Agree with OP 100%. It feels that when I watch brood war, the tension builds, the drama mounts, and my mind explodes when carpet storms are dropped, when siege lines are broken, arbiters stasis, defilers plague, and lurkers burrow. The anticipation for what I think is going to happen is palpable in my room late at night when I watch the games and then it follows with my screaming and shouting "how did that happen?" when my expectations are met but also exceeded. I can see that the players are doing astounding things and I can tell what the difference is between me and the pros.
However, with starcraft 2, that's not the case. It seems like a lot of tension and drama was broken by Blizzard's introduction of the production tabs. The mysticism of comebacks were broken when we know exactly what is going to happen thirty seconds from now, when I know that something is going to be produced. The fact that I can watch what the pros are doing, copy it instantly after it is used, and know that my mechanics are good enough to execute their strategies, albeit less consistently, makes the professional scene much less exciting. Watching one control group of fifty some odd units being moved across the map with "1a" makes their actions seem mundane.
It's like watching a magic show where the magician explains what he is doing step by step. The first rule of a magician is to never reveal his secrets. Blizzard reveals everything and makes it so that anybody can do the things that are supposed to be magical. OP hits my biggest concerns that starcraft 2's dynasty will be led by the constant hype and release of expansions rather than by substance and depth within the game itself. It hasn't even been a full year since the release of starcraft 2, and yet the explosions and the graphical elements of the game seem to have gone away for me and every game seems like the same game over and over.
I don't think anyone has the energy to respond to every point in the OP, but I'll do a couple.
On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
Player-unit interaction. One of the only sources of player-unit interaction in SC2 are spellcasters because they are one of the only units that require actual micromanagement to use properly. The problem with the spellcasters, though, is that they themselves don't promote a player involved response. Think about the sentry and the spells it has, if a guardian shield or forcefield goes up, as the opposing player what are you doing differently? Chances are you aren't doing anything or you are in full retreat. What about the infestor? What's your response to the infestor besides maximizing surface area or neutralizing it before the battle? When a fungal goes off there is literally nothing you can do to avoid further damage, you just sit there thinking, "well this kinda sucks, I need to spread more".
Obviously there is nothing you can do that's comparable to, say, dark swarm -- but you can certainly push forward to defend the fungaled units with things that are less vulnerable to fungals (e.g. marines will be MASSACRED by fungals if they get two off; but with one, you can still protect, heal up, and come back into the fight).
I think dark swarm is cool, too, but I don't see the problem here. I love the pin and DOT mechanic.
Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest.
Comments like this in the OP are farrr too prevalent. Fortunately, it is absurdly easy to respond to something like this. And this makes the inherent flaw of the OP clear: he's simply talking about how he feels, as an individual. This leads him to make untrue or bizarre statements about the presence or lack of tension, or that he is just "waiting for the AI to make a pretty show of foregone conclusions" when he watches SC2.
I would agree that the reaver is a cool unit -- and if I HAD to choose for some bizarre reason, I would go with the reaver (although siege tank-like massive one-shot DPS units are a little boring -- the reaver, the lurker, and the siege tank are a little too similar).
I like banelings more than lurkers, although I think it could be cool if zergs could more effectively control space. This isn't to say that they can't do it with the current units; that has yet to be established. But yeah, you probably need another unit? But I prefer banelings.
I think it's viking/banshee v wraith. I actually prefer the former two. Wraiths are lame, to be honest.
I also like thors a lot more than goliaths, although goliaths are ok. The sheer might of thors, their size and strength and the concussive cannon thing, are all so much more fun.
The phoenix is sooo much better than the corsair. From moving shot to lift-up -- it's just cooler.
The dragoon has cool shoot-and-fire mechanics in BW -- it's cooler than the immortal. But I like the immortal in SC2.
I prefer BW mutas, but I still like them in SC2.
I prefer SC2 hydras -- they are much less spammable and must be used more situationally, but they're fun.
So, really, IS there no contest? Or is there no contest for... just you? You really have to think about these things honestly. I might even say I prefer watching BW, but I love SC2 more. And I will never ever play BW again. It's annoying to play.
What does any of this have to do with spectators? It has EVERYTHING to do with the spectators, one of the main reason that BW was such an intense game is because it provided the necessary build-up and tension. Staple damage dealers like the lurker and siege tank made you hold your every time an attack happened. It's like riding a roller coaster, the slow trip up to the first drop is what makes that first drop so exhilarating. When lurkers are burrowing, mines are being laid, or tanks are sieging the audience is collectively holding its breath. When a protoss or zerg attacks prepares into a heavily fortified tank line, that moment, before the engagement, is just as important, if not more important, than the engagement itself, from a viewer perspective. It's like watching the closing seconds of a tied basketball game, time is out but the ball is in the air. The entire context of the situation gives the action importance, it's not action for action's sake. When I watch an SC2 TvP battle, or ZvP battle there's absolutely no tension. There's TONS of things, exploding, catching on fire, or dying in other sparkly ways, but I don't really care because the conclusion is nearly forgone, I'm just waiting for the AI to make a fancy show out of it.
