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On June 03 2010 06:39 Liquid`NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me. Prioritizing roleplay over gameplay won't gain you much ground around these parts.
Well, i guess it's just that I like to think that the game is somewhat realistic
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In BW, every high level player split well. They did it in 100% of games, at the same time, everytime. I don't think that qualifies as a reward of superior mechanics when it only serves to level you off with the rest of the players.
I doubt any good player ever watched a replay of theirs and thought "if I had split slightly more optimally, I would have won that!". Even if a player is rushed and loses, the reason would more likely come down to not pulling an SCV off to repair fast enough, or not pulling enough, or building the barracks out of position, or not scouting soon enough, or not bringing enough SCVs along with the counter-attack, or whatever a better player than me could come up with.
Having played a lot of BW, even having enjoyed the little things like splitting, I'm personally happy that Blizzard is getting rid of the things that every player was able to do and capped out on.
People are talking about skill ceilings as if there's only one general ceiling for the entire game, when really there are many. The ones that are bad are the ones that are low enough to be reached. Things like splitting can be taken to a very acceptable level with a small amount (relative to other things) of practice, then performed as good as every other player, with any improvement being insignificant.
Multiple building selection is similar. I saw many FPVODs of BW Korean pros (which, by the way I realize does not make me pro) over many years, and whenever they went to build units, they all did it extremely fast. Over the years, they didn't really become all that much faster (at all) at executing it, they merely (Flash anyone?) got better at remembering to do it. Once you think of doing it, it's just going through the motions. The real, extremely high, skill ceiling is in the mental multitasking required to remember.
Macro is pretty easy in SC2 compared to BW, but just like BW, the game gives the player an enormous amount of control. Over time, players will come up with new ways to exploit that control, resulting in more things to do at any given moment, and more things to keep track of, and therefore higher required mechanics to pull it off. The only things that could ruin the skill ceiling of an RTS are things like squads that don't allow individual unit control, or game design that discourages or prevents expansion, or has an over simplified economy, and so on. Blizzard removed the skill ceilings that were easily attainable, while keeping the challenging ones. We just haven't replaced the lack of redundancy with something useful yet.
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On June 03 2010 06:16 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:14 TheNihilist wrote:On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race. We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here.. I'd also recommend people use the slowest game speed for the tests to minimize small differences in timings.
I'll do 5 each on slowest, I don't have all day you know
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On June 03 2010 06:57 Kletus wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:16 Logo wrote:On June 03 2010 06:14 TheNihilist wrote:On June 03 2010 04:50 Kletus wrote: Further testing reveals that I get: 390 @ 1min with f1 CONSISTENTLY. 385 @ 1min with nosplit with optimal AI outcome. 380 @ 1min with halfsplit with optimal AI outcome.
All tests were on the build order tester map with the terran race. We're seeing a lot of conflicting data in thread. Kletus' data clearly is showing there is a slight advantage to a good F1 split. Would been nice if someone could perform a study that did 10-20 test runs for each method and wrote up the results. I feel like we need more data before we start panicking here.. I'd also recommend people use the slowest game speed for the tests to minimize small differences in timings. I'll do 5 each on slowest, I don't have all day you know  You just need it to be on slowest while doing the split, as long as you're using in game time as the benchmark.
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United States889 Posts
On June 03 2010 06:10 Logo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 05:55 Arrian wrote:On June 03 2010 05:48 Kultcher wrote:On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break. Elitism? Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want. It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click. It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split. Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain." You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug. If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam).
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
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On June 03 2010 06:59 Arrian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:10 Logo wrote:On June 03 2010 05:55 Arrian wrote:On June 03 2010 05:48 Kultcher wrote:On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break. Elitism? Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want. It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click. It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split. Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain." You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug. If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam). I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing. It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
Said what I went into this thread to say perfectly. 110% agreed.
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Buddhist, can you try your tests again on different maps, say for example Metalopolis? I made a post earlier about maps possibly playing a major factor, and I think using different maps could change your results.
So there are results both confirming your findings and contradict them, so maybe if we try and make this into an actual research project, where we get multiple people to do a series of these types of tests on multiple maps?
