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http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=24401524390&sid=5000
I personally disagree, but who cares about my opinion.
"The fix to wireframe casting is intentional and will not be reverted in the foreseeable future. The designers really like the idea of having the player need to get back to their base and take care of these special abilities instead of being able to control them remotely while looking elsewhere. Hopefully, this will give the player a better feeling of actually managing their base, rather than just clicking pictures on your hotkey bar or selection frames. "
Poll: Do you agree with the change?Yes (439) 62% No (265) 38% 704 total votes Your vote: Do you agree with the change? (Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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Kinda silly. I find it especially silly with chrono boost in the case of warp gates. If they had an animation so that I knew which ones were charged and which weren't it'd be ok, but its kind of annoying having this functionality, adjusting to it, then having it taken away from you.
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i like  , more difficult mechanics is something that defined BW and should continue into sc2 imo
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Blasphemy! We've always said making the player go back to their base periodically is terrible!
Right, guys?
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I agree with them. And no i am not a terran player. But i play one on TV.
Terrans have it hard enough as it is they should not have a HUGE disadvantage in terms of macro because of the macro style. They cant hotkey a mineral patch to mule it whenever they want.
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This change really confuses me. Why are toss and zerg stuck with suddenly much harder macro compared to terran?
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anyone who decides to complain, you are in need of some good ol fashion bw ass kickn. With love of course.
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Cry babies cry when they put MBS automine, then crybabies cry when you cant cast spells with wireframes. Incoming some more whine whine whine followed by some more crybabies.
My point is that this really isn't a big deal. Just have better macro/multitasking.
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I like it, especially since I play Terran and now all the other races will feel the pain of our macro mechanic. ;D
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I hate it. But I'll just learn to live with it. Protoss player here.
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Couldn't agree more with this on Blizzard's part. This is something where they really looked into it and said.. "You know, this doesn't belong in this game, and isn't the reason for adding macro mechanics."
The whole point of these additions to the game was to add macro into the game, and the whole point is it should pay off for players who are quicker and more on top of their play, more so than the players who use control groups to manage their macro. It isn't the fact that macro is harder now, but that it isn't as simple as hitting a hotkey. You have to actually manage yourself now, and HAVE to pay attention to what you are doing all around the map at all times. "Specifically chrono boost which is extremely good when you can just bind everything to one unit group, which does not show skill whatsoever.
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As Protoss it's not that bad. But it absolutely sucks for Zerg.
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LUE.Leoj: you can't compare the terran and zerg macro mechanics. The terran macro mechanic charges up (i.e. you can spam mules when you return to the base). The zerg mechanic is not forgiving like that. Terrans don't need to cast it immediately, every single time.
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Netherlands19135 Posts
Seriously who doubted that this was intended with the reintroduction of the location hotkeys?
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I love it, this is a sign of Blizzard really stick to their guns about the core design philosophy with the different macro mechanics.
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I have yet to play this Beta, but I do believe it is for the best. What's an RTS game where you would rarely have to look back at your base? 
I believe this is certainly a good move by Blizzard.
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On April 24 2010 09:38 Senx wrote:
I love it, this is a sign of Blizzard really stick to their guns about the core design philosophy with the different macro mechanics.
yeah, like for the larvas oO
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On April 24 2010 09:38 cernunnos wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 09:38 Senx wrote:
I love it, this is a sign of Blizzard really stick to their guns about the core design philosophy with the different macro mechanics. yeah, like for the larvas oO
what?
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On April 24 2010 09:37 tyir wrote:
LUE.Leoj: you can't compare the terran and zerg macro mechanics. The terran macro mechanic charges up (i.e. you can spam mules when you return to the base). The zerg mechanic is not forgiving like that. Terrans don't need to cast it immediately, every single time.
That isn't good reasoning at all really.. Sure energy charges up, but the queen also has 2 other abilities to use. My main point is that sure energy can be saved up on the OC, but it isn't like the T receives any benefit while not using the mules either... there is still no instant relief for either race.
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Somebody pull a poll on this please. just wanna see how many people agree and disagree with this.
I actually like these difficult mechanics.
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lol, just don't tell blue that zerg can still cast spawn larvae on the minimap 
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On April 24 2010 09:40 skYfiVe wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 09:37 tyir wrote:
LUE.Leoj: you can't compare the terran and zerg macro mechanics. The terran macro mechanic charges up (i.e. you can spam mules when you return to the base). The zerg mechanic is not forgiving like that. Terrans don't need to cast it immediately, every single time.
That isn't good reasoning at all really.. Sure energy charges up, but the queen also has 2 other abilities to use. My main point is that sure energy can be saved up on the OC, but it isn't like the T receives any benefit while not using the mules either... there is still no instant relief for either race.
The two other abilities are minor. Usually only one or two tumors get cast per queen, per game, and transfusion is almost never used. If you're not casting your larva, you're not doing it correctly.
I'm not sure what your point is about terran. Obviously it is optimal to cast your mules as soon as you can, but if you slip behind, that energy doesn't go away, you're going to get that mule down the line.
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I predict another 15 pages for this thread with one side embracing it as a good change for added base managment and one side being pissed about the increased effort and that its a "step back in terms of UI design".
Lets go.
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Why do all the mechanics have to be the same in difficulty anyway? In SC:BW some race mechanics and matchups were WAYYYYYY harder than others.
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v + minimap click on hatchery, sorry blizz but i won't be going back to my base
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esport decision? Spectator wise is better to see those camera pans than miss a 200apm portrait click.
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To everyone who says this sucks:
Is it really that much harder to press "4,4,v,click" instead of "4,v,click" for spawning larvae, or "6,6,c,click" for chrono boost? Granted, it will be a bit tougher healing with queens (I used to have one control group with my queens and spine crawlers), but it's nothing to get worked up about.
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On April 24 2010 09:43 Tsagacity wrote:
Why do all the mechanics have to be the same in difficulty anyway? In SC:BW some race mechanics and matchups were WAYYYYYY harder than others.
very true
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On April 24 2010 09:44 dan.dan wrote:
To everyone who says this sucks:
Is it really that much harder to press "4,4,v,click" instead of "4,v,click" for spawning larvae, or "6,6,c,click" for chrono boost? Granted, it will be a bit tougher healing with queens (I used to have one control group with my queens and spine crawlers), but it's nothing to get worked up about.
That's assuming you only have one Hatch.
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On April 24 2010 09:44 dan.dan wrote:
To everyone who says this sucks:
Is it really that much harder to press "4,4,v,click" instead of "4,v,click" for spawning larvae, or "6,6,c,click" for chrono boost? Granted, it will be a bit tougher healing with queens (I used to have one control group with my queens and spine crawlers), but it's nothing to get worked up about.
Sure, for one queen. If you have 3 queens/3 hacheries, having them all in one control group and shift-v'ing and then 3 clicks for all larva is a lot faster than cycling through your queens, and finding where your hachery is on the map and doing it manually.
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I like this (and yes I am a zerg player) but I hope they remove the press W to select all warpgates -_-.
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Added poll to satisfy curiosity.
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On April 24 2010 09:26 ZapRoffo wrote:
"The fix to wireframe casting is intentional and will not be reverted in the foreseeable future. The designers really like the idea of having the player need to get back to their base and take care of these special abilities instead of being able to control them remotely while looking elsewhere. Hopefully, this will give the player a better feeling of actually managing their base, rather than just clicking pictures on your hotkey bar or selection frames. "
This doesn't make any sense. Zerg players can still remotely use queens on their hatcheries via the minimap... it's basically the same thing as remotely use queens with wireframes, except a little less convenient. In any case, zerg players still do not need to bring the camera back to their bases to use queens on hatcheries.
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I think this is a fair change. Terrans had to cast mule on minerals and that requires moving view back to base. Making P and Z do the same things keeps things even.
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The Terran macro mechanic would be fair (in comparison to the strict requirements of the queen) if you could only have 1 mule for 1 CC at a time, thus needing to use a mule whenever it had 50 energy or else you would be wasting minerals, because that's exactly what Zergs have to do.
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On April 24 2010 09:37 Nyovne wrote:
Seriously who doubted that this was intended with the reintroduction of the location hotkeys?
F5-F8 are far away. I need F2-F4.
There is no way no wireframe casting can be a good thing. I dont like this change. The lower the skill of the player, the more it will hurt. I dont think its necessary to work in that direction.
