testing the skill of the player, he is just "wondering" why so many SC players want to keep having them in SC2 rather than fresh new ones based on a better interface.
Realize that even in a game like War3, kind of slow and macroless (true for a lot of MU) compared to SC and essentialy based on micro, Grubby and particulary Moon have been dominating the scene like no one in SC has ever been able to do so. Maybe with MBS and automine people will be able to focus their attention on more battles (it was nothing to do with the maximum unit selection, whatever), but why would it be necessarily bad ?
People wouldn't twiddle their thumbs, they will just focus their attention on different things, the maximum useful apm will remain unreachable. In the end what would differentiate the skill of the players will still be their multitasking and their macro/micro.
A game with no macro isn't necessarily bad. Super Smash Brothers Melee doesn't have any macro and it's a perfectly fine game. It's simply not what we're looking for in Starcraft II. We actually *like* macro so we want to keep it in the game. Would you try to minimize the amount of micro players have to do? No? Then why try to reduce macro at all in the first place? As for Warcraft III, we're not looking for Warcraft IV. We want Starcraft II. As a side note, as spectator sports, Starcraft blows Warcraft III out of the water.
On December 22 2009 15:32 TeWy wrote: Sirlin aknowledged the fact that SC and SC2 will have different way of testing the skill of the player, he is just "wondering" why so many SC players want to keep having them in SC2 rather than fresh new ones based on a better interface.
Realize that even in a game like War3, kind of slow and macroless (true for a lot of MU) compared to SC and essentialy based on micro, Grubby and particulary Moon have been dominating the scene like no one in SC has ever been able to do so. Maybe with MBS and automine people will be able to focus their attention on more battles (it was nothing to do with the maximum unit selection, whatever), but why would it be necessarily bad ?
It wouldn't necessarily be bad or good. It would shift the focus of the skill required possibly more towards the strategy aspect and away from the execution aspect. That alone doesn't say anything about the quality or enjoyability of the game, just that the game wouldn't be what it is right now. If people know that they prefer things the way they are now, why would they support a change?
By the way, the notion itself of "maximum useful APM" is a non-sense, every move you make in a RTS is based on a certain anticipation thus probability, and those probabilities change each +epsilon time, the maximum useful APM is INFINITE, no matter what the RTS is.
Could you elaborate on this? Even if there are an infinite number of options at every point in time, there aren't necessarily an infinite number of actions that need to be taken to play ideally. You can decide that a move is ideal given the situation, and make no changes to this until new information arises.
All of this is pointless of course because nobody is capable of reaching 'maximum useful APM', and hopefully this will be true in sc2 as well.
On December 22 2009 04:38 Severedevil wrote: This is documented proof that Sirlin knows nothing about RTS. What the fuck is 'maximum useful APM'? It's a pretend, bullshit, incoherent concept. Yes, you could arbitrarily impose Fighting Game Rules on Starcraft, so that every time you give an order or move the screen, you have to wait .2 to .5 seconds before you can do anything else. You could purposefully fuck up the interface for no reason at all, just so the phrase 'maximum useful APM' isn't Sirlin's worthless attempt to feign relevance.
You're confusing terms. He said Maximum Useful APM, not Maximum Usable APM. He isn't suggesting some kind of delay between commands. Rather, he's refering to the threshold where an increase in APM isn't useful. In a hypothetical situation where you're microing and macroing perfectly, any increase in APM would be pointless spamming that wouldn't improve your game at all. This threshold is fairly high in StarCraft, and what Sirlin means is that lower it would make it more accessible to a wider audience. Part of the way to do that is to make units behave more intelligently (Like the new Zergling Micro and automine) or through interface improvements (Like MBS).
Exactly. This is also what makes me so angry about his reasoning. The whole point is that the "Maximum useful APM" is supposed to be an unreachable goal. It's supposed to be at least twice as high as what any human can perform. This makes time a resource in the game. Since you APM and attention can't be everywhere and do everything you want in the mid/lategame you will have to prioritize when you macro, which battles to focus on etc etc. THAT is a huge part of the skill that is Starcraft and that just went right past Sirlins face without him even blinking.
Sirlin aknowledged the fact that SC and SC2 will have different way of testing the skill of the player, he is just "wondering" why so many SC players want to keep having them in SC2 rather than fresh new ones based on a better interface.
I didn't read the entire article I only read the quote in the OP. If he isn't complaining about what I'm talking about then I don't know what his point is. No one has been complaining about multiple unit selection since 2007.
Realize that even in a game like War3, kind of slow and macroless (true for a lot of MU) compared to SC and essentialy based on micro, Grubby and particulary Moon have been dominating the scene like no one in SC has ever been able to do so. Maybe with MBS and automine people will be able to focus their attention on more battles (it was nothing to do with the maximum unit selection, whatever), but why would it be necessarily bad ?
I'm not saying you need to keep time as a resource to keep the game competitive. There are different things that make a good wc3 players the same way that there are different things that make a good DDR or chess player.
I'm not against MBS or automine, what I'm against is moving towards a game where a player wouldn't have to choose which battles to focus on, when to make time for certain tasks. I'm against SC 2 coming to a place where you could have "ok" control of your entire army and all your bases throughout the game and where you basically don't have to make any such split second decisions of where to put you focus. If time/focus couldn't be considered a resource in SC2 then it would be a very different game from SC1 was and one of the core features of the game would be removed in the sequel.
People wouldn't twiddle their thumbs, they will just focus their attention on different things, the maximum useful apm will remain unreachable. In the end what would differentiate the skill of the players will still be their multitasking and their macro/micro.
Don't get me wrong, there will always be some parts of this left in the game. Even in a game that is slower than Starcraft its still impossible for a human to attain perfect play. There is however a huge difference between, for an example, Starcraft and Warcraft 3.
sirlin kinda has no idea what he is talking about. its like he purchased a readers digest on sc and is acting like he knows what every single sc player thinks, which as you can tell from his interview he has no fucking clue what he is talking about.
it weakens his argument when he compares games like sf hd remix and resident evil to starcraft .. it worries me that this man is a game designer. someone who compares some stupid flash card game they made to a collectible card game like magic the gathering couldn't possible have more than 5 brain cells. he says magic the gathering is evil, and his argument is? "You basically have to buy your way into power" yah? no shit. its a fucking collectible card game that has been around for 16 years. he criticized a business model that worked for 16 years, one of if not the longest living card games in existence and compared it to what? his fucking flash card game? am i being trolled?
On December 22 2009 15:32 TeWy wrote: By the way, the notion itself of "maximum useful APM" is a non-sense, every move you make in a RTS is based on a certain anticipation thus probability, and those probabilities change each +epsilon time, the maximum useful APM is INFINITE, no matter what the RTS is.
Not that this really matters but the value wouldn't be infinite. By the loosest definition of "maximum useful APM" that I can imagine. The number of actions that would actually do something in the game i.e. not selecting a group 1000 times every frame or issuing the exact same command multiple times each frame or issuing different commands that cancel each other before they are executed. Then a simple version of the value would be (average number of possible action in each frame) * (number of frames in that particular game) / game length in seconds. By frame I mean each cycle where starcraft takes new input from the user.
Of course what we should mean by "maximum useful APM" would be the subset of those actions that are actually helping us win the game which is just a small fraction. Even this is a huge value that no player would ever get close to. You can view the useful APM as a logarithmic function where increasing the input early on has great affect on the output but later on it has very little effect. Having 100 APM instead of 50 is a huge difference but having 950 instead of 900 probably makes very little difference. What I meant and what I think Sirlin meant wasn't that exact APM. The value I'm interested in is the point where the curve starts straightening out, where an increase in useful APM stops mattering that much. Not that that point could be defined, but I don't want anyone to ever get close to it and I think that Sirlin believes people have already reached it.
I think arguing for a really low skill (mechanics) ceiling in Sc2 is like saying soccer was a better game if all players had exactly the same body, because it'd be less about dexterity and more about strategy then. But, frankly, soccer - unlike Go or Chess - doesn't possess enough strategic depth to be still interesting when all players got the same mechanics, and neither does StarCraft. And I think this has got inherently to do with the basic principles of StarCraft and is not a flaw. If you take a look at Chess or Go, the prime examples for purely strategic games, there is one important difference regarding how you deal damage: In Chess, you can beat a bishop with a bishop without getting a scratch on yours. In StarCraft, if you send a marine against a marine, you end up with a 5hp marine. There is no way around this. While in Chess an advantage is achieved through careful strategic planning - because otherwise you will lose your own bishop, too - it is in StarCraft achieved through having more units or through micro that ain't easy to pull off (e.g. stacked mutalisks vs. m&m's) in most cases - which are exactly the most apm-heavy goals to accomplish. Of course there are also aspects like unit placement (flanking) and army composition involved, which one would call rather strategic choices. But to hope that there would even be the possibility to create an RTS that resembles SC, but in which a player's skill is defined solely through the latter and that is still enjoyable and as interesting as chess, imho is blue-eyed at best. + Show Spoiler [some examplifying war3 bashing] +
Somebody mentioned War3 and I think it might serve as a very fitting example for what I'm trying to say. There were very good players, and there still are. Though Moon was said to have quite impressive APM, I think the whole game could be seen as laid out way more strategically than SC - low mechanic requirements (fewer things to do and more time to pull it off), but many, many choices: On paper, the sheer amount of items, mercenaries and heroes should make for a very "deep" game, should'nt it? I certainly think so. But it's too simple. War3 isn't chess. Everything's been figured out. Though I'm certain, dominant players still constantly outsmart their opponents in subtle mind-games that allow them to always fight in the favorable position etc., there is no real beauty in that.
In the end, it's units hitting each other. There is thinking involved as to which of your own units should best hit which of our enemies units at a given time, but, unlike real strategic games, it doesn't go any further, at least not in a noticeable way. And that's why, when you don't have to divert your actions, because you can do everything easily, things get stale in a game like this, in a game, where there is no hitting without being hit.
So Browder got it right, while Sirlin didn't. Of course, the best way to add more clicks, without making the game look like a forced clickfest, is, like everyone here already knows, the addition of recurring choices (like in the macro mechanics) rather than the addition of recurring tasks (like sending your workers to mine).
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.
The ideal to which competitive computer games should aspire is strategic depth unmitigated by interface limitations. This means I should be able to perform anything I can think of within the rules. Wanting the goal to be something besides perfect control is just a backwards attitude.
If you want a game to also be a sport, by which I mean that part of the skill is athletic performance beyond what your mind alone can do, why would you advocate something arbitrarily bad like a unit selection cap, which makes more busy work to do what you want within the game? If you could choose any bodily feat, why choose clicking a mouse? That is not inherently matched to strategic thinking, it just happens to be the best-choice optimization of technology ten years ago.
Sirlin may not know very much about Starcraft or appreciate it, but his point is valid in a larger sense than you guys take it, even if it rubs you the wrong way.
On December 21 2009 15:38 maybenexttime wrote: As usual, he doesn't even bother to try to understand what we're actually arguing for. I had little respect for him to start with, but now I have even less.
Somebody please explain what the other side is arguing for.
Could somebody link me to a thread from so 2007 where this might be elucidated?
On December 22 2009 18:13 EatThePath wrote: The ideal to which competitive computer games should aspire is strategic depth unmitigated by interface limitations.
no. seriously. that is what you want. there is no reason it has to be that way.
i don't think anybody disagrees that fps' are a mix of mechanical skill and tactics/strategy. i'm pretty sure nobody thinks it should be any other way. or maybe you're advocating built-in aimbots?
why should starcraft be any different? oh, because it has the word strategy in the genre and randoms who don't even play the game are convinced they would if only they could 'out think' their opponents.
there is no way starcraft is deep enough to survive without mechanics, it is not nearly deep enough and no other 'rts' is or will be, at the very least while the current stock rts template is followed. starcraft is, by a ridiculous margin, the most successful 'rts' ever as an esport. to suggest it's doing it wrong and a sirlin and a bunch of casuals hold the key to taking sc2 to the next level is frankly laughable. protip: there have been loads of mechanically easy rts' since the release of starcraft. where are they now? are you going to argue its the strategic depth of starcraft that allowed it to succeed where they all failed?
ps. the idea that mechanics are in the way of you executing your brilliant strategy is a horribly one-sided way of looking at it.
pps. people aren't really talking about a unit selection cap, apart from in the context of sirlin bringing it up disingenuously to discredit people who believe mechanics are a vital part of the game. educate yourself. it is pretty insulting to enter a thread, tell everybody how it should be, then ask what they're talking about. you could try searching for "MBS" to start.
On December 22 2009 18:40 Lachrymose wrote: there is no way starcraft is deep enough to survive without mechanics
Of course the wow factor of pro gamers' superlative mechanical feats helps a game be worth televising. I'm not sure how you're evaluating how deep the game is though. Lots of other things are factors in Starcraft's success, anyway, like the evocative universe and feel of it.
ps. the idea that mechanics are in the way of you executing your brilliant strategy is a horribly one-sided way of looking at it.
Why? That's why I wrote the paragraph about sport. Why did you just rant instead of respond?
pps. people aren't really talking about a unit selection cap, apart from in the context of sirlin bringing it up disingenuously to discredit people who believe mechanics are a vital part of the game. educate yourself. it is pretty insulting to enter a thread, tell everybody how it should be, then ask what they're talking about. you could try searching for "MBS" to start.
Which is why I asked. Sorting through flamey TL threads is slow going. I appreciate the motivation for the vitriol at Sirlin when you put it like that, so thanks. I don't mind being insulting on the internet if it gets people to change their minds when they read the truth™.
edit: This is all in the context of design principles and philosophies, not the way Starcraft 2 should turn out actually really. I view that as passé and out of my hands anyway, right? Besides, Starcraft "isn't that game", I agree. My point is to defend Sirlin's larger correct point. But now I see he's being unnecessarily snobby. He isn't saying you should dumb things down to a grandma APM status. You should make the controls as good as possible for the game you have so that busy work APM is minimized. That's all.
On December 22 2009 18:40 Lachrymose wrote: there is no way starcraft is deep enough to survive without mechanics
Of course the wow factor of pro gamers' superlative mechanical feats helps a game be worth televising. I'm not sure how you're evaluating how deep the game is though. Lots of other things are factors in Starcraft's success, anyway, like the evocative universe and feel of it..
I don't think there's actually a large audience gathered because of "the evocative universe and feel of it". Those might be benefiting aspects, but I doubt anyone would come to cling to a game like SC because of these points. That's hardcore RPGs we're speaking of, where the flair takes precedence over gameplay.
Point being, the only reason watching people play chess is impressive, is how they sometimes think a dozen turns in advance and pull of astonishing plays like sacrificing both rooks, a bishop and a queen and then winning with the three remaining minor pieces. In SC, you sacrifice one of your expansions for a doom drop into your opponent's mainbase and that's it. It doesn't get any deeper. Hence, if everybody was able to pull off everything he could think of, pro-SC'd be just plain boring for the most part. Unfixable. You know how many openings there are in chess in comparison to SC? I'm afraid I can't pinpoint quite why this is, yet, but I don't see a way for SC to become some kind of real-time chess, where mechanics would be equally non-existant while the gameplay would be equally deep.
If you want a game to also be a sport, by which I mean that part of the skill is athletic performance beyond what your mind alone can do, why would you advocate something arbitrarily bad like a unit selection cap, which makes more busy work to do what you want within the game?
Well, I already addressed this point, saying ideally there should always be a choice involved, so there will be a reason why you don't want the AI to do it.
On December 22 2009 18:13 EatThePath wrote: The ideal to which competitive computer games should aspire is strategic depth unmitigated by interface limitations. This means I should be able to perform anything I can think of within the rules. Wanting the goal to be something besides perfect control is just a backwards attitude.
This almost looks cut and pasted from Sirlin's book. Why should this be the ideal to which competitive computer games, or any games at all, aspire? This is 100% Sirlin's opinion of how games should be. It is the unprovable linchpin that he bases all of his game theory on. Many people, possibly the majority of people that play computer games and certainly the majority of people that enjoy starcraft also value the ability to execute strategy mechanically. The goal is still perfect control, the difference is that starcraft doesn't give it to you as a baseline - you attempt to achieve it personally.
Honestly, I try not to let my biases of Sirlin affect my opinion of what he writes, but it really just irks me that he says things like this with the background of being the 'move spammer' street fighter player. He comments again and again in his blogs and book about how he isn't as mechanically capable as other professional SF players, therefore valuing strategy over execution. This just colors all of his literature for me. It's an oversimplification, but it feels like he always wants to eliminate the physical aspects of gameplay just because he isn't as adept at them.
It is not actually the skill ceiling that has been lowered. It is more accurate to say that the skill floor level has been raised. Lower skilled players will be better. But higher skilled players will still require and use as much skill as SC1 takes, just in different areas of the game, and not all of them micro orientated.
The gap between a noob and a pro is not smaller. It's just that the noob is actually able to play the game.
Chess is a useful analogue, say if you were trying to explain to a complete outsider about the general dynamics of a game of starcraft. But it's so much different than the RTS genre in many important ways. I could go on and on so I think further discussion re: chess/sc should be moved elsewhere, but briefly...
The biggest two things from a game mechanisms (as in design), NOT game-playing perspective:
-Starcraft is a game of imperfect information, which comes out more in the moment to moment tactics than the strategy, but chess has perfect gamestate information.
-Chess is solvable. Starcraft is not because it isn't quantized, in time, space, and more generally number of possible gamestates.
I find starcraft to be richer than chess in essence, which is a natural conclusion from how I'm looking at it because starcraft has more "moving parts". If you were able to control your units perfectly, starcraft would have an exhausting set of interactions based on an ongoing fight of harassment and unit positioning, while trying to see what the opponent was doing and nullifying their threats.
There would be more perceived openings for starcraft if any given unit could be considered a game piece, as opposed to armies of certain compositions and sizes. This would make sense in a world of perfect micro, where each unit gives you a stream of choices.
I want interfaces and AIs that let you control your game pieces with the least busy work, not make decisions for you. For instance, why can't starcraft have troop formation commands? It's just dumb that I have to line up dragoons manually. That doesn't reduce my choices, it expands what I can feasibly do. I see MBS and UUS in the same way.
I realized how I can phrase this, and I think it really clarifies a lot of these arguments. When I play a game, the fun and competition comes from interacting with the opponent. I don't see "macro" in starcraft as part of interacting with the opponent. However, army composition is part of interaction, and it is facilitated by macro; I want the macro shortcutted so I can just do army composition with the least fuss, so I can interact, not play real-time solitaire.
edit: @TPS - Well I was careful to phrase what you quoted in the way that I did. Interfacing will always be a part of computer games, and so a part of the skill will be masterful interfacing with the game. I think it's absurd to intentionally include interface tasks when they naturally come up anyway, and will differentiate players no matter. I can see excepting this tenet if the interface tasks are particularly artful or cohesive with the vibe of the game, which quickly becomes subjective. :\ I guess I approach things from a more abstract direction, like a lot of designers will. I totally hear you about Sirlin. Defending the idea not the man.
On December 22 2009 17:01 a11 wrote: But, frankly, soccer - unlike Go or Chess - doesn't possess enough strategic depth to be still interesting when all players got the same mechanics, and neither does StarCraft.
And that's why, when you don't have to divert your actions, because you can do everything easily, things get stale in a game like this
This depresses me.
I'm with Sirlin. I would like to think that SC does have and SC2 will have sufficient strategic depth to not have to have pointless actions.
Also, if anything the 'extra clicks' that professionals have over the rest of us won't disappear. They will be diverted towards more useful things. If anything, I look forward to seeing even more extreme displays of micro.
On December 22 2009 21:33 DeCoup wrote: It is not actually the skill ceiling that has been lowered. It is more accurate to say that the skill floor level has been raised. Lower skilled players will be better. But higher skilled players will still require and use as much skill as SC1 takes, just in different areas of the game, and not all of them micro orientated.
This.
As much as I dislike Sirlin's blog, he is right imo that the cap on unit selection is just a gimicky, convoluted UI addition to force more clicks and that it is better game design, if having several small control groups results from players' choices, since it pays off in game (which up to a certain extent is the case in SC anyway). The case for MBS and automine is less clear however and that's probably why the discussion was/is so fierce about it. The want for mechanics is definitely legit in any sport/game, so the only decisive questions imo are: Does the "new" interface reduce the slope towards mechanical perfection too much or not? And if it is the case, are there no better ways to increase the slope again than an outdated interface? I personally think that Blizzard is on the right track with the macro mechanics, even though they still need work.
What I totally dislike about Sirlin's comment, is the lack of respect it shows with regard to Starcraft's hardcore player base. He wants to turn every game into a contest of wits, which - even though it is a central part of Starcraft - is and should not be what the game is all about.
Btw. what happened to the interesting grammar discussion from page 4? Maybe an own thread for the merits of semicolons would be in place?
On December 22 2009 22:05 EatThePath wrote: Chess is a useful analogue, say if you were trying to explain to a complete outsider about the general dynamics of a game of starcraft. But it's so much different than the RTS genre in many important ways. I could go on and on so I think further discussion re: chess/sc should be moved elsewhere, but briefly...
The biggest two things from a game mechanisms (as in design), NOT game-playing perspective:
-Starcraft is a game of imperfect information, which comes out more in the moment to moment tactics than the strategy, but chess has perfect gamestate information.
-Chess is solvable. Starcraft is not because it isn't quantized, in time, space, and more generally number of possible gamestates.
I find starcraft to be richer than chess in essence, which is a natural conclusion from how I'm looking at it because starcraft has more "moving parts". If you were able to control your units perfectly, starcraft would have an exhausting set of interactions based on an ongoing fight of harassment and unit positioning, while trying to see what the opponent was doing and nullifying their threats.
There would be more perceived openings for starcraft if any given unit could be considered a game piece, as opposed to armies of certain compositions and sizes. This would make sense in a world of perfect micro, where each unit gives you a stream of choices.
I want interfaces and AIs that let you control your game pieces with the least busy work, not make decisions for you. For instance, why can't starcraft have troop formation commands? It's just dumb that I have to line up dragoons manually. That doesn't reduce my choices, it expands what I can feasibly do. I see MBS and UUS in the same way.
I realized how I can phrase this, and I think it really clarifies a lot of these arguments. When I play a game, the fun and competition comes from interacting with the opponent. I don't see "macro" in starcraft as part of interacting with the opponent. However, army composition is part of interaction, and it is facilitated by macro; I want the macro shortcutted so I can just do army composition with the least fuss, so I can interact, not play real-time solitaire.
edit: @TPS - Well I was careful to phrase what you quoted in the way that I did. Interfacing will always be a part of computer games, and so a part of the skill will be masterful interfacing with the game. I think it's absurd to intentionally include interface tasks when they naturally come up anyway, and will differentiate players no matter. I can see excepting this tenet if the interface tasks are particularly artful or cohesive with the vibe of the game, which quickly becomes subjective. :\ I guess I approach things from a more abstract direction, like a lot of designers will. I totally hear you about Sirlin. Defending the idea not the man.
Why do you approach these concepts from a design position based on game theory rather than a gameplay position based on experience? If gaming for most of my life has taught me anything, it's that your knowledge of a game and understanding of its mechanics is only as good as the time you invest in working with them. You can watch pro gamers play and criticize their strategic play as an amateur because you don't understand the strain of operating the interface - you haven't done it enough or at the proper level of play. When I was learning to play, I asked a lot of questions that occurred to me naturally with almost zero experience actually playing. Looking back at these, I see that they were generally regarding totally irrelevant aspects of gameplay. Without the experience of playing, I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, even though to the best I could figure I understood the game. In game theory, you have to work with a series of assumptions. It only bothers me when these assumptions are untempered by actual gameplay experience.
I wouldn't advocate the inclusion of something like troop formation controls in sc2. It shifts the game from being capable of controlling your army effectively to knowing when and how to hit the 'box formation' button. It shifts the game away from mechanical capability, but not necessarily towards strategy. Whether or not you want options like this depends on how you want to be tested by the game. And, it's a weak point but it always occurs to me, it makes seemingly simple feats that much less impressive when the game engine automatically does it for you. When I watch starcraft, I don't want to just be dazzled by the brilliance and strategy of the players, it's important to me to appreciate the mechanical control that they exert over the interface.
As for macro, it is unquestionably an interaction with the opponent. What you build and when you build it depends utterly on what you know about your enemy. That you can't physically see them is simply a byproduct of the imperfect information aspect of the game. What it sounds like you actually want is a system that provides you with more total information. I don't qualify any action that helps you win as 'busy work' - even if you aren't having a direct effect on your opponent by building a unit, you are determining the outcome of the game through your actions. By and large, I don't want these tasks to be left to an automatic interface, but there is a careful balance that makes a game better. For example, I like that starcraft has rally points. Without them, I might enjoy the game a tiny bit less. That doesn't mean that I feel that automining will make the game a tiny bit better, though. If I had to choose, I'd probably keep automining out. The fact that starcraft has such a careful balance of mechanics like these that appeal to me is really miraculous. For the most part, I'd just as soon see most of it stay the same.
EDIT: TeWy suggested the best APM was infinite. This is my response.
TeWy, that would be true if the space of a StarCraft game was continuous. That would be a sensible idealization, but it's not strictly true, as StarCraft transitions discreetly from time t to t+epsilon. What this means is that epsilon cannot be arbitrarily small, so we might as well call it 1. Thus, the number of things you can control at any moment is a finite sequence k(t). The maximum number of stuff you can do in an SC match lasting from t to T would thus be the sum from t to T of k(t), which you will find is very finite, and which we will call K(t).
k(t) itself is the apm/tick if "game ticks" are our units. Also, when you consider that you issue orders over longer periods of time, most of your units are already doing something every moment, so it would make sense to divide by some average "activity coefficient" a, which would be the ratio of units already in action. K(t)/a would be our total amount of actions, while k(t)/a would be our apm/tick, which is convertible to apm/minutes, and importantly enough, finite.
On December 22 2009 22:57 edahl wrote: EDIT: TeWy suggested the best APM was infinite. This is my response.
TeWy, that would be true if the space of a StarCraft game was continuous. That would be a sensible idealization, but it's not strictly true, as StarCraft transitions discreetly from time t to t+epsilon. What this means is that epsilon cannot be arbitrarily small, so we might as well call it 1. Thus, the number of things you can control at any moment is a finite sequence k(t). The maximum number of stuff you can do in an SC match lasting from t to T would thus be the sum from t to T of k(t), which you will find is very finite, and which we will call K(t).
k(t) itself is the apm/tick if "game ticks" are our units. Also, when you consider that you issue orders over longer periods of time, most of your units are already doing something every moment, so it would make sense to divide by some average "activity coefficient" a, which would be the ratio of units already in action. K(t)/a would be our total amount of actions, while k(t)/a would be our apm/tick, which is convertible to apm/minutes, and importantly enough, finite.
Pretty convoluted, but you're absolutely right. The notion of infinite useful APM is pretty ridiculous. If all my units have their orders and all my production structures are building, any "clicks" I do at that point are wasted spamming.
On December 22 2009 22:57 edahl wrote: EDIT: TeWy suggested the best APM was infinite. This is my response.
TeWy, that would be true if the space of a StarCraft game was continuous. That would be a sensible idealization, but it's not strictly true, as StarCraft transitions discreetly from time t to t+epsilon. What this means is that epsilon cannot be arbitrarily small, so we might as well call it 1. Thus, the number of things you can control at any moment is a finite sequence k(t). The maximum number of stuff you can do in an SC match lasting from t to T would thus be the sum from t to T of k(t), which you will find is very finite, and which we will call K(t).
k(t) itself is the apm/tick if "game ticks" are our units. Also, when you consider that you issue orders over longer periods of time, most of your units are already doing something every moment, so it would make sense to divide by some average "activity coefficient" a, which would be the ratio of units already in action. K(t)/a would be our total amount of actions, while k(t)/a would be our apm/tick, which is convertible to apm/minutes, and importantly enough, finite.
Starcraft transitions are not absolutely continuous that's true, we're on a computer, we might be limited by the engine etc... I was giving an answer to someone who believed that the "maximum useful apm" was not limited by the law of physics, which is wrong, and that it was around 1000 apm.
On December 22 2009 23:30 ComradeDover wrote:
Pretty convoluted, but you're absolutely right. The notion of infinite useful APM is pretty ridiculous. If all my units have their orders and all my production structures are building, any "clicks" I do at that point are wasted spamming.
You're obviously missing the point, re-read what I said and put more thoughts into it.
On December 22 2009 23:36 TeWy wrote: You're obviously missing the point, re-read what I said and put more thoughts into it.
I'm assuming we're talking about this:
On December 22 2009 15:32 TeWy wrote: By the way, the notion itself of "maximum useful APM" is a non-sense, every move you make in a RTS is based on a certain anticipation thus probability, and those probabilities change each +epsilon time, the maximum useful APM is INFINITE, no matter what the RTS is.
StarCraft is a game of imperfect information, with a fair amount of effort being devoted to seeing what your opponent is doing and in some cases hiding what you're doing. Because of this, your anticipations don't (Or shouldn't) change several times a second. Maximum useful APM is not infinite, although that ceiling is so high it's easy to imagine that it is infinite.
For example, If I'm playing as a Zerg against a turtling Terran, have overlords at all unoccupied expansions and key locations on the map, all my workers are working, all my larvae are morphing, I'm researching all the upgrades I want, and I have a lurker force moving out to contain (Say, on HBR, and I want to burrow at the spokes to delay his push), what else can I do? For the time being, my maximum usuable APM has peaked, and until some more units hatch, some more larvae come out, or my Terran opponent does something, my anticipations won't change.
Regarding maximum APM, if we call p(t) the number of actions performed at time t, we get the sum P(t) as our total actions performed (using the same notation as in the prev. post). Our average APtick would thus be P(t)/(T-t). Now, if you consider the fact that your input is sequential, it is reasonable to think that our max number of actions pr. tick is 1. Thus p(t) would be 1 if an action is performed at tick t, and 0 otherwise. Thus P(t) is bounded by the number of ticks in the game T-t=T if t=0. The number of minuteticks passed is m, so our max APM would be P(t)/m, with which it's just "plug and chug". Further specialization should be done by the time it actually takes to do things like form a box, etc.
We're talking about "math" and "statisics here", if some was checking and microing each of his unit individually each 0.1 rather than 0.01s, as a spectator you would see little difference for sure, however in terms of probability, it would be better to check them each 0.01sec and change their direction/action at this time, by a 0.00001% margin probably but it would still be an improvement.
Anyway, the "time" (and also "space") in a video game is not "continuous" as previously mentionned, therefore the APM can not be "infinite" stricto sensu, not to mention that our real limitation is our corpse so this discussion is kind of futile.
On December 23 2009 00:16 TeWy wrote: We're talking about "math" and "statisics here", if some was checking and microing each of his unit individually each 0.1 rather than 0.01s, as a spectator you would see little difference for sure, however in terms of probability, it would be better to check them each 0.01sec and change their direction/action at this time, by a 0.00001% margin probably but it would still be an improvement.
When you're talking about margins that small, they don't have much of an outcome on the game. I would be more worried about critters blocking your scouting path or something equally absurd than be worried trying to squeak out the 0.00001% improvement in my APM. It's simply not useful, and thus would go above and beyond the maximum -useful- APM. The theory stands.
On December 23 2009 00:16 TeWy wrote:Anyway, the "time" (and also "space") in a video game is not "continuous" as previously mentionned, therefore the APM can not be "infinite" stricto sensu, not to mention that our real limitation is our corpse so this discussion is kind of futile.
On December 23 2009 00:16 TeWy wrote: We're talking about "math" and "statisics here", if some was checking and microing each of his unit individually each 0.1 rather than 0.01s, as a spectator you would see little difference for sure, however in terms of probability, it would be better to check them each 0.01sec and change their direction/action at this time, by a 0.00001% margin probably but it would still be an improvement.
Anyway, the "time" (and also "space") in a video game is not "continuous" as previously mentionned, therefore the APM can not be "infinite" stricto sensu, not to mention that our real limitation is our corpse so this discussion is kind of futile.
By the previous assumption that you can only perform one action pr. tick, P(t) is still bounded by T. I think there are something like 8 distinct directions that anything can actually move in StarCraft, and in general your choices from t to t+1 are very limited, so margins like 0.000001% do not exist, but I get your point. EDIT: I just think the discreet case is more interesting, because with that you can shave off actions quite generously. We now know that P(t) is bounded by T for instance.
On December 22 2009 22:22 theSAiNT wrote: Also, if anything the 'extra clicks' that professionals have over the rest of us won't disappear. They will be diverted towards more useful things. If anything, I look forward to seeing even more extreme displays of micro.
Why are those "extreme displays of micro" of any interest to you as a spectator, when you can execute them all easily yourself in every match you play, like EatThePath demands it when he speaks of "a world of perfect micro"?
On December 22 2009 22:05 EatThePath wrote: I find starcraft to be richer than chess in essence, which is a natural conclusion from how I'm looking at it because starcraft has more "moving parts". If you were able to control your units perfectly, starcraft would have an exhausting set of interactions based on an ongoing fight of harassment and unit positioning, while trying to see what the opponent was doing and nullifying their threats.
There would be more perceived openings for starcraft if any given unit could be considered a game piece, as opposed to armies of certain compositions and sizes. This would make sense in a world of perfect micro, where each unit gives you a stream of choices.
I'd rather think SC would then be solved far earlier than chess. In a world of perfect micro, a certain fight is either always won or never, in any given situation. And then I think there would easily come a timing push that is unstoppable. And when you fix that one, there will immediately come another one. In SC as it is, the strength of timing pushes is ultimately balanced through the the micro mechanics needed to succeed with it. Well - because SC is a game of incomplete information - the only other aspect would be luck and mindgames: Will my opponent do a build this push wins against or one where it fails against? Like rock/paper/scissors. No tension for the spectator.
But I can see what kind of gameplay you might actually have in mind, but then again I think it will still bear mechanical limitations. You speak of "an exhausting set of interactions based on an ongoing fight of harassment" and I imagine the guy who can multitask more harassments and micro them more effectively to win. You could control the game without an interface right through your mind and still be outpaced - but it gets less noticeable and hence less impressive. And at this point, in my opinion, something near the current state is more desirable, where you can be impressed by a variety of things: Amazing micro feats, huge armies macroed out of nowhere, cute mindgames, etc.
ps: Yeah, that's basically two opposing points I made here, depending on how you understand "perfect micro".
On December 23 2009 00:41 InFiNitY[pG] wrote: this is kind of OT, but I just need to say that I hate that cl sometimes looks like a small D
On December 23 2009 01:31 a11 wrote: Why are those "extreme displays of micro" of any interest to you as a spectator, when you can execute them all easily yourself in every match you play
By definition, those are the displays of micro which CANNOT be easily executed in every match you play.
They are often the clutch points of battles and draw the greatest admiration from spectators.
Perfect split of 20 scourges in ZvZ? 10 carrier lockdowns? Hero dragoon holding off a bunker rush?
If SC2 games have more situations like that because the interface doesn't artificially hinder players, then all the better.
Well, you seem to have intentionally cut off the part of the sentence that even made it an argument: Since you were quoting me on a reply to EatThePath, I assumed you were with him. Now you seem to disagree with yourself, saying (indirectly) AI should be enhanced, while you list a "perfect split of 20 scourges" as a micro feat - but the scourges will automatically split with enhanced AI. That's what the whole argument is about. The whole reason, Boxer's lockdowns are so impressive, is that they are not easy to pull of. In Dune, moving 24 units simultaneously is impressive - in SC, no one cares.
I'd rather think SC would then be solved far earlier than chess. In a world of perfect micro, a certain fight is either always won or never, in any given situation. And then I think there would easily come a timing push that is unstoppable. And when you fix that one, there will immediately come another one. In SC as it is, the strength of timing pushes is ultimately balanced through the the micro mechanics needed to succeed with it. Well - because SC is a game of incomplete information - the only other aspect would be luck and mindgames: Will my opponent do a build this push wins against or one where it fails against? Like rock/paper/scissors. No tension for the spectator.
Basically perfect execution would turn the game into a turn-based game in a theoretic sense. But I dont know how you could prove that a turn-based game with hidden info would be easier to solve than one with full information. Chess is solvable whereas hidden information game turns into a game of odds when the perfect strategies are figured out (but thats way farther down the road than just the execution which just brought us into this turnbased-like state). And a game of odds can still be interesting, its not necessarily just rps. And if you figure all the valid things to do on some map - switch the map.
But there wouldnt come some unstoppable build, or if there is its due to racial/map imbalance (which is definitely there though). Defending is always easier than attacking if you know what to prepare for.
On December 23 2009 02:38 a11 wrote: Well, you seem to have intentionally cut off the part of the sentence that even made it an argument: Since you were quoting me on a reply to EatThePath, I assumed you were with him. Now you seem to disagree with yourself, saying (indirectly) AI should be enhanced, while you list a "perfect split of 20 scourges" as a micro feat - but the scourges will automatically split with enhanced AI. That's what the whole argument is about. The whole reason, Boxer's lockdowns are so impressive, is that they are not easy to pull of. In Dune, moving 24 units simultaneously is impressive - in SC, no one cares.
To be fair SC1 has a lot of "look how dumb those scourge are 10 dropships just flew right past them!" moments, and dragoon AI is especially bad. But how will, say, lockdown, or making concaves, or using pylons/overlords as decoy targets, or any of the other micro we love in SC1 be easier?
ITT: People who don't know anything about Game Design argue against a proven professional.
Also ITT: People de-rail the topic to a crude representation of APM via statistics and math.
Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Ultimately, this is the truth. I am no expert on SC pro's but from what I understand Boxer had fairly low APM and Boxer was the best.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: ITT: People who don't know anything about Game Design argue against a proven professional.
Also ITT: People de-rail the topic to a crude representation of APM via statistics and math.
Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Ultimately, this is the truth. I am no expert on SC pro's but from what I understand Boxer had fairly low APM and Boxer was the best.
Yes but even Boxer performed a million 'useless' clicks a game. The problem with the useful vs useless clicks argument is that it is based completely on game theory and not human physiology. One one hand you have the theory that selecting your probe and clicking 170 times while it travels in a straight line to the locaion you will create a pylon is useless clicks. You only needed one click to travel that straight line. The other side of the argument is that when shit goes down and you need your high apm to be fluid, controlled and precise. Going from 25 click a second performing 'useful' actions to 250 when your attacking and being counterattacked all at once would not be fluid, your internal timing would not be quick and steady, and the mussels in your arms and hands would be under more stress comparitivley. The reason people make so many 'useless' clicks is that they are getting to a point where they are performing a steady even number of clicks per second and allowing their brain and body to attain a state of focus at that level, as well as a form of warm up for their mussles. Unless you take non-game mechanics into account the 'useless clicks' argument is flawed.
On December 23 2009 02:38 a11 wrote: Well, you seem to have intentionally cut off the part of the sentence that even made it an argument: Since you were quoting me on a reply to EatThePath, I assumed you were with him. Now you seem to disagree with yourself, saying (indirectly) AI should be enhanced, while you list a "perfect split of 20 scourges" as a micro feat - but the scourges will automatically split with enhanced AI. That's what the whole argument is about. The whole reason, Boxer's lockdowns are so impressive, is that they are not easy to pull of. In Dune, moving 24 units simultaneously is impressive - in SC, no one cares.
