EPTOh Micro, Where Art Thou? - Page 5
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Sentient66
United States651 Posts
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Half
United States2554 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:14 jewce wrote: Well written post, but I'm going to have to disagree. Is it not possible that there is new things to be discovered, now I didn't play BW from the beginning, at least from a non-UMS aspect, but I'm pretty sure most of the micro and tactics discovered in the original didn't come out within the first few months and probably even years from when it came out. And from a spectators point of view, when I watch players like NonY in the HDH invitational I find it to be very entertaining. Give the game some time, and let some new things be found. This article to surpass that very basic element of analysis. You're looking at metgagame elements, which will be subject to change, but the post looks at the most basic element of any game, the engine. The BW metagame changed so much in such a positive direction precisely because of all the control and player input, the core element of any E-sport the engine afforded. And the NoNY game was only interesting due to build orders. The actual micro wasn't anything impressive in comparison to BW. I'm not dissing NoNy skill as a player, I'm just saying that it was build order, not play. If that build became standard, their wouldn't be anything impressive about it, while players in SC1 continue to Oh and Ah with the most standard, mundane build orders. Simply put, the amount something will be able to change will be limited by the amount of variables. The variables here are player input, and SC2 objectively requires less of it in so many ways. Thus, it will also be able to evolve less. One crucial element of this is the current way many units operate. | ||
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UmmTheHobo
United States650 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:14 jewce wrote: Well written post, but I'm going to have to disagree. Is it not possible that there is new things to be discovered, now I didn't play BW from the beginning, at least from a non-UMS aspect, but I'm pretty sure most of the micro and tactics discovered in the original didn't come out within the first few months and probably even years from when it came out. And from a spectators point of view, when I watch players like NonY in the HDH invitational I find it to be very entertaining. Give the game some time, and let some new things be found. This is bullshit. Starcraft 1 didn't have people who have spent the last ten years meticulously studying it's prequel and then applying the things they had learned to the new game. | ||
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Yurebis
United States1452 Posts
On April 27 2010 08:59 zomgzergrush wrote: If you were to ask someone who has never laid eyes on starcraft before to judge ONLY movement between SC1 and SC2, he will without a doubt say that SC2 movement looks more "real" and "right." As bad as it is for competitive gaming, as a finished game in modern game industry, such details are a necessity and outweigh the need for competition. I think airships look more realistic when they at least dont *have* to stop to shoot | ||
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Nemesis
Canada2568 Posts
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Rakanishu2
United States475 Posts
People will still find ways to spend those APM when microing. Maybe instead of using it to muta harass, you could spend it on focus firing in battles, which I hardly ever see when I'm playing. | ||
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opiuman
United States187 Posts
The norm is to want the objects in your physics simulation within your game to obey the physical constraints that you would expect from real life objects. If you begin to adjust this so that the majority of objects do not obey these constraints then it would seem odd that you're spending most of the time trying to describe irregular behavior. As a result the "normal" behavior for your objects is to behave in an irregular manner. This opens up a huge can of worms because the system may become unstable depending on the implementation. It's possible to do but you risk getting strange behavior in the simulation and having all kinds of weird possibilities happening. By cutting corners and having all the units obey the constraints the overall simulation becomes much easier to implement, has better performance and keeps the simulation accurate. Sure they could add it but I feel like it defeats the design principles of a physical simulation :[ | ||
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palanq
United States761 Posts
I don't think this needs to be a huge debate - giving more units moving shots is something that can be made balanced quite easily, as well as increasing the skill cap and feeling of "control" one has over one's units - something that lower level players can appreciate as well. | ||
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Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:15 zomgzergrush wrote: I'll quote my earlier post: However, in terms of movement, most people are looking at it at too high of a level (in developer terms, not skill terms); i.e. hold position gives a moving shot while attack move requires deacceleration. You all need to understand what's happening at a lower level(in developer terms, as in, closer to the code) and that this was not intended behavior, but simply a result of some of the flaws in the engine that were overlooked by most but only really discovered by the real competitive gamers. If you were to ask someone who has never laid eyes on starcraft before to judge ONLY movement between SC1 and SC2, he will without a doubt say that SC2 movement looks more "real" and "right." As bad as it is for competitive gaming, as a finished game in modern game industry, such details are a necessity and outweigh the need for competition. In the end, this is all about sales. They can say whatever they want about esports and whatnot, but make no mistake, Blizzard is no different from any other game company. Whether it's a newbie buying the game and playing it for a month vs a seasoned veteran who buys it and plays it for years to come, a sale is a sale, and each of those cases count as one. It's very unrealistic to assume that we, the competitive gamers, make up a larger chunk of their sales than the casual gamer. Not to mention the various statements that they want to cater towards the casual gamer. But what will sell more games: Someone using single hellion to kill a bunch of zerglings to buy enough time to get up a bunker and protect his expansion thus saving himself the game in a tournament or league that could possibly be televised, or that same hellion dying for the sake of looking more realistic? I for one would buy the game in the first case just so I could try something like that, | ||
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moonman