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this is good, however i feel this will make terran macro too easy, protoss have to go back to their base everytime they want to use warpgates or chrono boost, zerg every time they spawn larva.
what about terran? if you miss the mule timing its no big deal, you just summon 2 mules instead of 1 while if zerg miss a larva they cant just use spawn larva twice.
i dont play terran so there might be something i dont know but really, their macro dosent seem to be any harder than the other races, if anything it looks easier
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I really liked how it was before.
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I always switched back to my base when I had to inject Larvae anyways so this doesnt affect me at all, and no, Im not a random bronze-player.
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Unbelievable that half the people voted that this was a bad idea, especially after that huge MBS/automine ordeal you put this site's readership through. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion people are complaining just for the sake of complaining...
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On April 24 2010 09:50 CannonsNCarriers wrote:
I think this is a fair change. Terrans had to cast mule on minerals and that requires moving view back to base. Making P and Z do the same things keeps things even.
Again, how can you compare the macro mechanic from other races. They are all different! The terran mechanic allows you to spam mules if you have excess energy. To keep things "even", shouldn't the queen be allowed that?
I'm obviously not seriously proposing that, I like that the macro mechanics are all different. They shouldn't all be the exact same thing.
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At first I thought it was a bug, but this changes everything. I guess I'm a bit disappointed that it's intended, but it does make for some more BW-like mechanics. Gradually I'll accept it.
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as said, terrans can spend the energy all at once and also, they only need to go to 1 mineral patch while zerg has to be all over the map, which takes more time.
I dont like it, but i can certainly live with it.
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personally hate this change, more on principle than anything else. and i do forsee blizzard removing casting SL from minimap, probably an oversight on their part.
its the old argument of "introduce better mechanics" vs "artificially limit interface".
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I've always gone to my base as zerg, it isn't that hard...crybabies 
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honestly as protoss i dont mind going back to my base to chronoboost.
binding all buildings on a key was boring.
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I think its dumb that you can't do it with units. I understand for the macro mechanics, but there is no reason i should be unable to use the wireframe to pick up units with a drop ship, or repair with SCVs.
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On April 24 2010 09:28 Tropics wrote:
Kinda silly. I find it especially silly with chrono boost in the case of warp gates. If they had an animation so that I knew which ones were charged and which weren't it'd be ok, but its kind of annoying having this functionality, adjusting to it, then having it taken away from you.
What do you mean exactly? There is an animation on buildings being chrono'd :S
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lol funny how poll is currently about 1/3 vs 2/3
Z players vs the others
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I like this change as a zerg player as well, gives us something extra to do and adds to difficulty. Another way to separate yourself from another player, how can that be bad? Mechanics are still tremendously easier than in BW
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On April 24 2010 09:37 Chaoz wrote:
As Protoss it's not that bad. But it absolutely sucks for Zerg.
Not really. I've actually never used it because I find it better to go back to my main to spawn the larvae anyways. It gives me a chance to check all my other buildings and upgrades while I'm at it.
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It's funny back when MBS and automine was announced and everyone was like OMG SC2 = NO MACRO. Now its like Bliizard: More Macro! and people say no?
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this is stupid. idk why they would do this. it doesn't change anything. it will just annoy people.
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Baa?21242 Posts
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On April 24 2010 10:10 Jonoman92 wrote:
lol funny how poll is currently about 1/3 vs 2/3
Z players vs the others
I play all 3 races and it's not too difficult to spawn larvae using either each queen to a hotkey AND/OR using the backspace trick. Spawning being V took a little getting used to, but it's fine. Queens are normally right there.
Personally, this affects my protoss game more. It's harder to chrono boost stuff instead because you have to find it around your base. I normally have my forges and warpgates on the same hotkey as my nexus.
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On April 24 2010 10:12 Repok wrote:
It's funny back when MBS and automine was announced and everyone was like OMG SC2 = NO MACRO. Now its like Bliizard: More Macro! and people say no?
Take note that all the naysayers are the new members here at TL.net, a big majority of them are casual players and wants the game to be easy, fun and modern before anything, they don't really care about the big picture (SC2 as a viable esport).
These guys were not really present in the same extent before the beta hit so that makes the overall opinions a bit skewed.
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I liked the old way better. At least you can still use the minimap for larva or have all of the Nexi on one hot key to cast chrono. ( I play random)
Terran may have to do more for their macro, but they do it half as often. Just my two cents.
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I agree with this move. I have terrible APM/Macro/Skillz and even I could keep up with 4 queens no problem. At least now I need to jump back to my base.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On April 24 2010 10:17 Senx wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 10:12 Repok wrote:
It's funny back when MBS and automine was announced and everyone was like OMG SC2 = NO MACRO. Now its like Bliizard: More Macro! and people say no? Take note that all the naysayers are the new members here at TL.net, a big majority of them are casual players and wants the game to be easy, fun and modern before anything, they don't really care about the big picture (SC2 as a viable esport). These guys were not really present in the same extent before the beta hit so that makes the overall opinions a bit skewed.
"All" is a strong word to use. While I am terrible at BW, I am willing to say that I care much more about SC/SC2 and "esports" than many people here, and I still think this is a pointless move.
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I don't like the MULE comparison because a terran only needs to go to one base to drop all their MULEs on one mineral line.
A zerg needs to visit every single base they have built to use spawn larva (if they eventually remove the minimap spawn larva targetting, and it sounds like they will) and a protoss needs to visit every production building to use chrono boost if they don't build all their warpgates in one location (who does this?)
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We got F-buttons back, so this is A-OK!
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Good change, players have to go in their base to macro a bit.
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Really surprised by the polls.
The TL community is the only reason there are macro mechanics at all, and now you guys are complaining, overhwhelmingly, that they are too hard. Or maybe it's just all the single digit posters are voting YES.
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On April 24 2010 10:33 PokePill wrote:
Really surprised by the polls.
The TL community is the only reason there are macro mechanics at all, and now you guys are complaining, overhwhelmingly, that they are too hard. Or maybe it's just all the single digit posters are voting YES.
Reading comprehension... 'YES' means they support the change.
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On April 24 2010 10:26 Minrad wrote:
A zerg needs to visit every single base they have built to use spawn larva (if they eventually remove the minimap spawn larva targetting, and it sounds like they will)
I already do that myself when I play zerg, it's not as hard as it sounds.
Hotkey each queen to a separate number. I like to do 4,5,6 and so forth. Then go 44v click, 55v click, 66v click, and so on.
It's actually quite fast and I feel there's nothing really difficult or game slowing about it. Like I said, that's how I've always done spawn larva.
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United States7166 Posts
i just wish backspace wasnt so damn far away. maybe i'll have to rebind a key or something, worried about the legality of such moves though
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I have a bad feeling Blizzard is having trouble with fine tuning balance with the given units and are feeling like they are running out of time, so the easiest way is to reduce harass options by making macro harder during harass. From a design point of view, it's a cop out as far as I am concerned.
So this will push harass back further and further as players learn the game, till finally it is more tuned to turtle and macro. It may take some time, but the game will grow staler... and it'll happen faster than SC/BW. For the macro crowd, of course they (you) like it. The micro crowd will get pushed out once again. 70/30 in favor of macro by the end of beta. I'm betting stale gameplay in 1 year.
No doubt Blizzard will expect to fix any "problems" with the expansions. More diverse units may arise, but till then I'm not holding my breath.
Three cheers for 3 base roach/hydra vs 3 base Marauders! Or not.
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I think this mostly has to do with the new F keys
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well, this should at least help notice the gap between a good and a great player, this is what made BW this great right?
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United States7166 Posts
i find it fascinating that Blizzard would do a move like this without the community calling for it (afaik it was just their decision). pretty cool that they made the game harder mechanically like this, after thinking about it i think it's the right move and spawn larvae was too easy to cast.
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personally, i dont care.
but it seems like, for the way the game is, you SHOULD be able to. i dont see a reason why not to, but again, either way its not really a big deal to me. but as a terran player i guess this is good for me :-D
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if they're gonna do this they should give f1-f4 functionality back
nm i guess i missed that
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I absolutely hate this change and it makes me sad.
RTS games in general should not be trying to implement ways to make mechanics harder, but easier. Mechanics are NOT the game, the game is stuff like building the right units, timing pushes, picking the right tech, etc etc.
It's like golf getting a rule where you have to play one handed. It just doesn't make any sense.
PS. I really am sick to my stomach that blizzard would a change like that. It's technologically backwards.
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Terrans have to click on minerals to use mules. Makes sense for zerg and protoss to have to manually click their macro mechanics too I guess.