To be fair SC1 has a lot of "look how dumb those scourge are 10 dropships just flew right past them!" moments, and dragoon AI is especially bad. But how will, say, lockdown, or making concaves, or using pylons/overlords as decoy targets, or any of the other micro we love in SC1 be easier?
Well smart-cast will make lockdowns easier at least. Select your group of 10 ghosts and L click L click L click.
On December 23 2009 02:38 a11 wrote: Well, you seem to have intentionally cut off the part of the sentence that even made it an argument: Since you were quoting me on a reply to EatThePath, I assumed you were with him. Now you seem to disagree with yourself, saying (indirectly) AI should be enhanced, while you list a "perfect split of 20 scourges" as a micro feat - but the scourges will automatically split with enhanced AI. That's what the whole argument is about. The whole reason, Boxer's lockdowns are so impressive, is that they are not easy to pull of. In Dune, moving 24 units simultaneously is impressive - in SC, no one cares.
To be fair SC1 has a lot of "look how dumb those scourge are 10 dropships just flew right past them!" moments, and dragoon AI is especially bad. But how will, say, lockdown, or making concaves, or using pylons/overlords as decoy targets, or any of the other micro we love in SC1 be easier?
Well smart-cast will make lockdowns easier at least. Select your group of 10 ghosts and L click L click L click.
I don't have a problem with smartcast if it's just that. I'd only be against it if it was the AI casting something other than a buff (like Bloodlust, not D-Matrix) or a heal automatically.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: ITT: People who don't know anything about Game Design argue against a proven professional.
It's not so much that I say he's wrong trying all that macro mechanic stuff, but that given the arguments presented to refute it, it is probably not Blizzards time to rest just yet. We'll see in the Beta. Also, if you read the quote Archerofaiur restlessly quotes, you will see that it represents a rather shoddy argument, if an argument at all. However, I've come to the conclusion that IdrA's advice is probably learnt the hard way. A conclusion reinforced by aaiur's belief that "I don't know how to refute that" is equivalent to "addressing the argument".
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Also ITT: People de-rail the topic to a crude representation of APM via statistics and math.
When someone says the max APM in a game is infinite, my discreet mathematics senses start to tingle. *shrug*
EDIT: I might add that ultimately, it seems to me that an esport friendly game should be the ultimate manifestation of the players reasoning OUTSIDE the game. In game, it is simply execution and adaption based on things the player is already comfortable with.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: ITT: People who don't know anything about Game Design argue against a proven professional.
Also ITT: People de-rail the topic to a crude representation of APM via statistics and math.
Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Ultimately, this is the truth. I am no expert on SC pro's but from what I understand Boxer had fairly low APM and Boxer was the best.
As if Sirlin being a professional game designer makes his opinions immune to fault. Don't use ethos to defend a logically flawed argument.
And arguing against a proven professional? Starcraft is far more popular, far more profitable, and supports are larger pool of skilled player than any of the SF series and especially Sirlin's little pet game. Yet, at the end of every paragraph he writes on starcraft (after he repeatedly proves his ignorance regarding it), he tacks on a nice little ad-hominen against professional starcraft players. How is this not taking a stance against far more 'proven' gaming individuals?
Ultimately, this is the truth.
The arrogance associated with the concept that games 'should' be 100% strategy is astounding and unsettling. So it's what Sirlin likes. So what? People that enjoy starcraft like to be tested in terms of mechanical capability as well. We get that Sirlin doesn't like that. I don't personally care why that is, but that he feels the need to bust into a game with so many gaps in his understanding and declare that the game would be 'better' if we took out the benefit of APM just makes him look ignorant.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Ultimately, this is the truth.
Why, because you say so?
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Ultimately, this is the truth.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Ultimately, this is the truth.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: this is the truth.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: the truth.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: truth.
Did I do it right?
Truth has nothing to do with what I say and the Truth is objective. Statistically, you and 99% of the people on these forums will disagree with that axiom.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Assertion 1: Basketball is a game.
Assertion 2: Dribbling is a repetitive task that requires skill but no thought.
Conclusion: Dribbling should be removed from basketball.
Games are skill-driven. Not all of them are thought-driven (hell, most of them aren't). Why is that a bad thing?
Truth has nothing to do with what I say and the Truth is objective. Statistically, you and 99% of the people on these forums will disagree with that axiom.
The truth is true because it's the truth. Thanks for confirming that you're either trolling or mentally handicapped.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Assertion 1: Basketball is a game.
Assertion 2: Dribbling is a repetitive task that requires skill but no thought.
Conclusion: Dribbling should be removed from basketball.
Games are skill-driven. Not all of them are thought-driven (hell, most of them aren't). Why is that a bad thing?
The issue here is one of what you want your games to test. Personally I do not want RTSs or fighting games to test my dexterity for the sake of doing so; I want every action to have a decision behind it (hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made). Many people disagree, and I don't see how you can say one group is right and the other wrong.
As for basketball, well, I don't like basketball in the first place, but my understanding is basketball is supposed to test physical skills as well as decision-making. By eliminating dribbling you make basketball less a test of physical skills. Automine does not make Starcraft any less a test of decision-making.
On December 23 2009 10:00 crate wrote: The issue here is one of what you want your games to test. Personally I do not want RTSs or fighting games to test my dexterity for the sake of doing so; I want every action to have a decision behind it (hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made). Many people disagree, and I don't see how you can say one group is right and the other wrong.
That's my point.
I directed the post at Jazriel because he postfixed that statement with "ultimately this is the truth". Obviously it can't *just* be the truth if it takes true premises and leads them to a questionable conclusion.
On December 23 2009 07:14 Jazriel wrote: Every click should count. Every click should put one player one step closer to defeating the enemy. All what Sirlin argues against is that repetitive tasks should be replaced because there is no though involved. Skill, sure. Many thoughtless things require skill. Sirlin is simply an advocate that a game should be a pure extension of a player's reasoning.
Assertion 1: Basketball is a game.
Assertion 2: Dribbling is a repetitive task that requires skill but no thought.
Conclusion: Dribbling should be removed from basketball.
Games are skill-driven. Not all of them are thought-driven (hell, most of them aren't). Why is that a bad thing?
The issue here is one of what you want your games to test. Personally I do not want RTSs or fighting games to test my dexterity for the sake of doing so; I want every action to have a decision behind it (hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made). Many people disagree, and I don't see how you can say one group is right and the other wrong.
As for basketball, well, I don't like basketball in the first place, but my understanding is basketball is supposed to test physical skills as well as decision-making. By eliminating dribbling you make basketball less a test of physical skills. Automine does not make Starcraft any less a test of decision-making.
The argument would be that by removing the task of dribbling you can theoretically free players up to improve strategic thinking. It's the same argument that people who advocate automining use when they say that you can use those clicks to work on more 'important' aspects of gameplay. It just shifts the game on the mechanical capability - strategic capability spectrum. Where anyone thinks the game should rest on that spectrum is totally subjective.
Sirlin's right. Deal with it outdated SC players. When you look at his arguement from an objective viewpoint it becomes so incredibly obvious that he's right and things like a unit selection limit, That mineral harvesting thing you SC players care so much about, and SBS hold RTSes back.
On December 23 2009 11:06 Mike941 wrote: Sirlin's right. Deal with it outdated SC players. When you look at his arguement from an objective viewpoint it becomes so incredibly obvious that he's right and things like a unit selection limit, That mineral harvesting thing you SC players care so much about, and SBS hold RTSes back.
You can say that they 'hold back' the strategic aspect of the game by forcing the player to focus more on mechanical control, but you can't say that it's a 'worse' game for it. From an objective viewpoint, he would prefer that the game test only your strategic thinking. That does not mean that the game would be better without the tests of dexterity that it entails right now. That just means that Sirlin would like it more.
Seriously, it's like he has some army of zombies that he's managed to make blind to the value of anything other than planning and thinking in competition.
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.
if you want pure strategy play chess
QFT
It's a "real time strategy" game not a strategy game. The difference is real time.
If you really can't tell the difference between a turn based strategy game from real time then I understand that you like all the clicking, since thinking doesn't seem to be your strong side.
Seriously, comparing chess to starcraft just because blizz removes some clicking is the biggest kiddie QQ out there.
It's fine to add more clicking to put more emphasis on the physical attributes of a gamer (fast clicking, hand eye coordination to click each unit on screen etc). I prefer adding more emphasis on thought, the strategy part and less of clicking and like the direction of SC2.
But still to even go that far and say "go play chess" just goes to show that you completely lack the brain power so I understand that players like you like the clicking instead.
Starcraft as a management game is only entertaining for the teenager who doesn't know what tendonitis and arthritis are. What happens to the progamers in their late 20's? Do they just get stupid all of the sudden or is it because 400 apm 8 hours a day will destroy your hands?
Why not make the interface smart and add more things for the player to do. Perhaps some more strategic choices/actions to help him differentiate himself from weaker players even further. Rather then making the player click 10 times to make a dumb unit perform a simple action.
The worse thing in the world to me is an interface that doesn't allow you to do what you need to do in the moment. Think world of warcraft arena. Global cooldowns, stuns, spammable crowd control. Terrible setup for competative play.
Let blizzard make the interface good. Tell them instead to add more things for you to do. And if your fingers are hurting you should probably stop playing or cut down alot or you may regret it in the not so distant future.
Maximum useful APM is finite but beyond what any mortal can do. So drop it.
On December 23 2009 11:06 Mike941 wrote: Sirlin's right. Deal with it outdated SC players. When you look at his arguement from an objective viewpoint it becomes so incredibly obvious that he's right and things like a unit selection limit, That mineral harvesting thing you SC players care so much about, and SBS hold RTSes back.
Fuck these threads. It's like clowns emerge from the woodwork just to demonstrate that they are idiots who don't play Starcraft who nevertheless profess to know all about how RTSes should work.
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.
if you want pure strategy play chess
QFT
It's a "real time strategy" game not a strategy game. The difference is real time.
If you really can't tell the difference between a turn based strategy game from real time then I understand that you like all the clicking, since thinking doesn't seem to be your strong side.
Seriously, comparing chess to starcraft just because blizz removes some clicking is the biggest kiddie QQ out there.
It's fine to add more clicking to put more emphasis on the physical attributes of a gamer (fast clicking, hand eye coordination to click each unit on screen etc). I prefer adding more emphasis on thought, the strategy part and less of clicking and like the direction of SC2.
But still to even go that far and say "go play chess" just goes to show that you completely lack the brain power so I understand that players like you like the clicking instead.
Sirlin basically said that RTSes should not have a dexterity component. If you don't want any dexterity components, in short, Starcraft is not the game for you. "Go play chess" is a stupid one-line response but it's not exactly unwarranted since the assertion he was responding to was similarly stupid. Sirlin didn't say "I would prefer a game with more strategy and less dexterity," he said, "Starcraft II should have more strategy and less dexterity and people on disagree with me because they are selfish, stubborn, or stupid."
On December 23 2009 12:46 ManiacTheZealot wrote: Starcraft as a management game is only entertaining for the teenager who doesn't know what tendonitis and arthritis are. What happens to the progamers in their late 20's? Do they just get stupid all of the sudden or is it because 400 apm 8 hours a day will destroy your hands?
There are no new progamers above 25, so it's not carpal tunnel. It's age. And plenty of Starcraft players are not teenagers, but way to be be a condescending jackass in your first post.
On December 23 2009 12:46 ManiacTheZealot wrote: Why not make the interface smart and add more things for the player to do. Perhaps some more strategic choices/actions to help him differentiate himself from weaker players even further. Rather then making the player click 10 times to make a dumb unit perform a simple action.
I'm unaware of what unit requires ten clicks to perform a simple action.
On December 23 2009 12:46 ManiacTheZealot wrote: Let blizzard make the interface good. Tell them instead to add more things for you to do. And if your fingers are hurting you should probably stop playing or cut down alot or you may regret it in the not so distant future.
What are these "more things for you to do"? Propose some.
Jesus fucking Christ, if you think mechanical skill has no place in Starcraft or similar games, then Starcraft is not the game for you. It's really that fucking easy. Go play some other game that doesn't require mechanical skill. This is what you sound like: "Street Fighter is stupid! It's a fighting game, not an RTS, and I like RTSes. Therefore, Street Fighter sucks."
Emerald if you think you can just click like that all day with no ill effects you're wrong you will pay for it eventually trust me. I know. I'm not being condescending I'm trying to drive home my point so maybe someone will benefit from my post.
My APM is under 150, and I don't play Starcraft every day. I'm sure that for people who have 300+ APM and play ten hours a day every day for years may eventually cause damage to their hands but the people who do this are few and far between, and I'm pretty sure they know exactly what they're getting themselves into. And criticizing Starcraft because games that tend towards high APM put more strain on the hands which might have health effects down the road is a long way removed from what Sirlin was saying.
[[edit]] Also, if you are genuinely concerned about the health of people's hands and not one of Sirlin's mindless warrior drones, then I apologize for my harshness.
On December 23 2009 13:15 ManiacTheZealot wrote: Emerald if you think you can just click like that all day with no ill effects you're wrong you will pay for it eventually trust me. I know. I'm not being condescending I'm trying to drive home my point so maybe someone will benefit from my post.
Provide evidence instead of asking us to trust you. He already disproved your example that people tend to get out of sc progaming by 25 in pointing out that nobody gets in after 25 either.
I don't think they know what they're getting themselves into. 11 years ago I had no idea. And it takes very little to injure your hands on a keyboard especially over a long period of time. I think people should consider this before asking for more.
I experienced it first hand its not a baseless claim. If you don't want to believe me thats your choice. I know its a scary thought I can understand why you don't wanna believe me but its real it happens.
RSI is usually caused by shitty posture and/or shitty equipment. Not saying you can't hurt your joints, but in general. using a part of your body regularly will help rather than hinder it.
Ten hours a day is pretty excessive. Most people don't do that.
On December 23 2009 13:39 ManiacTheZealot wrote: I experienced it first hand its not a baseless claim. If you don't want to believe me thats your choice. I know its a scary thought I can understand why you don't wanna believe me but its real it happens.
Anecdote, even your own personal anecdote, is not proof. If it were then plane travel wouldn't be as safe as it is relative to cars.
I mean, my dad has been a programmer for years and years, since computers were becoming big and he and never had that problem. Only a bit of arthritis, actually. What then can we conclude about hand problems? They're more complicated than your fear mongering attitude lets on.
Also, as the Severe says improper hand posture and ergonomically bad equipment will indeed quickly destroy your hands if you let them.
My ego and penchant for clarification want me to say: In trying to have an honest discussion, my tactic of nuance may have lead to some misinterpretation of what I was saying. (If anyone cares). I didn't mean to say I'm against dexterity skill differentiation in competitive gaming. In reading posts and considering things I've grown to appreciate the perspective of the anti-Sirlins even more. My personal preference, including my own experience of these things (a justification of which is pointless if you won't just accept it), is that a player should be able to use dextrous skill to his advantage, but that the "sweet spot" is less repetitive tasks and more "interface actions" directly aligned with your strategic and tactical actions.
To give an example of what I mean and to address the ongoing disagreement... The relevant interactive aspects of "macro" are those including player decisions. The chief two that come to mind are the construction of your army and the pacing of economics, aka army composition and worker pumping. I was trying to acknowledge that "macro" is effectively interactive, but the task involves solitaire tasks. The interface we have in sc1 means in order to choose what army you are building, you must click all your gateways in succession every N seconds and hit a hotkey for a given unit. I understand that's the way it is, and some people are faster than others, and can keep multitask concentration better during macro. But the relevant part is choosing what units you build, if any, each round of production capacity throughout time. I think the interactive part is the important part, so if you could think it and it was so, that would be great. If you could think to yourself, "keep building workers until 30 per base on minerals, auto mine", I am fully in favour of that. Obviously that's impossible, so I want instead for the clicking and typing we do to be minimal, and to correspond to the task at hand as much as possible.
On a side note, I find comparisons to "natural sports" like soccer or basketball to be disingenuous, similar to serious comparisons to chess. Dribbling in basketball relates directly to the game mechanisms. If dribbling were removed, you're not just hypothetically emphasizing strategy at the cost of "macro" (as the analogy runs), you're fundamentally changing the game into ultimate frisbee-something--players now lack a huge chunk of the opportunity to steal the ball. So the comparison doesn't analogize in a useful way, ya know? In fact, the dexterity task of dribbling is intimately related to a game mechanism, in that your ability to dribble allows you to advance on the court, and you are liable to have the ball stolen. Your ability to shoot with good form is directly linked to scoring points without getting blocked. Training to leverage these skills into winning makes sense because they are inherently linked to how basketball works--in physical space. In starcraft, dexterity skills are artificially defined by the interface chosen and not particularly resonant with the interactive game elements they let you perform.
If anyone is still reading, thanks, and do you see what I'm saying? (TPS, a11) I see your guys' perspective and part of my heart is there, with much less fervor and ownership. Yes, if you take RTS in the direction I want it to go, you are losing some things, but I think you gain back at least much in essentially congruent areas. Lockdown feats might not impress because of smartcast, but the addition of AI and interface features will just move the bar for impressive control feats for pros to perform and everyone else to aspire to.
This discussion involves a subjective element I respect. I can see a proxy argument about soccer, something near and dear to my heart, involving legalizing the use of hands. I find that idea heretical of course. I don't think you gain significant profit by that "interface" change in the interest of accessibility. But in computer games I do think you gain significant profit in game richness by interface "improvement". I think this point can be argued but it becomes tedious in the face of saying it is based largely on subjective disagreement.
Incidentally, I think first person shooters with aimbots could be perfectly interesting, deep, and fun. And I'm a hardcore halo fan, so... ::braces for flaming::.
RTS defining fact is that they need (high) dexterity because it's real time? That’s the effect of *old* interfaces, insufficent input devices and other restrictions, not a direct effect of it being an RTS.
RTS defining fact is that they are real time, which means that you don't get *thinking* breaks, how much you get done is not only defined by your ressources but also by your "speed". Now, the interface of Starcraft is so bad, that this "speed" is a result, to the greater extend at least, of your dexterity and not your decision making/thinking (depending on the exact task naturally)...
This is not bad! But it also doesn't mean that it has to be like that for all RTS games or that it should be a defining trait of all RTS games or that we can be sure that it is a good thing. The problem here is, that SC/BW is better than any other RTS in nearly any other aspect and therefore does not compare well to games with *easyer/more modern/better* interfaces.
RTS are about "decisions (per minute)", not about about "actions or clicks (per minute)". You can't really raise the amount of decisions or actions someone makes whiteout also raising the required actions or decisions, but it's entirely up to the game design how many actions a *standard* decision needs.
It's RTS and therefore requireds (HIGH) dexterity = Wrong.
On December 23 2009 17:37 Velr wrote: I love Starcraft, but:
Some people here have strange arguments:
RTS defining fact is that they need (high) dexterity because it's real time? That’s the effect of *old* interfaces, insufficent input devices and other restrictions, not a direct effect of it being an RTS.
RTS defining fact is that they are real time, which means that you don't get *thinking* breaks, how much you get done is not only defined by your ressources but also by your "speed". Now, the interface of Starcraft is so bad, that this "speed" is a result, to the greater extend at least, of your dexterity and not your decision making/thinking (depending on the exact task naturally)...
This is not bad! But it also doesn't mean that it has to be like that for all RTS games or that it should be a defining trait of all RTS games or that we can be sure that it is a good thing. The problem here is, that SC/BW is better than any other RTS in nearly any other aspect and therefore does not compare well to games with *easyer/more modern/better* interfaces.
RTS are about "decisions (per minute)", not about about "actions or clicks (per minute)". You can't really raise the amount of decisions or actions someone makes whiteout also raising the required actions or decisions, but it's entirely up to the game design how many actions a *standard* decision needs.
It's RTS and therefore requireds (HIGH) dexterity = Wrong.
No, but the difference is the decisions in an RTS become organized and grouped as the player and game develops. Simple decisions over a minute like, making a zealot, making a dragoon, become clumped into a decision such as "bulldog". The actual decision the advanced player made during this time was really one decision, but the amount of actions and mastery required is different.
Reactionary decisions that are suppose to seem fast, such as a reaction to a marine rush of sort, are also impacted by this grouped decisions phenomenon. Instead of simply reacting to this in only one simple way, which is the effect on the decision to make zlots and dragoons, it also adds to the decisions encompassed in the "bulldog" decision, with effects like delay of timing, size of army, and economy.
The very key point in competitive starcraft was that each part of the greater decision "bulldog" required mastery and even such a simple strategy takes a certain amount skill and knowledge of the game to master. Each refining in small decision making and control eventually contributes to a greater success rate of the "bulldog". Effects to the extremes can be seen in the difference when a D player executes this and when an A player executes this.
Now to the point of simplifying the actions in making a simple decision, such as "make 5 zealots", what happens is you take away the full phenomenon of the grouped decisions effect, which in my opinion makes starcraft starcraft. The contributions of refining of each small action to the great decision becomes less, and the simple strategy becomes simpler. To put it to an extreme, eventually you get rock/paper/scissor: the basic game in which strategies need no refining through the smaller steps.
To the extent of the interface, it requires that the definition of interface be separated into the actual INTERFACE, as in what you see, and the CONTROL MECHANICS. Of the two I believe you are speaking about CONTROL MECHANICS, specifically MBS, AUTOMINE, other good(bad) stuff like that. As I said, it takes away fromt he full phenomenon of the grouped decisions process, which could only take away from the full potential of the game.
On December 23 2009 18:06 Creationism wrote: To the extent of the interface, it requires that the definition of interface be separated into the actual INTERFACE, as in what you see, and the CONTROL MECHANICS. Of the two I believe you are speaking about CONTROL MECHANICS, specifically MBS, AUTOMINE, other good(bad) stuff like that. As I said, it takes away fromt he full phenomenon of the grouped decisions process, which could only take away from the full potential of the game.
I understand the desire for that distinction, but what I'm saying doesn't include that; I mean both. I separate the gamespace and the abstracted actions possible within it, and our corporeal modes of enacting them. So however this pile of carbon builds 5 zealots, that is interfacing.
I appreciate that a lot of RTS strategy actually happens outside the game over the course of its life. The "supercomputer" of millions of people playing it and partially solving it. It's just an assumption though that the destination is a rock paper scissors metagame. It's also an assumption, btw, that starcraft is solvable. It's also an assumption that starcraft is balanced, or balanceable via things like mineral, gas, and time costs. By assumption I mean unproven, whereas chess is proven to be solveable, and has been partially solved. (For instance, it can be demonstrated that if white and black play optimally, black can force a draw.)
I think games are better when outside preparation to learn good strategies is balanced by having to think on the fly, be that in real time or turn based. I think starcraft as it stands would be dynamic enough with "ubercontrol" to deliver interesting in-game scenarios. I think tweaking it would elevate its dynamics. The streamlined-control tack of sc2 nudges the game in the direction of more involved small groups fighting (which is not nearly as bland-resultant, I feel, as some people have argued) and the two dimensional arm-wrestle between players of aggression and economic domination.
On December 23 2009 17:37 Velr wrote: I love Starcraft, but:
Some people here have strange arguments:
RTS defining fact is that they need (high) dexterity because it's real time? That’s the effect of *old* interfaces, insufficent input devices and other restrictions, not a direct effect of it being an RTS.
RTS defining fact is that they are real time, which means that you don't get *thinking* breaks, how much you get done is not only defined by your ressources but also by your "speed". Now, the interface of Starcraft is so bad, that this "speed" is a result, to the greater extend at least, of your dexterity and not your decision making/thinking (depending on the exact task naturally)...
This is not bad! But it also doesn't mean that it has to be like that for all RTS games or that it should be a defining trait of all RTS games or that we can be sure that it is a good thing. The problem here is, that SC/BW is better than any other RTS in nearly any other aspect and therefore does not compare well to games with *easyer/more modern/better* interfaces.
RTS are about "decisions (per minute)", not about about "actions or clicks (per minute)". You can't really raise the amount of decisions or actions someone makes whiteout also raising the required actions or decisions, but it's entirely up to the game design how many actions a *standard* decision needs.
It's RTS and therefore requireds (HIGH) dexterity = Wrong.
The only person talking about RTS in general was sirlin and his zombies. Everyone else was talking about StarCraft specifically and what makes it such a good game.
And if you followed the MBS discussions or any serious macro threads you'd realize that the consensus was that macro should require both tons of decision making and dexterity, so that you have to adapt a certain playstyle and acquire a rhythm.
On December 23 2009 18:06 Creationism wrote: To the extent of the interface, it requires that the definition of interface be separated into the actual INTERFACE, as in what you see, and the CONTROL MECHANICS. Of the two I believe you are speaking about CONTROL MECHANICS, specifically MBS, AUTOMINE, other good(bad) stuff like that. As I said, it takes away fromt he full phenomenon of the grouped decisions process, which could only take away from the full potential of the game.
I understand the desire for that distinction, but what I'm saying doesn't include that; I mean both. I separate the gamespace and the abstracted actions possible within it, and our corporeal modes of enacting them. So however this pile of carbon builds 5 zealots, that is interfacing.
I appreciate that a lot of RTS strategy actually happens outside the game over the course of its life. The "supercomputer" of millions of people playing it and partially solving it. It's just an assumption though that the destination is a rock paper scissors metagame. It's also an assumption, btw, that starcraft is solvable. It's also an assumption that starcraft is balanced, or balanceable via things like mineral, gas, and time costs. By assumption I mean unproven, whereas chess is proven to be solveable, and has been partially solved. (For instance, it can be demonstrated that if white and black play optimally, black can force a draw.)
I think games are better when outside preparation to learn good strategies is balanced by having to think on the fly, be that in real time or turn based. I think starcraft as it stands would be dynamic enough with "ubercontrol" to deliver interesting in-game scenarios. I think tweaking it would elevate its dynamics. The streamlined-control tack of sc2 nudges the game in the direction of more involved small groups fighting (which is not nearly as bland-resultant, I feel, as some people have argued) and the two dimensional arm-wrestle between players of aggression and economic domination.
The idea that Starcraft is "solvable" is only existant in theory-crafting, which is VERY different from the actual experience of the game. Rather than arguing based on assumption and future based points, such as SC2 being completely balanced and the transparency and the effectiveness of counter-strategies/units (which is something totally unpredictable), I am analyzing the flow dynamic of the game from the decision making effect and reaction effect of Starcraft now and what we have seen of SC2.
Whether or not the game will be retard-friendly like a dull edged scissor and get many buyers is not the point here, but rather the dynamics of the game, which you mention in your post. The dynamics of the game stem from the finesse in the contributions of each refined technique to the ultimate macro/mindgame/economic/game-wide decision. The dynamic can be seen in several different view, but I'm only going to touch on a few that comes to mind: Holistic/Game Knowledge dynamic, Reactionary dynamic, and Stylistic dynamic.
The contributions of pure knowledge and instinct about the game and how it factors into the outcome is the fabric of EVERY game, and therefore hard to specify in SC because it is so general. Some games excel at this point, others not so much.
But for the other two, simplied (or as some call it, "better", "new", "modern") interface/mechanics does actually take away from the depth of the game. The information about from a scout or the response to an attack should have an ripple effect on the flow of your game, even if the mental note is something as simple as, "I have to move out a minute earlier". The effect should be seen in the micro AND macro techniques of the game and player, reflecting the changes. By a simplifying change in SC2, it takes away from the process and much of the effect range. (I don't think I need to argue how it simplifies both macro and micro, so I'll jus skip it)
In a stylistic point, it takes away the dynamic from the range of players. I believe Nony phrased this in an adequate way in an interview a while back with Tasteless and Artosis. The mastery in techniques in microing and macroing define a player towards the strategy they will use. A player maybe less skilled in micro, and therefore cuts workers in the above scenario to achieve victory-assured amount of units. A player less skilled in macro will rely on his techniques in micro to break through and gain advantage that makes up for his lack. Not only this, but also in the units and strategies that evolve from the game.
Now whether simplifying the game is a good thing or a bad thing can be argued from many points and have on TL, but I really don't think that there could be any argument that the changes that were heavily protested takes away from the dynamics of the game.
RTS = needs high dexterity. Is just wrong. It doesn't matter about what RTS you think. Sirlin obviously takes a more general approach even if he names starcraft as an example. His stance is actually a good/interesting one, if you can create a really interesting RTS that comes down to a battle of "minds" then you achieved something really great. People would love it, I don't know if I would like such a game as much as Starcraft but chances are high that I would like it more than about any other RTS, except Starcraft, ever created.
You can design RTS to have a high dexterity demand, be it because you want it or not, back in the days it was forced because of various limitations (computer speed, input devices...), many of those limitations are gone now (CPU strenght), many are still here (input devices), some are still in because they are/seem to be fun.
Coming to Starcraft: I personally think that the decision to build X Zealots and X Dragoons is more important than being able to click all the gates as fast as possible. I don't like the really *mindless* clicks. Important is the knowledge to not miss the *beat* when your units finish and you should/could produce new ones. Btw: I actually really enjoy the feeling of clicking X buildings macroing my heart out ^^. I still don't think it is a really good part of the game and I for sure don't think it's what makes Starcraft so great. The first *MBS* implementation would have been horrible, I like how it is now.
I like unlimited unit selection. Moving an army from A to B = easyer/less tedious. Just dragging your full army at once and send them to battle = easyer, BUT it should never be better than splitting up your army and forcing surrounds/flanks on your enemy.
You often see Progamers still not being able to send big armies into battle in a *good* way (zergling conga...)... It's simply more important and easyer/less demanding(!) to actually send all your units into battle. Now you could let every unit run off at once and split them on the way like you want them instead of repeating the "A-Click" for X(X) times and being finished with that when the first units are allready in battle or accidentally forgetting to send in some stray units.
On a lower to mid/high skilled level this will most probably make for *better* games. And the control in the actual battle will probably become more important or at least moves more into the focus. I doubt this will make the skill ceiling to low.
@Creationism I don't like that you chose the Bulldog as an example. This strategy is mechanically pretty/very easy. Yes, it's another world when a D players does it compared to an A player. But even a simple 2 gate, 6 pool or whatever rush is something completely different when it's coming from an A, C+ or D player. Why? Because of "everything".. Most reasons have nothing to do with MBS or Unit-Selection. The A player is most likely just more spot on with his timing at every single stage and that’s not because of the APM diffrence. I'm pretty sure even on a 4 Pool the A player would have his Zerglings a few seconds faster in your base than a D player would.
Just fight 12 Probes controlled by an A player with 4 Zerglings and do the same against a D player... Chances are high that simple "Attack move" and very little engaging/disengaging will kill the D player while the same against the A player will let you look very retarded.
Or think about Corsair/Reaver... You are only handling 2 Groups of Units.. Corsairs and Shuttle/Reavers. Neither has more than 12 units in it (most likely). Macroing is also not that big of a part in that strategy initially). But still, it is frigging hard to pull off *right*, at least if your opponent is decent and wouldn't get screwed by a reaver drop anyway . There are miriads of other things that come into play... Clicking on your production buildings in this stage of the game is not that big of a deal (not physically), knowledge and micro are, both wouldn't become much easyer with MBS or army selection because the strategy is "small scale". After the transition into lategame and the transition itself are entirely different beasts.
Most half-decent players are physically totally capable of doing these build orders while not screwing up their macro. There are tons of small things that make the diffrence, the only thing that really would play in is probably automining (which I don't like, you should have to think of sending your workers to your minerals).
Btw: I'm no big fan of Sirlin, but people are way to buthurt when he says something you guys disagree, or critisizes someting... If he wouldn't take Stracraft as an example many of you would would probably complain that he took some shitty RTS as example and not the best there is.
Our conclusions about hypothetical things are different, so the separation of observed play and theorizing doesn't help either side. I don't follow you exactly but it seems you see simplified interfacing as limiting relevant agency, and I see it as expanding and refining relevant agency. I take the point that removing macro diminishes available viable styles, but that's a moving target anyway. So... I'm just going to stop because our assertions seem to be going right through each other.
On December 23 2009 20:22 Velr wrote: RTS = needs high dexterity. Is just wrong. It doesn't matter about what RTS you think.
Show me an RTS where dexterity doesnt give you a significant advantage, when players are very good at said game and about evenly matched in other respects. A game that you would be just as confident playing with a touchpad as with a mouse for example?
I dont think you can make an RTS that isnt also partly decided by mouse precision, at least if its not really simple and with extremely low unit counts. You cant change that by just making the UI better.
Also you dont need to be greatly dextrous to have fast apm, not in SC at least. For good apm you just need to know whats going on, pressing 0sz9sz or whatever once in awhile doesnt require too much handspeed its more about being aware that you gotta do it.
On December 23 2009 18:06 Creationism wrote: To the extent of the interface, it requires that the definition of interface be separated into the actual INTERFACE, as in what you see, and the CONTROL MECHANICS. Of the two I believe you are speaking about CONTROL MECHANICS, specifically MBS, AUTOMINE, other good(bad) stuff like that. As I said, it takes away fromt he full phenomenon of the grouped decisions process, which could only take away from the full potential of the game.
I understand the desire for that distinction, but what I'm saying doesn't include that; I mean both. I separate the gamespace and the abstracted actions possible within it, and our corporeal modes of enacting them. So however this pile of carbon builds 5 zealots, that is interfacing.
I appreciate that a lot of RTS strategy actually happens outside the game over the course of its life. The "supercomputer" of millions of people playing it and partially solving it. It's just an assumption though that the destination is a rock paper scissors metagame. It's also an assumption, btw, that starcraft is solvable. It's also an assumption that starcraft is balanced, or balanceable via things like mineral, gas, and time costs. By assumption I mean unproven, whereas chess is proven to be solveable, and has been partially solved. (For instance, it can be demonstrated that if white and black play optimally, black can force a draw.)
I think games are better when outside preparation to learn good strategies is balanced by having to think on the fly, be that in real time or turn based. I think starcraft as it stands would be dynamic enough with "ubercontrol" to deliver interesting in-game scenarios. I think tweaking it would elevate its dynamics. The streamlined-control tack of sc2 nudges the game in the direction of more involved small groups fighting (which is not nearly as bland-resultant, I feel, as some people have argued) and the two dimensional arm-wrestle between players of aggression and economic domination.
The idea that Starcraft is "solvable" is only existant in theory-crafting, which is VERY different from the actual experience of the game. Rather than arguing based on assumption and future based points, such as SC2 being completely balanced and the transparency and the effectiveness of counter-strategies/units (which is something totally unpredictable), I am analyzing the flow dynamic of the game from the decision making effect and reaction effect of Starcraft now and what we have seen of SC2.
Whether or not the game will be retard-friendly like a dull edged scissor and get many buyers is not the point here, but rather the dynamics of the game, which you mention in your post. The dynamics of the game stem from the finesse in the contributions of each refined technique to the ultimate macro/mindgame/economic/game-wide decision. The dynamic can be seen in several different view, but I'm only going to touch on a few that comes to mind: Holistic/Game Knowledge dynamic, Reactionary dynamic, and Stylistic dynamic.
The contributions of pure knowledge and instinct about the game and how it factors into the outcome is the fabric of EVERY game, and therefore hard to specify in SC because it is so general. Some games excel at this point, others not so much.
But for the other two, simplied (or as some call it, "better", "new", "modern") interface/mechanics does actually take away from the depth of the game. The information about from a scout or the response to an attack should have an ripple effect on the flow of your game, even if the mental note is something as simple as, "I have to move out a minute earlier". The effect should be seen in the micro AND macro techniques of the game and player, reflecting the changes. By a simplifying change in SC2, it takes away from the process and much of the effect range. (I don't think I need to argue how it simplifies both macro and micro, so I'll jus skip it)
In a stylistic point, it takes away the dynamic from the range of players. I believe Nony phrased this in an adequate way in an interview a while back with Tasteless and Artosis. The mastery in techniques in microing and macroing define a player towards the strategy they will use. A player maybe less skilled in micro, and therefore cuts workers in the above scenario to achieve victory-assured amount of units. A player less skilled in macro will rely on his techniques in micro to break through and gain advantage that makes up for his lack. Not only this, but also in the units and strategies that evolve from the game.
Now whether simplifying the game is a good thing or a bad thing can be argued from many points and have on TL, but I really don't think that there could be any argument that the changes that were heavily protested takes away from the dynamics of the game.
I don't completely agree with what Sirlin said but there is some merit in his assertion that people don't like advances in the interface because they've gotten used to Starcraft's interface's limitations. The hardcore e-sports, TL crowd have gotten so used to it that they view Starcraft's number of clicks balance as sacrosanct.
People complain about how things such as MBS and automining take away from the skill and dynamics of Starcraft. It seems that the view around some parts here is that the interface technology when Starcraft was released contains the perfect balance of micro and macro and number of clicks. Any new advances in technology would take away from the dynamics of the game. What is forgotten is that at the time Starcraft was released, certain interface features like rally points and even selecting 12 units at a time where relatively new.
If removing automation would truly make the game better, there is no reason that Starcraft's interface should be the baseline. Under that argument you present, removing things such as rally points, F keys, group saving and hotkeys would make Starcraft even more dynamic by adding clicks to the game. This is almost never argued, however and for good reason. People have a tendency to become slaves to habit and view existing automation as essential while considering new automation as removing from the richness of the game.
Keep in mind this was written about normal keyboard use which is about 40 apm and normal mouse use which is maybe 1 click a second. Nothing compared to 150 to 300 apm.
"How does RSI happen?
According to our current level of knowledge, joints, sinews and muscles can be so badly damaged by fast, short and daily repetitive movements that these are insufficiently regenerated at night or when not at work.
When this strain continues for several years (experts talk of 5 years), this "minor" damage such as muscle tissue tears lead to bouts of pain and reduced activity. Finally, the smallest movement, such as that involved in getting dressed, can become a problem.
These factors make it worse:
Mental reasons: Working at a computer screen often goes together with a increased workload. As well as the fast movements with mouse and keyboard, highly concentrated thought is needed. Usually a lot of information must be processed in a short time. But high-flying thinking combined with repetitive movement is against "human nature", particularly when the information is new. No other organ is so closely connected to the brain as the hand. Thinking processes cause muscle cramp, so the movement must be made against increased resistance. Narrowing of the blood vessels reduces supply to the muscles. On the other hand, even highly automated movements disturb complex thought processes. Typing on a keyboard while formulating a sentence is more exacting and takes place with a reduced supply of blood. Susceptibility to RSI increases under such conditions.
Stress: Work is often carried out under immense time and deadline pressure. Not infrequently, the fear that the task has gotten out of hand plays a role. Anyone under stress cramps up. This cramp spreads out to the neck, shoulders and arm muscles and leads to a 'cramped' attitude to work. Anyone who is a slave to his work will take less care of ergonomic behavior such as correct positioning and operation of devices used, taking breaks, etc. This also increases the risk of RSI.
Working position: A rigid and uncomfortable working position and movement reduces the blood supply to the muscles and can cause minor damage to the muscles and tendons. For example, if you type with two fingers, you concentrate the entire load on these two fingers instead of spreading it across ten fingers as is possible with the ten-finger typing system. Movement patterns that are not ergonomic include bent or twisted wrists. This narrows the blood vessels and tears tendons and nerves. Injuries and inflammations often result.
The right-angled slab keyboard in common use today almost forces an incorrect position and cramps in the shoulders and neck as well as bent wrists. Working on a laptop also forces a somewhat unhelathy positioning and movement.