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you know, i'm going to split, the 3&3 really seems to get my a faster 8th scv
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.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
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On June 03 2010 07:03 mcgriddle wrote: .... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
...That's not the point. By doing it on slowest, you are given the opportunity to more optimally run each test.
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On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Wait, what? Learning the methods are initially just as important as actually performing the action. Though unfortunately, the reality is that the method of splitting has little impact this time around...
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United States47024 Posts
On June 03 2010 06:59 Arrian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:10 Logo wrote:On June 03 2010 05:55 Arrian wrote:On June 03 2010 05:48 Kultcher wrote:On June 03 2010 05:36 Kyuki wrote: lol people who think you skill is defined by splitting your workers.. haha This. The elitism in this thread is just absurd. Do you really want the first 3 seconds of the game to be the measure of your skill as a player? Give me a break. Elitism? Elitism is 'We should be given a large advantage because we split and they don't'. These are gamers saying 'We should be rewarded for our superior mechanical abilities.' The second one is reasonable, and that's what people want. It's two to three clicks + 1 or 2 box selections (or a bunch of F1-clicks) if you go that route. If the advantage exists, it's the most mindless test of mechanical ability in SC2. No one is saying that all mechanical ability should be removed, just that the loss of a single mindless 3-click mechanic test at the start of the game is no big deal. Literally the ONLY thing you are doing at that point in the game is focusing on your split. It's not like other mechanical tests where there are decisions around it + the mechanical test. You're not even trying to manage your attention at this point of the game. It's literally just a test of how quickly and accurately you can click, box select, click, box select, click. It's a test of something that you do throughout the entire game. Your box select accuracy and ability to click quickly are no less important without worker split. Imagine it the other way around, if there was no split advantage in BW and suddenly there was one in SC2 no one would be praising the designers for their superior game design skill. People would just think, "WTF that's a pointless change over BW, what a pain." You are being elitist, it has nothing to do with the level of mechanical skill in the game. You're essentially complaining about removing 1 thimble of water from a gallon jug. If every moment of the game has to test player skill, then SC already fails at that because there are large gaps of time in the first 9-10 workers where you have nothing to do (hence why people spam). I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing. It's not elitist to bemoan Blizzard's assault on these little things.
I think it's worth pointing out to those thinking that it's being elitist to bemoan the lack of splitting that it's not splitting itself that is creating the disagreement--it's the attitude towards these minute details. Brood War is a game that's all about the minute details. Building placement was critical, timing windows are razor-thin, and games can be decided in the span of seconds by a mis-micro. It's a game where every little thing matters, and where lots of little things that don't look like they matter add up to something that does over a long game. This attitude of "splitting does not matter" is a departure from that. It's not that splitting did not matter in SC1, but that it mattered a little. But the result of an SC1 game is often decided by the sum of many things that "matter very little".
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Hmm, this is interesting. I understand that the hardcore love their little minor tests of ability, but for mid-level guys like me (used to be hardcore, but no longer have the time) appreciate having one less thing to worry about. I'd rather pay more attention to more global things than have victory or defeat hinge on tons and tons of little tricks.
Similar with smart-casting and automatic worker distribution. Its obvious you don't need AS MUCH practice to reach the top level anymore, because there's a much shorter list of skills you'll need to develop, but I don't think that's going to make playing at a professional level any less impressive. They're just going to be able to focus their attention on more important shit.
Its the difference between playing a game and having to learn professional plate-spinning just to be able to play it.
On June 03 2010 07:03 mcgriddle wrote: .... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
Its the equivalent of super-human processing, and if a single action at super-human speed is identical to 6 actions at super-human speed, why would you bother trying to do 6 and potentially screwing the whole thing up with a misclick when it isn't going to net you any advantage at all?
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On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me.
Errrrm I'd say that keeping the "ultra-micro" is a good thing; it's these little things that made SC BW easy to learn but hard to master, which is a hallmark of all great games. Hopefully in time the nuances of SC2 will come out as it did with SC1 (ie muta micro)
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On June 03 2010 06:51 darmousseh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 06:41 Buddhist wrote:On June 03 2010 06:17 darmousseh wrote: wow. I'm so glad the results turned out like that. There's macro, theres micro, and then theres ultra micro.