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I like the change. Helps me improve my mechanics :D
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The nerf to wireframe casting makes Transfusion even more useless. Can they just nerf it for larvae and not transfusion?
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On April 24 2010 10:57 Lysdexia wrote:
Terrans have to click on minerals to use mules. Makes sense for zerg and protoss to have to manually click their macro mechanics too I guess.
Zerg and protoss both have to use theirs twice as often, and zerg is punished when they miss theirs. (We never get those larva back, ever - Terran's 300 mins is just delayed).
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i'm liking this change more and more, when blizzard removes minimap casting it'll be even better. The great thing about BW was that players could always become better at mechanics, etc, and that really set players apart from each other. strategy is one thing, but having great mechanics is something that really differentiated a lot of players, especially on iccup imo. good to see a semblance of BW-style macro being preserved to help weed out "good" from "great"
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On April 24 2010 10:41 Zelniq wrote:
i just wish backspace wasnt so damn far away. maybe i'll have to rebind a key or something, worried about the legality of such moves though
rebind to tilde?
oh no imba he changed it from backspace to tilde unfair advantage oasdfaosofud
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I would like add my voice to the opinion that this change is a horrible idea.
Arbitrary decisions to reduce the fluid use of the game interface only serves to frustrate game players. If being in your base is important, then players who decide to spend game time in their base will do better than those who do not. Creating a system which forces you to go back to your base for no reason other than to force you to go back to your base is just an attempt to create unnecessary busy work.
Perhaps the developers would have better spent their time improving units or game mechanics rather than putting up road blocks.
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On April 24 2010 10:50 YunhOLee wrote:
well, this should at least help notice the gap between a good and a great player, this is what made BW this great right?
It's what make BW great for the 100 or so top players in the entire world, ten years after the game was released. I think it's premature to try to mold the game into a e-sport before it has even been released.
Starcraft became a successful e-sport because Blizzard made it the best game possible, and through happy co-incidence it ended up as a pro-sport many years later. I don't agree with purposefully making macro mechanics frustrating and repetitive just because one day in the future it may help one pro-gamer gain an edge on another pro-gamer.
/low post count so my opinion doesn't count, even though I've been playing RTS online since WC2 on Kali
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On April 24 2010 10:35 QibingZero wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 10:33 PokePill wrote:
Really surprised by the polls.
The TL community is the only reason there are macro mechanics at all, and now you guys are complaining, overhwhelmingly, that they are too hard. Or maybe it's just all the single digit posters are voting YES. Reading comprehension... 'YES' means they support the change.
My mistake, is the "reading comprehension" really necessary or does it make you feel special?
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On April 24 2010 10:57 liq3 wrote:
I absolutely hate this change and it makes me sad.
RTS games in general should not be trying to implement ways to make mechanics harder, but easier. Mechanics are NOT the game, the game is stuff like building the right units, timing pushes, picking the right tech, etc etc.
It's like golf getting a rule where you have to play one handed. It just doesn't make any sense.
PS. I really am sick to my stomach that blizzard would a change like that. It's technologically backwards.
Your analogy doesn't really work with golf considering you are required to be mechanically skilled to be good at golf, while at the same time knowing strategy of how to hit the ball, where to hit it, etc. And for some people that mechanic part of the game is fun and helps distinguish it from say a turn based game where you have all the time in the world to make strategic decisions.
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I'm kind of confused on this, does this basically mean I can't just hit my hotkey for my nexus and click on remote buildings when my nexus isn't in view?
Does this effect Warp gates?
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On April 24 2010 11:10 sysrpl wrote:
Arbitrary decisions to reduce the fluid use of the game interface only serves to frustrate game players. If being in your base is important, then players who decide to spend game time in their base will do better than those who do not. Creating a system which forces you to go back to your base for no reason other than to force you to go back to your base is just an attempt to create unnecessary busy work.
Excellent post.
As the technology has grown players have expected more basic intelligence from games. Regardless of the E-Sports community if Blizzard wants to make a decent RTS they needed to add things like auto-rally to minerals, waypoint building, and smartcasting.
I think artificially creating the need for APM's to do basic base management is a stupid mechanic that won't increase the E-Sport viability of SC2 at all. Especially for a mechanic that was already in Warcraft 3, taking a step backwards always seems like a bad idea.
The best way to make apm's more important and exciting is to put more units like scourge, banelings, siege tanks, reavers into the game. Stuff that can be used simply with attack move but is used far better with good micro.
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On April 24 2010 10:47 Blacklizard wrote:
I have a bad feeling Blizzard is having trouble with fine tuning balance with the given units and are feeling like they are running out of time, so the easiest way is to reduce harass options by making macro harder during harass. From a design point of view, it's a cop out as far as I am concerned.
You're crazy if you think this game will be released in a state you could describe as "fine tuned". Stop expecting this. No game is ever released this way, especially pvp-heavy games.
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On April 24 2010 11:25 oolon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 10:47 Blacklizard wrote:
I have a bad feeling Blizzard is having trouble with fine tuning balance with the given units and are feeling like they are running out of time, so the easiest way is to reduce harass options by making macro harder during harass. From a design point of view, it's a cop out as far as I am concerned.
You're crazy if you think this game will be released in a state you could describe as "fine tuned". Stop expecting this. No game is ever released this way, especially pvp-heavy games.
You really have no idea how much I know that. You really don't. But to strive for perfection now will make the game better sooner and give it credibility.
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On April 24 2010 11:14 MelancholyMark wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 10:57 liq3 wrote:
I absolutely hate this change and it makes me sad.
RTS games in general should not be trying to implement ways to make mechanics harder, but easier. Mechanics are NOT the game, the game is stuff like building the right units, timing pushes, picking the right tech, etc etc.
It's like golf getting a rule where you have to play one handed. It just doesn't make any sense.
PS. I really am sick to my stomach that blizzard would a change like that. It's technologically backwards. Your analogy doesn't really work with golf considering you are required to be mechanically skilled to be good at golf, while at the same time knowing strategy of how to hit the ball, where to hit it, etc. And for some people that mechanic part of the game is fun and helps distinguish it from say a turn based game where you have all the time in the world to make strategic decisions.
I'll give a better analogy then.
"The fix to wireframe casting MBS is intentional and will not be reverted in the foreseeable future. The designers really like the idea of having the player need to get back to their base and take care of these special abilities buliding units instead of being able to control them build them remotely while looking elsewhere. Hopefully, this will give the player a better feeling of actually managing their base, rather than just clicking pictures on your hotkey bar or selection frames. pressing buttons. "
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Umm I don't know, I was playing zerg without using the new system, just hotkeying all my queens like I would hatcheries in BW - 5,6,7,8,9. Doesn't take long at all once you get used to it.
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seemed kind of dumb that you could macro your entire zerg game while looking at the enemy base.
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I think this is a terrible idea, I'm against any unnecessary crippling of the interface.
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I also think this is a terrible idea.
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I definitely agree with this change.
I've been doing it with all races regardless, and it's not that bad... We really do need reasons to go back to our base.
For Zerg users complaining, at least you don't have to go back to your base to build farms like Terran/Protoss.
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Adding another layer of macro? Cool.
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I hate this change. Making mechanics harder to use in ways that do not add any strategic depth is a BAD thing, dammit! The game would be harder to control if you had to move the cursor with arrow keys instead of a mouse, and it would widen the learning curve arbitrarily which is apparently a good thing according to many of you, but I don't think it would improve the game. I like my time-sensitive skills testing elements to be based on skill and thinking on the fly. This is pure busywork.
How about making you fill out a CAPTCHA before producing every unit? That would put way more time pressure on macroing, right?
Maybe it's cuz I'm a newb who hasn't touched BW in a decade and thinks its dated UI makes it annoying and unpleasant to play, not better balanced, but I'd rather have it be easy to implement orders once you decide exactly what order you want to give to exactly which unit. Double-tapping my hotkey for hatchery+queen to spawn my larvae doesn't take any more skill; it just means I can't do it while in combat as easily (which seems imbalanced, really, since Protoss and Terran can save their macro energy up and still get economic use out of it while Zerg cannot) and makes it a little bit more of a pain to do.
To those who like this change: what exact types of changes to make the controls less convenient would you support or not support? What about this 'extra macro layer' in particular makes it a good or valuable one to add to the game?
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On April 24 2010 12:01 SoleSteeler wrote:I definitely agree with this change. I've been doing it with all races regardless, and it's not that bad... We really do need reasons to go back to our base. For Zerg users complaining, at least you don't have to go back to your base to build farms like Terran/Protoss.