It's the speed that does it: Some specialists still believe that typing on an electronic keyboard is less damaging to health than typing on a mechanical typewriter since strokes need less force. This has proven to be wrong. Especially, work at a computer screen has shown that the force required for a movement is less of a problem - it is the high movement frequency that is a principal reason for RSI complaints. The minimization of the force needed to operate an electronic keyboard has enormously increased typing speed, and there is no longer a pause to execute a carriage return or insert a new sheet.
"Personality" risk: Too much orientation towards performance and an excess of ambition often characterize RSI sufferers. Often, they don't pay enough attention to the signals emanating from their own bodies and therefore ignore the first signs of illness.
Operating the mouse: The finger bends, exerts force and either relaxes again or remains in a rigid position lying on the mouse. This operation is carried out innumerable times a day by an operator at a screen to direct the computer mouse. Mouse clicks repeated thousands of times can also lead to the RSI syndrome. Although compared to a keyboard, these repeated one-movement strains are small, this advantage is lost through operating the mouse with too few fingers. Working with this input device is also often connected with higher intellectual demands, such as registering information."
Pain, burning or tingling sensations in your hands/arms is your body telling you to stop. Listen.
I've played and enjoyed video games since I was four years old. At 21, it's gotten to the point where I don't enjoy them anymore at all. It's all thanks to game developers like Sirlin. They want to turn every game into a glorified rock paper scissors. I think RPS is the stupidest game on the planet because it takes no true skill. If you really examine Starcraft, you will find that the game consists of soft counters rather than clear-cut victories. I.E. Lurker beats marines, but skilled marines beat unskilled lurkers. Dragoon beats Vulture, but skilled vult beats unskilled dragoon.
These soft counters are what developers should emphasize because they add true skill to the game (skill in the sense you are actually interacting with your controller/keyboard). But instead every game developer is just shrouding us in more rock paper scissors.
Starcraft is the only game on the planet that can be compared to a physical sport. I can't imagine anyone getting impressed over somebody being good at Tekken or Red Alert 3 or what have you. Games these days encourage accessablity over learning curve. No you cannot have both. Games are either deep or accessable for beginners. And the only game I know of that manages to be deep without a physical element is Go/Chess. Good luck recreating that in an RPS styled video game, lol.
Personally, I haven't been playing much of any game lately other than some Call of Duty. I feel if Sirlin were to get his hands on that he would cut out aiming to ensure whoever has the right gun at the right time wins. Instead of gaming, I've started up Mixed Martial Arts. Just last night I got punched in the nose and blood poured out like a facet. It doesn't bother me because I know once I work my ass off and get to a higher level it will be something to be proud of all the time and work I have put in. I sure as hell can't see that happening with something as skill-less as Street Fighter ( the redux that Sirlin made which makes it so that anyone can do any move). My wish is for Sirlin to train in some BJJ. I can't think of anything with a higher learning curve than that, and it might wake him up and get his head out of his ass.
I don't know much about poker but logic suggests that someone is losing for every winner, and I don't think I would be the one winning without enduring a learning curve.
On December 24 2009 05:17 NatsuTerran wrote: I can't imagine anyone getting impressed over somebody being good at Tekken...
On December 24 2009 05:17 NatsuTerran wrote: I sure as hell can't see that happening with something as skill-less as Street Fighter ( the redux that Sirlin made which makes it so that anyone can do any move).
I would bet everything I own that you have played neither of these games at a competitive level, have no understanding of the changes Sirlin made in HDR, and in general just don't know what you're talking about.
I haven't played Tekken, got me on that one. AFAIK Sirlin's changes were to make combo's and special moves easier for everyone to be able to play without learning like a thousand things. I am not impressed with that. Fighting games I AM impressed by at high levels of play: The SF games that actually have a learning curve, Killer Instinct series, a Virtua Fighter game I played ( I think it's 4). These games actually take time to get into and master. I do know what I'm talking about, I'm not just pissed off at Sirlin for no reason.
There seem to be 2 broad areas of 'skill' which people value and competitive games differentiate players by their proficiency in these 2 areas:
1) Manual Dexterity This refers to the ability to execute difficult procedures quickly. Rhythm based games (eg DDR or Guitar Hero) are completely based on testing this skill. It is also a component in a lot of beat-em-ups where doing a 10-hit combo requires complicated input and split second timing. It would also include the high APMs progamers reach to manage micro and macro simultaneously.
2) Strategic Decision Making This refers to the ability to analyze and situation and react accordingly. Turn based games differentiate by this element and have no test of manual dexterity at all. In chess, moving the pieces is trivially easy but where you choose to place them makes you either a grand master or an amateur.
Sirlin's argument is actually a bit more nuanced than just 'let's make the game easier for everybody by reducing the requirement of manual dexterity'. Although many people discount his knowledge of Starcraft, he is nevertheless a top competitive gamer and is approaching this from that perspective.
What he is saying is: in high level competition, beat-em-ups differentiate players LESS by Manual Dexterity and MORE by Strategic Decision Making. ALL high level players can already execute 10 hit combos and have already mastered split second timing. So the game differentiates between the players with superior Strategic Decision Making. The complicated mechanics play almost no part in deciding who wins or loses. Therefore, simplifying the mechanics does not affect the game as a competitive environment. A side effect is that there is a shallower learning curve. However, the essence of the game is preserved. It just makes the REAL game more accessible.
A silly analogy. Imagine a game called 'Guitar Hero Chess' which has the same rules of chess but every time you want to make a move, you have to complete a level of Guitar Hero on high difficulty or forfeit your turn. The best players of 'Guitar Hero Chess' will ALL be able to complete the Guitar Hero section. What determines who wins or loses is how good they are at normal chess. Sirlin would argue that if we remove Guitar Hero from the game, it nevertheless preserves the ability of the game to differentiate 'skill'
Finally, he's arguing that this also applies to Starcraft. The old UI imposes a high requirement of Manual Dexterity but at the top level, they have already mastered it. Winners and losers are decided almost completely by Strategic Decision Making. Updating the UI does reduce the game's ability to judge 'skill'.
Of course, he does not propose to turn Starcraft into a turn based game (he doesn't for Street Fighter either). There will always be room for Manual Dexterity and the 2 are often substitutes (eg if you made a poor decision and made too few units to defend a push, you might be able to get away with it with superior micro). Nevertheless, I support MBS and removing the requirement for artificial clicks because I believe SC2 will have enough interesting tests of Manual Dexterity and sufficient depth in Strategic Decision Making.
Good summation thesaint. It is of my opinion that the Manual Dexterity skillset is by far more interesting than the strategical decision. Because of this I disagree with what he did in the Street Fighter redux. If you look at the before and after effects of how it affected the competitive players, I'm sure it would look like this:
pre redux the players test their muscle memory and decision making against each other. The player who makes the least/least important manual mistakes wins. post redux the players attempt to outyomi each other.
Now I haven't played SF, but the first game sounds much more attractive to me. I like something I have to train at, like MMA. If a fighting game doesn't make me spend several hours a day just training some obscure fundamental like a certain combo in order to evade, I quickly lose interest.
Towards the end of your writeup you mention Starcraft and this game development idea. It does NOT work the same way as it does in Fighting games because in fighters the players either can do something or cannot. But in Starcraft, you slowly build upon your performance so that player A can use his 12 unit select better than player B, who uses it better than player C, and all through the alphabet a thousand times over. It's the same way in MMA. It isn't whether you can punch or not based on pressing a button. It's how fast your punches are, how correct the form is, etc. There are varying degrees to how effective it will be. Sirlin can't get the "lightswitch" skills out of his head to accept this.
The complicated mechanics play almost no part in deciding who wins or loses. Therefore, simplifying the mechanics does not affect the game as a competitive environment.
At the highest level they do indeed play a part in who wins. If someone slips up on a combo then he should get punished for losing rythmn. Also, between varying skill levels they play a massive role.
I'd probably hate to hear what Sirlin thinks of purely rythmn-based games like Ping Pong, another game I love.
(hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made)
This is incorrect, most of the time not having automine requires you to make important choices, every few seconds- can I afford to take my view away from this harassment/combat/minimap at this instant? By adding automine you remove a large number of skill testing choices and do not replace them, you just hope that the pre-existing decisions available magically become deeper. They do not. That's why automining is so shallow.
macro isn't the exciting part of starcraft at all, if starcraft was all about who could make more marines the fastest no one would watch it and it wouldn't have survived 11 years.
at least, the clicking on buildings part of macro isn't exciting, because clicking on buildings fast doesn't make a good macro player. a good macro player knows what unit combinations he has to have at any given moment, and can go back to his base and produce that unit combination on the fly without thinking about it too much.
mbs without the tabbing function would be awkward because you'd have to regroup your buildings nearly every time you macroed. you could select all your barracks and press m in two clicks but you'd lose to someone who had used four clicks to make a good combination of zerglings and lurkers.
micro players need physical dexterity, macro players need mental dexterity, it's not about what decisions you make, it's about how fast you make them.
(hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made)
This is incorrect, most of the time not having automine requires you to make important choices, every few seconds- can I afford to take my view away from this harassment/combat/minimap at this instant? By adding automine you remove a large number of skill testing choices and do not replace them, you just hope that the pre-existing decisions available magically become deeper. They do not. That's why automining is so shallow.
No, you dont expect them to magically become deeper. They dont need to since nobody still wont reach the bottom. Or you can add more decisions, that are hopefully more interesting than the worker assignment. Granted that you can add new complexity while keeping manual mining in though. And here someone can do the always so relevant comparison to Dune 2
Isn't the Dune 2 argument a bannable offense due to stupidity? I thought we got past that knowing that Starcraft and maybe Wc2 reached the perfect interface that presented a reasonable challenge while still hosting an acceptable amount of work.
On December 24 2009 09:39 theSAiNT wrote: Finally, he's arguing that this also applies to Starcraft. The old UI imposes a high requirement of Manual Dexterity but at the top level, they have already mastered it. Winners and losers are decided almost completely by Strategic Decision Making. Updating the UI does reduce the game's ability to judge 'skill'.
This is the logical step I don't agree with in Sirlin's reasoning. The assumption that at the highest levels of play, the UI-imposed requirements have been mastered is untrue. Games are still won and lost on mechanical skill. Progamers still miss production rounds, mis-micro units, and have trouble occasionally maneuvering large armies. These factor DO decide games, and many of them. This is most apparent in the mirror matchups.
(hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made)
This is incorrect, most of the time not having automine requires you to make important choices, every few seconds- can I afford to take my view away from this harassment/combat/minimap at this instant? By adding automine you remove a large number of skill testing choices and do not replace them, you just hope that the pre-existing decisions available magically become deeper. They do not. That's why automining is so shallow.
No... Im pretty sure most players simply forget that they have workers queued up and need to send them to mine. I know for one that when I'm trying to go in for a harass or cast storms im not thinking about how many idle probes i have and when is it a good time to go back to my base. Im focused on what im doing at the moment cause i dont want to screw that up.
(hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made)
This is incorrect, most of the time not having automine requires you to make important choices, every few seconds- can I afford to take my view away from this harassment/combat/minimap at this instant? By adding automine you remove a large number of skill testing choices and do not replace them, you just hope that the pre-existing decisions available magically become deeper. They do not. That's why automining is so shallow.
No... Im pretty sure most players simply forget that they have workers queued up and need to send them to mine. I know for one that when I'm trying to go in for a harass or cast storms im not thinking about how many idle probes i have and when is it a good time to go back to my base. Im focused on what im doing at the moment cause i dont want to screw that up.
Yes - if you want to do multiple things at once, you have to multitask. It's an essential skill for high level play.
the most common criticism i read of starcraft is that there's too much clicking and not enough strategy (mostly from fans of turn-based strategy games).
and i don't really have a response to that, i like the physical part of it but it's all just personal taste i suppose
Once StarCraft II comes out with all the promised interface improvements, I'm going to bump this thread and point out what a waste it is for you guys to piss in the wind the way that you are.
On December 24 2009 19:38 ComradeDover wrote: Once StarCraft II comes out with all the promised interface improvements, I'm going to bump this thread and point out what a waste it is for you guys to piss in the wind the way that you are.
How about you stop posting crap?
Nobody is arguing for the removal of MBS or AM. T____T
On December 24 2009 19:38 ComradeDover wrote: Once StarCraft II comes out with all the promised interface improvements, I'm going to bump this thread and point out what a waste it is for you guys to piss in the wind the way that you are.
How about you stop posting crap?
Nobody is arguing for the removal of MBS or AM. T____T
There are allot of people here who do argue for that.
Everything about that topic has been said already. Blizzard already read the arguments of both sides. Ultimately they will decide what fits best for SC2.
I don't find this particular example interesting. In a battle, you will want to group your units a bit anyway, especially if you want to flank the enemy army, so it's not like being able to have all units in 1 group is going to give you a general advantage. In a few cases at best.
When I still played SC1, I would have loved to select all zerglings at once because zerglings are kind of a special case because you just have *SO* many of them that it's really tedious to not have them in a single group. Even the pros lose a lot of lings here and there due to not being able to retreat them all back at once (pathfinding issues play a role here too, though).
Another example where I think it's beneficial is when you run workers from an incoming storm drop or similar. In SC1, this means you can run 12 workers away - if there were more, the others will just stay there (because they didn't fit into the group anymore) and get slaughtered, even though you reacted fast enough to give the retreat command. That's kind of stupid.
But ultimately, it's not a big deal because most of your army needs to be grouped separately anyway, and you also won't have so many workers mining at one place as well (especially not as Zerg), so that the losses are tolerable.
On December 24 2009 19:38 ComradeDover wrote: Once StarCraft II comes out with all the promised interface improvements, I'm going to bump this thread and point out what a waste it is for you guys to piss in the wind the way that you are.
How about you stop posting crap?
Nobody is arguing for the removal of MBS or AM. T____T
There are allot of people here who do argue for that.
But there has been relatively little explicit argument for removing MBS or AM in this thread. Most of the discussion has focused on Sirlin and his viewpoint on the role of mechanics vs strategy. Even people who have mentioned that AM does in fact reduce strategic decision making have not then gone on to say that we should remove it or that manual mining is irreplaceable.
Let's just keep this thread on topic then, shall we?
I think the point that was made about AM actually affecting strategic decision making is excellent. Another example actually comes from the realm of fighting games, Super Smash Bros: Melee's l-canceling. There is never a situation where you wouldn't want to l-cancel. But by shielding an attack rather than dodging it you can mess up someone's l-cancel timing and then punish them. So you're given a strategic option to try to trip up your opponent despite l-canceling being a "mindless" decision.
I don't think it is so much about underlying decision-making/multitasking as it is the level of work involved. I was proud of myself when I finally learned to move all my marines in TvZ. I want a game where you have to train fundamentals and do work. What this does is REALLY make you appreciate the upper eschelon of players. Bringing up my MMA example again, if every joe blow on the street could do a perfect hook, roundhouse kick, and SBK, then it just sucks the impressiveness out of the higher level fights. As well as makes it less rewarding for figuring out how to finally do those things. There needs to be some fundamental to work on that heavily distinguishes players of different levels.
Read through most of the thread, there's a huge gulf between what people's definitions of 'skill'.
Sometimes I wish SC2 would be exactly like SC1 except with automining, improved/customized interface and easier access to what you want to do, and some unknowns come out of nowhere and stomp all the established pros into the ground. I want to be there when half the posters in this thread call them skill-less.
On December 24 2009 19:38 ComradeDover wrote: Once StarCraft II comes out with all the promised interface improvements, I'm going to bump this thread and point out what a waste it is for you guys to piss in the wind the way that you are.
Who the fuck are you talking to?
On December 25 2009 04:30 tissue wrote: Read through most of the thread, there's a huge gulf between what people's definitions of 'skill'.
Sometimes I wish SC2 would be exactly like SC1 except with automining, improved/customized interface and easier access to what you want to do, and some unknowns come out of nowhere and stomp all the established pros into the ground. I want to be there when half the posters in this thread call them skill-less.
I wish I had a billion dollars. Also, the premise of your post is incredibly stupid. Yeah, I'm sure suddenly Jaedong (do you even know who he is?) would suddenly start dropping games to B-rank ICCUPers if auto-mine and MBS were implemented into SC1.
noobs aren't going to start stomping pros because of mbs because:
On December 24 2009 10:18 jalstar wrote: clicking on buildings fast doesn't make a good macro player. a good macro player knows what unit combinations he has to have at any given moment, and can go back to his base and produce that unit combination on the fly without thinking about it too much.
Before people make assumptions based on misinformation about WC3 lemme make some points clear.
edahl This is an important point which should not be forgotten. The absolute newbies want the macro to be easy for a quick way to catch up with an 11 year development in a game, instead of just sitting down practicing macro for a few weeks. What this does is shifting the focus to micro instead, which is equivalent to locking the game in to the state it was 11 years ago, way before iloveoov etc., which is equivalent to making it WC3 without heroes and creeps. The micro is going to be just a difficult as the macro is now, and there is a reason I don't play WC3.
The main reasons that WC3 has "micro > macro" and a low unit count is when they created the engine back to begin with, it couldn't run a 200 food army for 12 players.
They had to cut the army size down and through that they had to deal with the fact that they weren't gonna have armies the same size of Starcraft. So they designed the gameplay differently.
Because of this, units in WC3 have like 6~ times the amount of hp they'd have if they were Starcraft units.
This design wasn't based on them not wanting to make WC3 with big armies like Starcraft, it was because of the engine limits.
If you make a custom map and set the food limit high allowing each player to have 150~ units, they won't respond instantly and you get a specific type of delay.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that when they made WC3, like when they made Starcraft, they had limitations that set a frame for how they could make the game.
In Starcraft we can assume that the single building selection, 12 unit selection etc. and these kinds of things weren't mechanics that were implemented to make the game more competitive or anything of the sort.
Starcraft, like most games from back in the day, is "broken" in some ways and luckily these flaws served to help the game by adding depth and strategy, which is great and I'm very happy it did. Just realize that a lot of the stuff you might hate in regards to other games, say WC3's lack of macro, small armies, slow battles, comes from the same kinds of mistakes that just didn't work out for the "benefit" of the game, according to some.
I think Sirlin along with many people here are missing the most important point of a game, which is why it is that people play that game. The simple fact is that Starcraft is not a purely strategic game and the "real-time" aspect of it means that time is supposed to be a resource for a player. In any game where time is a resource, it is expected that a player that can execute more actions within a given frame of time has at least a mechanical advantage. The method by which we execute actions in Starcraft just happens to be clicking the mouse. I don't believe anyone here cares to make Starcraft into a meaningless "click-fest" where victory is solely dependent on a player's dexterity. APM in and of itself is meaningless unless it is used in a purposeful way. What separates a good player from a bad player in this game is not APM, but how that APM is used. This is where the strategic aspect of Starcraft really comes into play. Starcraft was never meant to be a game where all things are equal aside from the strategies the players decide to execute. I don't believe it is a selfish notion to want the sequel of the game to hold true to the spirit of its prequel.
This isn't to say that I don't believe that there are changes that could benefit the overall gameplay. I think anyone would agree that we've learned a lot over the years that Starcraft has been played and advances in computer capabilities do allow for certain improvements to be made. I do believe, however, that any changes to the interface or game dynamics should also keep true to the spirit of the game. I think someone earlier in the thread said that an ideal game for televised competition would be one in which the players aren't "restricted" by the interface limitations (or something of the sort). I would like to argue by bringing up a hypothetical situation where there was a televised league for Civilization or some other turn-based strategy game. Civilization is exactly such a game where players are not restricted in any way by the interface and it's probably FAR more strategic than Starcraft ever will be. That being said, do you believe that Civilization would make for a good televised game? Despite the fact that I love that game, the truth is that it would make for horrible TV simply because of the dreadful pace. The only way to bring up the pace to a somewhat acceptable level would be to disable the "turn-based" option that requires you to wait for the other player to move. But then if you did this, the advantage would quickly go to the person who can do more in the game in a given time frame, the quicker and sharper player. So then you'd argue that it is the interface restrictions that are limiting the other player and we'd be here all over again starting the same argument. It is not the interface placing a restriction on the player. The interface for both players is the same. What makes the difference is that player's dexterity and mastery of the given interface. How is this a bad thing at all?
It'd be nice to have a world where all things were equal and individual differences wouldn't separate players, but where would that leave us? Isn't the better chess player the one who can read a move or two deeper than the other one? Isn't the better basketball player the one that can do more with the ball, the court, and the hoop? Isn't the better Street Fighter player the one that can execute the moves in the right timing and react better to the other player's attacks? Somewhere along the line, every game separates those who are better from those who are worse. This is the nature of games. For Starcraft, the speed at which you can move the mouse does matter just like the speed at which you can think and react matter. That is the game Starcraft is and that is the game Starcraft was meant to be. The people who play the game accept this reality and accept that PART (not all) of being a better Starcraft player than the next guy over is the ability to be faster at managing your units and production.
The irony evident in trying to alter the game in an effort "not to restrict players" is that you end up helping players who are less skilled and feel "restricted" by the difficulty of mastering the skills needed and in turn, you hurt more skilled players by placing an arbitrary ceiling on their skills. We could entirely eliminate the time-factor and completely remove the "click-fest", but then what's to stop someone from complaining about the other guy knowing how to use his resources better or knowing how to better make use of the terrain? I don't understand the entire train of thought that leads people to believe that the Starcraft interface and game mechanics are somehow bad or that they hinder a person's enjoyment of the game. I play at 70APM average and I honestly enjoy the game just fine playing with my friends. Do I expect to be able to compete with better players or professionals? Of course not, just like I wouldn't expect to beat Kobe Bryant in a 1-on-1 on the basketball court. Does my inability to compete with Kobe Bryant signify some sort of inherent problem in basketball?
Having a high APM is not a "pre-requisite" to one's enjoyment of Starcraft. It is simply required to compete at certain levels and even then, it does not determine the outcome of a game. Plenty of people with crappy reaction time and aim enjoy playing Counterstrike just fine. Plenty of people who will never play in the World Cup enjoy playing soccer just fine. And plenty of people with low APM enjoy playing Starcraft just fine. Your enjoyment of a game is determined not by your skill at the game, but rather your skill in relation to your goal. Obviously if you want to be highly competitive, you need to be quick with your hands in Starcraft because the game is designed that way. Complaining about this fact is like complaining that there's some sort of unfairness in the faster runner's ability to break away from the defense and score more often. Speed in both running and Starcraft can be trained and honed if you desire. Instead of complaining that it matters that people are faster than you, why not train yourself to be faster than you are if you care so much about it? Change yourself to match the game or find a game that better suits you. Don't sit there and demand that the game change to match you.
Starcraft isn't a perfect game by any means, but it fills a niche in its balance of speed and strategy that isn't currently available in other games. There have been many, many RTS games released since Starcraft's release, some slower, some faster, some more complex, and some easier, but Starcraft has held its place because there is simply no other game that has the right balance to replace it at the moment. I think what a lot of us are looking for in a sequel is a game that will hold true to this balance and one that will serve as a suitable "replacement". We're not looking for Warcraft III because that game has already been released and it obviously didn't suit us. We are not looking for another Civilization nor are we looking for a game that mimicks Company of Heroes, Sins of a Solar Empire, or any other game. We're looking for something that is a sequel in SPIRIT to Starcraft, not just in storyline.
Of course I'm just speaking for myself here, but I'm sure many people will agree with me. Of course it's not wrong to want certain features in a game and to fight for it. However, Sirlin in the article strikes me as assuming that current Starcraft players have some sort of selfish agenda to make things harder for newer players by forcing them to master what we've apparently already mastered ourselves (arguable...). But what's so selfish about wanting the sequel to a game to be similar in spirit and gameplay to the prequel? How well would Street Fighter players accept the addition of a separate Block, Run, and Throw button? If your argument is that it would make the game too much harder, then what about if the next Street Fighter added a "Projectile" and "Anti-Air Move" button that would automatically fire a Hadoken or Shoryuken for you? I'm sure most people would see it as a stupid and unnecessary change that at least partially betrays the spirit of the game... Would it be "selfish" for Street Fighter fans to complain about such a change?
Dude you are an excellent writer, that was a wall of text but you sure got me reading the whole thing. :D
I am of the believe that when you go too far away from the original game/movie the things turn bad... they simply suck... and in my opinion SC2 is going too far away from the original game. Is good to innovate but changing the nature of the game by trying to make it more "newbie friendly" is going to hurt the game in the long run.
On December 23 2009 10:00 crate wrote: The issue here is one of what you want your games to test. Personally I do not want RTSs or fighting games to test my dexterity for the sake of doing so; I want every action to have a decision behind it (hence, automine is good--I am not making an actual decision when I tell my workers to go mine after they're made). Many people disagree, and I don't see how you can say one group is right and the other wrong.
That's my point.
I directed the post at Jazriel because he postfixed that statement with "ultimately this is the truth". Obviously it can't *just* be the truth if it takes true premises and leads them to a questionable conclusion.
You're assuming you're a competent enough judge to decide what objective truth is.
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote:I wrote the longest but bestest wall of text ever at the end of page 10. The poster now quoting me is begging you to read it.
This dude pretty much said absolutely everything good that's possible to say about this. The thread's definitely over now if it wasn't already.
I think people overlook a huge part of what actually gives RTS its strategic depth. Strategic depth is directly related to how many viable options the player has to chose from, I hope everyone here can agree on this.
By far the largest part of strategic depth in Starcraft or any RTS game for that matter comes from having to make decisions about the allocation of your attention, and your mechanical performance. IT IS HUGE. Strategy is easy, you can write down a build order, with its game plan, and its general guidelines for execution for a lot of the variations on a single piece of paper, but so much more decision making goes into it when you actually play it, and that's because you need to make decisions on how you're going to prioritize in your execution of the build, knowing full well that you can not do it perfectly.
Mathematically, think of it this way:
You know you need to do 10 things at a certain point in time. You know them ahead of time, which is actually another reason why general strategies is NOT where most of the strategic depth comes from in the game (because you can, and probably should for ideal results figure out your strategy for the game before you even start it.)
If you can do all 10 things, then you don't really have an option, you just do them ,because you've already decided earlier that that's what your strategy is.
If you can do one of them, you have 10 things to choose from.
If you can do 2 of them then you have 45 different combinations to chose from... and so on.
If you can do 3 of them, you have 105 different options.
and so on, and so forth. Mathematically, you get the most actual options when you can only do half the things that you want to do.
When people say, things like "telling your workers to go mine after they build is just useless clicking, auto-mine is just improving an outdated feature," they don't know what they're talking about. It's not the decision of your worker mining vs worker not mining. It's the decision telling your worker to mine vs whatever else you want to be doing, and in what order you're going to these two things.
Strategy is easy, you can write down a build order, with its game plan, and its general guidelines for execution for a lot of the variations on a single piece of paper
Strategy is easy, you can write down a build order, with its game plan, and its general guidelines for execution for a lot of the variations on a single piece of paper
Should it be easy?
No, but that has no relevance to the issue at hand.
You don't get complex and deep strategy by lowering the mechanical requirement. You get complex and deep strategy by designing complex and deep strategy.
EDIT: After finally reading Tofu's huge wall of text, I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree. Addressing a specific piece:
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: Having a high APM is not a "pre-requisite" to one's enjoyment of Starcraft. It is simply required to compete at certain levels and even then, it does not determine the outcome of a game. Plenty of people with crappy reaction time and aim enjoy playing Counterstrike just fine. Plenty of people who will never play in the World Cup enjoy playing soccer just fine. And plenty of people with low APM enjoy playing Starcraft just fine. Your enjoyment of a game is determined not by your skill at the game, but rather your skill in relation to your goal. Obviously if you want to be highly competitive, you need to be quick with your hands in Starcraft because the game is designed that way. Complaining about this fact is like complaining that there's some sort of unfairness in the faster runner's ability to break away from the defense and score more often. Speed in both running and Starcraft can be trained and honed if you desire. Instead of complaining that it matters that people are faster than you, why not train yourself to be faster than you are if you care so much about it? Change yourself to match the game or find a game that better suits you. Don't sit there and demand that the game change to match you.
I feel like this is worth emphasizing. A lot of people who complain about interface limitations on enjoyment bring up the scenario that it was not fun to be beaten by someone on iCCup/B.net whose sole advantage was that they played faster. Somehow, being beaten by someone faster or more dextrous is ok in soccer, or in Street Fighter, or in Counter-Strike, but as soon as the buzzword "Strategy" enters in, there's some expectation that dexterity and handspeed become non-issues. I think HeartOfTofu puts it wonderfully--no matter how many interface features you put in to make things easier, inevitably it's hamstringing people at some level. The best you can do is try and strike a balance where it adds to the game experience, but is not overly annoying (this is part of why people haven't complained about unlimited unit selections--even those against stuff like MBS and automine admit that the 12-unit-restriction is arbitrary and annoying). Obviously this is a subjective balance, and different RTS games have placed the bar at different places, but as Starcraft has evolved over the years, the spirit of it has found it in a relatively mechanically-focused equilibrium. Will everyone agree with it? No. But the long-term success of the original certainly implies that it's done a better job of pleasing people than more "strategy-centric" models.
lol nice second post @HeartofTofu. I like your attitude. Its actually considerate of the other sides points while reinforcing the validity of your own.
Strategy is easy, you can write down a build order, with its game plan, and its general guidelines for execution for a lot of the variations on a single piece of paper
Should it be easy?
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution, just like n is insignificant numerically to to C(n, n/2) for when n gets to be a decent sized number.
No, but that has no relevance to the issue at hand.
You don't get complex and deep strategy by lowering the mechanical requirement. You get complex and deep strategy by designing complex and deep strategy.
I don't see how an admission that sirlin's prime premise is true is not relevant to a discussion surrounding his view.
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult. The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'. If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
On December 25 2009 16:38 L wrote: I don't see how an admission that sirlin's prime premise is true is not relevant to a discussion surrounding his view.
Because admission that his premise is true and admission that his conclusion is true are two very different things.
I noticed a lot of litigious points made by Tofu, let me point them out.
Logical fallacy n°1. The false analogy with Civilisation.
This is a common rethorical figure used by a lot of people on pretty much every forums nowadays. Terrible analogies to give substance to a weak point. Here is the logical fallacy, called a syllogism.
Assumption a).Civilisation is not restricted by the user interface and is not a spectator friendly game. b). Starcraft is heavily restricted by the user interface and is a spectator friendly game. Conclusion: Restricting the user interface is needed to have a spectator friendly game.
Logical fallacy n°2. Stating well-known facts such as 1+1=2 and acting like they were somehow proofing your point.
Part a).
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: It'd be nice to have a world where all things were equal and individual differences wouldn't separate players, but where would that leave us? (( I will pass this obvious non-sensical point, what can differentiate 2 players apart from their individual differences ? His whole point is here made stronger, because it is presented as a contradiction of a nonsensical point that no one ever made)) [...] Somewhere along the line, every game separates those who are better from those who are worse. This is the nature of games. ((o rly ?)
Then he talks about "Starcraft" as a whole genre. SC2 is never directly mentionned, but is referred as an "alteration" of the first SC. You will see that this was needed for his second logical fallacy,
Part b).
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: The irony evident in trying to alter the game in an effort "not to restrict players" is that you end up helping players who are less skilled and feel "restricted" by the difficulty of mastering the skills needed and in turn, you hurt more skilled players by placing an arbitrary ceiling on their skills. We could entirely eliminate the time-factor and completely remove the "click-fest.
The "less skilled players" refers to the less skilled SC1 players (who're having trouble mastering the SC1 skills) and vice-versa. Apart from this logical fallacy, no other argument than an obscure analogy will be used to explain why these "SC1 skills" should be all adopted by SC2.
Part c).
I play at 70APM average and I honestly enjoy the game just fine playing with my friends. Do I expect to be able to compete with better players or professionals? Of course not, just like I wouldn't expect to beat Kobe Bryant in a 1-on-1 on the basketball court. Does my inability to compete with Kobe Bryant signify some sort of inherent problem in basketball?
Hum hum... he will keep on using these false annalogies to somehow proof by induction his main point
Conclusion.
Change yourself to match the game or find a game that better suits you. Don't sit there and demand that the game change to match you.
Keep in mind that he doesn't consider SC2 as a new game, merely an "alteration" of the original...
Logical fallacy n°3. Lying by ommission.
Starcraft isn't a perfect game by any means, but it fills a niche in its balance of speed and strategy that isn't currently available in other games. There have been many, many RTS games released since Starcraft's release, some slower, some faster, some more complex, and some easier, but Starcraft has held its place because there is simply no other game that has the right balance to replace it at the moment.
First of all, SC1 is not the Holy Graal, it has not held its place everywhere and is now internationaly dead compared to other games like War3 or CS. Of course if you don't acknowledge this fact you will have troubles finding reasons to modify SC1 stuffs.
However, the scene remains strong in South Korea. Why ? Of course SC1 greatness has something to do with that, but they are other reasons than the game's "balance" behind this, cultural and economical factors.
1). Starcraft has been launched in 1998, just after Korea's economical recession and the introduction of the "cybercafés". Back at the time, it was considerd cheaper to go to the cybercafé rather than buying you own computer. This is where a lot of people has discovered SC.
2). During WW2, approximately 100,000 Koreans were forced to serve in the Japanese Army, and some Korean women have been used as sexual slaves.There is a deep anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea. An embargo against Japanese made imports was even instaured (playstation, megadrive...) . This is the niche that SC1 has filled, it was the first really competitive PC game that wasn't already massively plaid oversea.
On December 25 2009 16:38 L wrote: I don't see how an admission that sirlin's prime premise is true is not relevant to a discussion surrounding his view.
Because admission that his premise is true and admission that his conclusion is true are two very different things.
That doesn't change the fact that there's relevance to his main premise being accepted as true, especially granted the fact that a number of people are arguing out of the assumption that it isn't.
I mean, I don't even understand why this is an issue; the quoted bit is clearly relevant to the discussion.
What a freaking douchebag... -_-. Reading this article bummed me out. Especially when he started talking about Re4 and 5 compared to the originals... the originals are so much more scary/fun imo. I don't want some stupid brainless action game which is apparently all he cares about -_-
And *sigh* is Tewy serious or trolling I cant even tell -_-;;;;;;;
On December 25 2009 19:08 Vasoline73 wrote: What a freaking douchebag... -_-. Reading this article bummed me out. Especially when he started talking about Re4 and 5 compared to the originals... the originals are so much more scary/fun imo. I don't want some stupid brainless action game which is apparently all he cares about -_-
And *sigh* is Tewy serious or trolling I cant even tell -_-;;;;;;;
me serious -_-;;;
Lol, you're calling a well known-guy in the game industry "a freaking douchebag" without any explanations and then asking me if I'm the one who's trolling here ? Is THAT serious ?
On December 25 2009 17:11 TeWy wrote: I noticed a lot of litigious points made by Tofu, let me point them out.
How do you make an argument without litigious points?
Logical fallacy n°1. The false analogy with Civilisation.
This is a common rethorical figure used by a lot of people on pretty much every forums nowadays. Terrible analogies to give substance to a weak point. Here is the logical fallacy, called a syllogism.
Assumption a).Civilisation is not restricted by the user interface and is not a spectator friendly game. b). Starcraft is heavily restricted by the user interface and is a spectator friendly game. Conclusion: Restricting the user interface is needed to have a spectator friendly game.
The analogy is only false because you came up with a false conclusion. He is saying that making the game physically demanding helps to make a spectator friendly game, not that it is necessary to handicap each player to give a game spectator value. True, the analogy could be better, but most people probably do not have a wide knowledge of all different strategy games to make the perfect comparison.
Logical fallacy n°2. Stating well-known facts such as 1+1=2 and acting like they were somehow proofing your point.
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: It'd be nice to have a world where all things were equal and individual differences wouldn't separate players, but where would that leave us? (( I will pass this obvious non-sensical point, what can differentiate 2 players apart from their individual differences ? His whole point is here made stronger, because it is presented as a contradiction of a nonsensical point that no one ever made)) [...] Somewhere along the line, every game separates those who are better from those who are worse. This is the nature of games. ((o rly ?)
Then he talks about "Starcraft" as a whole genre. SC2 is never directly mentionned, but is referred as an "alteration" of the first SC. You will see that this was needed for his second logical fallacy,
I fail to see him mention SC2 being an alteration; it seems to me like he entirely talking about Starcraft Broodwar. Nothing he says could even possibly apply to SC2 since as of right now its interface is not restricting at all.
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: The irony evident in trying to alter the game in an effort "not to restrict players" is that you end up helping players who are less skilled and feel "restricted" by the difficulty of mastering the skills needed and in turn, you hurt more skilled players by placing an arbitrary ceiling on their skills. We could entirely eliminate the time-factor and completely remove the "click-fest.
The "less skilled players" refers to the less skilled SC1 players (who're having trouble mastering the SC1 skills) and vice-versa. Apart from this logical fallacy, no other argument than an obscure analogy will be used to explain why these "SC1 skills" should be all adopted by SC2.
He argues by giving his opinion that a sequel should be a sequel in ways other than the largely ignored storyline. The skills that he proposes be adopted are not even obscure skills based solely on SC1; they are applied (to a lesser extent) to all RTS, just like most sports require a certain level of physical fitness other than the actual "skill" in the game (another analogy, oh no!).
Whether a sequel should adopt the same "spirit" as its predecessor is not something that can be argued with solid facts, and I think he presents his opinion well throughout the entire post.
I play at 70APM average and I honestly enjoy the game just fine playing with my friends. Do I expect to be able to compete with better players or professionals? Of course not, just like I wouldn't expect to beat Kobe Bryant in a 1-on-1 on the basketball court. Does my inability to compete with Kobe Bryant signify some sort of inherent problem in basketball?
Hum hum... he will keep on using these false annalogies to somehow proof by induction his main point
From what I understand Sirlin seems to believe that in an RTS, strategy should be the sole factor that decides the game. He is simply saying that just like in Basketball depends a vast majority of factors like experience and dexterity, an RTS that has the goal of being an e-sport should also depend on such factors. I guess for this appeal to make perfect sense you have to know about previous debates involving Sirlin on this board.
He also simply uses himself as an example as someone who finds the game great even if he is limited by the interface (on a level even below what most people on this probably are at). The basic argument here is true for all sports and e-sports, but many people seem to forget this when talking about a video game. It is kind of obvious, but doesn't hurt to say...
Starcraft isn't a perfect game by any means, but it fills a niche in its balance of speed and strategy that isn't currently available in other games. There have been many, many RTS games released since Starcraft's release, some slower, some faster, some more complex, and some easier, but Starcraft has held its place because there is simply no other game that has the right balance to replace it at the moment.
First of all, SC1 is not the Holy Graal, it has not held its place everywhere and is now internationaly dead compared to other games like War3 or CS. Of course if you don't acknowledge this fact you will have troubles finding reasons to modify SC1 stuffs.
However, the scene remains strong in South Korea. Why ? Of course SC1 greatness has something to do with that, but they are other reasons than the game's "balance" behind this, cultural and economical factors.
1). Starcraft has been launched in 1998, just after Korea's economical recession and the introduction of the "cybercafés". Back at the time, it was considerd cheaper to go to the cybercafé rather than buying you own computer. This is where a lot of people has discovered SC.
2). During WW2, approximately 100,000 Koreans were forced to serve in the Japanese Army, and some Korean women have been used as sexual slaves.There is a deep anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea. An embargo against Japanese made imports was even instaured (playstation, megadrive...) . This is the niche that SC1 has filled, it was the first really competitive PC game that wasn't already massively plaid oversea.