United States33 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:15 Two_DoWn wrote: I believe the point that is being made here is that those things wont be able to be found, cuz the game engine wont allow it. How could you know that the game engine would not allow it? | ||
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Ryuu314
United States12679 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:16 moonman wrote: Sorry, but I don't agree with many points in your article. I have to say that with new builds being implemented, like nony's phoenix build, four gateways is not becoming the 'norm'. It will take some time but the variety in this game will show. As for unit dancing, blizzard is just fixing an age old bug that wasn't fixed years ago. What StarCraft II is: a new game for a new era. What it isn't: a remake of broodwar, and too many people are trying to make it just that. But the issue being discussed here is that in order for a game to become great, it can't JUST be the innovative strategies that win games. It has to also be the skill in executing, in microing that should have a larger factor. Sure, positioning and spell casting are micro, but there's a lot less of the individual unit control and micro. Starcraft II is a game for a new era. That is true. But that does not mean it needs to abandon all the things that made its predecessor great. This article is not calling for a destruction of the new mechanics and engine. Rather, it's asking for micro to become more viable. Why is that not good? Every successful sequel of games have always maintained what was done right and just built upon it. Take the Halo series, for example. The game engine for all three of those games pretty much stayed the same. New mechanics and items and even character models were added in each game (dual-wielding, item thingies - not sure what to call those, etc...). But why were the Halo sequels so effective and popular? Because the underlying skill it takes to play the game well has not changed. Granted, there's really not much changing that can be done in an FPS as opposed to an RTS, but why does the ability to micro need to be "nerfed" so to speak, so much? Also, people are sure the game engine does not allow it because doing these micro tricks is stuff people have been trying and testing ever since Blizzcon. | ||
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djdolber
Sweden85 Posts
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avilo
United States4100 Posts
But with Browder in charge, it is highly unlikely they are going to change anything from the course they have gone with SC2 so far  | ||
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Hammy
France828 Posts
I also object your idea regarding corruptors. Actually I think it's a pretty cool unit, and the corruption ability isn't too shabby. True, it's used rather rarely (and it makes the corruptor die to HT... but feedback is just silly against so many units now... so I doubt it's the other units you should be changing). Regarding the Phoenix, well I'm not sure the protoss need an airborne counter to mutas. Their ground does just fine, especially with blink. Not every race needs an AtA unit, and I really like the way Protoss is looking right now. If it were up to me I'd just scrap the phoenix alltogether. And then I wish you hadn't added the "it makes sense in real life" parts, but that's negligible. Now that that's behind us: damn I agree with so much of this! -The viking in flight mode, although just fine in terms of balance and all, is suuuuch a stupid design. Why make an air unit with long range if you can't even use it to kite? Does it always have to be on top of turrets or marines to stand a chance? -I wanted to cry for my opponents when I saw they couldn't even micro their void rays while they were shooting.... -The hellion can kite decently, but the over-the-top damage is obviously there to compensate for maneuverability. That just sucks. -The banshee: damn i couldn't agree more! Again, the unit is fantastic! The whole concept is great! Mobile AtG unit with cloak, great for harassing etc... and then they just screw it up by making it really bulky and slow and deal insane damage to balance it despite its failure to fulfill its role well. Generally speaking: YES! Please make units more mobile by allowing moving shots! I don't want this game to be SC1.5, but creating more micro possibilities just adds depth to the game and will help the game succeed in the long run. It's not like top player's skill is already plateauing but it'd be nice to see more options. What I was looking forward to in SC2 is that a micro-heavy player could fight a macro-heavy player toe to toe. Unfortunately, so far there's no such thing as a micro-player or macro-player. I don't how to fix that, but I definitely think that increasing micro possibilities would be a step in the right direction. | ||
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Half
United States2554 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:20 Two_DoWn wrote: But what will sell more games: Someone using single hellion to kill a bunch of zerglings to buy enough time to get up a bunker and protect his expansion thus saving himself the game in a tournament or league that could possibly be televised, or that same hellion dying for the sake of looking more realistic? I for one would buy the game in the first case just so I could try something like that, I think that should have been the emphasis of the original post, looking at this from a perspective that blizzard would be. Not even necessarily a profit analysis, just saying "Mutalisk micro in SC1 is just more FUN to watch AND to play then Mutalisk micro in SC2" Not "Which one requires more skill", which while undoubtedly important to them, is something I think they'd overlook or misinterpret in a lot of ways. I especially agree with your corruptor suggestion. All units in SC1 had some sort of directive that promoted a specific playstyle, the Corruptor originally had/could have had many (Fight or Flight decision making, highly encouraged focus firing, target confliction). It had a role that was independent of metagame, but inherently built into the way it functioned. The current corruptor has no role what so ever. I would like someone at blizzard to articulate what a corruptor does without using the word "Collosus". Have fun. | ||
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dangots0ul
United States919 Posts
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Two_DoWn
United States13684 Posts
On April 27 2010 09:21 moonman wrote: How could you know that the game engine would not allow it? It was my understanding of the article that the deceleration shot built into the engine was the source of the problem, and therefore perfect control, predicated on a unit doing exactly what you say (ie, stopping and shooting as quickly as possible) would be impossible. | ||
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weeeee
Australia71 Posts
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NonY
8751 Posts
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Boblion
France8043 Posts
But you are 200% right about the micro problem. The hellion and air unit micro is pathetic. | ||
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