Exactly this.
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On April 24 2010 12:20 solistus wrote:
I hate this change. Making mechanics harder to use in ways that do not add any strategic depth is a BAD thing, dammit! The game would be harder to control if you had to move the cursor with arrow keys instead of a mouse, and it would widen the learning curve arbitrarily which is apparently a good thing according to many of you, but I don't think it would improve the game. I like my time-sensitive skills testing elements to be based on skill and thinking on the fly. This is pure busywork.
How about making you fill out a CAPTCHA before producing every unit? That would put way more time pressure on macroing, right?
Maybe it's cuz I'm a newb who hasn't touched BW in a decade and thinks its dated UI makes it annoying and unpleasant to play, not better balanced, but I'd rather have it be easy to implement orders once you decide exactly what order you want to give to exactly which unit. Double-tapping my hotkey for hatchery+queen to spawn my larvae doesn't take any more skill; it just means I can't do it while in combat as easily (which seems imbalanced, really, since Protoss and Terran can save their macro energy up and still get economic use out of it while Zerg cannot) and makes it a little bit more of a pain to do.
To those who like this change: what exact types of changes to make the controls less convenient would you support or not support? What about this 'extra macro layer' in particular makes it a good or valuable one to add to the game?
These types of arguments have been used over and over and they are very bad.
There needs to be a semblance of balance between micro and macro, the game doesn't need to be arbitrarily too hard.
That said, it does add some strategic depth. People who choose to macro and go back to their base while in a battle trade micro in battle for extra resources/whatever later... It's a strategic choice, and one that players can and do make.
But, remember this is an RTS... we need always need an element of "real-time" in the game. Players who are quicker should be able to take advantage of that skill. And this is one of the ways that works. If you want a game where pure strategy decides games, play a turn-based strategy game.
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On April 24 2010 11:10 sysrpl wrote:
I would like add my voice to the opinion that this change is a horrible idea.
Arbitrary decisions to reduce the fluid use of the game interface only serves to frustrate game players. If being in your base is important, then players who decide to spend game time in their base will do better than those who do not. Creating a system which forces you to go back to your base for no reason other than to force you to go back to your base is just an attempt to create unnecessary busy work.
Perhaps the developers would have better spent their time improving units or game mechanics rather than putting up road blocks.
This a thousand times. This change is contrary to a philosophy that's been in sc2 from the start and is showing good results imo.
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United States7166 Posts
On April 24 2010 11:08 SayaSP wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 10:41 Zelniq wrote:
i just wish backspace wasnt so damn far away. maybe i'll have to rebind a key or something, worried about the legality of such moves though rebind to tilde? oh no imba he changed it from backspace to tilde unfair advantage oasdfaosofud
I'm considering it but it requires me to edit MPQ files, and I'm not sure if 1. they can detect it and 2. what they'll do if they find out, ban me or whatever. i feel like it's probably ok but still
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Player action must be tied to player decision.
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Clicking fast is as much of a skill as strategy, as much as you self-styled strategical geniuses would like to believe otherwise.
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Oh well at least we get the F keys to balance this out.
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there goes never ever looking at my base
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I guess this makes Terran the new easy race
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It's ridiculous and makes it all so artificial... Pff. sad.
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WHY DO SPORTS REQUIRE PHYSICAL FITNESS TO PLAY, IT SHOULD BE A TEST OF SKILL, NOT WHO SPENDS MORE TIME AT THE GYM.
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People complaining about dumbing down UI, did you think to consider that they never actually intended to allow it?
If they put queens larva on auto-cast would that be better for everyone? geez, just play the game and get better instead of complaining, you have another aspect of your game you can practice and get better than somebody else at
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SoleSteeler: the game was already real time with plenty of constant time pressure. Eliminating a UI element just to make one simple ability slightly more 'skills testing' seems stupid.
What are your thoughts on my argument that this unfairly punishes Zerg since their macro mechanic is the only one that irreversibly loses significant econ advantage by delaying for a few seconds to finish microing a fight?
Again, I know there must be some time pressure of this sort, but you completely ignored my primary argument, which is that it's a slippery slope. You can always find ways to make the controls less intuitive or convenient to make it harder to get units to do exactly what you want quickly. They could reintroduce the 12 unit control cap, for example. Most people seem to agree that would be a bad idea. What makes this specific change uniquely a good idea? How can this balance philosophy ever be applied consistently without leading to a horribly unfun, broken control scheme?
I'm fine with balance decisions designed to increase time pressure on players, but eliminating convenient control methods because the alternative way to do it takes longer seems like an atrocious design philosophy in general.
Why not require buildings to be on-screen to queue new units, too, for example? This would also be inconvenient, but it would have exactly the same effect of forcing players to return their map view to their base more often while macroing. If you agree that change would be bad, what makes it theoretically different from this change? Is it just because Blizzard tacitly admits that macro mechanics are stupid and poorly thought out and need some weird, counter-intuitive method of 'fixing' them to simulate being skills testing? The original idea was that the strategic decision of when to use them was supposed to be the skills testing aspect of the mechanic. Have they just given up on that, at least for Zerg, and decided to make it a time suck instead?
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United States7166 Posts
I think this change is for the most part a good thing, it was just too easy before.
But right now it does feel a little bit unfairly time-consuming/difficult compared to the other races, when players have 4-ish bases. but once they add the functionality to change hotkeys through text files, it should be ok then
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On April 24 2010 12:34 dthree wrote:
People complaining about dumbing down UI, did you think to consider that they never actually intended to allow it?
If they put queens larva on auto-cast would that be better for everyone? geez, just play the game and get better instead of complaining, you have another aspect of your game you can practice and get better than somebody else at
He speaks the truth.
Would u like WoW players to beat u because of all the automicro/macro you want?
If you do please quit SC
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On April 24 2010 12:28 Archerofaiur wrote:Player action must be tied to player decision.
This sums up the objection, pretty much. Wanting to add new layers of time pressure to the game is fine. Making macro mechanics a better form of time pressure is great. The problem is, instead of redesigning the mechanics to require some meaningful decision to be made when moving to your base, the sole purpose of this change is to make something take more button clicks to accomplish once the player has already decided on the specific action, target, etc. they plan to use. "Clicking fast" is only a skill if you have to think on your feet while doing so. Taking something that took one specific click and making it take three or four specific clicks for the exact same result is a bad way to increase the number of actions players are incentivized to perform at any given time. The fact that it trades off with spending time doing other things that involve actually adapting plans and making decisions is, in my mind, another downside, not a strength.
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I like this.
But I'm in favor of anything that increases the skill gap so there's my bias.
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On April 24 2010 12:36 Ursad0n wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 12:34 dthree wrote:
People complaining about dumbing down UI, did you think to consider that they never actually intended to allow it?
If they put queens larva on auto-cast would that be better for everyone? geez, just play the game and get better instead of complaining, you have another aspect of your game you can practice and get better than somebody else at He speaks the truth. Would u like WoW players to beat u because of all the automicro/macro you want? If you do please quit SC
If the only way you can beat people who suck at the game is because they were distracted doing macro busywork in their base at a key moment, I think you are the one who sucks. This doesn't add some brilliant new challenging skill to the game; it adds another click every time you want to do one particular game action. Sure, bad players may do even worse because they are slow at doing this, but anyone with a chance of winning against a decent opponent is not gonna be thrown off so severely as that. I prefer beating bad players by knowing the game better, having a better strategy and microing my units better in battle, anyway, but again - if you see this change as tipping the outcome of many games, either you or your typical opponents are clearly god awful and you have no business throwing around insults about others' skill levels.
We're not saying anything should be automatic. We're saying once you have selected a unit, activated an ability on that unit and selected your target, there's no reason it should take map movement or more than one final click to target and cast the ability. Autocasting spawn larvae would be an even worse change than this one, but this one is bad, too. Quit poking at straw men and throwing around unwarranted insults.
This talk of 'skill gap' is confusing to me. Would you like the game better if they forced everyone to play it in Klingon, because it would add another skill most people don't have that you could develop to beat bad players? Skill to me is about microing precision and making intelligent choices. By micro precision I mean targeting that psi storm, move order, etc. just right in a split second. Making an easy, brainless task take half a second longer does not make it require any more skill, beyond the absolutely marginal skill increase required to handle a half second or so longer time spent macroing. It adds 'busywork' - a series of player actions required to implement a single actual in-game action. I guess it comes down to a fundamental disagreement on game design: either player actions should be tied to player decisions, or more player actions is always better no matter what.