It depends what you mean by internationally dead... If you consider that a game like WoW has 11+ million subrcribers then I guess you might be able to say that (although I doubt you could say that if you compared SC to WC3). But so far as I can tell Starcraft is still by far the most famous and successful as a spectator game, not as a game to be played. The entire e-sports community seems to acknowledge that SC2 holds the most potential for the future of e-sports, and professional gamers from other e-sports even have begun to play SC1 in order to get a feel for what it is like. I am not sure how else I could try to logically argue this though, and I honestly don't have enough knowledge of other e-sports communities to say anything beyond that.
On December 25 2009 19:08 Vasoline73 wrote: What a freaking douchebag... -_-. Reading this article bummed me out. Especially when he started talking about Re4 and 5 compared to the originals... the originals are so much more scary/fun imo. I don't want some stupid brainless action game which is apparently all he cares about -_-
And *sigh* is Tewy serious or trolling I cant even tell -_-;;;;;;;
me serious -_-;;;
Lol, you're calling a well known-guy in the game industry "a freaking douchebag" without any explanations and then asking me if I'm the one who's trolling here ? Is THAT serious ?
actually he gave explaination right there in his post. i can call mark rein, a 'well known-guy in the game industry' a 'freaking douchebag' as well, because i believe he is. being well known doesn't make you immune to crticism.
your post is pretty ridiculous.
On December 25 2009 19:25 TeWy wrote: Conclusion: Restricting the user interface is needed to have a spectator friendly game.
actually, his conclusion was to have a spectator friendly game the game had to be fast paced and that at a sufficiently fast pace the game is likely to have a degree of mechanical stress. applied to starcraft and starcraft 2 fast paced means a lot of action; a lot of battles. unit micro in battles is very mechanically demanding. even if you remove the mechanical demands of macro the fast player will still have the advantage, he will just express his speed through micro.
On December 25 2009 19:25 TeWy wrote:Then he talks about "Starcraft" as a whole genre. SC2 is never directly mentionned, but is referred as an "alteration" of the first SC. no other argument than an obscure analogy will be used to explain why these "SC1 skills" should be all adopted by SC2.
actually, he stated several times he believes a sequel to a game should contain the same spirit, a notion difficult to argue with that you will find many people both here and elsewhere agree with. your position appears to be designs and story constitutes a sequel. i disagree in general, but i disgree strongly for cases like starcraft where the gameplay is such a big part of the experience. the gameplay is part of the identity of starcraft. reskinning company of heroes with zealots and seige tanks does not make it starcraft 2.
On December 25 2009 19:25 TeWy wrote:Hum hum... he will keep on using these false annalogies to somehow proof by induction his main point
here he shows the starcraft can be enjoyable even if you aren't a fantastic mechanical player. he then shows that not being able to compete with the best in a particular game or sport does in no way imply there is something wrong with the sport. that is hardly a false analogy. he stops short of making the next point, but to myself and im sure many others, the skill-gap between the best and myself actually shows what is right with starcraft!
you then go on to restate your point, again, that what you're asking for is Completely New Game 1: The New Game. you try to show that sc2 shouldn't be like the most successful rts ever with a series of points i can only assume are meant to prove sc1 isnt that successful. only problem is they have no real relevance to that or anything else. btw, this internationally dead game is currently having a $20,000+ tournament.
On December 25 2009 17:11 TeWy wrote: I noticed a lot of litigious points made by Tofu, let me point them out.
Logical fallacy n°1. The false analogy with Civilisation.
This is a common rethorical figure used by a lot of people on pretty much every forums nowadays. Terrible analogies to give substance to a weak point. Here is the logical fallacy, called a syllogism.
Assumption a).Civilisation is not restricted by the user interface and is not a spectator friendly game. b). Starcraft is heavily restricted by the user interface and is a spectator friendly game. Conclusion: Restricting the user interface is needed to have a spectator friendly game.
Logical fallacy n°2. Stating well-known facts such as 1+1=2 and acting like they were somehow proofing your point.
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: It'd be nice to have a world where all things were equal and individual differences wouldn't separate players, but where would that leave us? (( I will pass this obvious non-sensical point, what can differentiate 2 players apart from their individual differences ? His whole point is here made stronger, because it is presented as a contradiction of a nonsensical point that no one ever made)) [...]
Somewhere along the line, every game separates those who are better from those who are worse. This is the nature of games. ((o rly ?)
Then he talks about "Starcraft" as a whole genre. SC2 is never directly mentionned, but is referred as an "alteration" of the first SC. You will see that this was needed for his second logical fallacy,
On December 25 2009 10:23 HeartOfTofu wrote: The irony evident in trying to alter the game in an effort "not to restrict players" is that you end up helping players who are less skilled and feel "restricted" by the difficulty of mastering the skills needed and in turn, you hurt more skilled players by placing an arbitrary ceiling on their skills. We could entirely eliminate the time-factor and completely remove the "click-fest.
The "less skilled players" refers to the less skilled SC1 players (who're having trouble mastering the SC1 skills) and vice-versa. Apart from this logical fallacy, no other argument than an obscure analogy will be used to explain why these "SC1 skills" should be all adopted by SC2.
I play at 70APM average and I honestly enjoy the game just fine playing with my friends. Do I expect to be able to compete with better players or professionals? Of course not, just like I wouldn't expect to beat Kobe Bryant in a 1-on-1 on the basketball court. Does my inability to compete with Kobe Bryant signify some sort of inherent problem in basketball?
Hum hum... he will keep on using these false annalogies to somehow proof by induction his main point
Starcraft isn't a perfect game by any means, but it fills a niche in its balance of speed and strategy that isn't currently available in other games. There have been many, many RTS games released since Starcraft's release, some slower, some faster, some more complex, and some easier, but Starcraft has held its place because there is simply no other game that has the right balance to replace it at the moment.
First of all, SC1 is not the Holy Graal, it has not held its place everywhere and is now internationaly dead compared to other games like War3 or CS. Of course if you don't acknowledge this fact you will have troubles finding reasons to modify SC1 stuffs.
However, the scene remains strong in South Korea. Why ? Of course SC1 greatness has something to do with that, but they are other reasons than the game's "balance" behind this, cultural and economical factors.
1). Starcraft has been launched in 1998, just after Korea's economical recession and the introduction of the "cybercafés". Back at the time, it was considerd cheaper to go to the cybercafé rather than buying you own computer. This is where a lot of people has discovered SC.
2). During WW2, approximately 100,000 Koreans were forced to serve in the Japanese Army, and some Korean women have been used as sexual slaves.There is a deep anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea. An embargo against Japanese made imports was even instaured (playstation, megadrive...) . This is the niche that SC1 has filled, it was the first really competitive PC game that wasn't already massively plaid oversea.
Honestly, I'm not here to argue with you, especially since your post did nothing to show your particular stance. I really think you sat there and read my entire post and missed the whole point I was trying to get across. You say that my statements are "litigious" and maybe they are... Honestly I've no idea what exactly that means. I just wanted to get my thoughts across and the way I did it is the best way I could think of. I realize the analogies aren't perfect and quite frankly, they were never meant to be. I think most people reading can grasp the heart of my words without me having to turn it into a precise equation. The reason I talk about Starcraft as opposed to Starcraft 2 is because Starcraft 2 in its final form doesn't exist yet. I've not ever played it nor do I know anything definite about it until it comes out. My entire experience with Starcraft so far has been Starcraft and Brood War. The reason I talk about Starcraft 2 as if it was Starcraft with a "few alterations" is because of my belief that a spiritual successor of a game must have a similar core.
If you understood the main point of my post, it was that there is a combination of game elements that makes Starcraft unique. Whether we think about it or not and whether we can articulate it or not, I imagine that when we play Starcraft, we know the game has a "feel" to it that is different from other games. It is this "feel" that defines Starcraft. The speed of the game, the complexity of the game, the way units move and are controlled, micro, macro, etc. These are all factors that comprise that feel. My belief is that what people want from Starcraft 2 is a game that "feels" similar enough to Starcraft while EXPANDING on the experience of the original with new units, game mechanics, and a new variety of skills. They keyword here is, of course, "EXPANDING" as opposed to "CHANGING". The reason I say this is because after a certain amount of changes the sequel of the game no longer holds true to the spirit of its predecessor. To give an extreme example, if the next Mortal Kombat game turned out to have Scorpion and Sub Zero doing autocross or playing tennis, I doubt any of us would consider the game a real sequel. You would probably write that off as an absurd hypothetical and I will admit that it is, but what if we made it more subtle? If we added a BLOCK button in Street Fighter, would that change the essence of the game? What if we then added a RUN button? What it we went further and took away the LIFE BAR and made the damage system like Bushido Blade? These could all in theory, be great ideas and may even benefit the game, but after a certain point, you would no longer recognize it as a Street Fighter game apart from Ken and Ryu being in it. This is because a large part of what makes Street Fighter unique is how it is played, not just the characters in it or the storyline. Likewise, what makes Starcraft unique is the gameplay itself, not just the fact that we have Zerg, Terran, and Protoss.
The point at which the number of changes constitute a different game is arbitrary and entirely subjective, of course. This is why this argument can never really be resolved. Personally I always felt that Final Fantasy 7 should have never been marketed as a Final Fantasy game because it was so radically different from the 6 previous games that I had played. This doesn't mean I felt it was a bad game. It was a great game, but for me (and many other players at the time) there just wasn't that "Final Fantasy" feel to it. The Final Fantasy franchise has since changed and varied its image and today it wouldn't be a surprise if the next one was focused around a magical pinball machine so it affects me less now, but to me it is a franchise that has varied itself so much that it's lost all identity apart from the marketing power of the name. To that extent, I am admittedly a bit more of a purist when it comes to franchise names and sequels than most. As I said, there are plenty of people out there that don't mind a lot of change and there are also people that will fight tooth and nail over every single update you can propose. Nobody is necessarily right or wrong, but it's a matter of preference and personal belief.
Going along my line of thinking (and yes, this is MY line of thinking), where Starcraft 2 should be similar enough to Starcraft, we need to take a look at Starcraft to see why it is people play it and what sets the game apart from its competitors. The UI is a big part of the Starcraft experience as it is how we interact with the game. The abilities and limitations of the UI has had a heavy hand in shaping the way we play. As I said in my previous post, I do not disagree that the UI is indeed a limitation and that it could vastly be improved, but my question was more about whether these limitations are inherently bad and whether they SHOULD be improved. I do not believe that limitations in the UI have to always be seen as a bad thing and while I believe that things could be changed, I think that some things are better left the way they are lest we stray too far and end up changing the game completely.
You're right about my Civilization analogy. Players, of course, are limited to some degree by the UI of the game just like our sports games are limited to some degree by the laws of physics that govern our universe. The fact is that everything and everyone on some level will be limited by something. The reason I brought up the Civilization analogy is not because I felt that it was the best example, but rather because it was a game where time is taken out of the equation and therefore, the "click-fest" argument does not apply. When we start talking about the UI, it seems that automatically the issue of APM and mechanical dexterity come up and it seems that people have this feeling that the necessity of high APM to compete in higher levels of gameplay is the result of a faulty interface. The point I merely wanted to assert across my post was that this necessity isn't a result of the interface, but rather a result of TIME being a resource in the game. Also, I will concede that you're technically right that it is faulty logic on my part to assume that a game of Civilization would make for horrible TV, but if ever we were put into a position where we would have to make a wager, I'm sure that just about all of us would bet that it would. Yes, we COULD all be wrong about our wager, but let's be honest, we probably wouldn't.
I realize that Starcraft is not the "holy grail" of RTS games and yes, it is "dead" when you compare it to many of the newer games with much more players. Quite frankly, I don't remember ever calling it a holy grail of any kind. It has it's flaws just like any other game. Do you think Street Fighter is the "holy grail" of all fighting games? Is World of Warcraft the "holy grail" of all MMORPG's? No, because there is no such thing. Each game fills a niche and has a target audience. I am well aware of the reasons for Starcraft's popularity in Korea, but I don't see how that has anything to do with why we still have Starcraft players all over the world. Starcraft lives on today because it fills a niche that the games released after it just haven't filled. I think you must have misunderstood me when I said "balance" in that paragraph. I wasn't trying to suggest that it was the racial balance in the game that causes us to play Starcraft so much as I was saying that it is the particular balance of speed and strategy in the game that makes it what it is.
As for my mentioning of my personal enjoyment of the game, it was never meant to be some sort of universal truth. There are plenty of people that are perpetually frustrated when they play Starcraft, but is their frustration because of the game itself or because of what they expect to achieve in it? I believe personal experience is not a "false analogy", but a valuable tool for understanding how different people are affected differently by the game.
Frankly I'm sorry if you were unsatisfied with my stance or my examples, but they were honestly the best I could think of at the time. I'm admittedly not the most articulate person in the world and because of this, I have a tendency to be excessively verbose in trying to get my points across and apparently even with all my words, I failed to get that point across to you. That's fine and well, I guess, but I would like to make a suggestion that I hope you will take into mind.
Logic and reason are great tools for expressing and backing ideas, but they aren't everything. There's a whole lot that is said and understood outside of technicalities of precise logical argument. When you take some time to look at the underlying intent of someone's post rather than read through it a rip a person for speaking in the abstract as opposed to spelling out every single detail, maybe you'll be more open to seeing that there is a message there that maybe you could on some level, relate to. Was that message given in a perfect manner? Of course not and very few messages ever are delivered with perfection. But despite this, we can understand one another and make sense of our thoughts and opinions. I feel that you're an incredibly intelligent person, probably far more intelligent than I, but I cannot help but feel that to some extent you have let that intelligence blind your ability to interpret my post. I do hope that others, at least, understand what I am trying to say. Whether my views are valid or not is an entirely different story, of course..
I vote for HeartOfTofu to be our voice to the Blizzard developers... what do you think guys?
I said what he said but he is more precise and conveys exactly the meaning of the cry of some of us over the changes to SC2...
I really believe that you are 100% correct and this:
I'm admittedly not the most articulate person in the world and because of this, I have a tendency to be excessively verbose in trying to get my points across and apparently even with all my words, I failed to get that point across to you.
is simply bullshit...
Dude you are the most articulate person in this thread... and you do make your point clear, it is that some people like to argue without valid points, or even having an idea of what they are talking about... "starcraft dead in the international community" are you fucking serious??
it is not "dead"... I actually consider that now it is being played more than few years ago, and hey it is an 11 year game so go figure.
If we added a BLOCK button in Street Fighter, would that change the essence of the game? What if we then added a RUN button? What it we went further and took away the LIFE BAR and made the damage system like Bushido Blade?
What if we added parries, focus attacks, a revenge ultra meter, let whiffed normals build meter or put in a meter at all? Oh, all of those were actually put in, and they all substantially changed the game. Third strike isn't SF4, which isn't SF2, which isnt' Super turbo.
Given you acknowledge this, and the fact that you probably acknowledge these changes as fairly large, you're forced to state this:
The point at which the number of changes constitute a different game is arbitrary and entirely subjective, of course. This is why this argument can never really be resolved. Personally I always felt that Final Fantasy 7 should have never been marketed as a Final Fantasy game because it was so radically different from the 6 previous games that I had played.
Yet it was a final fantasy game, arguably the most famous one. Final Fantasy Tactics, or FFXII are also final fantasy games. Even Warcraft 2 was a huge departure from its roots in WC1, wherein the game defining road system was completely removed. Warcraft 3 took a similarly huge step and completely removed one of the ingame resources and eliminated all naval combat on top of completely changing the game's lethality, speed and focus by adding heros.
Many games completely revamp their combat systems, atmosphere and game focus and attempt to improve upon them. In fact, early sequel development was pretty radical in that respect; Mario 2, Zelda 2, Dragon Quest 2, Final fantasy 2, Wizards and warriors 2 off the top of my head completely changed the way each game was played. Compare those differences to the differences between guitar hero 2 and 3, wherein the games are virtually identical; Clearly the 'feel' has been replicated between the two games, but is there an improvement worth purchasing?
So when it comes to starcraft, you need to go beyond just positing the existence of a 'feel'; you need to justify that feel as foundational. You need to deal with the fact that many people have played SC2 with its ingame MBS and automine and say almost unanimously that the game 'feels' like starcraft. You need to define why the 'feel' needs to exist to the exclusion of other 'feels' so to speak. If someone decided to make an FPS in the starcraft world, and put me in the shoes of, I dunno, a starcraft ghost, I'd probably market the game as a starcraft game. Maybe I'd be cute and call it Starcraft: Ghost.
But let me ask this: If starcraft is so defined by its mechanical difficulty, who would be up for increasing said difficulty in starcraft 2? Say you need to tell hatcheries to produce larva, for instance. Or that you need to have gateways retune their warp matrix for different units when you switch production cycles. Or you need to manually select an appropriate boot camp trainee from an incoming roster of recruits when you train any terran unit. Sounds like it would sure make time an even more useful resource, don't you think? But is that 'starcraft'?
What's more, do you think the newly 'difficult' starcraft, lets call it Starcraft D, would make a better spectator sport? Is the difficulty of the game interesting to watch in that respect?
but my question was more about whether these limitations are inherently bad and whether they SHOULD be improved
Blizzard are only doing it for new players to make the game more 'accessible'. As an FPS player who's been through this dumbing down sequel process I've already seen that that doesn't work out.
On a personal level, I've no problem with features like Infinite Unit Selection and even Auto-Mine is something I see as a relatively minor change overall. Let's be honest, of all the changes between Starcraft and Starcraft 2, do you think Auto-Mining is going to really stand out as some huge change that we're all going to still be discussing a few months after the game's release? As I've said, I do believe there is room for progress. In the original Street Fighter, you couldn't block in the air. You also didn't have counters or super bars. And yes, these features have been added over the course of the franchise's development and I will agree that they've made the game more enjoyable for me. My intent was merely to point out that a lot of small changes can become a major transformation once you step back and take a look at the game as a whole. Also, in the case of Street Fighter, these changes happened over the course many installments and from one game to the next really didn't feel like such a big leap even though we've come quite far from where we started.
Yes, I'm well aware of Starcraft:Ghost (a game I had looked forward to playing for the longest time) as are plenty of other people. However, Starcraft:Ghost was never intended to be a sequel to Starcraft. It was being developed as another type of game that took place within the same setting. Nobody goes around believing that World of Warcraft is a sequel to Warcraft 3 for the same reason. It's a completely different genre. In the case of Starcraft to Starcraft 2, we are looking at the case of a game that's intended to be a sequel to the first and one that is staying within the genre of the first.
I can understand your view that a new game should be different enough from the first to warrant paying for it and I do agree with you, but that doesn't mean that we need to completely revamp or alter the game for each new release. There are plenty of features in Starcraft that do work just fine and have made the game popular. What a sequel should be doing is identifying these features and building upon them while at the same time removing or updating some of the features that haven't worked. As I've said, we all differ in regard to what we like and what we don't like about the game and ultimately Blizzard will make a judgement call as to what they feel is best for the game regardless of all of our disagreement.
I never said that Starcraft is defined by it's mechanical difficulty. I said that Starcraft is defined by it's current balance of mechanical difficulty and strategy. If you were to make it more difficult that would have the same effect as making it less difficult. It would throw off the balance and end up changing the game into something it's not and I'm certainly not a proponent of either extreme. Starcraft isn't a game where mechanical dexterity counts and strategy doesn't nor it is a game where strategy counts and mechanical dexterity doesn't. The balance between the two is key. The tricky part for Blizzard is going to be trying to keep the balance of micro, macro, and strategy close to where it currently is and fine-tuning some points of it all while introducing new units, new game dynamics, new features, and new interface functions. It's really not an easy task and of course things will change. My only hope is that they change in a way where it feels like we're still playing the same game at heart, but a better version of it. This doesn't mean in any way that Starcraft 2 needs to be a clone of Starcraft, but more like the relationship between Street Fighter II and Street Fighter III. They came years apart, several installments apart, and have a different style of gameplay, but when it comes down to the heart of it, you KNOW and you FEEL like you're playing a Street Fighter game. That's all I want from Starcraft 2 and I think most people will be satisfied with the same.
As for your hypothetical about an insanely difficult and control-driven Starcraft D, I don't believe it would make for a better spectator sport for the same reason I don't believe Civilization or Romance of the Three Kingdoms would make for good spectator sports. Both are incredibly complex, management-driven games (which I love), but they take it too far to be interesting for a televised audience. When you increase the amount of management that needs to take place too much, it has a tendency to slow down the overall gameplay simply because a person can only process so much information at a time. Starcraft in its current state, played on FASTEST game speed at the professional level is probably pushing near, if not at the limit that a person can think, react, and act in a game. But at the same time it's strategic depth (admittedly not much) is at a level where you can still reasonably play at these speeds. The result is a pretty nice balance of game pace and strategy that has been enjoyable to both players and viewers alike. If we were to keep it at its current speed and add another layer of strategic depth such as tax rates or officers, that too would throw off the balance and you would see people slow down because they have more stuff to manage. Of course this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing per say, it would just be different from the Starcraft we know and probably too different for many people.
I remember a lot of people that complained about Warcraft 3's slower game pace and lower unit supply limit and while a lot of it probably had to do with the limitations of technology at the time, the truth is that it would have probably been difficult to make the hero system work reasonably if the game was played at the speed of Starcraft or if there was as much stuff to manage as Starcraft because of the increased unit supply and hence, larger armies and more macro. I don't view Warcraft 3 as a bad game. The gameplay and pace simply don't suit my tastes, which is why I play Starcraft. For the longest time I had a friend that still played Warcraft 2 because Warcraft 3 and Starcraft didn't suit him. Preferences are fine because they create niches in the genre for which there is a demand. The niche Starcraft currently fills is for people that like a certain level of strategy, but a game in which speed also is to some extent a determining factor. At the same time, I don't think we want to have to run recruiting units into towns and assign bootcamp instructors for our Marines either...
Certainly an argument could be made for accessibility and user-friendliness and it would be a valid argument, but I'd just like to remind everyone that there was once a time when Starcraft was brand new. We knew nothing about Zerg, Terran, or Protoss. There was a time when nobody was counting APM (the term didn't exist in a gaming sense) and there was no understanding of micro and macro-management. This was a time when the game was new and we all collectively sucked at it. Despite all of the supposed "difficulty" of the game, over time we learned and developed our skill to a point where most of us really don't see these "difficulties" as all that difficult. The skills of the players will naturally start low and increase over time with growing familiarity with the game. Also keep in mind that Starcraft at its core is a very simple game. Nobody is forcing you to play at 150APM and for a long time nobody did. I guess my point is that despite all the supposed difficulty we've adapted to match it with no real problems so I don't see why some people make it seem like the game is impossible in its current state... Whatever happens, we'll just adapt. I think a lot of people prefer the "mastery" of the game to be as challenging as it currently is, even though nobody has truly mastered the game.
If we added a BLOCK button in Street Fighter, would that change the essence of the game? What if we then added a RUN button? What it we went further and took away the LIFE BAR and made the damage system like Bushido Blade?
What if we added parries, focus attacks, a revenge ultra meter, let whiffed normals build meter or put in a meter at all? Oh, all of those were actually put in, and they all substantially changed the game. Third strike isn't SF4, which isn't SF2, which isnt' Super turbo.
While the SF series has certainly varied in many mechanics, there are a few basic constants: move backwards to block is one of them. As far as I know that's always been the way to block in SF games.
In this case it is my feeling that Tofu was giving examples of things that would change the fundamental core and feel of SF games themselves at all playing levels, whereas all the things you listed are more technical changes that, while changing the nature of the game, have merely been different expansions and forks on the base concept of SF.
The point at which the number of changes constitute a different game is arbitrary and entirely subjective, of course. This is why this argument can never really be resolved. Personally I always felt that Final Fantasy 7 should have never been marketed as a Final Fantasy game because it was so radically different from the 6 previous games that I had played.
Yet it was a final fantasy game, arguably the most famous one. Final Fantasy Tactics, or FFXII are also final fantasy games. Even Warcraft 2 was a huge departure from its roots in WC1, wherein the game defining road system was completely removed. Warcraft 3 took a similarly huge step and completely removed one of the ingame resources and eliminated all naval combat on top of completely changing the game's lethality, speed and focus by adding heros.
Many games completely revamp their combat systems, atmosphere and game focus and attempt to improve upon them. In fact, early sequel development was pretty radical in that respect; Mario 2, Zelda 2, Dragon Quest 2, Final fantasy 2, Wizards and warriors 2 off the top of my head completely changed the way each game was played. Compare those differences to the differences between guitar hero 2 and 3, wherein the games are virtually identical; Clearly the 'feel' has been replicated between the two games, but is there an improvement worth purchasing?
So when it comes to starcraft, you need to go beyond just positing the existence of a 'feel'; you need to justify that feel as foundational. You need to deal with the fact that many people have played SC2 with its ingame MBS and automine and say almost unanimously that the game 'feels' like starcraft. You need to define why the 'feel' needs to exist to the exclusion of other 'feels' so to speak. If someone decided to make an FPS in the starcraft world, and put me in the shoes of, I dunno, a starcraft ghost, I'd probably market the game as a starcraft game. Maybe I'd be cute and call it Starcraft: Ghost.
Short beginning note here: I don't think Tofu ever said that we should remove automine or MBS, or said that they, specifically, have killed the feel. He has only said that mechanical skill is an integral part of the spirit of SC. You're mistaking a discussion of the role of mechanics in SC2 for an automine/MBS discussion, which is easy to do I think.
Regarding what you said about franchises though, I think one key thing to acknowledge here is that there are many different ways of using a franchise name. I think that Starcraft shares a lot of things with Metroid in this respect. Metroid was left for dead for years until Metroid Prime came out. As a result, a core of very loyal fans had remained around the excellent original Metroid series and their core concern was a nostalgic one: how could a new Metroid game possibly live up to the legacy, the spirit, of the old game? Strange things were done, like the lock on FPS system to make the game less twitch FPSy, but many were obviously skeptical. Many ended up disappointed, but many others were impressed by how well Metroid Prime, despite being really different, managed to definitively stay a Metroid game and reproduce some of the same feeling that Super Metroid did before it.
Now, there are many things different about SC->SC2. But all these concerns, like the concerns about Metroid Prime, are still a the spirit of the game itself and the transition to a new game with new technologies, new stories, new experiences. SC2 has to both be new and exciting for newcomers, a nostalgia trip for old fogies, and even win the support of the current competitive SC community. All this just to meet the high bar set by SC in every way.
You can see that this is the approach Blizzard is currently taking. People complained about the old Zerg graphics not being zergy. Blizzard pretty much fixed that complaint and other nostalgic aesthetic complaints, and definitive race units were kept while others were thrown away. MBS and automine show their commitment to newcomers while the macro mechanics show they're paying some attention to the current competitive community. Every action they've taken show that they're trying to produce a closely linked, but new, spiritual successor to an old classic.
I don't think that Starcraft 2 even has the option of taking a vastly different tack a la FF:T or Mario 2. Regardless, this is not Blizzard's strategy to begin with.
But let me ask this: If starcraft is so defined by its mechanical difficulty, who would be up for increasing said difficulty in starcraft 2? Say you need to tell hatcheries to produce larva, for instance. Or that you need to have gateways retune their warp matrix for different units when you switch production cycles. Or you need to manually select an appropriate boot camp trainee from an incoming roster of recruits when you train any terran unit. Sounds like it would sure make time an even more useful resource, don't you think? But is that 'starcraft'?
Most people I think would not be up for increasing mechanical difficulty in such a way for two reasons. For one, it isn't necessary. SC already has an unreachable skill ceiling. Why make it higher than it is? Indeed, because the skill ceiling is already unreachable you technically aren't really making the game definitively harder anyways. You're just putting the same clicks in a different place.
Secondly, we all should know that it would be economic suicide. Supporters of MBS/automine have already pointed out that it's most likely a marketing move to meet expectations of new players. SC2 is already pretty old school in insisting that you build lots of workers to harvest resources and build a base. Newbies would see manual mining, let alone manual larva, as spit in the face from conservative elitist players.
What's more, do you think the newly 'difficult' starcraft, lets call it Starcraft D, would make a better spectator sport? Is the difficulty of the game interesting to watch in that respect?
I'm just curious, that's all.
I think it's an interesting balance. Starcraft D would just be more boring because less could happen. Starcraft 2 might possibly be too frantic if lots of things are going on in different places that make following the action really hard. So far though it seems fine spectator-wise.
If we added a BLOCK button in Street Fighter, would that change the essence of the game? What if we then added a RUN button? What it we went further and took away the LIFE BAR and made the damage system like Bushido Blade?
What if we added parries, focus attacks, a revenge ultra meter, let whiffed normals build meter or put in a meter at all? Oh, all of those were actually put in, and they all substantially changed the game. Third strike isn't SF4, which isn't SF2, which isnt' Super turbo.
While the SF series has certainly varied in many mechanics, there are a few basic constants: move backwards to block is one of them. As far as I know that's always been the way to block in SF games.
In this case it is my feeling that Tofu was giving examples of things that would change the fundamental core and feel of SF games themselves at all playing levels, whereas all the things you listed are more technical changes that, while changing the nature of the game, have merely been different expansions and forks on the base concept of SF.
Yet if you changed something between SF1 and SF2 regarding blocking, it might seem relatively minor; many other games at the time had similarly radical changes implemented to them. At this point, there are many games that have 'hold back to block' as one of their mechanics. If genre standards are used instead of game title standards, the problem becomes even more acute; RTS games and games in general have been moving towards more automation.
Either way, the point is rather clear that you can maintain the 'feel' of a game despite revamping the game mechanics.
The point at which the number of changes constitute a different game is arbitrary and entirely subjective, of course. This is why this argument can never really be resolved. Personally I always felt that Final Fantasy 7 should have never been marketed as a Final Fantasy game because it was so radically different from the 6 previous games that I had played.
Yet it was a final fantasy game, arguably the most famous one. Final Fantasy Tactics, or FFXII are also final fantasy games. Even Warcraft 2 was a huge departure from its roots in WC1, wherein the game defining road system was completely removed. Warcraft 3 took a similarly huge step and completely removed one of the ingame resources and eliminated all naval combat on top of completely changing the game's lethality, speed and focus by adding heros.
Many games completely revamp their combat systems, atmosphere and game focus and attempt to improve upon them. In fact, early sequel development was pretty radical in that respect; Mario 2, Zelda 2, Dragon Quest 2, Final fantasy 2, Wizards and warriors 2 off the top of my head completely changed the way each game was played. Compare those differences to the differences between guitar hero 2 and 3, wherein the games are virtually identical; Clearly the 'feel' has been replicated between the two games, but is there an improvement worth purchasing?
So when it comes to starcraft, you need to go beyond just positing the existence of a 'feel'; you need to justify that feel as foundational. You need to deal with the fact that many people have played SC2 with its ingame MBS and automine and say almost unanimously that the game 'feels' like starcraft. You need to define why the 'feel' needs to exist to the exclusion of other 'feels' so to speak. If someone decided to make an FPS in the starcraft world, and put me in the shoes of, I dunno, a starcraft ghost, I'd probably market the game as a starcraft game. Maybe I'd be cute and call it Starcraft: Ghost.
Short beginning note here: I don't think Tofu ever said that we should remove automine or MBS, or said that they, specifically, have killed the feel. He has only said that mechanical skill is an integral part of the spirit of SC. You're mistaking a discussion of the role of mechanics in SC2 for an automine/MBS discussion, which is easy to do I think.
I'm not. If these mechanical requirements are removed, and the 'feel' is still the same, then it indicates that the location or content of the mechanical requirement is not indicative of a core element of the 'feel' of the game.
But let me ask this: If starcraft is so defined by its mechanical difficulty, who would be up for increasing said difficulty in starcraft 2? Say you need to tell hatcheries to produce larva, for instance. Or that you need to have gateways retune their warp matrix for different units when you switch production cycles. Or you need to manually select an appropriate boot camp trainee from an incoming roster of recruits when you train any terran unit. Sounds like it would sure make time an even more useful resource, don't you think? But is that 'starcraft'?
Most people I think would not be up for increasing mechanical difficulty in such a way for two reasons. For one, it isn't necessary. SC already has an unreachable skill ceiling. Why make it higher than it is?
This section Needs to be chopped up a bit; Even if SC was currently fully automated with some sort of brain link between a player's mind and his units, the game would still have an unreachable skill ceiling. This is why sirlin says that starcraft players do their game a disservice by believing it requires skill ceiling extenders; the positioning and unit control aspect of the game alone is far too demanding for anyone to reach the skill ceiling.
Indeed, because the skill ceiling is already unreachable you technically aren't really making the game definitively harder anyways.
This is another portion of his argument, but I think you're mixing something up, here. The game might be objectively harder: you might autodie unless you can maintain 300 apm or something, but the real game 'difficulty' in a 1v1 doesn't lie in fighting the interface, its in outdoing your opponent. Since the difficulty of the game actually comes from the opponent you're playing, and not the interface itself, why is the interface's effect on difficulty itself (and not on feel) important? If you answer that the mechanical difficulty of the game equates to the game 'feel', then you essentially grant sirlin's 'selfish oldschool' argument.
Secondly, we all should know that it would be economic suicide. Supporters of MBS/automine have already pointed out that it's most likely a marketing move to meet expectations of new players. SC2 is already pretty old school in insisting that you build lots of workers to harvest resources and build a base. Newbies would see manual mining, let alone manual larva, as spit in the face from conservative elitist players.
The argument which has already been presented against Sirlin's opinion is that newbies play a completely different game from those that the elitist players are playing, and thus can enjoy it in that respect. Why does this change with current levels of interface interference as opposed with increased levels? Isn't any form of barrier to enjoying the 'true' version of the game detrimental to the game's community?
Sorry if this was very quote intensive, but there were a few statements that I want to look further into here, because I think they're somewhat recurring and that they've been used as unexamined assumptions throughout the conversation.
My biggest question to you (and maybe to Sirlin), I think would be, "Why do you feel that the current Starcraft interface is a "barrier to enjoying the 'true' version of the game"?
Or for the matter, "What exactly is the "true" version of Starcraft that we are supposedly aiming for but can't attain because of the "broken" interface?"
There seems to be a lot of talk about all of the problems with "old school" thinking or "elitism" (a stupid term to describe it), but my problem is that I really just don't understand what we're supposed to be striving toward. What exactly is the ultimate goal?
Disclaimer: I suck at Starcraft and am more or less waiting for SC2 since it's hard to say what skills will transfer and what would have to be completely relearned anyway, so I haven't seen SC from a high level play perspective.
In regards to MBS, I don't think I'm informed enough either way to form a decent opinion on its actual impact to the game. However, It likely just goes hand in hand with allowing unlimited unit selection. In SC1, you can theoretically hotkey 10 barracks and just build from them without going back to your base to click on each building. Obviously you want to use those hotkeys for other things than just those buildings, though. Given that they are freeing up control groups in regards to units (which as has been mentioned, practically nobody is against), I can see how they would simply take it a step further and extend that to production buildings, thinking that otherwise production buildings would just take up the newly available hotkeys.
[joke] And for those that miss having to click a building and a key for each unit they produce, they can just play Protoss with warpgates. A click and a key for every unit, just like old times! [/joke]
Simply put, if something seems like a no-brainer, it should be. I, as the commander of all the forces of whoever, should be able to tell the guy running local Command Center 724-A that "When you get new workers in, just send them to gather resources unless I tell you to send them somewhere else. Don't bother me every time you get a new recruit, I have a war to run." Mechanically, I don't think it'll make the game too easy. Players will just adapt and find some other task to spend time on. The balance of time spent where and doing what is obviously one of the things that Blizzard is working on (macro vs. micro, in essence), but to force some of that time to be taken up with telling every new recruit to walk 5 feet and do his job feels a tad arbitrary.
At the end of the day, Blizzard has one of the best records for improving and polishing their products even after shipping them. Most companies ship and forget. They also have some experience in competitive gaming/e-sports (hai2u WoW arena). I'm sure it'll be fine, but we're all bored and need something to talk about while we hold our knees to our chests rocking back and forth in a corner while waiting for beta keys to appear.
"Why do you feel that the current Starcraft interface is a "barrier to enjoying the 'true' version of the game"?
Its rather simple. I can make a decision and simply not be able to execute it because of a mechanical requirement and not because my mind isn't able to multitask. That's not always a bad thing, but when its as pervasive as it is in starcraft, it becomes an issue with the ability of the game to serve as a competitive medium, which is another one of its core attributes.
Put another way; If i want to move 40 units from point A to point B, why is it that i need 4 hotkeys and 12 interface interactions to issue a single command? The onus here shouldn't be on my justification that this restriction is restrictive, but rather the reverse; why is it a part of the starcraft 'feel' and is it a part of the 'feel' that has aged well?
No one has, thus far, moved forward and suggested a single reason other than 'time management', yet by the above admissions regarding the skill ceiling, as long as useful actions can be taken, useless interface hassles aren't required to fill that gap.
From the prior admission about the downright terrible nature of starcraft D and the current insistence that its the balance of mechanical requirement and strategy that makes starcraft fun, or defines its 'feel' (which isn't a given, mind you) are both very interesting. When we add the prior question "should strategy be easy" which was responded negatively to, we come to a rather universal theory.
-\Interfaces should cleanly accept decisions with as little impediment as possible, but the game should be complex enough to require important decisions to be made at high speed, while designed so that it is simple to watch.
Does this statement sound valid?
If so, you gain a few things by ricochet: your game becomes more accessible because people spend more time engaged with the units, buildings and worlds you've created instead of the system you've build to showcase it to them. This accessibility leads to more people being interested in the 'true' game, as it where, because there is less standing between them and it. This in turn creates a larger competitive pool, which then boils down to better competition as you have a larger talent pool to draw opponents from.
So why would we argue against a win/win/win/win/win scenario, unless we're worried that the years and years of practice we've put into overcoming our initial interface obstacles in SC would be shoved aside? The simplest reason is the one presented by sirlin; people on top like to stay there.
I would, as I normally do, suggest that people play zero hour or watch some replays of good players to see how a game with very little macro can be an intense multitask challenge due to rewarding micro; the difference is that while newer players might lose continually there as here, they aren't tripped up on the interface itself; they're losing to tactical moves made by their opponent.
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult.
No it doesn't become more difficult by default.
The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Ok... so if there's zero interface barrier, then the game is as good as a TBS. Meaning it will be solved by computers, and you'll be looking at a sheet of paper, or a long text file for all your strategies. Or you could program an AI to play it perfectly with ease.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'.
What you call strategy will always be easy. What strategy actually is, isn't easy because it includes a lot of small strategical decisions about the players' allocation of attention, and multitask, which exponentiates the possibilities in the game, and therefore its depth.
If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
"Why do you feel that the current Starcraft interface is a "barrier to enjoying the 'true' version of the game"?
Its rather simple. I can make a decision and simply not be able to execute it because of a mechanical requirement and not because my mind isn't able to multitask. That's not always a bad thing, but when its as pervasive as it is in starcraft, it becomes an issue with the ability of the game to serve as a competitive medium, which is another one of its core attributes.
Put another way; If i want to move 40 units from point A to point B, why is it that i need 4 hotkeys and 12 interface interactions to issue a single command? The onus here shouldn't be on my justification that this restriction is restrictive, but rather the reverse; why is it a part of the starcraft 'feel' and is it a part of the 'feel' that has aged well?