Macro = buildings, # of workers produced, units produced, expansions Micro = controlling unit commands, positioning, scouting, harass Ultra-micro = splitting scvs, move-shot, individually aiming each unit in an army
I am very glad ultra-micro is gone and this post confirmed it basically. Being able to split scvs should NOT have an impact on your macro otherwise people will gain advantages just because they are a better mouse clicker. If I wanted to play a mouse clicking game, there are tons of flash games all over the internet, sc2 is a real time strategy game. In war, a soldier will tell an officer to shoot a target, but not HOW to shoot the target. Removing ultra-micro makes sense to me. Do you seriously think move-shot and focus firing shouldn't exist? Rofl. Splitting is one thing, but simple, fundamental micro like that? Oh man. Focus fire is an example of normal micro which requires some reaction time and mouse clicking is fine. Inidividually telling each unit in a 25 unit army to attack a specific target which requires like 1000 apm is ultra micro and given that the AI is pretty good in sc2 compared to scbw is something also that is gone.
I happen to disagree, but can see where you could get your view from. However, almost no players will tell each unit to attack a seperate unique unit, unless your talking about just all 25 units attacking a specific unit. In which case, that's easy as pie. In the "ultra"micro case, that SHOULD be rewarded. I mean, if you manage to get that good at SC, why wouldn't it be beneficial? If I'm not making any sense, it's probably because I'm not sure what you mean by the "ultra" focus fire.
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I think Blizzard should remove the training wheels when you've reached a certain level of play e.g. remove handi caps at certain leagues. It would give the better players more of what they want and allow the newer players to work on other things as they get better.
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I usually split 3 - 3, but it took me only like 3 seconds to learn to do quickly on each side of the map (minerals being on bot, top, left, right). I don't think that it's too critical early game. I usually just focus on my build and time it so I have 0 minerals.
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.... You can't test it on slowest. The real test of whether f1 is how skilled you are at splitting. If you do it on slowest... well of course you will be able to be faster.
The question is, does a perfect manual split matter or is the difference so little/not exisiting that you should let the AI do it and don't bother with it.
I'm not saying the split should be very important, I'm saying making it not matter at all essentially is yet another attempt to marginalize the little things that separate players. Reducing it to the exact functions is missing the point. In BW, if you ever watched the GOM games, Tasteless constantly talks about all the little things that the players did, like the placement of depots or the placement of overlords or the timing of tech or buildings that on the surface wouldn't seem to matter, but they do. They separated players in important ways, yes, I said important. They're important because they betray deeper knowledge of the game, a more thought out and well executed game than somebody who may be otherwise equal. You can draw up many scenarios in which the split doesn't matter, and shouldn't matter, but there are scenarios where little things like splitting made a difference. Taking these out of SC2 is a way of marginalizing the small ways in which players distinguished themselves, and that's not a good thing.
You bring up several points that have nothing to do with worker splitting. Placement of Depots? Yes sure, it's a strategic component how your base is structured, even when just talking about depots. Placement of overlords? Sure, beeing a great scout while your supplyunit makes placement very important. Timing of buildings? Well thats essentially what build orders and strategies are all about.
But worker split? I beg your pardon, no. SC2 is not BW. There is no strategic value and no deeper understanding involved. It's just sending your workers to get money. There is no point in making the utmost basic thing in the world complicated. I bet there are millions of things you can improve in your game, which have much much more strategic/tactical value than just establishing basic muscle memory for the ever-same action in the first second of the game. Don't be so stuck in that BW mindset.
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I always thought the difference came very early on so that you get the 50 minerals to make that 8th, 9th, 10th probe that fraction of a second faster.
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If you do a correct split your drones will bring back minerals more consistently in waves. It may not net you more minerals on that alone but it will be effective in being able to create early units faster to bolster your econ--rather than having to wait for that extra 5 minerals because one drone had to be sent in the center then move outside.
EDIT: On June 03 2010 07:19 deL wrote: I always thought the difference came more very early on so that you get the 50 minerals to make that 8th, 8th, 10th probe that fraction of a second faster.
Beat me. lol
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