Maybe they should change macro mechanics to require you to tap a hotkey as many times as possible in a short period of time. It wouldn't involve any strategic thought, but it would allow another artificial 'skill gap' between noobs and experienced players based on mastery of the archaic details of the interface.
Or, you know, you could go back to BW if you think having a convenient, modern UI is 'dumbing the game down.'
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The funeral for the Zerg race will be held at noon
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For the less, we'll lets say "competitive" among us (the ones who aren't as good) wouldn't it make a little more sense now to have an extra hatchery or two at bases just like in BW? I mean, sure, it's a little more expensive than a queen up front, but if I can't quite macro in the middle of battle well enough, then my queen can spawn larvae on two hatches instead of one. Sure it's not as optimal, but to be honest, not a lot about my play is perfectly optimal, and this will at least allow me to use that excess queen energy in the same way a terran can call down multiple mules or a protoss can CB multiple buildings.
In fact, I kinda like that, I like the feel of zerg with more hatches. Try it and see!
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I don't see it as a problem. I usually did it at my base anyways.
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i think a lot of the more casual players are going to the extreme with their examples
Adding in some more difficulty in macro mechanics is a positive benefit as it adds another dimension to help separate bad from decent, decent from good, good from great, and great from gosu pro+++. This isn't some drastic OMGWTF change in the game that makes the game unplayable or ridiculously difficult, but it does add a taste of what macro was like in BW.
Mechanics and strategy go hand in hand with what makes players so great. Anyone can copy a build order or eat a bowl of copypasta when it comes to a specific MU, but only someone with sick mechanics and skill can actually perform it to the point where it matters. Anyone can copy a 3 hatch muta build from bw for example, but it's the mechanical skill of microing muta that makes the game fun, exciting to watch, and CHALLENGING.
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Posted this on the blizz forums, I'd put it in a new thread here because it feels like a thread starter but I haven't had my account for long. =(
As a platinum zerg player, my opinion may be slightly biased, but at least I'm being open about it and hopefully I'll provide an unbiased response.
Changing the wireframe casting does force more skill-intensive macro play, which I feel is a GOOD thing. Good protoss players should be going back to base to chronoboost more units, Terran to drop mules, and zerg to spawn larvae. All while managing everything else that's happening on the map.
So, what do the 3 races actually lose from not doing this consistently (due to poor management, intensive micro, ect. ect.)?
Protoss:
Essentially nothing, Unless there is only one building that you actually want to chronoboost repeatedly in which case the chrono's could not be stacked, and time is lost.
Units not boosted during this time would arrive to reinforce slightly later.
If the protoss player doesn't boost for so long that he caps on energy, it is more than fair that he loses efficiency and does not continue to build up boosts.
Terran:
Again, essentially nothing. Similar to chrono units, having the minerals from mule sooner rather than later is ideal but over a short time the disadvantage is made up as the mules will, end the end, still gather the minerals.
Like chrono, if the energy caps then minerals/min are lost for the terran, as is absolutely fair. However this is even less likely to happen as they will possibly be dropping scans (from hotkeys, not going back to base) during combat or situationally.
Zerg:
For every second between larvae injections, the zerg player is losing his ability to produce units which can NOT be made up with built up energy, which must simply go to waste (unless there are multiple hatcheries in one base, which is very uncommon and generally uneconomical).
It seems that Zerg are punished much, much sooner than terran or protoss. Which, to me, says that a terran or protoss player can lag far behind on macro during a battle, and almost nothing except a little bit of timeliness for their lack of vigilance.
So what could be done about this, without changing the wireframe mechanic?
1) Bringing other races down
One option that springs to mind is reducing the maximum energy on Orbital Command and Nexus, perhaps even halving it, or even specifically capping it at a maximum of 2 Orbital Command casts (2 mules, 2 scans, 1 of each) and 2 chronoboosts for the nexus. This would force the Terran and Protoss to macro more regularly, as zerg have to, with closer penalties.
2) Pushing zerg up
Another option would be to add "charges" on the hatchery for how many times it can be injected. Say, every 40 seconds it builds up a charge (to a maximum of X charges, 2 or 3 seems reasonable). Therefore a queen could burn at least some of their excess energy and catch up as if they had injected the entire time, losing almost exactly the same things as Terran and Protoss (timeliness, and if left for a long time, actual units/minerals) while maintaining the same advantages as Terran and Protoss (If left for a while, not too long, there is nothing lost in the longer run).
3) Changing spawn larvae cooldown on hatchery (not as ideal, but for consideration)
Right now, spawn larvae frequency is not realistically limited by energy (hardly, unless tumors are dropped), but time.
So, another option would be to allow spawn larvae to be cast more frequently, to reduce built up energy. There would be no need to change the duration of spawn larvae.
If spawn larvae could be cast on a hatchery every 20,25, or 30 seconds, excess energy could be used up in a useful way.
This option perhaps brings up a balance issue of multiple queens on one hatchery, significantly increasing larvae count, but I thought I'd put it in here as something to consider.
In conclusion:
This UI nerf does hit Zerg harder than Terran and Protoss. It can be made up for with very good, timely management of resources. However it does make the Zerg macro significantly harder to keep efficient.
I hope this small analysis has been helpful in some way, and a small rebalance is considered.
Also hope I haven't missed anything glaringly obvious.
P.S: Personal rant
God I wish I was a game designer I have so many freaking thought-out ideas. =P
Edit: Added idea 3.
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On April 24 2010 13:03 Sealteam wrote:
Protoss:
Essentially nothing, Unless there is only one building that you actually want to chronoboost repeatedly in which case the chrono's could not be stacked, and time is lost.
Units not boosted during this time would arrive to reinforce slightly later.
If the protoss player doesn't boost for so long that he caps on energy, it is more than fair that he loses efficiency and does not continue to build up boosts.
Terran:
Again, essentially nothing. Similar to chrono units, having the minerals from mule sooner rather than later is ideal but over a short time the disadvantage is made up as the mules will, end the end, still gather the minerals.
Like chrono, if the energy caps then minerals/min are lost for the terran, as is absolutely fair. However this is even less likely to happen as they will possibly be dropping scans (from hotkeys, not going back to base) during combat or situationally.
Zerg:
For every second between larvae injections, the zerg player is losing his ability to produce units which can NOT be made up with built up energy, which must simply go to waste (unless there are multiple hatcheries in one base, which is very uncommon and generally uneconomical).
It seems that Zerg are punished much, much sooner than terran or protoss. Which, to me, says that a terran or protoss player can lag far behind on macro during a battle, and almost nothing except a little bit of timeliness for their lack of vigilance.
Sums it up. Unfortunately Blizz devs don't play competitively so they have no clue what the hell is up.
Terran: Spam mules later, even if you forgot some. You HAVE to be looking at minerals ANWAY to spam the mules. Big fuckn deal.
Protoss: Lategame there's really nothing left to chronoboost besides occasional upgrades and robo units. Not to mention you can spread it across other stuff later if you ever do forget.
Zerg: Wasn't looking at your base all game? Missed some injection? Too fucking bad, you missed out on those larvae for the rest of the game. Now lets take out remote injection too to make it harder! It's okay, out of all 3 races, we have to look at our army the least, right? We can just sit looking at our base all day, we have the time. I mean it's not like our army has low HP and dies quickly or something.
Wireframe casting was pretty much an exclusive Z thing and now they removed it for reasons that are COMPLETELY unrelated!
YAY
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Just a question about the potential major bug with the protoss chrono boosting thing:
If the wireframes shows us which warpgates are in which stage of cooldown, how can we now chrono boost the right warp gates?
That is to say, the wireframe indicates the cooldown, but since we can no longer click chrono boost on the wireframe we are left to guess which warpgates are most need of a boost.
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I really like the change and I think this was a good step for macro in SC2. Well done Blizzard!
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It was easier for terran to use than zerg to use larva when zerg was able to use wireframes. Now its not even close...
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How can anyone be in doubt about blizz after this move . saying they are catering to casuals is beyond stupid at this point. ily blizz
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Since someone tried to make a golf analogy, and another poster mostly ignored the point of the analogy by bringing up the physical aspect of playing golf I thought up of a more PC related one.
How do you start up your sc2 client? I think most people click on a shortcut on their desktop, or in the start menu.