The reason is because the game scales as it goes on. Producing from three command centers SHOULD be harder than producing SCV's from one. Moving a large army should be harder than moving a squad. Consider this: There are many, MANY players out there whose first 1-2 minutes of gameplay is IDENTICAL to that of progamers. But once the game scales outward, these players start losing track of all the increase in production. The pro gamers still manage everything, and that's what makes them great.
Again, building one zealot should be considerably easier than making ten at once. There are B-A level ICCuppers that can pull a 2 gate or 9 pool exactly the same as a pro, but as the game goes on they taper off in small areas. The beauty of Starcraft is that there is always something to improve on. There are fundamentals to the game that are a JOURNEY to go through. Practicing them fulfills you mentally and physically. Macro, micro, and timing of Broodwar is just like back spins, side spins, and spikes of Ping Pong. Where mechanics are the Yin, decision-making is the Yang. They go together in a package.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Perfect execution in RTS would be nothing at all like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn, because units are still limited by their movement speed. Additionally, even though RTSs are not complete information games, they do not degenerate into rock paper scissors because people can and do scout. "Perfect" execution does not change that at all.
You are right in that its the decisions you make that count. An arbitrary apm sink only gets in the way of that.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: Its rather simple. I can make a decision and simply not be able to execute it because of a mechanical requirement and not because my mind isn't able to multitask. That's not always a bad thing, but when its as pervasive as it is in starcraft, it becomes an issue with the ability of the game to serve as a competitive medium, which is another one of its core attributes.
For 90% of the people who say this, this isn't true.
A reasonable typing speed on a normal QWERTY keyboard is 40 words per minute. Approximating to a word length of 5 letters, and including spaces, that's about 240 APM. If you can type at 40 WPM, you are capable of that speed. The only thing separating you from a player who can actually harness that into useful actions is the *mental* ability to string those into sensible actions.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: Put another way; If i want to move 40 units from point A to point B, why is it that i need 4 hotkeys and 12 interface interactions to issue a single command? The onus here shouldn't be on my justification that this restriction is restrictive, but rather the reverse; why is it a part of the starcraft 'feel' and is it a part of the 'feel' that has aged well?
Except that's not a physical limitation. It's a mental multitasking one. Hitting "1a2a3a4a" takes a negligible amount of time. Hitting Shift-1 on a drag-selected bunch of new unit takes a negligible amount of time. What takes time is dealing with units that are in a jumble of different hotkeys, but this happens not because the interface is making things hard for you physically, but because it is demanding a minimum amount of *mental* attention to your units. In other words, you would have no trouble dealing with your units if you mentally devoted the time every production round to add them to existing hotkeys. It only becomes a physical mess (e.g. you have 40 units jumbled up) if you neglect that mental demand, because you will never have a single production round that pumps out 40 units.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: -\Interfaces should cleanly accept decisions with as little impediment as possible, but the game should be complex enough to require important decisions to be made at high speed, while designed so that it is simple to watch.
Does this statement sound valid?
Agreed, but with one thing of note:
Just because you *can* replace "meaningless" actions with mechanics such as the macro mechanics doesn't mean you can do it in a way that's reasonable to balance, and that creates enough actions to fill the void. In other words, just because it's POSSIBLE to try and force "meaningful decisions" into the place of mining assignments and production rounds doesn't mean that it's possible to do them all in a successful way in one go. The macro mechanics are a suitable step in the right direction, but to try and reform the RTS standard in a sweeping fashion is far too ambitious for a single game.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: If so, you gain a few things by ricochet: your game becomes more accessible because people spend more time engaged with the units, buildings and worlds you've created instead of the system you've build to showcase it to them. This accessibility leads to more people being interested in the 'true' game, as it where, because there is less standing between them and it. This in turn creates a larger competitive pool, which then boils down to better competition as you have a larger talent pool to draw opponents from.
I disagree with this.
The competitive pool is always driven by those with the attitude and the will to compete: that regardless of the barriers in place, there is a desire to compete and to win. Ultimately, no interface restrictions will bar those with the will to compete at the highest level (particularly since most people, with practice, are perfectly capable of playing at the speed required for the higher levels of play). Conversely, no interface enhancements will turn those who do not have the right attitude for competition into suitable competitors. The fact that the guy who's strategically strong, but whines about the interface inhibiting his progression would be able to beat C-level players instead of D-level players is irrelevant: the fact that he would rather complain than improve means that he doesn't have the suitable attitude for competition, and would sooner or later find a level of play that he will give up on, and revert to whining about. By extension, that player makes no significant addition to the talent pool.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: I would, as I normally do, suggest that people play zero hour or watch some replays of good players to see how a game with very little macro can be an intense multitask challenge due to rewarding micro; the difference is that while newer players might lose continually there as here, they aren't tripped up on the interface itself; they're losing to tactical moves made by their opponent.
Zero Hour's mechanics are an example brought up in a thread from several months back, but the admission was also made that because it's a game made to model modern combat, which takes place primarily at range, many of the abilities that force mapwide awareness don't have suitable analogues in the Starcraft universe. For one, the idea of melee combat is almost entirely incombatible with the type of combat Zero Hour was meant to simulate.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Perfect execution in RTS would be nothing at all like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn, because units are still limited by their movement speed. Additionally, even though RTSs are not complete information games, they do not degenerate into rock paper scissors because people can and do scout. "Perfect" execution does not change that at all.
You are right in that its the decisions you make that count. An arbitrary apm sink only gets in the way of that.
You misunderstood everything I wrote, and everything you wrote is wrong.
edit:
I guess I'l elaborate.
First of all. perfect execution RTS is MUCH like chess where you get to move every single piece in the same turn. In chess units are constricted by mobility also... they can only go so far in 1 move.
Ok, but if you send a worker to scout, and I don't and I guess the build order that you're doing right, then you wasted mining time, and I didn't and if you try to change the build you're doing, you've wasted even more money so at that point I could have very well won the game.
Also, let's not pretend like scouting is an absolute given in the game. It gets denied all the time.
Perfect execution changes it a lot, because perfect execution introduces hard-counters in build orders, while without being able to perfectly execute hard counters don't exist, just like they shouldn't.
An arbitrary APM sink doesn't get in they way of making decisions. First of all I'm not going to dare to call anything in SC an arbitrary APM sink, if you want to name me one, then go ahead. I assume you're talking about some of the APM-intensive mechanics...
Well guess what, here's how it works.
Every action in RTS has a cost. Since the game is played in real time you pretty much have to allocate your time, and this is where 95% of all the decision-making lies. If you make an RTS that's as strategically deep as starcraft is now , but has no Mechanical requirements (probably an impossible feat.), then I can add mechanical requirements to the game, and automatically make it 20 times more strategic. That's it.
Now obviously some people are able to do more actions in a given period of time, but that's something you have to live with if you want the game to be actually good. Also ability to do more actions in a smaller amount of time is way more mental than physical, and not only that it's accessible to just about everyone through practice, so saying that it has no place in a game that's meant to serve as a competitive medium is just nonsense.
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult.
The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Ok... so if there's zero interface barrier, then the game is as good as a TBS. Meaning it will be solved by computers, and you'll be looking at a sheet of paper, or a long text file for all your strategies. Or you could program an AI to play it perfectly with ease.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'.
What you call strategy will always be easy. What strategy actually is, isn't easy because it includes a lot of small strategical decisions about the players' allocation of attention, and multitask, which exponentiates the possibilities in the game, and therefore its depth.
If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Show me all the turn-based wargames where you can move all units in a turn which has totally mapped strategy in a text file.
You provided no proof why turnbased game would need to have limited number of pieces moving simultaneously to retain strategic depth, which is probably because there is none.
And a game where mechanics plays a big part is much more easier to make an AI that beats humans than in a game thats just strategy, since computers suck at complex strategy but can be awesome mechanically (see BW AI threads for example), totally contrary to what you say.
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult.
No it doesn't become more difficult by default.
The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Ok... so if there's zero interface barrier, then the game is as good as a TBS. Meaning it will be solved by computers, and you'll be looking at a sheet of paper, or a long text file for all your strategies. Or you could program an AI to play it perfectly with ease.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'.
What you call strategy will always be easy. What strategy actually is, isn't easy because it includes a lot of small strategical decisions about the players' allocation of attention, and multitask, which exponentiates the possibilities in the game, and therefore its depth.
If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Show me all the turn-based wargames where you can move all units in a turn which has totally mapped strategy in a text file.
Obviously I made a pretty general statement here that has exceptions, and I don't even know that many turn-based wargames, but most of them are pretty different from each other from what I gather.
So I'll just say this instead, give me an example of any turn-based game, and I will research it, go through the rules and find the particular rule (which is most likely a limitation,) which does the same thing that mechanical requirements do in RTS (aka. keep it from turning into something incredibly simple.)
You provided no proof why turnbased game would need to have limited number of pieces moving simultaneously to retain strategic depth, which is probably because there is none.
I don't have a formal proof, but here's the idea behind it. I'm using chess as an example. Say instead of moving just one piece a turn, you can move every piece once in a turn. Obviously white will have a huge advantage, but let's ignore that. The way you're gonna go about solving this, is you can look at every move every piece can make, and then you choose the most favorable option, and you do it. You never actually have to make decisions between moving different pieces. Mathematically if you can narrow down the possible moves of every piece only to the ones that are good, the game has more scenarios if you can only move one piece at a time, then if you make the "good" move with every piece in the same turn.
And a game where mechanics plays a big part is much more easier to make an AI that beats humans than in a game thats just strategy, since computers suck at complex strategy but can be awesome mechanically (see BW AI threads for example), totally contrary to what you say.
I agree. A game where you need mechanics is easier to have an AI which is impossible to beat by a human player, but that's because it's pretty basic stuff to code an AI that has perfect mechanics, and once you have something that has perfect mechanics you can easily figure out the best strategy, because the options are going to be so much fewer...
I agree, let's look at the BW AI threads... If units were able to move like that all on their own just from you pressing the "micro" button, then think about all the things (units, techniques, strategies,) etc. which would become completely useless, because counters would be so incredibly hard.
What you said, and videos that are posted do not contradict my point however. I never said that "Mechanics are hard strategically." They obviously aren't. Like many people have said they are actually rather repetitive.
The strategical difficulty comes in WHEN the mechanical requirements are harder than what is humanly possible, so you have to CHOOSE not only what is the optimal thing to do in this situation (aka your strategy,) but how, in what order and with what emphasize you're going to execute it, as well how well you can prioritize your attention as you have a constant stream of information coming in at you to which you have to respond in real-time. That is why mechanical requirements add strategic depth.
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: Its rather simple. I can make a decision and simply not be able to execute it because of a mechanical requirement and not because my mind isn't able to multitask. That's not always a bad thing, but when its as pervasive as it is in starcraft, it becomes an issue with the ability of the game to serve as a competitive medium, which is another one of its core attributes.
Put another way; If i want to move 40 units from point A to point B, why is it that i need 4 hotkeys and 12 interface interactions to issue a single command? The onus here shouldn't be on my justification that this restriction is restrictive, but rather the reverse; why is it a part of the starcraft 'feel' and is it a part of the 'feel' that has aged well?
No one has, thus far, moved forward and suggested a single reason other than 'time management', yet by the above admissions regarding the skill ceiling, as long as useful actions can be taken, useless interface hassles aren't required to fill that gap.
From the prior admission about the downright terrible nature of starcraft D and the current insistence that its the balance of mechanical requirement and strategy that makes starcraft fun, or defines its 'feel' (which isn't a given, mind you) are both very interesting. When we add the prior question "should strategy be easy" which was responded negatively to, we come to a rather universal theory.
-\Interfaces should cleanly accept decisions with as little impediment as possible, but the game should be complex enough to require important decisions to be made at high speed, while designed so that it is simple to watch.
Does this statement sound valid?
Honestly, I've said just about everything I've had to say and anything I probably said would just be a reiteration of my posts thus far. I think it's becoming clear to me that we have a fundamental and unresolvable disagreement stemming from different basic beliefs regarding the game and the genre as a whole. If someone looked at the situation from your point of view where the limit should not be your physical ability, but your mental ability, then all of your points are valid. My disagreement is simply that I do not believe that making the speed at which one's mind can multitask the barrier will automatically make for a better game.
However I think about it, someone's always going to be complaining. If physical challenge is present, the guy with slower hands is liable to whine about it. If the challenge is one of mental speed and accuracy, then the guy with the slower mind is liable to whine about it. So for one guy, one version of the game sucks and for the other guy, the other version of the game sucks... Is one person more right or wrong than the other? There's no end to the nonsense, really and this is all one silly and somewhat pointless argument (if it even is an argument) with no resolution because we all have different ideas of what makes for a better game. Why I'm still sitting here typing on this thread, I do not know. I think I have too much time on my hands this holiday. ^^;;
Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Have a Merry Christmas, guys. :D
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult.
No it doesn't become more difficult by default.
The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Ok... so if there's zero interface barrier, then the game is as good as a TBS. Meaning it will be solved by computers, and you'll be looking at a sheet of paper, or a long text file for all your strategies. Or you could program an AI to play it perfectly with ease.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'.
What you call strategy will always be easy. What strategy actually is, isn't easy because it includes a lot of small strategical decisions about the players' allocation of attention, and multitask, which exponentiates the possibilities in the game, and therefore its depth.
If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Show me all the turn-based wargames where you can move all units in a turn which has totally mapped strategy in a text file.
Obviously I made a pretty general statement here that has exceptions, and I don't even know that many turn-based wargames, but most of them are pretty different from each other from what I gather.
So I'll just say this instead, give me an example of any turn-based game, and I will research it, go through the rules and find the particular rule (which is most likely a limitation,) which does the same thing that mechanical requirements do in RTS (aka. keep it from turning into something incredibly simple.)
I dont know so much about different competitive TBS's either, but those that come to my mind now have different kinds of random factors that do indeed bring in something similar to micro control of RTS's, making the game more unpredictable but naturally its different since the randomness is same for everyone.
You provided no proof why turnbased game would need to have limited number of pieces moving simultaneously to retain strategic depth, which is probably because there is none.
I don't have a formal proof, but here's the idea behind it. I'm using chess as an example. Say instead of moving just one piece a turn, you can move every piece once in a turn. Obviously white will have a huge advantage, but let's ignore that. The way you're gonna go about solving this, is you can look at every move every piece can make, and then you choose the most favorable option, and you do it. You never actually have to make decisions between moving different pieces. Mathematically if you can narrow down the possible moves of every piece only to the ones that are good, the game has more scenarios if you can only move one piece at a time, then if you make the "good" move with every piece in the same turn.
I dont think theres any way to see an optimal move for each unit in a limited info situation, especially when the different units' moves affect each other so much. Finding the best possible move for a single unit is only relevant when the single move is all you do in that turn. If units move simultaneously, better to look at the different positions you can end up in at the end of the current turn.
And there is much more possible turn end positions when you move every piece instead of one. If you got, say, 10 units with 2 different possible moves for each and the option to stand still, theres 10*2+1=21 (the +1 is the option of moving nothing) different ways to move into the next turn with 1 piece moving. And 3^10=59 049 different possibilities when you can move all units at once if they dont limit each others' possibilities to move. Obviously this is very abstract example but anyway... And most of those options in both cases arent good moves at all. Some turn there might be a clear obvious piece to move or formation to do, but I dont see why the mechanic with more possible moves would have less moves worth considering.
And a game where mechanics plays a big part is much more easier to make an AI that beats humans than in a game thats just strategy, since computers suck at complex strategy but can be awesome mechanically (see BW AI threads for example), totally contrary to what you say.
I agree. A game where you need mechanics is easier to have an AI which is impossible to beat by a human player, but that's because it's pretty basic stuff to code an AI that has perfect mechanics, and once you have something that has perfect mechanics you can easily figure out the best strategy, because the options are going to be so much fewer...
I agree, let's look at the BW AI threads... If units were able to move like that all on their own just from you pressing the "micro" button, then think about all the things (units, techniques, strategies,) etc. which would become completely useless, because counters would be so incredibly hard.
I got the impression from your 1st post that you thought AI is easier to do for a game without hard mechanics, either I misintepreted you or you wrote it unclearly, but doesnt matter so much at this point
Though if there was such "micro" button... It would screw up the current metagame completely and most likely there would be horrible racial imbalance, but it would still be a deep game, there would be new builds that suit this move&fire environment, you'd still need to know when to press the micro button, what units to make etc. and very small differences in build orders and army positionings would make the difference. But pretty surely it wouldnt be as fun as current SCBW unless there was all-encompassing balance changes to make it more diverse.
Mechanical requirements dont add depth, unless the game is very shallow otherwise. But they can change the strategies used totally - its just down to preference what kind of strategy game you want to play.
And obviously in any RTS good mechanics, both good mouse precision and good multitasking (which is more about your brain than your hands though) are useful - you simply cant make an interface good enough to eliminate that.
For 90% of the people who say this, this isn't true.
A reasonable typing speed on a normal QWERTY keyboard is 40 words per minute. Approximating to a word length of 5 letters, and including spaces, that's about 240 APM. If you can type at 40 WPM, you are capable of that speed. The only thing separating you from a player who can actually harness that into useful actions is the *mental* ability to string those into sensible actions.
Pretty sure you know that your attempt to confuse muscle memory and keyboard dexterity with the mental exercise of making decisions is completely fallacious. According to your statement, 90% of starcraft players should be operating at 240 apm. That's simply not the case.
Is there the capacity to sit down and modify myself to suit an outdated interface? Sure, but I could also go and sit down and do the same for a harder version of the game, something that pretty much everyone has rejected. If I could theoretically spend 10 years mastering Starcraft D, does that change the fact that there's still a decision -> action barrier which is offputting for many people and which goes directly against the design principles underlying any interface? No.
Except that's not a physical limitation. It's a mental multitasking one. Hitting "1a2a3a4a" takes a negligible amount of time.
Oh, so its actually my brain thinking "lets go, you 40 units from point A to point B" that's taking too long? See, I can make that snap judgement pretty much instantly. The hotkeying, 1a2a3a4a and such and the mental actions going into those interface interactions, however, aren't the initial decision itself.
Since I'm so slow at thinking "move from a to b", I challenge you to a game. I will type 'move units to b' to issue the command, whereas you will be forced to deal with the units in singular. You now get to type 'move unit 1 to b' 'move unit 2 to b' 'move unit 3 to b' and so on until 40. If you finish later than I do, you're simply mentally handicapped.
Get the difference? Well, you kinda do because you admit it here:
What takes time is dealing with units that are in a jumble of different hotkeys
The jumble of different hotkeys? That's not the interface? It is, by definition! Awesome, we agree!
but this happens not because the interface is making things hard for you physically
Oh wait, no we don't, because despite admitting that the interface is what's sapping your time, you now just refuse to admit the logical conclusion of your previous statement.
The competitive pool is always driven by those with the attitude and the will to compete: that regardless of the barriers in place, there is a desire to compete and to win. Ultimately, no interface restrictions will bar those with the will to compete at the highest level (particularly since most people, with practice, are perfectly capable of playing at the speed required for the higher levels of play).
Oh, really? Is that so? Assuming you're correct, if the size of the pool of players that are exposed to the competitive version of the game is larger, the competitive pool will be larger, which is again an admission that accessibility increases competition. By contrast, however, I could also point to varying levels of activity in competitive mediums as proof your statement is false; If 'those with attitude and the will to compete' are competitors, why are they not competitors for every venue they enter? How does a competitive person adopt a method of competition? If your statement here was correct, every venue of competition would be saturated upon exposure, but that's not the case.
So you need an additional point, one which completely unravels your argument; people need to gain that competitive will somehow, and they sure as hell won't if they give up on the game, or its competitive incarnation due to a lack of accessibility. This obviously isn't the only factor in determining the size of the competitive pool, but saying that it isn't a factor at all is disingenuous.
The fact that the guy who's strategically strong, but whines about the interface inhibiting his progression would be able to beat C-level players instead of D-level players is irrelevant
Why is this about someone beating C level players instead of D level players. If the C level players have that same competitive spirit you were talking about, they would still be beating the former D level players, right? Additionally, if you want to examine the iccup analogy, accessibility isn't about someone's rank on the ladder, its about getting them initiated on the ladder. This isn't a small issue; you had clan art, a proposed D-rank starleague, mentoring programs, etc. all designed to ease people into the game. The entire strategy section in TL as well as liquipedia could be directly equated to an attempt to increase the accessibility of starcraft to lukewarm players too.
But you're saying that player wouldn't change shit. Might as well tell everyone to not bother if that's the case. Hell, make the game harder to get into! We don't need new players!
Zero Hour's mechanics are an example brought up in a thread from several months back, but the admission was also made that because it's a game made to model modern combat, which takes place primarily at range, many of the abilities that force mapwide awareness don't have suitable analogues in the Starcraft universe. For one, the idea of melee combat is almost entirely incombatible with the type of combat Zero Hour was meant to simulate.
Its rather irrelevant that a number of the mechanics wouldn't work in starcraft; the point is that you can have mapwide awareness with suitable mechanics and have them provide multitasking requirements in-game that are player and unit generated rather than interface generated.
Suppose you could force fire shots onto bare ground and that reavers didn't dud if you fired them that way, but since the trajectory was predetermined, you could dodge the scarab with quick reactions. Suddenly you've created a scenario within a unit that prompts actions which are meaningful from both parties, but doesn't stem from an interface limitation.
That's the type of micro interaction which was critical to making the encounters in zero hour exciting, and that's not something which is 'incompatible' with SC; you could easily rework the vast majority of broodwar units in small ways to create such interactions and completely keep within the feel of the game; many units already have such interactions already. You lay mines, I defuse them. You storm, I dodge. You cast swarm, I get fucking angry at your invincible units and irradiate the douchebag who keeps casting them. These are good actions in that the decision requirements are player driven, not interface driven. By contrast, when a scenario comes up such that I have 58 zerglings that I want to attack with, I first need to wrestle with the interface, not my opponent, before i can be satisfied that I'll even be able to give timely commands. Those decision requirements aren't good, since they aren't competitive; they have nothing to do with my opponent, and are thus extraneous to the entire experience of competition.
If physical challenge is present, the guy with slower hands is liable to whine about it. If the challenge is one of mental speed and accuracy, then the guy with the slower mind is liable to whine about it. So for one guy, one version of the game sucks and for the other guy, the other version of the game sucks... Is one person more right or wrong than the other?
I really don't agree that this is a fundamental agreement, nor do I agree that my position is simply that reaction speed should be one's mental speed. I think the object of the interface is not to hinder one's decision making process, and that starcraft is a fundamentally competitive game which is based on decision making at its core. I put those two together and come up with what I have, and I'm fairly sure my universal statement won't be disagreed with, so this isn't a purely 'agree to disagree statement'.
It could be, though, but on the level of "i prefer x". If, however, you resort to that defence, you trigger the selfish elite criticism, because your preference is an exclusive one, rather than an inclusive one.
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote: Pretty sure you know that your attempt to confuse muscle memory and keyboard dexterity with the mental exercise of making decisions is completely fallacious. According to your statement, 90% of starcraft players should be operating at 240 apm. That's simply not the case.
Those that try to generally do. There are plenty of 240 APM D and D- players that don't *do* anything with that APM. Those that don't either don't strive for that, or realize that without proper fundamentals in other areas, it won't go anywhere.
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote: does that change the fact that there's still a decision -> action barrier which is offputting for many people and which goes directly against the design principles underlying any interface? No.
You're misinterpreting my argument. I'm not arguing that there isn't a decision->action barrier. I'm arguing that the barrier is primarily mental, and not physical, as has been implied/stated. Moreover, that mental barrier stands as a proxy for real, high-speed decisions. Is it better than having real decisions? No. But until real, thoughtful mechanics can be put in place, it's better than nothing.
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote: Oh, so its actually my brain thinking "lets go, you 40 units from point A to point B" that's taking too long? See, I can make that snap judgement pretty much instantly. The hotkeying, 1a2a3a4a and such and the mental actions going into those interface interactions, however, aren't the initial decision itself.
Since I'm so slow at thinking "move from a to b", I challenge you to a game. I will type 'move units to b' to issue the command, whereas you will be forced to deal with the units in singular. You now get to type 'move unit 1 to b' 'move unit 2 to b' 'move unit 3 to b' and so on until 40. If you finish later than I do, you're simply mentally handicapped.
Once again, I'm not arguing that there isn't a barrier. I'm arguing that the barrier is mental. It's only a physical barrier for those who choose to MAKE it physical. 1a2a3a4a is effectively an effortless action, as is drag-select + hotkey once every 20-40 seconds (2 actions out of 60-90 per minute even for a slow player). The task is not "hotkey and move all your units as quickly as possible" which indeed does take some physical dexterity, but "remember to check your rally and hotkey the new units every production round", which takes the mental task of remembering to cycle back to your rally. Once you do that, moving the units IS virtually effortless.
but this happens not because the interface is making things hard for you physically
Oh wait, no we don't, because despite admitting that the interface is what's sapping your time, you now just refuse to admit the logical conclusion of your previous statement.
You completely missed the conclusion I was going for. My point was that IF you accomplish the mental task of checking your rally every production round, your units really shouldn't be in a jumble, because the number of units that stream out is very manageable, even for a poor player.
Is checking those rally's and drag-select+hotkey a menial task? Yes. But it is a mental task, not a physical one. As far as I'm concerned, until a better alternative can fill it's place, it's like dribbling in basketball--a task that underscores the need for a basic skill of the game (multitasking in this case) is better than no task at all.
Note: I'm cutting short the rest because I realize that, yeah, i was being pretty dumb when I wrote that.
Utlimately, I think we have the same goal, which you stated before:
Interfaces should cleanly accept decisions with as little impediment as possible, but the game should be complex enough to require important decisions to be made at high speed, while designed so that it is simple to watch.
However, I don't think reaching this ideal is something that can be done in a single step. The problem is, if you strip Starcraft of the interface elements, you really *don't* have enough complexity for important decisions to be made at high speed--there just aren't enough of them. Could you add more? Yes. But the number needed to fill the gap is too many for you to reasonably be able to do them *well* in a single game. Perhaps several sequels down the line maybe, but not right away. And until then, leaving a couple of the old eccentricities of the interface in a way that emphasizes multitasking in the way the SC1 interface does is better than leaving nothing there.
It will always be easy relatively to how difficult the decision making is during its execution
How so? Assume there's zero interface barrier; the execution of the strategy becomes a given, while the creation of it becomes by default more difficult.
No it doesn't become more difficult by default.
The magnitude of how different the two difficulties are is the object of the discussion itself. As the interface barrier decreases, the amount of difficulty that a variably complex strategy component needs to kick in increases in order to reach a similar plateau.
Ok... so if there's zero interface barrier, then the game is as good as a TBS. Meaning it will be solved by computers, and you'll be looking at a sheet of paper, or a long text file for all your strategies. Or you could program an AI to play it perfectly with ease.
Either way, you're still left answering 'should strategy be easy'.
What you call strategy will always be easy. What strategy actually is, isn't easy because it includes a lot of small strategical decisions about the players' allocation of attention, and multitask, which exponentiates the possibilities in the game, and therefore its depth.
If you think it should, the execution needs to pick up the slack. If you think it should be hard, then it can either be hard enough to supplant an execution barrier, or it can be too simple to warrant an elimination of said barrier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Show me all the turn-based wargames where you can move all units in a turn which has totally mapped strategy in a text file.
Obviously I made a pretty general statement here that has exceptions, and I don't even know that many turn-based wargames, but most of them are pretty different from each other from what I gather.
So I'll just say this instead, give me an example of any turn-based game, and I will research it, go through the rules and find the particular rule (which is most likely a limitation,) which does the same thing that mechanical requirements do in RTS (aka. keep it from turning into something incredibly simple.)
I dont know so much about different competitive TBS's either, but those that come to my mind now have different kinds of random factors that do indeed bring in something similar to micro control of RTS's, making the game more unpredictable but naturally its different since the randomness is same for everyone.
You provided no proof why turnbased game would need to have limited number of pieces moving simultaneously to retain strategic depth, which is probably because there is none.
I don't have a formal proof, but here's the idea behind it. I'm using chess as an example. Say instead of moving just one piece a turn, you can move every piece once in a turn. Obviously white will have a huge advantage, but let's ignore that. The way you're gonna go about solving this, is you can look at every move every piece can make, and then you choose the most favorable option, and you do it. You never actually have to make decisions between moving different pieces. Mathematically if you can narrow down the possible moves of every piece only to the ones that are good, the game has more scenarios if you can only move one piece at a time, then if you make the "good" move with every piece in the same turn.
I dont think theres any way to see an optimal move for each unit in a limited info situation, especially when the different units' moves affect each other so much. Finding the best possible move for a single unit is only relevant when the single move is all you do in that turn. If units move simultaneously, better to look at the different positions you can end up in at the end of the current turn.
And there is much more possible turn end positions when you move every piece instead of one. If you got, say, 10 units with 2 different possible moves for each and the option to stand still, theres 10*2+1=21 (the +1 is the option of moving nothing) different ways to move into the next turn with 1 piece moving. And 3^10=59 049 different possibilities when you can move all units at once if they dont limit each others' possibilities to move. Obviously this is very abstract example but anyway... And most of those options in both cases arent good moves at all. Some turn there might be a clear obvious piece to move or formation to do, but I dont see why the mechanic with more possible moves would have less moves worth considering.
It's because you don't have to compare the value of moving 1 piece to the value of moving another piece. You only have to compare the value of the different moves of the same piece.
As for being how being able to move more than one piece leads to less actual possibilities, well just about any position after each player has completed a turn in this game of chess where each piece can move once per turn is also achievable with moving the pieces just one at a time no? However, the process that leads to each of those positions will involve way more decisions, since you would be choosing only one move per turn out of all the possible ones, and after each turn you take your opponent's move into account. So moving more than one piece per turn is in a way skipping a large portion of decision making that you have to make in the actual game to get to the same result.
And a game where mechanics plays a big part is much more easier to make an AI that beats humans than in a game thats just strategy, since computers suck at complex strategy but can be awesome mechanically (see BW AI threads for example), totally contrary to what you say.
I agree. A game where you need mechanics is easier to have an AI which is impossible to beat by a human player, but that's because it's pretty basic stuff to code an AI that has perfect mechanics, and once you have something that has perfect mechanics you can easily figure out the best strategy, because the options are going to be so much fewer...
I agree, let's look at the BW AI threads... If units were able to move like that all on their own just from you pressing the "micro" button, then think about all the things (units, techniques, strategies,) etc. which would become completely useless, because counters would be so incredibly hard.
I got the impression from your 1st post that you thought AI is easier to do for a game without hard mechanics, either I misintepreted you or you wrote it unclearly, but doesnt matter so much at this point
Though if there was such "micro" button... It would screw up the current metagame completely and most likely there would be horrible racial imbalance, but it would still be a deep game, there would be new builds that suit this move&fire environment, you'd still need to know when to press the micro button, what units to make etc. and very small differences in build orders and army positionings would make the difference. But pretty surely it wouldnt be as fun as current SCBW unless there was all-encompassing balance changes to make it more diverse.
Mechanical requirements dont add depth, unless the game is very shallow otherwise. But they can change the strategies used totally - its just down to preference what kind of strategy game you want to play.
And obviously in any RTS good mechanics, both good mouse precision and good multitasking (which is more about your brain than your hands though) are useful - you simply cant make an interface good enough to eliminate that.
I didn't say that it would be easier to make an AI that would play the game better than humans in some aspects, when there's perfect mechanics. I said that you can more easily solve the game strategically when there's perfect mechanics, obviously once you've done that you can write an AI that plays "perfectly."
Obviously, if there is no perfect mechanics, then you can just write an AI that abuses it's ability to perfectly micro units, and once you have written the code for AI being able to do everything that's mechanical perfectly, then you could probably solve the game as well, and then code the strategy into the AI also, and have that play "perfectly" too, but that would require way more work.
However, the game won't degenerate from this solution of the game, because the players won't have the mechanics in order for this solution to hold completely valid.
An AI that only abuses perfect mechanics would probably be beatable by the way, via gimmicks.
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote: Pretty sure you know that your attempt to confuse muscle memory and keyboard dexterity with the mental exercise of making decisions is completely fallacious. According to your statement, 90% of starcraft players should be operating at 240 apm. That's simply not the case.
no, because for 90% of starcraft players the bottleneck isnt how fast they can hit keys on a keyboad. 90% of starcraft players dont have the focus and multitasking to keep up.
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote:Is there the capacity to sit down and modify myself to suit an outdated interface? Sure, but I could also go and sit down and do the same for a harder version of the game, something that pretty much everyone has rejected. If I could theoretically spend 10 years mastering Starcraft D, does that change the fact that there's still a decision -> action barrier which is offputting for many people and which goes directly against the design principles underlying any interface? No.
you could do the same for an easier version of the game. everyone rejects the harder version of the game aswell as the easier version, because we are arguing for a balance. this was stated in heartoftofu's posts clearly. saying "you think it would be silly to make it more of a hurdle, therefore you admit it is currently a hurdle, therefore you admit it there is no reason to have the hurdle at all" is just wrong. you CAN NOT make a "many people" argument when sc1 is the most successful rts ever, do you seriously disagree here?
On December 26 2009 12:58 L wrote:Since I'm so slow at thinking "move from a to b", I challenge you to a game. I will type 'move units to b' to issue the command, whereas you will be forced to deal with the units in singular. You now get to type 'move unit 1 to b' 'move unit 2 to b' 'move unit 3 to b' and so on until 40. If you finish later than I do, you're simply mentally handicapped.
it takes a couple of seconds total to hotkey and move an army. if your army is already hotkeyed you can move is pretty much instantly. the real speed comes from thinking ahead of time you're going to want to move those units and fitting the attention in somewhere to do it without neglecting the other 10 things you want to do.
What takes time is dealing with units that are in a jumble of different hotkeys
The jumble of different hotkeys? That's not the interface? It is, by definition! Awesome, we agree!
the jumble of hotkeys is talking about the player recalling what they've done with their units, where they're assigned and how they're organised.
but this happens not because the interface is making things hard for you physically
Oh wait, no we don't, because despite admitting that the interface is what's sapping your time, you now just refuse to admit the logical conclusion of your previous statement.
your own inability to keep your units organised in your mind is sapping your time. your inability to remember to reorganise your units as they are created and destroyed is sapping your time.
then there is some junk then we get to the end of your post and the next one which can be summed up easily: micro: good. management: bad. macro: bad.
then you basically sit there and pretend its not a matter of opinion. it is not a matter of preference. when we think 'a balance of mechanics and strategy is good' its because 'we prefer it', when you say 'i dont think my decision making should be limited by the interface' it somehow isnt preference, it is the divine word of god.
but hey, you support your argument with the notion "people who dont even play rts' would like it better this way!" i guess that does mean its not opinion.
I'm going to hate myself for this in the morning, but here's my last post before I go to sleep...
Once again, in response to L:
If you feel that your statement is universal and that we can all agree with it, what do you believe is the fundamental argument that has fueled the past 13 pages or so?
On December 26 2009 13:06 L wrote: starcraft is a fundamentally competitive game which is based on decision making at its core.
You're right, nobody is arguing against this statement because it is meaningless since just about every game is based on decision making at its core. From Pac Man to Counterstrike, games are driven by how we decide to react to the given problem. I don't see why you would even bring up something so obvious. Perhaps it may have been a LITTLE more meaningful if you had said that strategy is the core of Starcraft, but even that would assume that you knew exactly what goals the developers had in mind when they designed the game. And even then, the word "strategy" is so vague...
On December 26 2009 13:06 L wrote: I really don't agree that this is a fundamental agreement, nor do I agree that my position is simply that reaction speed should be one's mental speed.
In a previous post, you said the following:
On December 26 2009 07:43 L wrote: Its rather simple. I can make a decision and simply not be able to execute it because of a mechanical requirement and not because my mind isn't able to multitask. That's not always a bad thing, but when its as pervasive as it is in starcraft, it becomes an issue with the ability of the game to serve as a competitive medium, which is another one of its core attributes.
Put another way; If i want to move 40 units from point A to point B, why is it that i need 4 hotkeys and 12 interface interactions to issue a single command? The onus here shouldn't be on my justification that this restriction is restrictive, but rather the reverse; why is it a part of the starcraft 'feel' and is it a part of the 'feel' that has aged well?
It certainly seems to me that you problem with the current interface is the fact that you feels that it hinders you from being able to control your units as fast as you could mentally wish them to move and that the ideal interface to unlock the "true" game would be one in which this wasn't the case. It's pretty obvious that you have a problem with the amount of physical activity in Starcraft required to control your units and production and this amount of activity which you personally feel to be excessive represents an obstacle or barrier. Nevermind the fact that we ultimately have to deal with reality, but let's say that we could make the game interface any way we wanted. What exactly would this ideal interface that has no barriers or hindrances between player and in-game action be like?
On December 26 2009 13:06 L wrote: I think the object of the interface is not to hinder one's decision making process
Speaking of interfaces, why would you assume that the only object of a user interface is simply not to "hinder one's decision making process"? The UI is an integral part of any game and it can be designed with a number of purposes in mind beyond simply serving the sole purpose of being a means to controlling your character. Developers often design UI's with the feel they want the game to have in mind. Slight changes to the UI can often mean major changes in the way the game is played or how people perceive it. Please don't dismiss the purpose of the UI as being something so passive as simply staying out of the player's way.
As for why the UI is such a huge part of the Starcraft "feel" is self-explanatory if you think about it. The UI is the method by which we interact with the game and therefore we are constantly using it every moment we play Starcraft. Because the "feel" of Starcraft is the result of your experience with the game, it is only natural that something so pervasive as the UI becomes an integral part of how you relate with the game. The UI itself is part of the player experience. As for whether it has aged well, this is a debatable issue. There are plenty of people that believe it has aged just fine and quite obviously there are plenty of other people that believe that the UI is in need of serious revamping, updating, or redesigning. How the UI has "aged" is a completely subjective issue. I personally believe that the UI is due for some updating to make use of some of the newer capabilities we now have.
On December 26 2009 13:06 L wrote:I'm fairly sure my universal statement won't be disagreed with, so this isn't a purely 'agree to disagree statement'.
Just about the only "universal" statement you made was that Starcraft is a game about making decisions, which I already pointed out was an obvious statement and a relatively meaningless one at that. Your statement in regard to the object of the UI was, in your own words, your own belief and one based on your own view of what it should be and given that I disagree with it (along with several others, I'm sure), I think it's hardly a universal statement. So yes, this is purely an "Agree to Disagree" situation because both our opinions are based on our own preferences and beliefs in regard to what function the UI should serve and what makes for a good game. There's nothing universal about either of our beliefs and no amount of attempting to reconcile the rift with logic will make a difference because a logical argument is ultimately based on the given premise. Even logic is meaningless when we disagree on the premises involved.
On December 26 2009 13:06 L wrote:It could be, though, but on the level of "i prefer x". If, however, you resort to that defence, you trigger the selfish elite criticism, because your preference is an exclusive one, rather than an inclusive one.
I suppose if having a preference based on your beliefs automatically catagorizes you as a "selfish elitist", then I'm guilty as is everyone else in the world. Please don't try to get on some sort of high horse by saying that I'm the only one here whose preference is exclusive rather than inclusive. Your own preference, if realized, would exclude the desires of all those who disagree with you, which in this case are the ones that believe that the physical challenge is an integral part of what defines Starcraft. If you want to say that it's not actually exclusive, but rather inclusive because these people could still play your ideal game, then I could argue that someone who disagrees with my preferences could still play my ideal game.