Clearly this is dumbing down, and reduces skill. Instead, Blizz should only make the sc2 client launch, if you run cmd, and then type:
CD\Program Files\Starcraft II Beta
Starcraft II.exe
Since everyone using a pc has to type, this would as a layer of skill that would separate the scrubs to true gamers who have the dedication to practice.
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On April 24 2010 13:40 Argali wrote:
Since someone tried to make a golf analogy, and another poster mostly ignored the point of the analogy by bringing up the physical aspect of playing golf I thought up of a more PC related one.
How do you start up your sc2 client? I think most people click on a shortcut on their desktop, or in the start menu.
Clearly this is dumbing down, and reduces skill. Instead, Blizz should only make the sc2 client launch, if you run cmd, and then type:
CD\Program Files\Starcraft II Beta
Starcraft II.exe
Since everyone using a pc has to type, this would as a layer of skill that would separate the scrubs to true gamers who have the dedication to practice.
And this is the kind of post that is, bluntly put, fucking retarded.
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so it wasn't just a beta-error...?
ffs... why would anybody endorse a UI inferior to wc3?
actually... i had hoped they'd enhance the wireframe stuff for barracks with different addons: when i click a rax with a reactor, it selects the single one, not "all of the same kind"
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the slippery slope argument is a retarded one if they remove * one * interface feature
you can start calling slippery slope after then do three or more
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On April 24 2010 13:43 Elegy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 13:40 Argali wrote:
Since someone tried to make a golf analogy, and another poster mostly ignored the point of the analogy by bringing up the physical aspect of playing golf I thought up of a more PC related one.
How do you start up your sc2 client? I think most people click on a shortcut on their desktop, or in the start menu.
Clearly this is dumbing down, and reduces skill. Instead, Blizz should only make the sc2 client launch, if you run cmd, and then type:
CD\Program Files\Starcraft II Beta
Starcraft II.exe
Since everyone using a pc has to type, this would as a layer of skill that would separate the scrubs to true gamers who have the dedication to practice. And this is the kind of post that is, bluntly put, fucking retarded.
Is kinda extreme, but while reading this thread, someone trying to get his point across, concerning how adding extra clicks, or key presses, to artificially add "skill", made a sport analogy of playing just one handed, another posted kinda ignored his point and tried to nullify his argument by saying the golf, being a physical sport, has a physical component to it.
So, I had an extreme example that has a physical component every poster here has - typing.
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Economy has exponential growth. If you're chrono boosting late or muleing late then typically you're getting workers later and/or expansions later and thus hurting your economy, thus hurting your overall macro position.
I don't really buy the this drastically affects Z but barely affects P&T argument.
All 3 mechanics are incompressible.
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Making super extreme examples is completely fucking retarded. It's like saying "you like rally points, mbs, and other automation? why not just have computers do opening builds and automatically micro troops for you." It's a vacuous and stupid argument that's not good for anything.
The reason people want macro to be harder is so there can be macro-micro tension. The reason people want the game to only launch from command prompt... I don't know, maybe they want to make the game fair for people who don't have hands. Or something. I don't fucking know.
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You can still use the minimap for spawn lava tho right? If so this is kinda pointless
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Play smarter, not harder.
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i like the removal of the wire frames: almost like bw....back to pointless repetition yay..
however, now you can't tell which warpgate is at what cool down..
hope they put an indicator on that..
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On April 24 2010 13:53 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Making super extreme examples is completely fucking retarded. It's like saying "you like rally points, mbs, and other automation? why not just have computers do opening builds and automatically micro troops for you." It's a vacuous and stupid argument that's not good for anything.
The reason people want macro to be harder is so there can be macro-micro tension. The reason people want the game to only launch from command prompt... I don't know, maybe they want to make the game fair for people who don't have hands. Or something. I don't fucking know.
Then perhaps when a poster makes a reasonable argument, point A, and to make it easier to understand, makes analogy B, we should all just provide counter arguments to point A, rather than trying to browbeat his point by poking holes in his analogy.
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Or maybe people just shouldn't make self-defeating analogies.
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The designers really like the idea of having the player need to get back to their base and take care of these special abilities instead of being able to control them remotely while looking elsewhere
Finally!! There is little hope left.
Oh yes and...IN YOUR FACE!
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well... until we can play starcraft (II) with touch screens, we're limited by the UI.
crippling it ~five years into the past doesn't help anybody, it doesn't enhance the experience or w/e their blah is, and it sure doesn't make for more exciting battles.
the better players will always be better. either by getting more spells/abilities off in the heat of battle or via excellent micro, by keeping an eye on the minimap, by constantly scouting etc.
... or by having mad wireframe skills and being able to manage a base "blindly".
apart from that... "spawn larvae" can be cast on the minimap. zergs should be very careful about complaining the hardest.
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On April 24 2010 13:52 Jaeger wrote:
Economy has exponential growth. If you're chrono boosting late or muleing late then typically you're getting workers later and/or expansions later and thus hurting your economy, thus hurting your overall macro position.
I don't really buy the this drastically affects Z but barely affects P&T argument.
All 3 mechanics are incompressible.
I play all three races. I feel the zerg macro mechanic, while powerful, was already the least forgiving of missed timingt, and that zerg ultimately are balanced around near perfect use of injection.
The wireframe change hurts zerg the worst.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that it some how cripples zerg, I will only say that it forces zerg to spend more time in their base than protoss or terran, which IMO does nothing to increase the pleasure of playing this race.
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On April 24 2010 13:57 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Or maybe people just shouldn't make self-defeating analogies.
The analogy is by liq3, on page 4. Which from my comprehension of it :
You can play golf with 2 hands, however, clearly that is too easy. Professional golfing should have a rule where you can only play one handed. This adds a layer of skill.
To which another poster commented :
But golf is a physical sport! Where you have to move your arms and body! Therefore your point is invalid.
The point of adding an artificial layer of difficulty still stands; if someone decides to rubbish the point by poking at the analogy rather than the point, evil imps like me appear to provide extreme examples.
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wtf does anyone think this is a good idea
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This is obviously a ploy to nerf the Queen's ability to use Transfusion during battle via wireframe. They even said they were nerfing Queen rush. SO OBVIOUS.
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I don't like the idea of managing a macro ability through the unit selection box at the bottom of the screen. It seems counterintuitive to the goal of the ability.
However, spawn larvae's throughput over the course of a game is a function of time, not of energy. Chrono boost's seconds saved over the course of a game is a function of energy, and mule uptime is a function of energy as well. Additionally, Terrans have spell tension on their orbital commands with the MULE vs Scan, and Protoss have warp gates as a location specific function-of-time ability.
So, I believe they need to rethink this slightly. The current state is unfair to Protoss who already need to manage their warp gates in addition to chrono boosting any one of a number of structures. If they simply give the queen more spell tension, Zerg will be good with this change. As it stands, leftover energy on your queen is a direct measure to how poor you're macroing, and that's silly. She has 3 abilities for a reason (I concede that you should spawn at least 1, if not 2 creep tumors throughout a game, and spread them. Typically I do this early when larvae throughput isn't the main issue)
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Old: 5, r, click.
New: 5, 5, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click
New: 5, 5, v, click, 6, 6, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click.
New: 5, 5, v, click, 6, 6, v, click, 7, 7, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click-click
New: 5, 5, r, Sir, you've burrowed your queen.
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On April 24 2010 14:50 codewarrior wrote:
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click.
New: 5, 5, v, click, 6, 6, v, click, 7, 7, v, click
Man its just twice as tedious as before get over it man like seriously.
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On April 24 2010 14:50 codewarrior wrote:
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click-click
New: 5, 5, r, Sir, you've burrowed your queen.
LOL so true
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I dislike artificial barriers to create "skill" differences for the sake of creating skill differences. This was the MO in Brood Wars, and it's why strategy takes a back seat to macrocanics because just mastering the basics was a very challenging task (one I personally never had the time or desire to fully achieve).
Wireframe casting was one of my favorite things as a zerg player in SC2, since it let me stockpile my larva easily enough without getting screwed over by not being able to look at what's occurring on the screen. In the same vein, why don't they just remove control groups? I mean, if I'm not watching my units move, I clearly am not participating enough.
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I said it before but it got buried, why not make another hatch if it's too hard? Zergs used to do that all the time right? But in a second hatch, and if you're queen builds up energy because of distractions, use it on the second hatch. A hatch is only 150 minerals more than a queen, increases your larvae, and has a huge reward in allowing you to cast spawn larvae twice if you miss-macro and the queens energy gets too high.
Not optimum, but effective if you have a hard time keeping up with the macro. Not a solution for experts, who will just have to be better, but a good solution for beginning to intermediate players I think.
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United States7166 Posts
On April 24 2010 14:50 codewarrior wrote:
Old: 5, r, click.
New: 5, 5, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click
New: 5, 5, v, click, 6, 6, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click.
New: 5, 5, v, click, 6, 6, v, click, 7, 7, v, click
Old: 5, r, shift-click-click-click-click
New: 5, 5, r, Sir, you've burrowed your queen.
well re-learning hotkeys is just muscle memory training, you can learn that and get used to it. though I think the reasoning for the change is a little absurd, they shouldn't need to change 2 fundamentally important hotkeys Spawn Larvae and Burrow with just the chance that zerg may make warpgates if he neural parasites a probe.
I think this change for more work needed to spawn larvae is good except the one issue i have with it is that now the methods of macroing involve having to reach a far away hotkey, making it very hard to macro. once you get 4 or so plus hatches, your hotkeys reach 8 and 9 and that's pretty far to reach every 40 ingame seconds quickly. the other method, Backspace, is even further. and trying to spawn larvae by clicking on the hatch @ minimap is hard, you have to get it pretty damn accurate for it to cast, and larger maps are really hard to click it.
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On April 24 2010 16:27 LaughingTulkas wrote:
I said it before but it got buried, why not make another hatch if it's too hard? Zergs used to do that all the time right? But in a second hatch, and if you're queen builds up energy because of distractions, use it on the second hatch. A hatch is only 150 minerals more than a queen, increases your larvae, and has a huge reward in allowing you to cast spawn larvae twice if you miss-macro and the queens energy gets too high.
Not optimum, but effective if you have a hard time keeping up with the macro. Not a solution for experts, who will just have to be better, but a good solution for beginning to intermediate players I think.
Unfortunately, that only lengthens the time period in which you learn to keep a larva spawn clock in your head. By allowing yourself to get punished for failing to macro on time, you learn far quicker.
Only a good solution for beginning to intermediate players who either don't care about improving, or don't care about improving quickly.
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On April 24 2010 16:40 Argali wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 16:27 LaughingTulkas wrote:
I said it before but it got buried, why not make another hatch if it's too hard? Zergs used to do that all the time right? But in a second hatch, and if you're queen builds up energy because of distractions, use it on the second hatch. A hatch is only 150 minerals more than a queen, increases your larvae, and has a huge reward in allowing you to cast spawn larvae twice if you miss-macro and the queens energy gets too high.
Not optimum, but effective if you have a hard time keeping up with the macro. Not a solution for experts, who will just have to be better, but a good solution for beginning to intermediate players I think. Unfortunately, that only lengthens the time period in which you learn to keep a larva spawn clock in your head. By allowing yourself to get punished for failing to macro on time, you learn far quicker. Only a good solution for beginning to intermediate players who either don't care about improving, or don't care about improving quickly.
My point is that a lot of people think they are now just totally screwed, when really other options exist. Or maybe it's just that I WANT there to be some choice in getting a queen or a hatch, and not just a queen everytime.
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Getting another hatch instead of a queen is such a big loss. For 200 minerals (don't forget you lose the drone) you get a lesser larvae production, you lose the ability to "stack" larvaes (up to 19), you lose a very valuable early game defender (amazing AA and a solid tank against early push) and it takes longer to get some use out of it...
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Can't believe so many people are against this on the same community that was so critical about MBS.
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I am rather neutral on the decision. As a Z, I thought at first that it was gonna be terrible such a thing, but just trying out the other methods, I see that I wont miss it that much. Sure, it takes more time and takes your eyes away from the battle at hand (it there is one) but with habit and speed, we'll all be doing it almost as fast as the wireframe cast :-)
For any Zerg that doesn't know this, when you Press [BACKSPACE] it pedels through the different hatcheries/lairs/hives under your command. In the end, all you have to do now is group queens in one group, hatches in the other, then Backspace, Hotkey V click Backspace and repeat.
For Protoss it may be a little bit more tedious, but from my understanding point, for alot of protoss chrono boost is only used in early/mid game and ends up just saving up energy.
GLHFGG :-)
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lol. People just don't like change. Pretty hard life if your a beta tester. I never casted on wireframe anyway- and it doesn't take that much more time. You just have to not get freaked out when your screen jumps to the hatcheries. Remember, you can always click on the minimap to get back to your units.
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On April 24 2010 17:11 ploy wrote:
Can't believe so many people are against this on the same community that was so critical about MBS.
The people who are mostly complaining have less than 10 posts, who obviously haven't played bw at all.
edit: I loved how in BW players can be seperated into macro/micro players. Rarely can players do both perfectly at the same time (macro players like  Really don't micro that much vs Fantasy who pretty much destroys the other player just from harass) Just this alone is another level of decision making.
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I didn't even use the wireframe casting to begin with, so i really don't mind this change at all.
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So basically, this change is an admittance from Blizzard that SL was (and still is with minimap casts) overpowered? Because the T macro mechanic was already easier than Z. Now it's just ridiculous (when they fix the minimap casting ofc).
And yeah, having the change effect other spells like transfusion is retarded. Not being able to see which warpgates to chrono is pretty retarded too. Is that supposed to be a nerf (or disadvantage rather) to using warpgates? It's either that or they didn't really think this fix through.
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The amount of bitching in this thread is staggering.
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On April 24 2010 17:48 ComradeDover wrote:
The amount of bitching in this thread is staggering.
Haha. I can't wait until the Beta is over.
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On April 24 2010 09:28 Tropics wrote:
Kinda silly. I find it especially silly with chrono boost in the case of warp gates. If they had an animation so that I knew which ones were charged and which weren't it'd be ok, but its kind of annoying having this functionality, adjusting to it, then having it taken away from you.
The whole point of a beta is to be able to take away things they put in to get the game right
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I dislike this change very much.
I will still be producing unit without visiting my base, with a single hotkey that contains all my hatcheries.
I will hopefully start binding all my buildings into one group so that I can work on upgrades without visiting my base.
BUT I will have to go back to my base for this one and only reason which is spawning larvae every 40 seconds. This doesn't feel like "managing my base" to me.
With the new hotkey for spawn larva it got even worse. v is quite far away from the number keys and even further away from the F-keys. 4x Spawn Larva in quick succession will be very hard to pull off. Casting 4 mules is cheapish, especially if you added the CC at the gold minerals as the last CC in your group. And at least you don't have to jump over the whole map to CB some gateways.
And then I absolutely don't understand why we have things like a global hotkey for Warpgates when the same thing could easily be achived with a normal hotkey and a tiny bit of "base management", but we can't have cast on wireframe because we need more "base management".
Btw, I doubt that many terrans were using calldown supply, but it should have been possible to group a few depots with your OCs and cast calldown on those. I never tested it though, and it for sure doesn't work now. No, it wasn't possible to group minerals with your OCs, but it would have been awesome.
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There are plenty of ways to increase mechanical requirements without removing features from the UI( that could be used in custom games).
Not only that but it creates a giant mechanical difference between races, terran is completely unchanged(apparently only zerg should have to look at EACH of there bases when they want to use there macro mechanic ontop of being the only one that cant just go "Oh crap 90 energy on 50 orbital commands let me just catch up").
I completely ok with making the game harder, they coulda done any balence change and i woulda supported it. But don't remove features from your interface, there are other ways around the issue that dont hurt the game overal.
Seems like alot of people are just exited that the games got harder!111!!!! I don't really think thats the thing we need to focus on =/.
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I really don't like the attitude and argument that mechanics should be hard because BW mechanics were hard.
Protoss can still chrono through the mini map so hopefully that is intended.
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Get acquainted with the new Fkeys, and now do it with a fraction of effort that people did with to macro in BW.
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BW mechanics were hard because the game was old, the engine was out of date, and they didn't think of better ways of implementation when they made the game.
<sarcasm>
If you were a truly skilled baller, you'd feed the computer commands in assembly language to direct your troops and build your army. Because that takes more actions and requires more unconscious skill that needs to be rehearsed before you can get good at this game.
</sarcasm>
Being able to cast spells on units and buildings in wireframes was a fun and interesting mechanic that rewarded good hotkey organization and allowed you to free up actions. It's not as if there's not enough to do in starcraft such that even an advanced player cannot better his play through more efficient macro.