On a side note, it's ironic to me that we use the word "elitist" to describe people with a demeaning and condescending connotation because demeaning others and being condescending is pretty much what the elitist himself does.
One important lesson I've learned in life is: Rather than being so pretentious to assume that your own view is somehow more noble or right than the next guy because it happens to make sense to you, you really need to stop and learn that there are other people that have different views that are just as respectable as your own and upon realizing this, rather than continuing down the endless cycle of arguing the same points back and forth, you need to accept that there are differences that simply aren't going to be resolved and work from there to some sort of compromise. By saying "you", I don't mean you personally, L, but everyone (myself included). If there is a single universal truth that is evident in the world, it is that there are often times when people just can't come together and agree on something and it's not because one side is missing the truth, but rather because there is no higher truth that we can all acknowledge to be true.
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Edit 1. This is really going to be my last post here so feel free to have the final response if you like. I'd rather not continue to bother the public with so much text written in response to any single person so if you want to continue discussing one-on-one please feel free to PM me any time. ^^ ________________
Edit 2. BTW, sorry if I sound hostile or agitated... Just had the most horrible Christmas ever. >.<
no, because for 90% of starcraft players the bottleneck isnt how fast they can hit keys on a keyboad. 90% of starcraft players dont have the focus and multitasking to keep up.
Focus and multitasking to keep up with what, exactly? The mechanical requirement generated by the interface? Sure. 90% of starcraft players have that issue. Please stop confusing an instance of decision making with a mechanical requirement.
For instance, when I make a probe, am I really required to hotkey a nexus, select the nexus, select that I want to make a probe, then later return to the nexus and then given an order for the probe to mine? Mechanically I am. In terms of the decision I've made, by contrast, I already know I want a probe to be building before I make the first action. Do you honestly thing the bottleneck is in the process which is rapid and singular? Or the one which requires five actions? You're saying its the former when it clearly isn't. Again, the example of my moving 40 units is pretty clear; If i'm playing age of empires 2, my 40 units react with a single command when I tell them to move. If i'm playing starcraft, I need to hotkey then spread the groups then 1a2a3a4a. 12 actions versus 1 for equivalent decisions.
When this decision is significant: "I want to send my ultras first to absorb the first tank volley before the lings engage", the extra interactions have value. Where the decision isn't: "I just want to move these dudes from point A to point B" it isn't.
As for the rest of your post, especially that cute "micro good management bad macro bad" portion, there's far too much misrepresentation and fallacious argumentation to be taken seriously. You strawman repeatedly culiminating in a gross misrepresentation stating that I hate macro and management. Wrong. I hate poor interfaces. I love macro, and I love management. I've given micro examples solely because they're pretty visual and easy to picture.
You're right, nobody is arguing against this statement because it is meaningless since just about every game is based on decision making at its core. From Pac Man to Counterstrike, games are driven by how we decide to react to the given problem. I don't see why you would even bring up something so obvious. Perhaps it may have been a LITTLE more meaningful if you had said that strategy is the core of Starcraft, but even that would assume that you knew exactly what goals the developers had in mind when they designed the game. And even then, the word "strategy" is so vague...
Not every game is based on decision making at its core. Many games have decision making at a prominent feature of its play, but many are completely devoid of decision making. Many others have decision making in a subsidiary role compared to another game element. The fact that decision making is admitted "obvious" central pillar of what makes starcraft starcraft to the point that you assume it to be a trivial factor is telling; To use your language, the 'feel' of starcraft is so entwined with decision making that its a given.
You somewhat attempt to move from decision to strategy here, but that's not a worthwhile jump; I'm staying at decision because it encompasses far more than a strategic overview or plan that a player has; not only does the decision making process capture strategy, but it captures tactics as well.
It certainly seems to me that you problem with the current interface is the fact that you feels that it hinders you from being able to control your units as fast as you could mentally wish them to move and that the ideal interface to unlock the "true" game would be one in which this wasn't the case. It's pretty obvious that you have a problem with the amount of physical activity in Starcraft required to control your units and production and this amount of activity which you personally feel to be excessive represents an obstacle or barrier.
This has nothing to do with 'me'. This has to do with the interface itself. I don't 'feel' that it hinders players from controlling their units in the ways they want, I know it does because its objectively true. Its categorically true and unarguable that the SC interface simply isn't efficient. The example with the 40 units is concrete proof; modern interfaces simply don't have this barrier included.
So is it an issue with the physical activity requirement? No. I've already stated that it would be perfectly fine to increase the physical activity requirement dramatically by increasing the amount of player created interactions. The question is whether or not the requirement of activity comes from the interface or whether it comes from an interactive element which is intuitive and rewarding.
What exactly would this ideal interface that has no barriers or hindrances between player and in-game action be like?
We obviously don't have the capability to reach such a lack of interface so its impossible to describe accurately. The implication that a lack of precise definition makes the concept any less meritorious to pursue, however, is itself without merit. Note your reliance on the vague 'feel' for reference.
Speaking of interfaces, why would you assume that the only object of a user interface is simply not to "hinder one's decision making process"?
I don't. Nor is it implied that the interface's purpose is to hinder one's decision making process.
Just about the only "universal" statement you made was that Starcraft is a game about making decisions
False. The specific universal statement I made was emphasized with the use of a dash and was set apart in its own paragraph to highlight it. Starcraft being a game about making decisions isn't even a universal statement; its a statement about a particular, being starcraft itself.
So no, I can't agree with you that this is purely an opinionated matter, or at least not on the grounds that you've presented, seeing as they're addressing something which I never stated.
I suppose if having a preference based on your beliefs automatically catagorizes you as a "selfish elitist", then I'm guilty as is everyone else in the world.
At this point I can tell you're a bit unhappy and clearly not bothering to read the full content of my writing. The selfish aspect was clearly linked to the fact that the preference is an exclusive preference as opposed to an inclusive preference. The only way an inclusive preference can be seen as exclusive is if you take it from the perspective of the 'elites' (really loaded and unaccurate word at this point, but whatever), given that their relative dominance and the applicability of their skillset will be moderately displaced in their minds. The fact that the preference is inclusive is lost on them, hence why sirlin attacks the view as selfish. So that's exactly what you do as follows:
Your own preference, if realized, would exclude the desires of all those who disagree with you
Exclude the desires? How so? The current 'feel' of starcraft as you've described it is replicated; I haven't removed the need for multitasking. If anything, I've opened up far more multitasking. You're so stuck trying to fight against me that you're ignoring the fact that the suggestion and arguments presented don't form a break with your preferences in the least unless you're afraid that the ricochet benefits will be detrimental to you. The only way you can fundamentally disagree is if you believe that the interface's problems itself are a fundamental aspect of the 'feel' of starcraft, which doesn't seem to be the case given that you've already said you accept a number of improvements on the matter, and that you're against a harder interface.
Even if 'desires' have been 'excluded' (which would be quite a feat, mind you) the reverse can obviously be said of the other party, so its irrelevant if there are mutually exclusive preferences despite the fact that there aren't, in this case; Like I said, this isn't a matter solely based in opinion. The key here is that this goes beyond preference. It touches upon the size of the competitive pool, accessibility to the game, the intuitiveness of the design and so on. These aren't opinion matters; they're quantifiable qualities which appeal to the community that you're trying to satiate with 'feel'. I've attempted to boil down the basic qualities of said 'feel' objectively using relatively indisputable descriptions (which accordingly weren't disputed), and come to my own conclusions about what the core of the game is, but without presenting a complete credible alternative, I don't understand how this discussion can progress fruitfully.
So in that vein, tell me what your ideal starcraft 2 is composed of. Tell me why you play it, who you play it with, when you play it. Tell me your favorite mechanics, favorite units and why they're ideal to you.
One important lesson I've learned in life is: Relativism
Yo, I shortened your paragraph. Relativism is useful for dismissing things you can't otherwise show to be incorrect. Just saying.
On December 26 2009 04:02 L wrote: Yet if you changed something between SF1 and SF2 regarding blocking, it might seem relatively minor; many other games at the time had similarly radical changes implemented to them. At this point, there are many games that have 'hold back to block' as one of their mechanics. If genre standards are used instead of game title standards, the problem becomes even more acute; RTS games and games in general have been moving towards more automation.
Either way, the point is rather clear that you can maintain the 'feel' of a game despite revamping the game mechanics.
But it's all subjective, and the more you change how you interact with the UI the more you change the "feel" of the game. Whether or not this is base rests entirely on what the audience, often a mixed group, expects. In any case Tofu was suggesting those examples because they would be odd changes given the context surrounding SF that would give pause to players. The ones you give were probably debated heavily, but it's the kind of thing they've come to expect from SF sequels.
In any case you completely ignored what I had to say about the purpose of the Starcraft franchise and how Blizzard's own approach disagrees with the kind of radical approach you seem to have. Blizzard shows that they are being relatively conservative with the UI changes and Dustin Browder keeps on talking about wanting to preserve elements of Starcraft while giving them a new twist. That's the whole reason why the macro mechanics exist. Dustin Browder decided that macro was part of the "feel" of the game.
I'm not. If these mechanical requirements are removed, and the 'feel' is still the same, then it indicates that the location or content of the mechanical requirement is not indicative of a core element of the 'feel' of the game.
Well you keep on making it sound as if I and others are completely against all UI changes, which we're not. Every UI change you make will and in fact does change the feel to some extent and makes it into a slightly different game. Whether this is good or bad is mostly subjective and leads to subjective argument.
This section Needs to be chopped up a bit; Even if SC was currently fully automated with some sort of brain link between a player's mind and his units, the game would still have an unreachable skill ceiling. This is why sirlin says that starcraft players do their game a disservice by believing it requires skill ceiling extenders; the positioning and unit control aspect of the game alone is far too demanding for anyone to reach the skill ceiling.
If the game was played by a perfect computer than the skill ceiling would not exist. Since we are talking about real time, it's certainly possible that the skill ceiling of mind melded people would also be infinite. But it would also vastly change the game itself and the way it's played, leading to essentially a different game.
People are hesitant to remove the current skill tests because they define competitive Starcraft, which has been the most successful eSport, ever. Whether you like them or not. We are never guaranteed that when we remove skill tests we will still have a game that is sufficiently "Starcraft" enough for successful competition. War3 isn't all that different from Starcraft and it never became as successful, even though it too has an infinite skill ceiling. How do you explain that? Why be so radical and change a formula that has been and could be so successful, that players have been begging for a new iteration of for years? This is not the tired franchise, reinventing stage that Starcraft is going through here. It's the nostalgic recreation phase.
This is another portion of his argument, but I think you're mixing something up, here. The game might be objectively harder: you might autodie unless you can maintain 300 apm or something, but the real game 'difficulty' in a 1v1 doesn't lie in fighting the interface, its in outdoing your opponent. Since the difficulty of the game actually comes from the opponent you're playing, and not the interface itself, why is the interface's effect on difficulty itself (and not on feel) important? If you answer that the mechanical difficulty of the game equates to the game 'feel', then you essentially grant sirlin's 'selfish oldschool' argument.
Of course the interface has some influence on the feel of the game. Any time you change the interface, you yourself acknowledge that it changes the sorts of decisions that a player has to make when using it, since after all you yourself would rather decide "disengage my army" rather than be caught up with any details like whether to 1a2a3a or be upgrading your units at any moment. These decisions are part of what makes up the "feel", because they're strategic too. Which thing will give me the best advantage, disengaging my army at this very moment or focusing my attention on upgrading first? These are hard decisions that progamers mess up on all the time because Starcraft requires to you play smart. It's not mindless.
To dismiss such things as selfish is stupid. I don't care if Sirlin makes some game that caters to your kind of audience, that's great, that's his niche. But let me ask you something: if someone make an incredibly mechanical sequel out of a successful but incredibly nonmechanical game, do you think the nonmechanical players wouldn't come out of the woodwork screaming "What the crap did you do to our sequel?! We can't even play it right! You didn't even make it for us!" And they'd have every right to do so, because the company was engaging in false advertising after all. It was supposed to be a sequel that the fans of the previous game could enjoy. Would you see me complaining if they actually made it nonmechanical like they should have? No!
And if you start lecturing me about your examples of sequels that do change, do some critical thinking and see my point here. Yeah, sequels change, but not at the cost of the fan base, and when a sequel is completely different it's called a spin-off. Not a sequel.
So don't give me elitist bullcrap. I don't have any illusions about the role of mechanical play in any game, and if you would allow the players of the above hypothetical game to complain but not let me complain then you've got yourself an bigoted double standard. Otherwise, let's move along.
The argument which has already been presented against Sirlin's opinion is that newbies play a completely different game from those that the elitist players are playing, and thus can enjoy it in that respect.
You're misunderstanding someone else's statement. Specifically, they meant the metagame, or the player's conception of what is involved in winning the game. The game will always favor the player with the better conception of the metagame, because that allows them to win. However the players are still playing the same game. Worse players have a harder time enjoying the game when they're playing better players, because there can often be such a huge mental metagame difference that the worse player has no bloody clue where to start in order to not lose.
This is why game theory generally assumes that the players are rational.
Why does this change with current levels of interface interference as opposed with increased levels? Isn't any form of barrier to enjoying the 'true' version of the game detrimental to the game's community?
I already told you, because of what newbies want in regards to the game that they play. No newbie wants to play a game with manual mining or single building selection nowadays, even if it's Starcraft. But they wouldn't mind building workers in order to build other things like units and buildings, or selecting their whole army and then pushing "a" to attack move it to the opponent's base, that's the kind of thing they expect from Starcraft. Not to cater to their tastes at all would, again, be economic suicide, but not replacing those actions in some way changes the kinds of strategic decision making that higher end players are doing and thus changes the competitive game needlessly.
In effect: Satisfy the newbies by not bothering them with stuff they're bored of by now and satisfy the competitive players by keeping SC2 true to SC1's decision-making balance. Give the newbies new stuff, give the oldies a new flavor of the old stuff.
Sorry if this was very quote intensive, but there were a few statements that I want to look further into here, because I think they're somewhat recurring and that they've been used as unexamined assumptions throughout the conversation.
Sorry if this was very quote intensive, but I think you're full of unexamined assumptions. May as well have said, "Say more stuff! I'm going to prove you wrong hurhurhur!"
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This will also be my last post here because arguing with L further is probably not going to produce any more understanding. But hey, it's here. Might as well post it.
edit: One last thing:
For instance, when I make a probe, am I really required to hotkey a nexus, select the nexus, select that I want to make a probe, then later return to the nexus and then given an order for the probe to mine? Mechanically I am. In terms of the decision I've made, by contrast, I already know I want a probe to be building before I make the first action.
Maybe ideally, yes. But the mechanical limitation means you have to CHOSE. Chose between whether building a probe, managing your army, or upgrading your buildings is the best possible strategy for you at the moment. It's a strategic decision that commonly causes pros to lose games when they slip up and aren't paying attention at the right spot at the right time, and it has as much of a right to be in the metagame as anything else. Subjective arguments, remember?
Put in another light: Say I have a vulture harass and my main army attacking. I cannot micro both perfectly. I have to choose between the two with my future interests at heart. Can I afford to risk losing the vultures early on in the harass to preserve my main army? Or are the orders for my main army more important atm because he is moving his lurkers up?
If you removed more of the UI limitations, that second (perhaps more exciting to you) strategic decision wouldn't be possible either. Or if it was, it's nature would be irrevokably changed because you would not be risking nearly as much to do one or the other.
On December 26 2009 04:02 L wrote: Since the difficulty of the game actually comes from the opponent you're playing, and not the interface itself, why is the interface's effect on difficulty itself (and not on feel) important?
The real difficulty in Starcraft comes from facing the opponent, yes, but it is always within the restrictions of the interface. You cannot just seperate the two and say one half is the real game and one half is just the interface, because there's never a point at which the interface ceases to have an effect and the players are just competing within the core rules; in every game of Starcraft ever played the interface has a deep effect on each and every action. The so-called true game simply does not exist.
Sirlin's argument works for fighting games, but he can only make it because there are plenty of examples of matches between mechanically perfect players where their mastery of execution is just taken for granted, and the difficulty of that execution seems irrelevant because neither player makes any mistakes. The fact that no such SC matches exist(barring simple BO wins) means extending the argument is like making blanket assumptions about apples and oranges.
trust me, you play that game and 5 seconds later you will come back here and apologize to all of us about saying that the Starcraft interface is a 'barrier'... dude 5 seconds in to the game and you will miss the Starcraft interface and hotkeying system.
Actually a lot of low level players have huge APM the problems is what they do with it. So the interface is not hindering their potential it is their knowledge and their lack of experience/practice. If you practice 12hours a day for a year I am sure you will reach Pro-Gamer level.
The cool part about it is that you have to consciously work on your problems, your proposal is that the UI must be modified to make the game 'better' but in my eyes if not changed correctly it will destroy the balance that we already have established from 11 years of playing that game and I think that would be disastrous.
L 'fighting the ui' is intuitive and rewarding. it is full of non-trivial decision making about how you use your time. there is no difference between these decisions and your magical 'player created interactions' and 'interactive elements'.
also you're a condescending dick. "Please stop confusing an instance of decision making with a mechanical requirement." the point is in a good game you don't have time for everything. doing something isnt a mechanical requirement, it is a decision on what to do. if you take away the mechanical requirements then you kill 95% of active thought in a game of starcraft and with it you kill all idividualism.
seriously, you have no idea what else to fill the game with. you have no idea how to make strategy more deep. you have no idea where to add these non-trivial decisions in that you want to destroy by making everything instant and effortless. you're just fantasizing. oh wait, more micro! no, i dont believe you when you say all your examples being micro doesnt mean anything.
you say its not true that you dont like macro and management, but your idea of ideal macro is thinking of what to make and its already done. your idea of ideal management is thinking of what to do and its already done. this isnt macro and management.
when we get to micro your ideal is suddenly actually clicking shit and doing it for yourself. amazing! a decision to drop a reaver and aim at some probes then run away is no different than the decision to squeeze in a round of production or set your backed up workers to mine. just because you pretend the former is somehow more interactive or skillchecked than the later doesnt make it so. "but your opponent might run his probes from your reaver!" - "but your opponent might not squeeze in that production round and your reinforcements will overpower him!"
If you don't have mechanical requirements you get rid of the majority of decision making in any RTS.
I don't care how good an RTS you can think of strategically that doesn't have mechanical requirements, because if you add mechanical requirements it will require exponentially more decisions.
There hasn't even been any evidence that a game with an easy interface can succeed in being strategic, and you certainly haven't given any reasoning behind why it could.
Somewhere in the world there's a teenage kid who has never played Starcraft. But this kid will buy Starcraft 2 and become the next SlayerS_`BoxeR`. You are outdated and stuck in the past. They will be faster, smarter, and not inhibited by outdated thinking.
You will be replaced!
The older generation can sit in their rocking chairs and say the new generation has it so easy. They can reminisce about how back in their day they could only select 12 units at a time!
Don't worry its not a bad thing. Teach your kids to play they will be better then you could ever have dreamed of being.
On December 27 2009 02:51 ManiacTheZealot wrote: Somewhere in the world there's a teenage kid who has never played Starcraft. But this kid will buy Starcraft 2 and become the next SlayerS_`BoxeR`. You are outdated and stuck in the past. They will be faster, smarter, and not inhibited by outdated thinking.
You will be replaced!
The older generation can sit in their rocking chairs and say the new generation has it so easy. They can reminisce about how back in their day they could only select 12 units at a time!
Don't worry its not a bad thing. Teach your kids to play they will be better then you could ever have dreamed of being.
dude do you even realize that if you take away the necessity to send the workers to mine the current pro-gamers are going to be WAY more good since you are taking away something that takes their attention? actually some of the mechanics are going to favor the current pro-gamers since it will make their life easier.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Perfect execution in RTS would be nothing at all like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn, because units are still limited by their movement speed. Additionally, even though RTSs are not complete information games, they do not degenerate into rock paper scissors because people can and do scout. "Perfect" execution does not change that at all.
You are right in that its the decisions you make that count. An arbitrary apm sink only gets in the way of that.
You misunderstood everything I wrote, and everything you wrote is wrong.
edit:
I guess I'l elaborate.
First of all. perfect execution RTS is MUCH like chess where you get to move every single piece in the same turn. In chess units are constricted by mobility also... they can only go so far in 1 move.
Ok, but if you send a worker to scout, and I don't and I guess the build order that you're doing right, then you wasted mining time, and I didn't and if you try to change the build you're doing, you've wasted even more money so at that point I could have very well won the game.
Also, let's not pretend like scouting is an absolute given in the game. It gets denied all the time.
Perfect execution changes it a lot, because perfect execution introduces hard-counters in build orders, while without being able to perfectly execute hard counters don't exist, just like they shouldn't.
An arbitrary APM sink doesn't get in they way of making decisions. First of all I'm not going to dare to call anything in SC an arbitrary APM sink, if you want to name me one, then go ahead. I assume you're talking about some of the APM-intensive mechanics...
Well guess what, here's how it works.
Every action in RTS has a cost. Since the game is played in real time you pretty much have to allocate your time, and this is where 95% of all the decision-making lies. If you make an RTS that's as strategically deep as starcraft is now , but has no Mechanical requirements (probably an impossible feat.), then I can add mechanical requirements to the game, and automatically make it 20 times more strategic. That's it.
Now obviously some people are able to do more actions in a given period of time, but that's something you have to live with if you want the game to be actually good. Also ability to do more actions in a smaller amount of time is way more mental than physical, and not only that it's accessible to just about everyone through practice, so saying that it has no place in a game that's meant to serve as a competitive medium is just nonsense.
I did misunderstand what you meant by the chess with more than one move per turn statement. However, why would chess be less strategic with multiple moves per turn? As another poster said, multiple moves per turn simply opens up more end positions after each turn, which just makes the game different, if not more strategic, than regular chess.
As for the scouting, the chances of you guessing right the build your opponent makes is decidedly against your favor unless there are <=2 builds your opponent can make. Thus, it is almost always beneficial to scout, which is why we do it in starcraft..... Though, yes, the game would turn into rock paper scissors if scouting can always be denied. However, perfect execution does not guarantee that at all.
Even without perfect execution, hard counters still exist. "Build order losses" do exist after all. Last time i checked, 12 hatch is an auto loss vs 5 pool if your opponent is competent at all.
Although it is true that APM sinks do not directly get in the way of decision making, they do make decision making less relevant. Correct decision matters less if an APM sink gets in the way of executing that decision.
Your contention that 95% of all the decision-making in starcraft lies in how you allocate your time simply does not fit reality. Go ahead and look at the strategy section or liquipedia. How many threads are on how to allocate your time? I count none. The overall consensus on how to allocate your time has long been set, which is to macro as perfectly as possible while microing to the extent necessary in the matchup/build.
I have no problem with the fact that some people can do more actions with in a given period of time than other people. However, I do have a problem with that fact if those actions are mindless actions caused by archaic UI. APM sinks do get in the way of enjoying the strategic aspects of the game.
trust me, you play that game and 5 seconds later you will come back here and apologize to all of us about saying that the Starcraft interface is a 'barrier'... dude 5 seconds in to the game and you will miss the Starcraft interface and hotkeying system.
Actually a lot of low level players have huge APM the problems is what they do with it. So the interface is not hindering their potential it is their knowledge and their lack of experience/practice. If you practice 12hours a day for a year I am sure you will reach Pro-Gamer level.
The cool part about it is that you have to consciously work on your problems, your proposal is that the UI must be modified to make the game 'better' but in my eyes if not changed correctly it will destroy the balance that we already have established from 11 years of playing that game and I think that would be disastrous.
I grew up literally playing dune 2 on a sega genesis. I know my fair share about shitty UIs.
And to the repeated assertion that new players don't know what to do with their apm, I've taught quite a few players how to play a number of RTS games. The statement that they simply don't know what to do is true up until a certain point while they have no idea what the units and the object of the game is; this typically lasts a few hours to a few days. At this stage, players spend a lot of time staring at the screen because everything is new and they have no idea how any of the puzzle pieces interact.
After that point, the assertion simply isn't true. People are associating issues with dealing with the UI and blaming it on someone's capability of making a decision. There's an increased mental workload associated with slogging through a UI, much the same way there would be an increased mental workload with having a conversation if before every reply you had to play simon: the game of memory. As for being able to 'deal' with the UI with 12 hours a day worth of practice, again, you could do so for a harder interface too; the fact that you can adapt to a UI doesn't mean that the UI is properly designed or fulfilling its purpose.
(Speaking of simon, its a pretty baller game in terms of UI. You want to press 'red' you literally press 'red'. Done deal. no hoops to jump through)
L 'fighting the ui' is intuitive and rewarding. it is full of non-trivial decision making about how you use your time. there is no difference between these decisions and your magical 'player created interactions' and 'interactive elements'.
1) Fighting the UI isn't intuitive, nor is it rewarding.
If counterstrike forced me to crouch, stand up, jump, roll my mouse wheel down then up precise distances, then told me to type in a random string between each bullet I fired, everyone would agree that the interface was bullshit and unintuitive. Obviously nothing is this bad, but the general principle applies to pretty much every non-essential interface barrier, which is why interfaces have been becoming cleaner, and game mechanics have been becoming smoother as the gaming industry matures. The interface is just that; an interface between you, a physical person, and some action within a game that you want to perform. The fact that not a single person here advocates starcraft D is important; According to your statement, people would LOVE the intuitive and rewarding exercise of wranging with a shit interface, yet no one in practice has said they would when given the option.
also you're a condescending dick. "Please stop confusing an instance of decision making with a mechanical requirement." the point is in a good game you don't have time for everything.
I don't see how its condescending to point out a flaw in someone's thinking. There's a clear difference between the speed of decision making and the volume of decision making in a game compared with the speed of fulfilling mechanical requirements and the volume of those mechanical requirements. If you confuse the two, this entire conversation makes no sense because at its core this is a conversation about the relative sizes and impacts of those two volumes.
On the topic of not having time for 'everything': that's perfectly true. Nor would you have time for everything in what I've proposed. The only difference is the relative volume of mechanical requirements and the volume of decision making. As a further precision; this isn't simply about the volume of these two groups, but their relative impact on the game outcome as well.
when we get to micro your ideal is suddenly actually clicking shit and doing it for yourself. amazing!
WHOA. Looks like I don't have an issue with the volume of physical requirement that the game has, but rather with the amount of it that's dedicated to dealing with the user interface instead of actually fighting my opponent! Couldn't be that I said that before repeatedly and specifically mentioned that my game would probably have a higher useful multitask limit because of it.
So what's the problem?
seriously, you have no idea what else to fill the game with. you have no idea how to make strategy more deep. you have no idea where to add these non-trivial decisions in that you want to destroy by making everything instant and effortless.
Oh I found it. The problem is because you haven't bothered reading my posts and think that reducing interface interference in the game equates to making things instant and effortless, despite the fact that I've specifically indicated that I'd prefer the inverse of that situation.
So we come to this:
a decision to drop a reaver and aim at some probes then run away is no different than the decision to squeeze in a round of production or set your backed up workers to mine
Yes, there IS a difference, much like there's a difference between choosing to perform the counterstrike crouch wheel code shot and the 'click mouse 1' shot. Time as a currency is a very good analogy here; While you don't care where you're spending the time, you want to always be timepoor. I care where I'm spending the time AND want to be time poor. You, however, after becoming used to starcraft, can't fathom a game in which you aren't time poor without interface clunkiness soaking up all your precious time dollars. I've already mentioned a few.
This is why the 'time poverty' of starcraft was mentioned as a critical component in the 'feel' of the game, whereas the UI was not; SC2 already chopped out the most egregious problems.
So when this is said:
In any case you completely ignored what I had to say about the purpose of the Starcraft franchise and how Blizzard's own approach disagrees with the kind of radical approach you seem to have.
I kinda laugh; MBS, automine, unlimited selection (or not 12, at any rate) and smartcast are already in the game. They've already accepted the main sirlin/me proposals and threw them straight into the game as fundamental mechanics.
Where blizzard has issues is in trying to keep players time poor without simply clunking up the gameplay. This is why we had such a lovely time dreaming up macro mechanics. Clunking up the interface is akin to filling up on a loaf of bread; its filling, but it isn't particularly nutritious. Its a design cop-out, if you will.
If you don't have mechanical requirements you get rid of the majority of decision making in any RTS.
No you don't, nor is it possible to have zero mechanical requirements. Even in the case of a perfect mind-game interface, one's mental dexterity would be the limiting factor on your ability to multitask.
There hasn't even been any evidence that a game with an easy interface can succeed in being strategic
Oh, is that so? Go couldn't possibly have strategy in it, then, right? There are many games wherein the interface barrier is near nil and the strategic difficulty is off the charts, but you're being willfully blind.
Sirlin's argument works for fighting games, but he can only make it because there are plenty of examples of matches between mechanically perfect players where their mastery of execution is just taken for granted, and the difficulty of that execution seems irrelevant because neither player makes any mistakes. The fact that no such SC matches exist(barring simple BO wins) means extending the argument is like making blanket assumptions about apples and oranges.
This makes more sense as a cogent argument than most of the ones above, but I disagree that there are matches between mechanically perfect players to a certain point; Even if you have nearly no mistakes in your execution, your execution normally is a reflection of what you're comfortable with taking on mechanically; players will generally tend away from things they cannot mechanically perform because a mistake might cost the game. Additionally, despite having full information, I've never actually seen a perfect game being played. What's more, in a game like thirdstrike, where you can literally react to everything if you're mechanically sound enough through parries and techs I've never seen top level play be a matter of parrying everything.
Many fighting game concepts specifically rely on the mechanical flaws that players have; The high low game, crossups, tick throws, footsies, etc all play upon minor mistakes. That might be so, but its one thing to state there's a mechanical requirement, and another to state the magnitude at which it has to be. If every hit in SF4 had to be input in a one frame link from the previous one in every combo, the game would still be playable, but would examine the effect of such a game on the community if 99% of players can't land their normal bnb anymore.
There's a bit more I wanted to comment on, but most of it has already been dealt with. If people think their statement really is a haymaker, feel free to pm me exactly what you want me to comment on because the sheer volume of repeated arguments makes it impossible to go over everything.
L, what do you think about SC1 with and without the mechanical barriers in relation to Mixed Martial Arts competitions and The UFC2009 Undisputed video game? In this case let's take the game as directly translating the fighting mindgame skills required of real life. So we have this video game where fighters can simulate their skills through. If you haven't played the game, let me tell you that the controls are simple and fluid. You can roundhouse someone with the touch of a button, regardless of whether or not you can do this in real life. Let's say it's the exact same thing as the sport MMA but without needing the running, grappling classes, striking classes, defense drills, sparring, and weightlifting that shy beginners away.
Now it looks like Sirlin would tear this sport apart based on how much work there is that keeps the lower levels from experiencing the same game that the professionals do. My question to you is this:
Why is MMA the fastest growing sport in this country? Surely all that I mentioned above, along with the physical pain involved overall, would be a strong deterrent to getting people into the competitive scene. And by that matter, why was SC such a popular e-sport in Korea? Tough interface and all. Would you seriously have more respect for a master of the UFC2009 game than someone like Fedor or A. Silva? I think anyone who would agree to that would be immensely retarded. I feel like the above is an accurate analogy to SC1 pros and whoever the pros of SC2 will be. There simply is no comparison. The SC2 pros are only playing a portion of the game, afterall.
As I said before, what you call "strategy." Can not be hard in an RTS. Both RTS's and TBS use methods of creating ACTUAL strategic depth in the respective genres. In TBS (chess for instance,) you can only make 1 move per turn, so this opens up a lot of different positions and possibilities, and it creates depth, because you have to chose between several moves, all of which may look good. RTS is similar on a small scale, because you have to prioritize your actions, and even though you do a lot of things in a small frame of time there's a limit to how many things you can actually do. A perfect execution RTS will be like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn... Except, RTS isn't a full information game, so it's probably going to completely degenerate into rock paper scissors.
So yes, RTS's always have to retain a small "physical" factor of APM in order to retain its strategic depth. I say "physical" because that's what people argue when they say that high apm requirements should be done away with in "strategy" games, but in reality APM is barely if at all physical. I can spam away random keys on the keyboard, and mouse at the same time and get like 1200 APM, but as you can probably guess I can't play starcraft at that APM, it's because APM mostly isn't physical (it's largely muscle memory which has more to do with your brain than your muscles.) The only semi-viable argument is that you're doing repetitive mindless tasks, which I guess you are, but as I said earlier it's not the tasks that you are doing that counts, it's the decisions you make when you decide that that's what you're gonna do with your attention instead of some other thing that you may have wanted to do.
Perfect execution in RTS would be nothing at all like Chess where you can make more than one move per turn, because units are still limited by their movement speed. Additionally, even though RTSs are not complete information games, they do not degenerate into rock paper scissors because people can and do scout. "Perfect" execution does not change that at all.
You are right in that its the decisions you make that count. An arbitrary apm sink only gets in the way of that.
You misunderstood everything I wrote, and everything you wrote is wrong.
edit:
I guess I'l elaborate.
First of all. perfect execution RTS is MUCH like chess where you get to move every single piece in the same turn. In chess units are constricted by mobility also... they can only go so far in 1 move.
Ok, but if you send a worker to scout, and I don't and I guess the build order that you're doing right, then you wasted mining time, and I didn't and if you try to change the build you're doing, you've wasted even more money so at that point I could have very well won the game.
Also, let's not pretend like scouting is an absolute given in the game. It gets denied all the time.
Perfect execution changes it a lot, because perfect execution introduces hard-counters in build orders, while without being able to perfectly execute hard counters don't exist, just like they shouldn't.
An arbitrary APM sink doesn't get in they way of making decisions. First of all I'm not going to dare to call anything in SC an arbitrary APM sink, if you want to name me one, then go ahead. I assume you're talking about some of the APM-intensive mechanics...
Well guess what, here's how it works.
Every action in RTS has a cost. Since the game is played in real time you pretty much have to allocate your time, and this is where 95% of all the decision-making lies. If you make an RTS that's as strategically deep as starcraft is now , but has no Mechanical requirements (probably an impossible feat.), then I can add mechanical requirements to the game, and automatically make it 20 times more strategic. That's it.
Now obviously some people are able to do more actions in a given period of time, but that's something you have to live with if you want the game to be actually good. Also ability to do more actions in a smaller amount of time is way more mental than physical, and not only that it's accessible to just about everyone through practice, so saying that it has no place in a game that's meant to serve as a competitive medium is just nonsense.
I did misunderstand what you meant by the chess with more than one move per turn statement. However, why would chess be less strategic with multiple moves per turn? As another poster said, multiple moves per turn simply opens up more end positions after each turn, which just makes the game different, if not more strategic, than regular chess.
No, because just about each position you can arrive at by being able to move more than one piece per turn, can also be arrived at by moving one piece per turn, except for there would be way more decision making involved along the way, as you have to prioritize the development of different pieces, and etc (a bunch of other things I've previously mentioned.) So basically by being able to move more than one piece per turn you cut out a large portion of the game and what makes it strategic.
As for the scouting, the chances of you guessing right the build your opponent makes is decidedly against your favor unless there are <=2 builds your opponent can make. Thus, it is almost always beneficial to scout, which is why we do it in starcraft..... Though, yes, the game would turn into rock paper scissors if scouting can always be denied. However, perfect execution does not guarantee that at all.
Even without perfect execution, hard counters still exist. "Build order losses" do exist after all. Last time i checked, 12 hatch is an auto loss vs 5 pool if your opponent is competent at all.
Well yes, ZvZ has some BO counters, because sending out a drone to scout early enough to avoid the BO loss puts you way behind economically.
With perfect mechanics there will be hard counters, but not only that. Imagine if anything that's considered mechanics right now is done perfectly automatically for you. Things that don't necessarily result in a BO loss right now are much more likely to, and when they do they will be 100% BO losses, because you won't be able to micro your way out of them and etc.
Although it is true that APM sinks do not directly get in the way of decision making, they do make decision making less relevant. Correct decision matters less if an APM sink gets in the way of executing that decision.
I disagree. Correct decisions count even more when you can't afford to do everything perfectly, because that's when you really need to decide what is the most important thing at the given moment.
Your contention that 95% of all the decision-making in starcraft lies in how you allocate your time simply does not fit reality. Go ahead and look at the strategy section or liquipedia. How many threads are on how to allocate your time? I count none. The overall consensus on how to allocate your time has long been set, which is to macro as perfectly as possible while microing to the extent necessary in the matchup/build.
That's because there's way more to skill than having a strategy, and having a lot of APM. That's why there's D players with 250 APM and B players with 120.
There's no threads in liquipedia about decision-making, because first of all no one really knows how to properly train it, and if someone does it's a well kept secret (and even if someone thinks they know they probably only have a piece of the truth and not the whole thing.) Also, because Liquipedia is a about game strategy. Not all decision making is strategy.
The "overall consensus," is indeed that macro is very important, but first of all not everyone is able to keep to this "overall consensus" (not because they're not fast enough, but because they always find themselves wanting to do different things which may seem more important to them at the moment, and they very well may be more important.) Also, that's a pretty vague way to say something "micro to the extent necessary in the matchup/build." As I said no one really knows just how much is ideally necessary (given that you can't do everything perfectly,) it's all on case by case basis, which is why it adds depth to the game. Also some people like to micro more in some match ups while less and the others, and some people are the other way around.
But now we're getting into styles, I don't really want to talk about them, because even though Dustin Browder thought that it was so important to "preserve the different styles," styles are really just crystallization and the simplification of the decision making that you have to do. It's kind of like a habbit that acts like a crutch in helping you make decisions as it skews your idea of what's really ideal.
The decision making that I'm talking about is the pure form of what happens when you can't do everything, but you have to do the best you can with what you've got. Sometimes it's more important to micro, sometimes it's more important to macro (both are pretty broad categories, so really all I mean is sometimes you need to do one thing first, and sometimes you need to do another thing first.) It's all on a case by case basis UNLIKE game strategy, and that's why there's strategic depth in the game.
I have no problem with the fact that some people can do more actions with in a given period of time than other people. However, I do have a problem with that fact if those actions are mindless actions caused by archaic UI. APM sinks do get in the way of enjoying the strategic aspects of the game.
What you're calling strategic aspects of the game is stuff that can be, and is written down on liquipedia. If it's written down already, there's not all that much to enjoy. If it wasn't for the mechanical requirements then you wouldn't be enjoying it for long, because the same exact thing would start happening every game really fast.
Another thing about the "strategy aspect," is that you can prepare your strategy way way ahead of the game, so you don't even have to make any decisions as you're playing (thus completely eliminating all strategic depth.) The decisions that involve mechanics, however, can't be as easily prepared, or "solved for all variations," I mean like you said you can have a basic rule that you follow, but it's going to be far from all-encompassing, and I bet different players would even interpret the rule differently.
L 'fighting the ui' is intuitive and rewarding. it is full of non-trivial decision making about how you use your time. there is no difference between these decisions and your magical 'player created interactions' and 'interactive elements'.
1) Fighting the UI isn't intuitive, nor is it rewarding.