Instead of taking that away to force us into repetitive and uninteresting apm, they should introduce new things that put actions towards strategic and tactical use. Any changes in user interface that increases player actions should be accompanied by an increase in player capability.
i.e:Smartcasting allowed for better emp/storms. Single unit queuing from multiple production building allowed players to precisely select units to queue up.
How does removing wireframe spellcasting increase player capability?
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awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery
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i think this is a good change, now macro becomes macro. binding all queens and hatches on 1 button wasnt really hard
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On April 24 2010 20:49 lolreaper wrote:
awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery
remind me - whats the punishment for hording energy on terran - oh right - you just call down 2 mules...
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On April 24 2010 21:15 unAimed wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 20:49 lolreaper wrote:
awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery remind me - whats the punishment for hording energy on terran - oh right - you just call down 2 mules...
u in fact lose mining time which causes you will have smaller army in particular period of time compered to terran who used mules perfectly, seems similar to zerg who forgets to spawn larva dont u think ?
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On April 24 2010 21:23 lolreaper wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 21:15 unAimed wrote:On April 24 2010 20:49 lolreaper wrote:
awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery remind me - whats the punishment for hording energy on terran - oh right - you just call down 2 mules... u in fact lose mining time which causes you will have smaller army in particular period of time compered to terran who used mules perfectly, seems similar to zerg who forgets to spawn larva dont u think ?
Zerg getting behind on larva midgame and having 100 energy queens is definitely a bigger problem then a terran with a 100 energy cc.
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On April 24 2010 21:23 lolreaper wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 21:15 unAimed wrote:On April 24 2010 20:49 lolreaper wrote:
awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery remind me - whats the punishment for hording energy on terran - oh right - you just call down 2 mules... u in fact lose mining time which causes you will have smaller army in particular period of time compered to terran who used mules perfectly, seems similar to zerg who forgets to spawn larva dont u think ?
no you dont lose absolute mining time you just move the point of mining to a later point of time.
missed sl are lost forever.
+ a bad macroing terran could find himself in an advantageous position because he has some scans for a dt rush or whatever...
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On April 24 2010 10:57 liq3 wrote:
I absolutely hate this change and it makes me sad.
RTS games in general should not be trying to implement ways to make mechanics harder, but easier. Mechanics are NOT the game, the game is stuff like building the right units, timing pushes, picking the right tech, etc etc.
It's like golf getting a rule where you have to play one handed. It just doesn't make any sense.
PS. I really am sick to my stomach that blizzard would a change like that. It's technologically backwards.
Should be this, should be that. Who are you to decide?
There are tons of mechanically easy games out there and there's obviously a huge crowd that craves challenging games that make good e-sports.
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havent been on in a while but whats wireframe casting? is it like you have to click on the queen and spawn larvae on the hactery itself i.e the picture infront of you with the screen at your base? so what was it before u select queen and click on hatchery picture on ur [1] [2] buttons?
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On April 24 2010 21:45 unAimed wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 21:23 lolreaper wrote:On April 24 2010 21:15 unAimed wrote:On April 24 2010 20:49 lolreaper wrote:
awsome change, if u are horrible with macro add extra hatchery remind me - whats the punishment for hording energy on terran - oh right - you just call down 2 mules... u in fact lose mining time which causes you will have smaller army in particular period of time compered to terran who used mules perfectly, seems similar to zerg who forgets to spawn larva dont u think ? no you dont lose absolute mining time you just move the point of mining to a later point of time. missed sl are lost forever. + a bad macroing terran could find himself in an advantageous position because he has some scans for a dt rush or whatever...
anyway its like compering apples and orages, in previous patches all zerg macro mechanic could be done by hotkey spam, you occasionally put new building and thats all, other races have to come back to build pylon/supply, production buildings, warp new units when all zerg has to do is rally drone to newest expansion and 4sddd4srrrrr4shhhh4svv without even looking at base, all TL polls showed zerg is the easiest race to play apparently blizzard reads (gotta love them for that ) our forums and decided to fix that.
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United States47024 Posts
On April 24 2010 14:10 Argali wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 13:57 EmeraldSparks wrote:
Or maybe people just shouldn't make self-defeating analogies. The analogy is by liq3, on page 4. Which from my comprehension of it : You can play golf with 2 hands, however, clearly that is too easy. Professional golfing should have a rule where you can only play one handed. This adds a layer of skill. To which another poster commented : But golf is a physical sport! Where you have to move your arms and body! Therefore your point is invalid. The point of adding an artificial layer of difficulty still stands; if someone decides to rubbish the point by poking at the analogy rather than the point, evil imps like me appear to provide extreme examples.
The problem is that the golf analogy is fallacious. Whether an "added layer of skill" is necessary is dependent entirely on the specific game at hand. The argument is not that "added skill is always better" but that a certain amount of demand on different actions is required, and Starcraft 2 does not satisfy that demand with regard to physical ability yet. In the case of golf, it is accepted that the existing requirements on physical skill are enough. However, the same cannot be said of Starcraft 2: there are still widespread opinions that the game is not mechanically demanding enough, and very few voices that say it's too mechanically demanding. If we're trying to strike a balance, then right now, it's obviously skewed toward not mechanically demanding enough. Ideally the balance is close to 50/50, or even slightly skewed toward being too demanding (because we have to factor in that group of whiners who will always say its too hard). The fact that people are in agreement about the level of physical skill for golf is totally irrelevant to the game of Starcraft 2.
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I'm happy with this change since I suppose I am an epic n00b for never having used the mechanic. First I did everything manually, now I have one hotkey for all my hatches. But I always spawned larva manually, and now everyone is down at my level. Maybe Toss wont be so hard to beat now.
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I use chrono boost via minimap now, it is easy to chronoboos a nexus, and some other building if yoou know the layout, but not if you have many next to each other
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On April 24 2010 12:28 Archerofaiur wrote:Player action must be tied to player decision.
Not necessarily.
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On April 25 2010 03:02 Kiarip wrote:Show nested quote +On April 24 2010 12:28 Archerofaiur wrote:Player action must be tied to player decision. Not necessarily.
Good arguement. Actually allow me to expand on that original statement.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
Player action must be tied to player decision making
You can make mechanics that have both mechanical skill and decision making
Spawn Larva is not fun
Even if Blizzard disagrees with first two, they should care allot about that last one.
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I completely agree with this change. It seems like some of you want a game where with the press of one button your build is executed perfectly by the AI and all you have to do is control your units.
If thats what you want DOW2 is that way ->
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On April 25 2010 03:43 Izslove wrote:
I completely agree with this change. It seems like some of you want a game where with the press of one button your build is executed perfectly by the AI and all you have to do is control your units.
If thats what you want DOW2 is that way ->
^^ Straw man/slippery slope argument is that way ^^
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For any Zerg that doesn't know this, when you Press [BACKSPACE] it pedels through the different hatcheries/lairs/hives under your command. In the end, all you have to do now is group queens in one group, hatches in the other, then Backspace, Hotkey V click Backspace and repeat.
Because [BACKSPACE] and [V] are so close on the keyboard.
Is remapping of hotkeys still viable or bannable now?
If remapping is allowed, I predict most high level zerg will remap spawn larvae to [P]. That makes the macro mechanic very similar to the old mechanic: Using [Backspace]-[P]-{click} instead of [R]-{click}. This makes clicking even easier, as backspace always centers the screen, so it might even be faster once ppl l2execute it well.
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Wireframe casting was pretty much an exclusive Z thing I disagree, I used it as protoss much more than as zerg. As z i used the minimap and now have no problem, but as P I feel a significant change.
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Voted Yes.
Makes sense for the macro spells to all need to be casted when actually looking at the buildings/units.
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This change really hit me hard. It used to be really fluid, but now... Minimap casting just doesn't work out well for me. I either miss the hatchery and don't notice because there's little feedback, or I go to my base and try and do it the hard way and there's no good way to switch between bases quickly without using like a hotkey per hatch. The f keys are too far away for this purpose. I keep training ventral sacs somehow, which I never did before. I also keep rerallying my stupid hatcheries but that is mostly because of the inject key change.
It is getting bad for me. I literally just can't keep up anymore and I'm always low on econ because I've missed a bunch of larvae by the time the midgame push comes. It is getting to the point to where I just throw down a third hatch on two bases and skip a queen entirely.
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I used minimap casting for my spawn larva to begin with, probably due to my experiences with TPs and Town Hall in WC3, so this (thankfully!) doesn't affect me at all.
Voted yes.
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EPT