If counterstrike forced me to crouch, stand up, jump, roll my mouse wheel down then up precise distances, then told me to type in a random string between each bullet I fired, everyone would agree that the interface was bullshit and unintuitive. The fact that not a single person here advocates starcraft D is important; According to your statement, people would LOVE the intuitive and rewarding exercise of wranging with a shit interface
everything in starcraft works the same. you select the unit or building you want to give a command to. you give a command to that unit or building. that is intuitive. your CS example is random junk. you have ignored, again, that people want a balance between mechanics and strategy. starcraft D is as rubbish as starcraft lite, stop bringing it up. "you like mechanics so you would like 8x the mechanics and if you dont you dont like mechanics!" is not a valid arguement.
also you're a condescending dick. "Please stop confusing an instance of decision making with a mechanical requirement." the point is in a good game you don't have time for everything.
I don't see how its condescending to point out a flaw in someone's thinking. There's a clear difference between the speed of decision making and the volume of decision making in a game compared with the speed of fulfilling mechanical requirements and the volume of those mechanical requirements. If you confuse the two, this entire conversation makes no sense because at its core this is a conversation about the relative sizes and impacts of those two volumes.
because i have a different opinion on what a mechanical action means does not mean i do not understand and for you to imply me not agreeing with you means i dont understand makes you condescending. there is not a clear difference between the speed/volume of decision making and the speed/volume of mechanics. mechanics involves decision making when there is sufficient volume, mechanics would only become mindless in your ideal sc2.
when we get to micro your ideal is suddenly actually clicking shit and doing it for yourself. amazing!
WHOA. Looks like I don't have an issue with the volume of physical requirement that the game has, but rather with the amount of it that's dedicated to dealing with the user interface instead of actually fighting my opponent! Couldn't be that I said that before repeatedly and specifically mentioned that my game would probably have a higher useful multitask limit because of it.
So what's the problem?
that you are only interested in micro and have no interest in macro and management which i stated before and you denied. oh im still waiting for non-micro examples of how you're going to replace all the decision making you're ripping out of the game.
seriously, you have no idea what else to fill the game with. you have no idea how to make strategy more deep. you have no idea where to add these non-trivial decisions in that you want to destroy by making everything instant and effortless.
Oh I found it. The problem is because you haven't bothered reading my posts and think that reducing interface interference in the game equates to making things instant and effortless, despite the fact that I've specifically indicated that I'd prefer the inverse of that situation.
yes, you've indicated it several times. at no point have you indicated how it is even possible or given examples of how to achieve it. what your posts do indicate is that yes, you actually do want to make macro and management effortless (you have stated you want to be able to do things as fast as you can think and additionally that you believe you can think much faster than you can navigate the current ui) and introduce a million new micro mechanics to make up for it. this is not acceptable.
On December 27 2009 06:03 L wrote:So we come to this:
a decision to drop a reaver and aim at some probes then run away is no different than the decision to squeeze in a round of production or set your backed up workers to mine
Yes, there IS a difference, much like there's a difference between choosing to perform the counterstrike crouch wheel code shot and the 'click mouse 1' shot. Time as a currency is a very good analogy here; While you don't care where you're spending the time, you want to always be timepoor. I care where I'm spending the time AND want to be time poor. You, however, after becoming used to starcraft, can't fathom a game in which you aren't time poor without interface clunkiness soaking up all your precious time dollars. I've already mentioned a few.
actually you're incorrect. we DO care. we want people spending time away from battle. i for one love the concept of getting away from your units as much as you dare. as to that quote, there is NO DIFFERENCE. you understand that micro and counter-micro is interactive because its staring you in the face. you wholly don't understand macro is interactive because you think it begins and ends where you mash some keys. macro is interactive not in the physical input but in the decision of when you squeeze in the cycles and what is your opponent doing at that time. its an invisible tug of war for economic, production and unit supperiority. the difference in interactivity with your opponent between micro and macro exists only in your mind. we believe a balance of where you spend your time is better than spending 95%+ of your time on micro. your cs example continues to be sensationalist rubbish. your mentioned examples again can be summed up as "more micro!". hey look, i can do it too; you can't fathom people enjoying a game which tests skills other than unit strategy and micro.
On December 27 2009 06:03 L wrote:they already did all this to sc2, that means i'm right!
No you don't, nor is it possible to have zero mechanical requirements. Even in the case of a perfect mind-game interface, one's mental dexterity would be the limiting factor on your ability to multitask.
umm. yes you do. If you get rid of mechanical requirements you get rid of all decision making that counts.
You want to keep micro... but guess what. micro is PURELY mechanical. It's absolutely no different than macro. Micro is just a set of techniques you use to maximize your units' capabilities. You don't make absolutely ANY real decisions about micromanagement except for "should I be micro'ing right now, or doing something else?" And that decision only occurs when you have OTHER mechanical things to attend to like macro.
Hence my point without mechanics you're removing pretty much all of decision making, because the vast majority of decision making in Starcraft, and in any RTS is about the allocation of one's mechanical ability.
Oh, is that so? Go couldn't possibly have strategy in it, then, right? There are many games wherein the interface barrier is near nil and the strategic difficulty is off the charts, but you're being willfully blind.
You're dumb. The interface in go is completely different than it is in an RTS, however in both games an interface is just a set of rules. In go the fact that you can only place pieces in such a way that you capture your opponents' pieces is easily the equivalent of Mechanical Requirements in Starcraft. Without that rule the game would be retarded, and not strategic at all.
How about you name an RTS that has low mechanical requirements that was actually good?
WC3? No macro, but tons of micro, there's still quite a bit of mechanical requirement there, but the game isn't that good and is pretty flawed, because it requires no multitask, and hence there's very little decision making. Strategically it is stagnant and dead.
WC2: no diversity, but was a great game, had huge mechanical requirements, probably too much.
RA1: was never played competitively.
RA2: bad game, tank spam.
Generals/ZH: actually had macro, but everything in that game was so broken that each match up was pretty much a combination of several gimmicks, had some multi-screen micro, but once again it was never really that good, a competitive player-base of actually rather good gamers kept it alive.
All other EA games have been absolutely terrible strategically. BFME series was just bad with its squads.
games like DoW/CoH are extremely shallow strategically but probably mostly due to the resource system.
In conclusion, there has never been a game where anyone actually said something like: "O wow, you don't need to be fast at all for this game, but even at the highest level of play there's so many different possibilities, it's really strategic."
What makes you think it's even possible?
they already did all this to sc2, that means i'm right!
No it just means they dun understand what they're doing... what a surprise right?
On December 27 2009 07:58 NatsuTerran wrote: Why is MMA the fastest growing sport in this country?
MMA is the fastest growing sport in the country because it has a large entertainment value for spectators, specifically the demographic of men ages 16-25, which it has due to it's fast-paced and violent tendencies. I think that it would be hard to argue that the sport is growing because more people are participating in it and therefore more people are watching it, rather than the other way around (such as is the case). Therefore this fact has nothing to due with the argument at hand unless you are arguing for more physical violence among Starcraft 2 players so that it will grow faster as an esport.
L, what do you think about SC1 with and without the mechanical barriers in relation to Mixed Martial Arts competitions and The UFC2009 Undisputed video game?
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.
your CS example is random junk.
Yet selecting only 12 units at a time isn't? Having rallies to minerals not trigger mining isn't? That's the exact point.
Either way, the example was brought to dispute the example that wrestling with interfaces is intrinsically rewarding and intuitive. It isn't as was shown; it is the lack of an interface and the direct transmittance of someone's choice into a game effect which makes the single click interface obviously preferable.
starcraft D is as rubbish as starcraft lite, stop bringing it up. "you like mechanics so you would like 8x the mechanics and if you dont you dont like mechanics!" is not a valid arguement.
Its a plenty valid argument when it counters an unconditional statement that physical requirements add to the game; clearly if the example is made that there's situations in which they don't, IE starcraft D, then the original argument needs to be revised. Only tofu's really bothered to do that.
that you are only interested in micro and have no interest in macro and management which i stated before and you denied. oh im still waiting for non-micro examples of how you're going to replace all the decision making you're ripping out of the game.
If I denied it, why do you claim that its the case, once again without actually pointing to areas of what I've written? I've already stated why I used a micro example; its visual in nature. If I could redesign macro, there's a number of things I could do; use destructible doodads in the base to open up areas for building, spread out and delocalize minerals from lines into patches with various different rates so that units like the MULE could be prioritized to . There are SO many possible mechanics that could be added to give people more to do on the economy and production side of the game; the difficult part becomes how do you put in the least amount of complexity and get out the most possible user involvement. This question is so difficult that blizzard has you, the community, brainstorming macro mechanics for them, yet they're doing it. But the macro mechanics that they have only really scratch the surface; what if you could gain bonuses if you have certain buildings being fed by multiple pylons? What if zerg creep could be spread manually and used to give units bonuses (oh wait)? What if terrans could sacrifice units with a certain amount of kills to give factories or barracks a 'veteran teacher' bonus to their production speed. There's so many possibilities here; how to make them viable and rewarding is the tough part.
yes, you've indicated it several times. at no point have you indicated how it is even possible or given examples of how to achieve it. what your posts do indicate is that yes, you actually do want to make macro and management effortless
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.
Like here:
actually you're incorrect. we DO care. we want people spending time away from battle. i for one love the concept of getting away from your units as much as you dare. as to that quote, there is NO DIFFERENCE.
You don't really present an argument as to why there isn't a difference apart from simply stating that there is no difference. Instead you simply attribute my statement that there IS a difference to my attempt to assassinate macro, and then proceed to ignore it. I haven't argued against the time requirement that macro requires; I've argued against the time requirement that macro requires which is brought on by a poor interface. I don't even want the amount of time requirement to drop; I want the game content to grow in step with the interface being streamlined.
you kidding?
Nope.
If you get rid of mechanical requirements you get rid of all decision making that counts.
Nope. already proven false.
You want to keep micro... but guess what. micro is PURELY mechanical.
Yep, sure is. Have I been against mechanical requirements, or against poor interfaces creating unneeded mechanical requirements?
You don't make absolutely ANY real decisions about micromanagement except for "should I be micro'ing right now, or doing something else?
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.
You're dumb.
Thanks bro.
The interface in go is completely different than it is in an RTS, however in both games an interface is just a set of rules.
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:
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.
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?
No it just means they dun understand what they're doing
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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Frankly, you're just wrong to call on-the-fly time management strategy. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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.
This thread really got me worried for a moment there...
That's how it displays for me on the sidebar:
Edit: At the post above. They didn't put in unlimited unit/building selection because the engine didn't allow for such things back in the days. If they could, they most likely would do it.
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.
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.
They solved it nicely in AoX. 24 units/hotkey (1-0) if I remember correctly and you could use F1-F4 keys as 'super hotkeys' where you could have several groups selected as one. Was very convenient without the usual confusion IUS could cause.
L, what do you think about SC1 with and without the mechanical barriers in relation to Mixed Martial Arts competitions and The UFC2009 Undisputed video game?
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.
yes, you've indicated it several times. at no point have you indicated how it is even possible or given examples of how to achieve it. what your posts do indicate is that yes, you actually do want to make macro and management effortless
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?
If you get rid of mechanical requirements you get rid of all decision making that counts.
Nope. already proven false.
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.
You want to keep micro... but guess what. micro is PURELY mechanical.
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.
You don't make absolutely ANY real decisions about micromanagement except for "should I be micro'ing right now, or doing something else?
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."
The interface in go is completely different than it is in an RTS, however in both games an interface is just a set of rules.
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?
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?
Lol lowering the entry level isn't that bad of an idea to be honest. As long as the skill ceiling is increased as well, it doesn't really change anything. What really hurts is if the skill level is decreased for everyone, then there wouldn't be progamers anymore. What I mean is that if a game is easier for newbies to play then so be it, but as long as it's extremely hard to get really good at it, then it still works. I mean, I'd rather have a game that's easy to learn, hard to master than hard to learn, hard to master.
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...
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.
Some of this arguing is so pointless. There's a simple fact: a game with SC1's interface wouldn't sell because the majority would find it too hard. Blizzard has few choices, really. They need to update the interface to current standards yet still maintain macro-depth and skill ceilings. So that leaves them with ..what options? New macro mechanics, I suppose, but those, however, still have to pass the 'easy to learn, difficult to master' test.. and therefore anything that simply forces a high amount of clicks won't work for the same reason SBS was replaced.
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...
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).
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.
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...
Plus... you're talking about harassment.
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.
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.
I'm not sure these long posts accomplish all that much. Mostly it´s arguing back and forth, with changing positions and finding a useful meaning of the terminology, so that if people aren't careful they'll find themselves arguing for something they've argued against in the past, just because thanks to the flow of the discussion it's now seen as necessary for their side to prove it.
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.
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.
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.
Something that's driving me up the wall - Kiarip, the game you're thinking of is Othello, not Go. In Go, there are no restrictions on where you can place a piece, with one very minor exception that's essentially "no tag-backs". (There's no reason to take the corners first in Go, because you don't capture in a line - you capture by surrounding your opponent's pieces, and trapping them against the edge of the board counts. As a consequence, the corners are generally undesirable in Go.)
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.
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 =/
It's disappointing that this thread started out so well...and then devolved . It's quite evident that Sirlin doesn't understand the points this community have made, but i don't fault him - if you've ever read opinion pieces/replies on Gamasutra you witness this whole subculture of game designer ego....Everything is said with an air of "this is how it is" "i am a designer, so i know".
I have an appreciation for people who are humble - who can sit and freely admit "i don't know". I wouldn't dare try to publicly make a statement about Street Fighter as it would literally be "yeah you just need to hit punch button more to win wtf". Clearly Sirlin is unconsciously ignorant (in that he doesn't even realize what he is saying is utter horse shit).
HeartofTofu seems like a smart guy and seems humble in presenting his opinion - props to you. There are a bunch of idiots calling "OMG STRAWMAN YOUR POINT IS VOID" and "OMG YOU HAVE NO PROOF"....uhhgg go burn. ---
I think i'm just going to stay out of this one. PM me if someone is a troll so i can ban them, thanks.
I'm not going to bother reading all 15 pages in this thread because I'm sure it entails some "he-said, she-said" bullshit. If you can't present a logical argument with flawless facts, you're most likely arguing with ignorance (which seems to be the case with whatever his name is, frankly I don't care who he is or what he's done). For those experienced with Starcraft and if your opinion falls with the majority, accept the fact that there will always be ignorant people and bask in the fact that you know you're right instead of trying to argue with the hard-headed.
All I care for is UUS and MBS. I don't even care for rallymine all that much. As for adding macro mechanics, I personally would love to just play without 'em and see how the game goes; however, I'm willing to work with the rest of the community on adding a few, under the condition that they actually add something useful and creative.
On December 28 2009 06:19 Manit0u wrote: 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.
One thing of note, having infinite number of units on normal hotkeys can make it HARDER to control individual units. This is because most interfaces with infinite units on a hotkey generally collapse all identical units to a single portrait, meaning you can't portrait-select an individual one (e.g. instead of a group of 5 zealots having 5 separate portraits, there's a single zealot portrait with the number 5 in the corner--meaning you can't click the portrait for the one taking damage and instead you actually have to click on the unit on the screen).
IMO if Blizzard got lazy with the interface, this would be a detriment, because the tradeoff of being able to hotkey all your units together is outweighed by the fact that you can't use the HUD to select an individual unit from your groups. Of course, I imagine Blizzard will have a smart way of handling it, and won't take the lazy way out.
Poll: Which choice best fits your viewpoint? (Vote): Same Interface as Starcraft 1 (SBS,etc) (Vote): Automining, Multiple Building Selection, Unlimited Unit Selection (No new macro mechanics) (Vote): Macro Mechanics and MBS, AM and UUS
Also
Poll: Should every dick count? (Vote): Absolutely! (Vote): No way!
On December 28 2009 06:19 Manit0u wrote: 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.
One thing of note, having infinite number of units on normal hotkeys can make it HARDER to control individual units. This is because most interfaces with infinite units on a hotkey generally collapse all identical units to a single portrait, meaning you can't portrait-select an individual one (e.g. instead of a group of 5 zealots having 5 separate portraits, there's a single zealot portrait with the number 5 in the corner--meaning you can't click the portrait for the one taking damage and instead you actually have to click on the unit on the screen).
IMO if Blizzard got lazy with the interface, this would be a detriment, because the tradeoff of being able to hotkey all your units together is outweighed by the fact that you can't use the HUD to select an individual unit from your groups. Of course, I imagine Blizzard will have a smart way of handling it, and won't take the lazy way out.
That's exactly what I meant Trading control for freedom is not a good thing in my book.
On December 28 2009 06:19 Manit0u wrote: 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.
One thing of note, having infinite number of units on normal hotkeys can make it HARDER to control individual units. This is because most interfaces with infinite units on a hotkey generally collapse all identical units to a single portrait, meaning you can't portrait-select an individual one (e.g. instead of a group of 5 zealots having 5 separate portraits, there's a single zealot portrait with the number 5 in the corner--meaning you can't click the portrait for the one taking damage and instead you actually have to click on the unit on the screen).
IMO if Blizzard got lazy with the interface, this would be a detriment, because the tradeoff of being able to hotkey all your units together is outweighed by the fact that you can't use the HUD to select an individual unit from your groups. Of course, I imagine Blizzard will have a smart way of handling it, and won't take the lazy way out.
That's exactly what I meant Trading control for freedom is not a good thing in my book.
So... can we just bump it up to 24 (3x8) and call it a day?
On December 27 2009 08:26 AttackZerg wrote: I don't think every dick should count. Just those that have entered before me and if they were using protecting.
Unless she has been gang banged then that is a serious problem for me.
Happens to me too. I do think every click should count though. I use a finger condom when using my DeathAdder mouse.
On December 28 2009 06:19 Manit0u wrote: 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.
One thing of note, having infinite number of units on normal hotkeys can make it HARDER to control individual units. This is because most interfaces with infinite units on a hotkey generally collapse all identical units to a single portrait, meaning you can't portrait-select an individual one (e.g. instead of a group of 5 zealots having 5 separate portraits, there's a single zealot portrait with the number 5 in the corner--meaning you can't click the portrait for the one taking damage and instead you actually have to click on the unit on the screen).
IMO if Blizzard got lazy with the interface, this would be a detriment, because the tradeoff of being able to hotkey all your units together is outweighed by the fact that you can't use the HUD to select an individual unit from your groups. Of course, I imagine Blizzard will have a smart way of handling it, and won't take the lazy way out.
That's exactly what I meant Trading control for freedom is not a good thing in my book.
So... can we just bump it up to 24 (3x8) and call it a day?
Best possible solution in my opinion. (and superhotkeys please)
On December 29 2009 18:53 HyKe wrote: Average Dicks Per Minute for Street Fighter players ranges between 150-180 DPM However Sirlin can handle over 350 DPM i'm told.
On December 29 2009 18:53 HyKe wrote: Average Dicks Per Minute for Street Fighter players ranges between 150-180 DPM However Sirlin can handle over 350 DPM i'm told.
Its pretty clear cut, go read what I wrote. Not going to bother re-writing stuff because you're too lazy to read; not like my posts didn't take enough time to write as it is.
I said taht RTS can't be as strategically deep without a demanding mechanical interface as it would be with it,
No, you said a game couldn't be strategic without a demanding mechanical interface; you said nothing about it being an RTS, nor did you attempt to say that the relative volume was the issue. Serious; go look at your post.
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%
You clearly don't know the games you're talking about if you think that someone in tib-sun has issues meeting the mechanical requirements of the game, or that the game is degenerated strategically, given that the game has like 25 viable openings per map.
I'm pretty much done with this thread; I wouldn't have minded to chat with tofu any longer because he actually had content in his posts, but you're just a jumble of poor reading comprehension and poor arguments. I kinda understand what you're TRYING to say, but getting to your premises and conclusions so that we can actually talk properly is like trying to cross a never before visited jungle with a machete; too much work, no payoff.
Its pretty clear cut, go read what I wrote. Not going to bother re-writing stuff because you're too lazy to read; not like my posts didn't take enough time to write as it is.
I said taht RTS can't be as strategically deep without a demanding mechanical interface as it would be with it,
No, you said a game couldn't be strategic without a demanding mechanical interface; you said nothing about it being an RTS, nor did you attempt to say that the relative volume was the issue. Serious; go look at your post.
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%
You clearly don't know the games you're talking about if you think that someone in tib-sun has issues meeting the mechanical requirements of the game, or that the game is degenerated strategically, given that the game has like 25 viable openings per map.
I'm pretty much done with this thread; I wouldn't have minded to chat with tofu any longer because he actually had content in his posts, but you're just a jumble of poor reading comprehension and poor arguments. I kinda understand what you're TRYING to say, but getting to your premises and conclusions so that we can actually talk properly is like trying to cross a never before visited jungle with a machete; too much work, no payoff.
Please dont try to side track this thread with on-topic posts. We are currently discussing whether a succesful esports RTS requires high dicks-per-minute interface action. Thank you.
Its pretty clear cut, go read what I wrote. Not going to bother re-writing stuff because you're too lazy to read; not like my posts didn't take enough time to write as it is.
I said taht RTS can't be as strategically deep without a demanding mechanical interface as it would be with it,
No, you said a game couldn't be strategic without a demanding mechanical interface; you said nothing about it being an RTS, nor did you attempt to say that the relative volume was the issue. Serious; go look at your post.
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%
You clearly don't know the games you're talking about if you think that someone in tib-sun has issues meeting the mechanical requirements of the game, or that the game is degenerated strategically, given that the game has like 25 viable openings per map.
I'm pretty much done with this thread; I wouldn't have minded to chat with tofu any longer because he actually had content in his posts, but you're just a jumble of poor reading comprehension and poor arguments. I kinda understand what you're TRYING to say, but getting to your premises and conclusions so that we can actually talk properly is like trying to cross a never before visited jungle with a machete; too much work, no payoff.
Please dont try to side track this thread with on-topic posts. We are currently discussing whether a succesful esports RTS requires high dicks-per-minute interface action. Thank you.
I believe it does, and everybody here who opposes to this premise is being a dick... should that count?
edit: ------- note to self: --dont forget the smiley face or some crazy asshole will think I am being serious!--
After playing Warcraft 3 for a while, coming back to Starcraft i find the interface a little clumsy and unneccesarily cumbersome in building units. I expect Sc2 to have a near identical interface to WC3 with the addition of being able to control masses of units in a control group.
Expect things that come from WC3 like - being able to "shift-build" multiple buildings, control grouping multiple buildings in one group, being able to cast single spells from a group of casters, rally point mining, the use of the tab key to cycle through unit types in a group...
These things make the game more fun imo, and from an amatuer's point of view, allow you to more easily play at an acceptable speed without all the clicking involved in macroing units. (Example: You want to mass zealots out of your gateways. In Sc1 you have to click or hotkey to each gate and press z. In Sc2 you can hotkey all your 20 gateways and and have 20 zealots in two clicks.)
Being able to easily mass troops while controlling your forces allows you to do more in less time and puts the focus more on unit control and strategy, the more fun part of the game to me.
From the pro's perspective, i think it only serves to INCREASE the level of play. There are less clicks, but you are doing more in one click than you used to be able to do. If you can maintain the same amount of clicks, you will be doing more.
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.
Also, take into consideration the pro scene in WC3. While Koreans are still dominant as in SC, they dont hold a monopoly over the top tier of play and there are a few Europeans as well as Chinese who play at the highest level and win consistently. Expect more foreigners competing at the high levels in Sc2.
Having the game shift to more time focusing on unit control and strategy, with less time "uselessly clicking," will allow foreigners to compete better IMO. I have little doubt though, that the Korean pros will be excellent as they are in all RTS it seems.
Just my thoughts, i think the more streamlined macro system will be better for all, and am 100% sure it will be included. Maybe take some time to play some WC3, maybe some Wc3 UMS to get used to it. It will definately make you more skilled at Sc2 to be more comfortable with the interface. You'll see how much faster and pleasent it is to shift build 12 barracks, double click one, control group them and start massing, and return your focus to the game, rather than have to go through all the "unneccesary clicking."
(Example: You want to mass zealots out of your gateways. In Sc1 you have to click or hotkey to each gate and press z. In Sc2 you can hotkey all your 20 gateways and and have 20 zealots in two clicks.)
Actually in SC2 I'm pretty sure it's 21 button mashes for 20 zealots :-) If you're using all warpgates, it's 21 button mashes and 20 mouse clicks...
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.
thats a bad thing if everyone can macro without much effort the games gonna be alot more boring for several reasons. play style will be alot more homogenized than sc1 since there will be no macro style players, everyone will have good macro. alot of people recognize that and say its ok cuz macro games are less entertaining. what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
If it were say sc1, typical muta harrass involves 11 mutas. If he splits them up so its 3/4 mutas at 3 different spots, they won't be able to kill any marines/turrets ever. So even thought it might take more multitask, it will be hurting the zerg overall to keep mutas in groups of 3's.
You can't multitaks with pure micro because, at least in sc1, micro oriented harrass usually involves very few units. (11 mutas, drop ship, shuttle.) Unless you are going mass muta, drop ship, or shuttle, but in which case its not really harass anymore.
If it were say sc1, typical muta harrass involves 11 mutas. If he splits them up so its 3/4 mutas at 3 different spots, they won't be able to kill any marines/turrets ever
Is there some Set-In-Stone reason why you'd only harass when you have 9 mutas? Why not harass when you have 27? Or 18? Sure, it would be later on in the game, and eat up more gas, and the enemy will have more defences in place, but it would be the job of the gamer in this hypothetical SC-with-easy-macro to work out if that's viable, and how and when and where to make it go, if so.
You can't multitaks with pure micro because, at least in sc1, micro oriented harrass usually involves very few units.
Well 3 times very few is still only a few, and anyways, what SC1 'usually involves' doesn't translate into what SC2 is, or should be. There's no Iron Law of Real Time Strategy that says you can't use your excess multitasking time for harassing/fighting/scouting on more than one front with more units, if spamming workers and building units isn't eating up so much of your attention as it does in SC.
Sure, given how Starcraft plays, the designers of SC2 would not be doing their job if fast people with good multitasking skills couldn't find some way of exploiting them to give themselves a big advantage in SC2, but I don't really see evidence of that happening, and I guess that Dustin & co are well aware of these issues. SC2 will only be broken if a significant number of winning strategies don't actually need those sorts of skills.
Well, in sc 1 by the time you have 18 or 27 mutas to harrass with the terran will have irridiate which pretty much owns mutas, that plus the exponential growth of mnm power would make harrassing at that time reallllllly not cost efficient compared to harassing at 11, that's why they do it this way.
As to whether or not Dustin and co can make a highly competitive game to match SC:BW's legacy, we don't know, but if they keep dumbing it down eventually its going to feel like civilization with speed becoming a non-factor.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
I think selecting 12 unit in starcraft1 is also too much, they should come back old way dune II fashion where you can only select 1 unit! So much more fun when you need jaedong skill to micro more than 2 muta. By idra's logic it would makes pro games even more awesome to watch.
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote: 1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently.
I don't really agree with this. Starcraft already rewards multitasking micro in certain situations: Bisu-style PvZ and SK Terran, for example. Sure you're often not full-time microing any individual group (unlike Mutalisks), but it's to your advantage to create multiple engagements and put a little bit of micro into each. I expect Starcraft 2 to reward this kind of play to an even greater degree, given that macro will be a little smoother and there are a lot of mobile units.
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote: 1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently.
I don't really agree with this. Starcraft already rewards multitasking micro in certain situations: Bisu-style PvZ and SK Terran, for example. Sure you're often not full-time microing any individual group (unlike Mutalisks), but it's to your advantage to create multiple engagements and put a little bit of micro into each. I expect Starcraft 2 to reward this kind of play to an even greater degree, given that macro will be a little smoother and there are a lot of mobile units.
Er... actually this would reward that style of play less, as players will be better at reacting to it in general and thus it's more of an assumption than something you can have be your "style"
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.
thats a bad thing if everyone can macro without much effort the games gonna be alot more boring for several reasons. play style will be alot more homogenized than sc1 since there will be no macro style players, everyone will have good macro. alot of people recognize that and say its ok cuz macro games are less entertaining. what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
so no, it wont make the game better.
Haha, funny that the only real pro player outside Korea disagrees with my thesis. From that perspective, i see what your saying about macro style and harass. Either way, I really doubt blizzard would downgrade their RTS interface, rather i expect them to expand it to even more streamlined than Wc3.
We'll see i guess, i doubt they would revert to the old school macro system from their businss perspective, they would want to cater to the largest audience.
I also think it will take the micro game to new heights and make the game more exciting, as players rely more on things like unit saving and amazing control and tactics, with less time focused on their base. I think it will be reminscent of Wc3 where you often times do not have time to macro, even simply pressing 5 f (to build footmen out of your hotkeyed baracks in this simple system), because of the incredibly blistering micro speed which the game competes at. I think this will be good for Sc2 and an upgrade from both wc3 and sc1.
On January 23 2010 08:15 pioneer8 wrote: I think it will be reminscent of Wc3 where you often times do not have time to macro, even simply pressing 5 f (to build footmen out of your hotkeyed baracks in this simple system), because of the incredibly blistering micro speed which the game competes at.
Micro tactics dont have to depend on the enemy making mistakes. Theres always ways to micro better, even if both players pay full attention. Even if muta harass vs mm would be much worse than it is now, with different mechanics, that doesnt mean much when were talking of a game which isnt SCBW balance.
Also I find the kind of macro player who excels at clicking buildings quite boring... Someone who excels at micro is fun to watch, as is someone who plans his economy and timings perfectly, but if someone has the edge from multitasking unit production it isnt as interesting to see.
We have to concede that none of us knows what makes the perfect RTS-game until we've played it.
I think it's a mistake to always talk about how certain changes will affect SC instead of taking a more theoretical viewpoint and just discussing mechanics or perhaps even "ideology".
For example, I think todays RTS-games place too little emphasis on the strategy part. At least the ones I have played. Secondly, as a general rule of thumb I think the user interface should be "simplified" as much as possible. This is not the same as saying that units should micro themselves; only that if it's possible to make something more intuitive and better/faster then that will probably ultimately create a better game.
I don't think there's a valid reason for keeping the UI sluggish or tedious. If there is, then there's probably something else in your game that should be changed/fixed.
I don't think it's valid to debate how change X or change Y would affect SC. We're talking about how a modern RTS game should be like.
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.
Agreed. And to take it a step further, Sirlin has no clue about competitive gaming in general. I hate it when people quote or link to this article, it's so stupid and it doesn't apply to anything. I learned to ignore everything written by him/her long, long ago.
I did it! I've read all 19 pages and now I feel entitled to share my opinion.
I feel that unlimited unit selection(UUS) is a good thing. It's noob friendly, but is not a good way to go to battle, just get near it.
The multiple building selection will make it easier to make you army, but it won't do your macroing for you. You still need to build enough of the production buildings to produce at max capacity, and you still need to work to get a good unit combination. In short with out a long drawn out explanation they don't auto macro just make it easier to macro when you decide to.
Auto mining will make the beginning of the game even more boring, but as the match progresses the extra minerals you get from workers not sitting around will mean that you can have more action.
The macro mechanics are certainly not noob friendly since they involve going back to base and issuing an order every X amount of time to use them to maximum effect. I'm fine with that. I believe that they should do more things to give the players with extra situational awareness and ability to multi-task have an edge.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
I wouldn't change anything in BW as it is now but it doesn't mean there aren't things in gameplay that in my opinion hurt it - a lot of units and spells aren't used because they are not rewarding enough with so many other things to do; unit mixes are simplified and when in certain match up 1 race isn't as demanding in unit control it causes huge imbalances - like mech in TvZ or neo sauron in ZvP. edit: even in "standard" bio ZvT whole mid game is about keeping terran in base and delaying once he pushes to buy as much time possible.
People don't care about repetition until JD shows he has no clue about anything he didn't practice for hours and weeks and loses to some less standard build, someone blogs about good mind games because his father thinks SC is about who smashes buttons faster or Rekrul makes whole fucking article about Ret and xeno asians that play so much they don't even have time to teach Ret Korean.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
I wouldn't change anything in BW as it is now but it doesn't mean there aren't things in gameplay that in my opinion hurt it - a lot of units and spells aren't used because they are not rewarding enough with so many other things to do; unit mixes are simplified and when in certain match up 1 race isn't as demanding in unit control it causes huge imbalances - like mech in TvZ or neo sauron in ZvP. edit: even in "standard" bio ZvT whole mid game is about keeping terran in base and delaying once he pushes to buy as much time possible.
People don't care about repetition until JD shows he has no clue about anything he didn't practice for hours and weeks and loses to some less standard build, someone blogs about good mind games because his father thinks SC is about who smashes buttons faster or Rekrul makes whole fucking article about Ret and xeno asians that play so much they don't even have time to teach Ret Korean.
Am I supposed to take your post seriously?
What I said meant "your screen cannot show three locations at the same time," which is a fact.
T_____T
Point 3. is also a fact. Sigh, whatever. Not gonna argue because I couldn't care less about what you think.
On January 23 2010 08:59 JohannesH wrote: Micro tactics dont have to depend on the enemy making mistakes. Theres always ways to micro better, even if both players pay full attention. Even if muta harass vs mm would be much worse than it is now, with different mechanics, that doesnt mean much when were talking of a game which isnt SCBW balance.
Also I find the kind of macro player who excels at clicking buildings quite boring... Someone who excels at micro is fun to watch, as is someone who plans his economy and timings perfectly, but if someone has the edge from multitasking unit production it isnt as interesting to see.
Yes, and these ways are boring and repetitive and incredibly hard for an observer to pick up on. Watch a bunch of Warcraft 3 matches where both players minutely control every unit in every battle for exactly what you are describing - it sucks and is not fun to watch.
That is the kind of micro that takes place when you remove "distractions". Two players staring at the exact same spot on the screen at all times and running grunts back and forth after every volley.
Nope, it doesnt have to be like that at all. If for example, SC had the interface of WC3, would you or the pros be running hydralisks back and forth after every volley?
Tedster, i disagree first of all that watching insane micro is boring. In Wc3 you have a max 100 food and an average 100 food army would be about 30-40 units.
In SC2 it will obviously be alot more.
Epic control of multiple groups of units (not having to manually macro) will probably be the norm in pro level play and im sure will be a spectacle to see.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
I wouldn't change anything in BW as it is now but it doesn't mean there aren't things in gameplay that in my opinion hurt it - a lot of units and spells aren't used because they are not rewarding enough with so many other things to do; unit mixes are simplified and when in certain match up 1 race isn't as demanding in unit control it causes huge imbalances - like mech in TvZ or neo sauron in ZvP. edit: even in "standard" bio ZvT whole mid game is about keeping terran in base and delaying once he pushes to buy as much time possible.
People don't care about repetition until JD shows he has no clue about anything he didn't practice for hours and weeks and loses to some less standard build, someone blogs about good mind games because his father thinks SC is about who smashes buttons faster or Rekrul makes whole fucking article about Ret and xeno asians that play so much they don't even have time to teach Ret Korean.
Am I supposed to take your post seriously?
What I said meant "your screen cannot show three locations at the same time," which is a fact.
T_____T
Point 3. is also a fact. Sigh, whatever. Not gonna argue because I couldn't care less about what you think.
You have nothing to base your "fact" on. It's too bad that caring what other people think isn't the same as being able to prove them wrong or even them being wrong at all. You don't help your case when you state you don't care but post anyways o_o
Even if we are talking about action happening in 3 different spots it doesn't mean they all need need to happen at exactly the same second and even if they do it doesn't mean they require equal spectator attention - I don't need to watch the very last marine dieing to switch my screen to other location. The same thing that allows good players keep their macro going is applied here imo.
During last WCG there was a thread in Broodwar about a site that allows to watch multiple you tube videos simultaneously - OP gave links to fpiews of both players from some of recorded matches and people found it cool -> it wasn't that annoying to watch 2, 400+ APM guys playing! It's not like Koreans never show fpiews during early stages of games also.
Multiple observers aren't anything new, if the guy that controls main screen ever gets confused other that aren't as static as him can ping him location on minimap.
If both fpiews can be shown just like that (as I wrote earlier) then screens of 2 observers can be shown as well.
Even minimap itself can be used to break technical barrier to show 2 battles going at the same time at 1 screen, just like it's done in Supreme Commander where both main screen and minimap can be zoomed in and out. All it would take Blizzard is to ignore cool badwagon kids of pure SC feeling.
On January 23 2010 08:59 JohannesH wrote: Micro tactics dont have to depend on the enemy making mistakes. Theres always ways to micro better, even if both players pay full attention. Even if muta harass vs mm would be much worse than it is now, with different mechanics, that doesnt mean much when were talking of a game which isnt SCBW balance.
Also I find the kind of macro player who excels at clicking buildings quite boring... Someone who excels at micro is fun to watch, as is someone who plans his economy and timings perfectly, but if someone has the edge from multitasking unit production it isnt as interesting to see.
Yes, and these ways are boring and repetitive and incredibly hard for an observer to pick up on. Watch a bunch of Warcraft 3 matches where both players minutely control every unit in every battle for exactly what you are describing - it sucks and is not fun to watch.
That is the kind of micro that takes place when you remove "distractions". Two players staring at the exact same spot on the screen at all times and running grunts back and forth after every volley.
I don't see the point in comparing SC2 to W3.
If you want to compare W3 to SC you have to imagine zerglings dealing 1 damage instead of 5 about 2 - 3 times slower and no equivalent of metabolic boost and adrenal glands upgrades.
Hero system alone with all those spells and itmes is so big and complicated it allowed to game be made inside game (dota) and there are no heros nor creeps in SC2 right
I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Congo-line 1000 lings into my marine-laden blastula of death. Just please don't BM by forgetting to bring lye. I don't want to have to waste clicks or answer to the overmind...but if we are playing SimCity SC... I need everything to be spotless, so that when my medic avatar gets here from Andromeda ...or HeartBreak Ridge (i'm actually cheating with another medic :-O ;-D giggitty), I can defile[r] her hatchery with my thickly stacked mutas. The actual destination I wish is her sunken, but she doesn't let me in there, unfortunately =(. Probably because my lovers don't even know how much there is in terms of my mutas...the shadow is that scary. Regardless, she'll be on the Ride of Valkyries of her life. Show me the money 'cuz not we's hazin' kidzzz, Mz Kerrigan. Walk across the sea of zerg blood with me to the alter <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
On January 24 2010 10:22 Spo0ky wrote: <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Congo-line 1000 lings into my marine-laden blastula of death. Just please don't BM by forgetting to bring lye. I don't want to have to waste clicks or answer to the overmind...but if we are playing SimCity SC... I need everything to be spotless, so that when my medic avatar gets here from Andromeda ...or HeartBreak Ridge (i'm actually cheating with another medic :-O ;-D giggitty), I can defile[r] her hatchery with my thickly stacked mutas. The actual destination I wish is her sunken, but she doesn't let me in there, unfortunately =(. Probably because my lovers don't even know how much there is in terms of my mutas...the shadow is that scary. Regardless, she'll be on the Ride of Valkyries of her life. Show me the money 'cuz not we's hazin' kidzzz, Mz Kerrigan. Walk across the sea of zerg blood with me to the alter <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
On January 24 2010 10:22 Spo0ky wrote: <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Congo-line 1000 lings into my marine-laden blastula of death. Just please don't BM by forgetting to bring lye. I don't want to have to waste clicks or answer to the overmind...but if we are playing SimCity SC... I need everything to be spotless, so that when my medic avatar gets here from Andromeda ...or HeartBreak Ridge (i'm actually cheating with another medic :-O ;-D giggitty), I can defile[r] her hatchery with my thickly stacked mutas. The actual destination I wish is her sunken, but she doesn't let me in there, unfortunately =(. Probably because my lovers don't even know how much there is in terms of my mutas...the shadow is that scary. Regardless, she'll be on the Ride of Valkyries of her life. Show me the money 'cuz not we's hazin' kidzzz, Mz Kerrigan. Walk across the sea of zerg blood with me to the alter <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
On January 24 2010 09:39 TeWy wrote: I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
Hey... i was going to explain to you how you were wrong, but this game pretty much disproves alot of you've said, its a good game too. The game definately isn't 'slow'... It's also not boring... though some games can be, as in all sports. As for the Archmage debate, its entirely situational to race matchup and personal preference. I prefer MK vs orc every game no matter what.
game 2 of the set is good too
(it's funny in the background you can hear them talking about SC2. Probably talking about Moon who is rumoured to be one of the SC2 bonjwas in the future, and taken on by WemadeFox)
Anway... SC2 will obviously be alot different than Wc3 in many aspects, why i originally brought it up was because of the "interface"
Even if we are talking about action happening in 3 different spots it doesn't mean they all need need to happen at exactly the same second and even if they do it doesn't mean they require equal spectator attention - I don't need to watch the very last marine dieing to switch my screen to other location. The same thing that allows good players keep their macro going is applied here imo.
No, no, no. The definition of action happening in three spots is that they're happening at roughly the same time, if not *the* same time. You cannot pretend that the players will magically make it convenient and easy for the spectators to follow. As it is, there are times in SC1 already where the observers miss important things. Moreover, the more different things you have to watch the more crazy the screen gets.
During last WCG there was a thread in Broodwar about a site that allows to watch multiple you tube videos simultaneously - OP gave links to fpiews of both players from some of recorded matches and people found it cool -> it wasn't that annoying to watch 2, 400+ APM guys playing! It's not like Koreans never show fpiews during early stages of games also.
I can tell you right now that most players of starcraft 2 will not be able to follow one FPVOD, let alone two simultaneous FPVODs, if I and my friends are any indication. Your average spectator is not here on TL.net. He is behind me, a relatively cruddy player, saying that he's never seen anyone click that fast in SC before.
I know I had a hard time understanding what the FPVODs were showing and even now when watching them I often miss basic elements of BOs.There's a reason why the Koreans use FPV but not all the time: not everyone can understand them, but it's fun to see how crazy progamers are.
Multiple observers aren't anything new, if the guy that controls main screen ever gets confused other that aren't as static as him can ping him location on minimap.
If both fpiews can be shown just like that (as I wrote earlier) then screens of 2 observers can be shown as well.
I find that two obs screens is about the limit for what I can handle without completely missing what's going on on one of the screens. There's nothing more annoying for me than those WoW PvP videos, combo videos, or SC videos where it splits into a million screens and I can't see what's going on.
Obviously there's a balance to be struck, but there's no way you're going beyond 2 screens, and even that can be disorienting to the average spectator at a moment of high action.
Even minimap itself can be used to break technical barrier to show 2 battles going at the same time at 1 screen, just like it's done in Supreme Commander where both main screen and minimap can be zoomed in and out. All it would take Blizzard is to ignore cool badwagon kids of pure SC feeling.
Yeah, the minimap helps people see the big picture, but it unfortunately is missing a lot of the eye candy and interesting detail. It wasn't until Day[9] daily that I ever started watching the minimap at all as a spectator, and unless you're someone who is a really technical spectator the lack of detail just isn't as interesting.
I don't mean to completely rain on your parade. But I feel like you are being unrealistically optimistic.
Even if we are talking about action happening in 3 different spots it doesn't mean they all need need to happen at exactly the same second and even if they do it doesn't mean they require equal spectator attention - I don't need to watch the very last marine dieing to switch my screen to other location. The same thing that allows good players keep their macro going is applied here imo.
No, no, no. The definition of action happening in three spots is that they're happening at roughly the same time, if not *the* same time. You cannot pretend that the players will magically make it convenient and easy for the spectators to follow. As it is, there are times in SC1 already where the observers miss important things. Moreover, the more different things you have to watch the more crazy the screen gets.
Nono. Of course the important parts of several engagements can happen exactly simultaneously but that isnt the case always at all. For example if you do a multi pronged attack, its actually better to time it so that you can micro them all on their own a bit.
If its just 1 point of action all the time, I understand that as all your troops tied to 1 thing at a time.
Zooming in and out is a great feature that I wish SC2 had though.
Even if we are talking about action happening in 3 different spots it doesn't mean they all need need to happen at exactly the same second and even if they do it doesn't mean they require equal spectator attention - I don't need to watch the very last marine dieing to switch my screen to other location. The same thing that allows good players keep their macro going is applied here imo.
No, no, no. The definition of action happening in three spots is that they're happening at roughly the same time, if not *the* same time. You cannot pretend that the players will magically make it convenient and easy for the spectators to follow. As it is, there are times in SC1 already where the observers miss important things. Moreover, the more different things you have to watch the more crazy the screen gets.
You misunderstood me, I meant exactly what I wrote. JohannesH pretty much said it, it's not easy or even needed to engage at exactly the same time so those little amounts of time between each action happening can make it easier to spot and watch for everyone. It's like in Flash vs Movie OSL finals (vod marked at 27m)
Observer imo did a good job then. Well what helped him was all Protoss units weren't that far from each other (like opposite corners of a map).
During last WCG there was a thread in Broodwar about a site that allows to watch multiple you tube videos simultaneously - OP gave links to fpiews of both players from some of recorded matches and people found it cool -> it wasn't that annoying to watch 2, 400+ APM guys playing! It's not like Koreans never show fpiews during early stages of games also.
I can tell you right now that most players of starcraft 2 will not be able to follow one FPVOD, let alone two simultaneous FPVODs, if I and my friends are any indication. Your average spectator is not here on TL.net. He is behind me, a relatively cruddy player, saying that he's never seen anyone click that fast in SC before.
I know I had a hard time understanding what the FPVODs were showing and even now when watching them I often miss basic elements of BOs.There's a reason why the Koreans use FPV but not all the time: not everyone can understand them, but it's fun to see how crazy progamers are.
I didn't mean watching every game like that of course majority of people that would try to watch that wouldn't find it pleasant. I brought that as something opposite to what maybenexttime wrote, proof that there are people here that don't mind watching something going faster than what we can watch most of the time. If there are people that like watching 2fpvods playing simultaneously then for sure there are (imo even more) people who won't be as confused about action going on in multiple spots on a map as maybenexttime tried to state as fact.
Multiple observers aren't anything new, if the guy that controls main screen ever gets confused other that aren't as static as him can ping him location on minimap.
If both fpiews can be shown just like that (as I wrote earlier) then screens of 2 observers can be shown as well.
I find that two obs screens is about the limit for what I can handle without completely missing what's going on on one of the screens. There's nothing more annoying for me than those WoW PvP videos, combo videos, or SC videos where it splits into a million screens and I can't see what's going on.
Obviously there's a balance to be struck, but there's no way you're going beyond 2 screens, and even that can be disorienting to the average spectator at a moment of high action.
Even minimap itself can be used to break technical barrier to show 2 battles going at the same time at 1 screen, just like it's done in Supreme Commander where both main screen and minimap can be zoomed in and out. All it would take Blizzard is to ignore cool badwagon kids of pure SC feeling.
Yeah, the minimap helps people see the big picture, but it unfortunately is missing a lot of the eye candy and interesting detail. It wasn't until Day[9] daily that I ever started watching the minimap at all as a spectator, and unless you're someone who is a really technical spectator the lack of detail just isn't as interesting.
I don't mean to completely rain on your parade. But I feel like you are being unrealistically optimistic.
OK what I meant is 2 observers in game but screen of only 1 being shown - if this 1 gets confused he can ask for help. Pretty fitting for commentators who are observers at the same time (at least 1 of them). I think commentators were asking observer to show specific spots pretty few times during games of this TSL.
I meant splitting screen as something that would happen in exactly the same manner showing 2 fpviews happens now, i.e. not permament but temporary split!
I'm not sure if you played Supreme Commander, you can zoom in minimap so much you can see units clearly, it becomes little copy of main screen.
first off u forget that zerg will have a huge disadvantage here because they have a weaker force. In sc1 terran and protoss armies had an advantage in units that they can just sit in a ball and steamroll their way out into winning when they come into a specific size. zergs on the other hand have many units but with small hp so they had to flank in order to take on such force or they would just evaporate in single files. So why would unit selection be important? So that terran and protoss players would have to put more hotkeys and focus over them to control a large force instead of amove 12384102347 units that can steamroll nething with just a click of a button.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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..
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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 24 2010 09:39 TeWy wrote: I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
Hey... i was going to explain to you how you were wrong, but this game pretty much disproves alot of you've said, its a good game too. The game definately isn't 'slow'... It's also not boring... though some games can be, as in all sports. As for the Archmage debate, its entirely situational to race matchup and personal preference. I prefer MK vs orc every game no matter what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t09m4WhrtuY&feature=related (it's funny in the background you can hear them talking about SC2. Probably talking about Moon who is rumoured to be one of the SC2 bonjwas in the future, and taken on by WemadeFox)
Anway... SC2 will obviously be alot different than Wc3 in many aspects, why i originally brought it up was because of the "interface"
Just watched game 1 and 2. It's DAMN SLOW OH MY GOD. And SC2 isn't close to Wc3 in any aspect. Only people who didn't play it says that.
On January 24 2010 09:39 TeWy wrote: I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
Hey... i was going to explain to you how you were wrong, but this game pretty much disproves alot of you've said, its a good game too. The game definately isn't 'slow'... It's also not boring... though some games can be, as in all sports. As for the Archmage debate, its entirely situational to race matchup and personal preference. I prefer MK vs orc every game no matter what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t09m4WhrtuY&feature=related (it's funny in the background you can hear them talking about SC2. Probably talking about Moon who is rumoured to be one of the SC2 bonjwas in the future, and taken on by WemadeFox)
Anway... SC2 will obviously be alot different than Wc3 in many aspects, why i originally brought it up was because of the "interface"
Just watched game 1 and 2. It's DAMN SLOW OH MY GOD. And SC2 isn't close to Wc3 in any aspect. Only people who didn't play it says that.
"isn't close in any aspect", is far too extreme... Both game may look different but after all, they share the same basics (macro/micro/multitask/strategic sense)...
On January 24 2010 09:39 TeWy wrote: I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
Hey... i was going to explain to you how you were wrong, but this game pretty much disproves alot of you've said, its a good game too. The game definately isn't 'slow'... It's also not boring... though some games can be, as in all sports. As for the Archmage debate, its entirely situational to race matchup and personal preference. I prefer MK vs orc every game no matter what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t09m4WhrtuY&feature=related (it's funny in the background you can hear them talking about SC2. Probably talking about Moon who is rumoured to be one of the SC2 bonjwas in the future, and taken on by WemadeFox)
Anway... SC2 will obviously be alot different than Wc3 in many aspects, why i originally brought it up was because of the "interface"
Just watched game 1 and 2. It's DAMN SLOW OH MY GOD. And SC2 isn't close to Wc3 in any aspect. Only people who didn't play it says that.
"isn't close in any aspect", is far too extreme... Both game may look different but after all, they share the same basics (macro/micro/multitask/strategic sense)...
I gave Warcraft 3 a chance after watching the second game and I have to say that it seemed to go to slow. You shouldn't be able to attack for that long and destroy that little. If the big rock throwing units were replaced by zealots they would have been able to destroy a players ability to fight if attacked as little as they (the sieging units) were in less time. Especially if the players know what they're doing and don't have a bunch of money sitting in the bank to power unit production after they lost their income.
On January 24 2010 09:39 TeWy wrote: I've plaid a lot of Warcraft3 before switching back to Starcraft so let me explain why all these fears about Starcraft2 being "War3 in space" are non-sense.
The reason why War3 is kind of boring spectator wise, is that War3 is slow and that the unit combinaisons fighting each other are most of the time the same, not to mention that they're very few scenarios where 2 battles are going on in the same time.
1). The reason why the unit combinaisons are stereotyped at the high level, is not due to poor macro or whatever, it is due to the HEROES. When you opt for a certain hero in War3, you can't change it anymore, and all your strategies have to revolve around him. For instance if you're a HU player and that you don't choose Archmage as first hero, you wouldn't have the Archmage's mana aura and the Water elementals DPS to effectively play casters at tier2, and if you've no casters at tier2 you will be vulnerable at this point of the game, so the only way to not play AM first as HU is to take an early expansion, mass towers to prevent any kind of tier2 push and go for the high tech.
2).The reason why there's almost never 2 real battles going on in the same time, is also kind of linked to the heroes (hero spells synergize with the armie as mentionned above) but also due the fact that War3 has a fourth ressource called experience. You can't suicide your units to disturb your opponent economies because even if you successfuly disturb your opponent's economy, he will straight push your expansion/main base and beat you due to superior hero levels (losing units/time means more experience for your opponent heroes) and the fact that he has more units ; so spending time/units to disturb your opponent's economy is most of the times a bad choice, unless you're playing a mass expansions/mass towers/tanks strat which is considerd to be an epically lame strat, and which has been nerfed.
3).The reason why War3 is slow is that well, they wanted to make something more unique than Starcraft in the forest. And for those who haven't plaid it, let me make a revelation folks, Starcraft is Warcraft2 in space.
Hey... i was going to explain to you how you were wrong, but this game pretty much disproves alot of you've said, its a good game too. The game definately isn't 'slow'... It's also not boring... though some games can be, as in all sports. As for the Archmage debate, its entirely situational to race matchup and personal preference. I prefer MK vs orc every game no matter what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t09m4WhrtuY&feature=related (it's funny in the background you can hear them talking about SC2. Probably talking about Moon who is rumoured to be one of the SC2 bonjwas in the future, and taken on by WemadeFox)
Anway... SC2 will obviously be alot different than Wc3 in many aspects, why i originally brought it up was because of the "interface"
Just watched game 1 and 2. It's DAMN SLOW OH MY GOD. And SC2 isn't close to Wc3 in any aspect. Only people who didn't play it says that.
"isn't close in any aspect", is far too extreme... Both game may look different but after all, they share the same basics (macro/micro/multitask/strategic sense)...
That's like saying Starcraft Broodwar and WC3 share the same basics. Sure they do really deep down but they're still so so so so so so different. If we just go deep enough ALL games share a lot of aspects.
I like to watch Programmer matches because of thier insane ability. There is a reason I watch SC instead of say, Dawn of War, for instance. It just takes soooo much skill, because of the interface and the hard coded limits. I dislike MBS, despite how much that would help me play at a better level, but I find that unit selection limits barely change anything except letting a D level macro player do slightly better.
On January 27 2010 05:15 decemberscalm wrote: I like to watch Programmer matches because of thier insane ability. There is a reason I watch SC instead of say, Dawn of War, for instance. It just takes soooo much skill, because of the interface and the hard coded limits. I dislike MBS, despite how much that would help me play at a better level, but I find that unit selection limits barely change anything except letting a D level macro player do slightly better.
Zoler you won 3 beta keys during Dreamhack right? I'm just asking
On January 27 2010 05:15 decemberscalm wrote: I like to watch Programmer matches because of thier insane ability. There is a reason I watch SC instead of say, Dawn of War, for instance. It just takes soooo much skill, because of the interface and the hard coded limits. I dislike MBS, despite how much that would help me play at a better level, but I find that unit selection limits barely change anything except letting a D level macro player do slightly better.
This time I'm not quoting to disagree >_< I feel the need to write about micro and macro players - 1,5 year ago I was hardcore for MBS and it took me some time to understand and feel a little bit what macro players feel - there is a lot of satisfaction in improving in any aspect of SC. Even though I reached and stayed D+ only in ZvZ, playing it is very surprisingly one of very very few things that overall just calm me down.
But still, being micro player I see a lot of things differently than I think most of the people especially on TL. When IdrA lost this beautiful game vs Nony on Andromeda, in my opinion mostly because of good Storms I saw that not only as something big but as something that should be standard thing and happen more often, instead of Protoss going for something easier and completely switching to Arbs and Stasis. I believe good storms in late PvT will be basic and common thing in SC2. I respect IdrA k?
Artosis even said it during game on Fighting Spirit(?) that making Terrans move their forces is exacly to cause Terrans to make mistakes and clump too much units together...?
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
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
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
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
You admitting you were being an ass to Maybenexttime and not reading everything isn't worth much when, in the next paragraph you claim I didn't read everything you wrote. I didn't just respond to the thing I quoted, if you had actually read it you could have seen that. All you've done so far is spout off baseless assumptions about my motivation to respond to you while ignoring what I actually wrote.
Oh and ,why are you pulling Chill's quote out of context to make a huge sweeping statement about all starcraft players? :/ That thread actually had lots of people agreeing with Chill. I hope you're not trying to imply that those who disagree with your unfounded speculations are just like the OP of that thread...
Lol, I have no idea where Sirlin got that notion that people actually want to be able to only select 6 units at a time.
But with regards of the other thing, Starcraft 2 is a computer game, in case you haven't noticed. Thus you'll be using the keyboard and the mouse. That means that emphasis on interface control will always be important.
But combat is much more than just interfaces, which Sirlin obviously fails to realize. I think he just assumes too much.
i know im quoting someone, but think of jaedong with a control group of 20+ mutalisk... and he is muta microing with 20+ stacked muts. that is really hard to beat. now he is a pro gamer, but really even at lower levels. 20+ mutas in one group just makes the level of play needed to win much lower.
On January 28 2010 13:28 Bl1ss wrote: i know im quoting someone, but think of jaedong with a control group of 20+ mutalisk... and he is muta microing with 20+ stacked muts. that is really hard to beat. now he is a pro gamer, but really even at lower levels. 20+ mutas in one group just makes the level of play needed to win much lower.
Iris vs Jaedong @ Sin Chupung Ryeong
Watch it. Jaedong does EXACTLY as you described ;P
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
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
You admitting you were being an ass to Maybenexttime and not reading everything isn't worth much when, in the next paragraph you claim I didn't read everything you wrote. I didn't just respond to the thing I quoted, if you had actually read it you could have seen that. All you've done so far is spout off baseless assumptions about my motivation to respond to you while ignoring what I actually wrote.
Oh and ,why are you pulling Chill's quote out of context to make a huge sweeping statement about all starcraft players? :/ That thread actually had lots of people agreeing with Chill. I hope you're not trying to imply that those who disagree with your unfounded speculations are just like the OP of that thread...
If I had actually read it? There is not a word of comment about post I mentioned at all. Stop pretending the world is only white and black, stop interpreting and disregarding things as you find it convenient. I addressed everythig you wrote and you did not read everything as you claimed you did, you didn't even quote my whole post were "I was being an ass to maybenexttime". You wrote:
Your whole argument once again comes down to stating that everyone who disagrees with you lacks imagination
so, instead of addressing things you didn't even quote you are making martyr out of this guy even after I admitted that the way I treated him wasn't fully justified. You or he aren't the only people that have the right to be annoyed about anything. I remember you from SC2GF so I'm surprised you are ignoring what I wrote about "ways things regarding SC2 are being discussed" because I also remember your friend Prometheus4096 aka BlackStar that managed to be perm banned here at least twice. You even made a thread and passed his comment about his perm on new SC2GF didn't you?
I wrote I will quote you few times so you will have chance to judge me once again. Since I am going through your post part by part and marking those parts I expect you to do the same and mark exact words where "you didn't just respond to the thing you quoted, if I had actually read it I could have seen that." You should be able to do it since you aren't ignoring what I actually wrote when you accuse me of the same thing right?
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
What about better pathing? Did you think about it at all? You should remember TL staff writing about units, mostly zerglings "auto-surrounding" in games they played during 2008 WWI in Paris. I don't know if you have seen any of videos recorded during G-Star: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=106587 People also noticed that units tend to clump instead of spreading in 1 line.
Other than that this part is great example of micro and macro player misunderstanding each other. I am micro player - player that focuses on how units can be used. Even if I fail I try to do my best. You are macro player. You focus on making units, doing it better than people you play against is the most important thing. It comes before everything else.
When I read
hint: you can only be in one spot at once and units die in seconds.
I don't disagree that units die in seconds, yes they do. The difference between micro and macro player is micro player wants to pull as much as possible out of units during exactly those seconds and hopefully lengthen time they are active, while macro player orders them around only to the point when another "macro cycle" has to happen. Recognizing the fact more units die when player doesn't keep an eye on them is part of becoming a better player, Hot Bid's take on Protoss Macro and Ret's Getting good (Again) are the best examples of that I can think of.
On July 29 2009 22:43 ret wrote: I learned that Terran was more and more a race. A race to get to the ammount of units that the Zerg simply could not defend. I started playing games with only one goal in mind:
'Have as many units as possible within the physics of Starcraft:Broodwar. If you can do this, there is almost no way the zerg can muster enough of an army to stop you before defilers, unless they micro/macro'ed perfectly.'
I was making sure I constantly made scv's. I would prioritize scvs above ANYTHING, just so I could explode in midgame with my exponential economy growth. This would result in many losses to ling allins, but my midgame army size was staggering. Zergs were telling me constantly that there was just no way for them to stop what I threw at them before defiler. The only goal in every TvZ I played was to just be overwhelmingly much bigger than any other terran by the 10 minute mark. Just following this simple concept, and with practise, and getting smarter about how to use my units & when. I started sweeping zergs with ease. Early in 2008, during TSL, I wasn't losing to almost any Foreign zerg player ever, and it was by far my best matchup. Just because I was 'racing' to as many units as possible. Every zerg went hive just fast enough for them not being able to defend the timing attack, but too slow to have defilers ready in time. A great guideline to follow. I was also inspired by a Sea rep, in which he basically let the zerg do whatever he wanted, but expo'ed macro'ed his ass off and just put all his units in the middle. And he always had exactly the right units that he needed to stop the zerg just by macro'ing perfectly, adding a 2nd port, and mines in time. I learned that 'as long as you macro like a beast, there is nothing zerg can get that u need to be afraid of. If you don't mess up, you'll have plenty of vessels when hes got defilers, and way more m&m than nessecary.'
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.
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 a related note that more directly applies to me as a musician, the clarinet today has either 17 or 18 keys depending on the make. Not long ago, it had only 13 keys, and when the current design was propositioned, the Paris conservatory almost unanimously refused to accept it. Their reasoning was that they had already mastered the 13 key model, and the 17 keys would simply make it easier for performers to play. Now, it would be virtually impossible to play much of the modern works on the 13 key instruments. We probably would have figured out how to use the 13 keys, but why limit ourselves just to hold on to a anachronistic technological limit.
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.
please tell us how exactly the game would become so much more strategically deep if not for unit selection limits? easy mode proponents always talk about how the game will become so much deeper and diverse and more entertaining, but they never actually say anything. mainly because theyre mostly like sirlin and havent got the slightest clue about how rts' work.
When I saw this thread on the left I read it like 5 times as "Every dick counts", after wondering why this still is in the top5 after ages I decided to click this awkwardness of a thread and realized its actually not dicks they're talking about in here... Thank god, tho. For a second I worried if TL.net transformed into a gay site, like literally.
Edit: skimming through the last page I realized I am sure not the only one this has happened to.
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.
please tell us how exactly the game would become so much more strategically deep if not for unit selection limits? easy mode proponents always talk about how the game will become so much deeper and diverse and more entertaining, but they never actually say anything. mainly because theyre mostly like sirlin and havent got the slightest clue about how rts' work.
Maybe limited unit selection wasn't for him something that is THE reason of something he sees as problem. Maybe it was more of a attempt to name one of things that block slower players?
It's hard to discuss with someone who plays so much daily that probably doesn't see anything that could be improved in BW, even though you've shown amazing micro in last games! Not all units are being used and not because they don't have potential,
was this just a humiliation?
I don't think you see focus firing units as something gay - you were sniping HTs in game you played against NonY on Andromeda after all?
What do you think when you see Flash making Tanks in TvZ but making them only because he can secure more gases on certain map? Mostly just sieging them as they pop out?
Isn't taking time to think and decide what to do the biggest problem and reason why (most?) of good players and progamers prefer to macro over micro? Prefer to (in the same frame of time) simply make more units instead of keeping, in comparison, smaller number of those fighting active longer?
On January 31 2010 15:53 IdrA wrote: please tell us how exactly the game would become so much more strategically deep if not for unit selection limits? easy mode proponents always talk about how the game will become so much deeper and diverse and more entertaining, but they never actually say anything. mainly because theyre mostly like sirlin and havent got the slightest clue about how rts' work.
Could someone here please link me to a quote of IdrA's explaining of how "easy mode" would hurt the depth, diversity and entertainment of Starcraft? Or I could just read the thread. Naive of me to think that he entered the thread on this page.
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.
thats a bad thing if everyone can macro without much effort the games gonna be alot more boring for several reasons. play style will be alot more homogenized than sc1 since there will be no macro style players, everyone will have good macro. alot of people recognize that and say its ok cuz macro games are less entertaining. what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
so no, it wont make the game better.
This seems to be the quote where he goes into detail.
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro.
I'd previously supported automining and stuff, but this is a really good point, so I don't think I do anymore.
First lets define a game's "depth." I'll define depth refers to the breadth of the decision tree a player has to make. In this fashion we can say that chess is a deeper game than checkers, and go is a deeper game than chess. Now of course go is different from Starcraft. In go you'll make at most 180 decisions over the course of a game, and each of those decisions will be made with a long time period in between. In Starcraft decisions are made very rapidly, because it's a game that takes place in real time.
Now what I think IdrA is talking about, is how in Starcraft you have a number of limited resources, minerals, gas, supply and apm. You certainly need to made decisions about how to spend the first three of those resources, but not very frequently, while it may be a wide decision tree it's not a deep one. You won't change your minerals, gas and supply spending plan too often over the course of a game. I don't know enough about Starcraft, but I'd imagine that such plans would be changed if one of your bases was destroyed, or if you scouted something important.
Apm on the other hand, is a resource that you need to constantly make decisions on how to allocate, and its those decisions, which are made at fast pace, that determine one's skill. The decision on how to allocate apm is one of the key elements that gives Starcraft such a huge decision tree, and gives it its enormous depth.
If Starcraft was reduced to a pure strategy game, where everyone had enough APM to do everything they wanted to do (this is impossible), then it would have a much shallower decision tree, and therefore be less of a "deep" game.
It is possible for the interface to get in the way of course. If you could only select one unit at a time, then Starcraft would be a spam click contest, and the player with the highest APM would win. The winner of a good REAL TIME strategy game should be decided not by how much APM you have, but by how wisely you spend it. I think Starcraft accomplishes this goal sublimely.
EDIT: That being said, I still support ez modo on fighting games. Having to grind forever to pull of a combo is dumb. It doesn't add to the depth of the game at all, it just puts a barrier to entry. Fighting games are completely different from real time strategy games. Fighting games don't have multitask.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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..
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
I don't know what exactly you try to imagine as simultaneous, I can see it's bad for you that I don't try to claim ridiculous bullshit.
I wrote earlier about different ways macro and micro players find the most joy in playing SC. I want to "react to the opponent's micro actions/mistakes when they happen", you do not.
I want to be proud of my scouting and reaction time, it's those things that really will amuse me in SC2 progaming. If you "happen to be watching one spot while your opponent is acting in another one" you can't react to him as fast; it's the way BW is.
I'd rather abuse macro handicaps to be able to try to pay attention all the time. You prefer paying attention only to macro cycles, only "at those moments"?
IdrA described the way things are in SC1, a game without macro handicaps, without new pathing and finally with 12 unit selection limit.
Yes, it is physically impossible to watch more than one spot and somehow people can macro properly and do something else. How? They switch between multiple locations rapidly, don't they? The best train to do that for money for ~12-15h daily and SC2 was claimed to be easier because of macro handicaps, wasn't it?
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
This is perfectly correct except people are not going sacrifice anything blindly for no gain. I'm not going to split my army if I know splitting weakens it (aka there is no way to flank in any efficient way) and the soonest thing to happen is a battle with opponent's main army - army strong enough to not disregard it.
The only way you seem to be able to imagine action happening in multiple spots is by splitting your army.
Bio TvZ would be a great example of this happening in BW except, taking in account what Ret wrote - 2nd biggest favourite in this TSL, guy who made it to Korea etc, having way more mnm than needed is the key to steamrolling zerg - if you have excess of units you don't need to care about their well being as much. Plague and Dark Swarm are to balance things too. Orange cloud of immunity and red substance of 250HP AoE damage are needed to help zerg out and nothing is really wrong with gameplay revolving about getting them faster?
On January 27 2010 10:31 Dreadwave wrote: (...)I also explained why you can combine 1 macro and 1 micro task more easily than two micro tasks,
Let's see what IdrA writes about micro in response to my post...
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.(...)
I actually agreed with that but you didn't care to comment about post I wrote it in so far.
It happens that yesterday's Kolll versus Fenix series have shown great example of play I want and I will see in SC2, I mostly mean last game on Destination, finished with a vulture drop. Notice they weren't microed but it doesn't mean they weren't used at all and this is what I'm talking about!
On February 02 2010 10:30 Daedes wrote:with little practice to overall execution and fundemental and advance techniques
Oh wow I really don't understands what this means...
And, guys, the dick joke has been mentioned 50 times on this 22 pages... And 40 of those 50 times some smartass asks "am I the first..."... No, dude, you'r not!
Concerning the topic, Blizzard has to make the changes in order to attract new players, of course, we all know that and we aren't discussing about that... I believe in a compromise, auto-mining on, multy-building selection off, and everyone is happy...
But, certainly, there will be SC2 maps for SC1 and vice-versa, and only that will show us the true answer to this debate, in the meantime we can only speculate in darkness...
I read a load of the latest replies and I wonder... What exactly is it that youre arguing about? Everyones just spouting random opinions and responses to others opinions, but this shit isnt going anywhere. Loads of reasoning but I cant find the point anyones actually reasoning for or against.
On February 02 2010 07:51 LF9 wrote: Dude for real, learn to organize your posts. Regardless of whatever insight you may or may not have, no one wants to try and read that messy shit.
On February 02 2010 10:30 Daedes wrote:with little practice to overall execution and fundemental and advance techniques
Oh wow I really don't understands what this means...
And, guys, the dick joke has been mentioned 50 times on this 22 pages... And 40 of those 50 times some smartass asks "am I the first..."... No, dude, you'r not!
Concerning the topic, Blizzard has to make the changes in order to attract new players, of course, we all know that and we aren't discussing about that... I believe in a compromise, auto-mining on, multy-building selection off, and everyone is happy...
But, certainly, there will be SC2 maps for SC1 and vice-versa, and only that will show us the true answer to this debate, in the meantime we can only speculate in darkness...
When praticing a build or strat in starcraft, you pratice it over and over again for better execution. Also in starcraft yo pratice your "mechanics" which is the word i meant.
Honestly, I don't have any problem with making an interface that's able to select many units at once.
Player "A" has an army of 100 units, and decides to select all 100 of them under one hot key, and "attack moves" them into the enemy.
Player "B" has an army of 100 units, and decides to divide them into groups of twenty with hotkey's 1-5 with certain groupings including specific unit types. He decides to engage the advancing army of Player "A".
At this point, ask yourself the question. Who has the DISTINCT advantage in battle, the player who has his ENTIRE army selected at once, or the player who can give specific orders to portions of his army to attack specific targets in groups? Which player will be able to position his troops in a particular order, and micro his units effectively? Which player will likely win the conflict?
Now ask this, if Player A has 120 units, and Player B has 100 units, and the same scenario is applied, does Player B have the opportunity to "out micro" his opponent with his unit control? Is the outcome of the battle still a question of SKILL?
I don't think that selecting your entire army at once and sending it to a specific location will work as effectively as grouping your units yourself. it may even make grouping units EASIER.
Fact of the matter is, Starcraft is over ten years old, and Starcraft II will be a very different game, whether we like it or not. The interface will be different, and the overall game play will be different. The interface of the game needs to complement THE GAME ITSELF, not the previous title in the series. I fell that if Starcraft 2 tries too hard to be like it's predecessor, then it will ultimately fail.
In any case, if they do decide to ultimately limit the unit selection, I think it should be a number around 30-40. That's my opinion on the matter anyway
On February 02 2010 10:30 Daedes wrote: SC2 you simply choose any song you like with little practice to overall execution and fundemental and advance techniques
Whether or not a unit selection limit is implemented or not in starcraft 2, there is no way to determine whether or not the game will require a high amount of dexterity because we haven't played the game yet. However, I do think that a person who has MORE dexterity then another will have an advantage in terms of unit control REGARDLESS of how many units he has the ability to select.
On February 04 2010 07:03 Divick_630 wrote: In any case, if they do decide to ultimately limit the unit selection, I think it should be a number around 30-40. That's my opinion on the matter anyway
Why bother to limit it if the limit is meaningless except for causing occasional inconvenience to a zerg player with a lot of zerglings?
HOnestly I have no problem with MBS but automining is kind of gay... i mean how hard is it to keep 2 CC's hotkeyed when you have mbs... 1a 2a 3a 4tttvvvvv 5s 6s wil be 80% of the macro micro. I am curious to see if micro improves, but it will amke sc2 SO frustrating for new players because good player will simply multitask them to death.
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Is it physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, it's not. You can only be in one place at a time and if you leave your other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and you're not using them efficiently. You might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
Not really. You'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. The screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will the audience miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to them.
Why do you try to speak for everyone when you speak for yourself? Especially when you are terran? Let's fix your post
On January 23 2010 02:57 maybenexttime wrote:
On January 22 2010 21:51 Aim Here wrote:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
what they dont realize is that micro games are gonna become a whole lot more boring. alot of micro tactics depend on taking advantage of your opponents mistakes, many of which are caused by the fact that their attention is split 10 different ways. muta micro would be nearly worthless if terran could keep their screen on their mm group every single second. half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage.
As possibly the most skilless nooby on TL.net, I might be talking crap here, but doesn't the multitasking advantage still occur, regardless of whether it's micro or macro? Someone who can micro 3 control groups of mutas should still have a harassment advantage over a terran who can only focus on his one marine medic blob, and hasn't enough attention span left to defend two or three different places simultaneously.
To add to what IdrA said.
1. Am I physically viable to micro 3 groups of units simultaneously?
No, I'm not. I can only be in one place at a time and if I leave my other units (most probably important ones like HTs) uncontrolled - they're an easy prey and I'm not using them efficiently. I might as well do this in SC2.
2. Is it viable in-game?
For me not really. I'd have to invest too much resources and attention for too little pay-off.
3. Is this actually good for SC2 as a spectator sport?
Hardly. I like it more when the screen view can only show one place at a time. Not only will I miis out on a lot of the action but the game will also become confusing to me.
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:
On January 22 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
half the reason harass is useful is because it gives you a multitasking advantage. if you're the harasser you control when you engage, meaning you go back and macro and then send your shuttle in. your opponent has to be constantly aware of the shuttle and has to go respond to it when you choose, which is likely to disrupt his macro. and things like big battles, that are based solely on the quality of your control and positioning, already get players full attention in sc1, even with manual macro.
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.
On January 24 2010 02:12 beetlelisk wrote:
Be honest with yourself -_- the biggest problem here is some people can't imagine something they don't see in BW or even more - they don't really care even after they played SC2 like CharlieMurphy in DT viability thread. Show that you care, show that you try to imagine how changes affect SC2 comparing it to BW AND THEN try to speak for everyone.
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?
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.
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.
Answered in my last posts.
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
How the fuck do you know that? About examples I gave and you disregarded as not changing anything:
Warp In mechanic was described as something you want to switch to ASAP regardless of what really you are doing each time it could be tested by TL people. Each time it allowed to virtually make units wherever player wants to and also do it faster than standard way!
I didn't mean rushing to Blink upgrade or Colossi. Reavers are used mostly as units for harassment and PvP is like the only MU where they are used in battles in most of the games but it doesn't mean Colossi will be limited in the same way to mostly 1 MU. [I assume Bisu style isn't really viable anymore thanks to 3 hatch spire. I also assume Reavers appear in late PvZ as mainly defense units]
On September 26 2009 22:50 zatic wrote: I am wondering how this will turn out once the game gets more understood and refined. As it looks now leaving the Terran in peace for only a short time can instantly mean a lost game due to incoming doom drops.
I guess you did not read it.
He also wrote about Reapers not being useful but I believe blizz will take care of all units and make them useful. You tried to prove that action happening in multiple spots is impossible because it means crippling your main army by splitting it. Pulling Vulture micro with Reapers may be the key to take care of Banelings. In last build they could be stimmed and did as much damage to light units as more than 2 Marines. What if it stays that way? What if 3 cliff jumpers are all that is going to be needed to 1 shot kill Drones and Probes? And what's more do it on the move like it can be done with Vultures?
Banshees are great example why there will be no need to send dozens of units to achieve anything in more than 1 spot at a time - they simply may be powerful enough even in very small numbers, kind of similar DTs are in BW. HT and other casters sniping and tech switches to air units don't have to be something only zerg can do.
I know there's no beta yet where big changes are supposed to happen. Thinking about possibilities alone makes me excited, I like to consider more things while you keep thinking only about things you can see in BW.
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 focused on mnm in TvZ earlier, including a quote from Ret's blog.
Armysplitting that occurs in TvP is limited to fastest and one of the cheapest units in the game. It occurs because their numbers can be replenished easily.
Armysplitting that occurs in TvT... lol. It's so hard to battle Siege Tanks that Terrans make fleets of Dropships to drop units directly on top of opponent's units. Add few Turrets and yeah sure you can split in TvT, except when are those units going to be moved again to another spot?
You've never seen anything wrong in calling Terran a turtle race?
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.
Again - why does action in multiple locations have to mean perfect micro, pulled off in all spots in exactly the same time on top of that? I brought games with 2 groups of mutas as something opposite to 11 of them being a number set in stone forever. Maybe those games were a show off, I don't even care.
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.
What reasoning are you talking about? Numbers of mutas you can see in BW aren't random - 7 is the minimum to 1 hit kill SCVs and 11 is all you can have in 1 group with an Overlord or other unit to make mutas clump. At 1st I read what he wrote as coming from another guy who randomly tries to imagine something he doesn't really see in BW as conveniently impractical or impossible - splitting mutas into groups of 3 - 4 doesn't make any sense anywhere, anytime.
I don't know how will SC2 ZvT turn out but I am sure assuming that all strategies (including exact numbers of units) will be the same is wrong. There are no vessels and there is no irradiate spell btw. We have to see how deadly hunter seeker missile turns out to be.
On February 04 2010 07:22 Bebop Berserker wrote: HOnestly I have no problem with MBS but automining is kind of gay... i mean how hard is it to keep 2 CC's hotkeyed when you have mbs... 1a 2a 3a 4tttvvvvv 5s 6s wil be 80% of the macro micro. I am curious to see if micro improves, but it will amke sc2 SO frustrating for new players because good player will simply multitask them to death.
Cept the AAM will keep them with similarly skilled players.
EPT
). But I really see why it's kinda worrying that the game UI is gonna get more availible for larger masses (because some people just don't want to train as much) though there is 2 things to consider. 
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