I don't understand the last three or four sentences. There is some amount of reduced tension in SC2; I would agree with that. But the conclusion is often NOT foregone -- and the casters and audience often have no idea how a battle is going to turn out. There have been so many times when everyone called a battle and it ended up going the other way, due to micro, macro, and general unfamiliarity with the game. And that's just in the big fights, when there is sooo much more in this game. It's far from the a-move bubble v bubble game that all the beta haters claimed it to be.
So the OP is obviously not especially logical -- at least the overall point made is not made logically. It's difficult to respond effectively to something like this. There is something to BW that I want more of in SC2, and I think the OP gets at that pretty well, but I'm not sure he's really found a generalizable source of that feeling. And I think his post makes it clear that a lot of his feeling about the game, individually, is really only what he feels. There is nothing to prove or argue, really; just something to write about and say, "I feel like this."
On April 16 2011 16:47 Carmine wrote: I am new to the (competitive) RTS scene since SC2 so my knowledge on brood war isn't great. With that in mind I think that I can see things that other people may overlook because of my "fresh eyes". I think there are some important things that you overlooked.
On map control: you brought up vultures. I believe that burrowed banelings are basically the equivalent to these. Also broodlords, while late are positional units and make for some interesting interactions, not only because of their siege range, but also because of their pathblocking attack. Don't forget the thors and vikings and their ability to control air space with their range!
On positioning and set up time: I believe that you overlooked the importance of creep and of re positionable spines and spores. These make for very interesting dynamics. Vikings also require a "set up time" which has punished me a lot for trying to harass with them :p
Your fresh eyes are wrong in my opinion, vultures and burrowed banelings are in no way the same, seeing as you probably meant spider mines here I will leave that out of the comparison.
Mines: 125 damage, splash, modified by radius and unit typ. 3 EACH vulture(75 minerals for 3 mines+the vulture itself) Friendly fire Has a MUCH larger range(trigger range etc) ''Easy'' to place(E.G vultures can surround a group of dragoons and plant mines, also in expos'.
Baneling Immobile while underground 50 minerals(1 zergling+morph cost) 25 gas EACH. deals no friendly fire. deals little damage comparable, ~47 to light, which is it max. Its AOE is smaller. Requires placing beforehand(a large margin).
On positioning and set up time: I believe that you overlooked the importance of creep and of re positionable spines and spores. These make for very interesting dynamics. Vikings also require a "set up time" which has punished me a lot for trying to harass with them :p
How is this really interesting?So you can reposition your ''static'' defense,
On micromanagement/engagements: I believe this part was greatly oversimplified. You were saying a lot about battles being 1a, but I feel like there are many things that aren't like that. Marine interaction with ling/bling is one of my favorites. It is very interesting because marines want to clump against the lings, but spread against the banelings. I also believe that fungal growth and force fields are more interesting and dynamic than people make them out to be. When part of your army is fungal'd then you have a choice to engage there or retreat and lose those units. Force fields can be used for more than just trapping and ranging units, they can also be used to shorten your opponents arc. Even when your opponent neural parasites some of your units it make you use more actions to try to focus the infestor while still microing your other units.
Marine baneling is practically the only good example of twosided micro, as one needs to micro the banelings to hit the marines and the marines need to micro away from the banelings. Fungal growth is onesided micro, whether you engage or not is decision making, not micro. Forcefields are unbreakable by anything but the highest tier of units, for T this is the Thor, which is so immobile that in practice it is impossible to use it efficiently, for Zerg this is the Ultralisk, which is far in the game so for a long while the sentries are there since the cyber core(Not saying it is OP in any way, as Protoss needs force fields to defend itself against early game). Force field is an intersting dynamic but in the end it is onesided.
SC2 needs more twosided micro, such as Marine baneling.
On April 16 2011 15:38 benjammin wrote: not to derail any discussions here but split-map 200/200 snorefests from BW are probably not an example of something that's missing. one of the most exciting parts of sc2 for me is that each race has viable unit compositions that are mobile and can keep constant action going. also, lower mechanics don't create a lowered skill ceiling by any means, and if anything emphasize the importance of other aspects of the game (which, in turn, has made foreigners more competitive on the highest level). call me crazy, but i don't miss watching robot b-team koreans smash the best foreigners.
You are really contradicting yourself aren't you ? first you said you are not derailing and than you hop on to smack talk about bw 200/200 f**king snorefest have you ever watch a msl or osl i bet you don't because you just love to assume that bw is a macro game and boring because you can't even reach D rank in bw even in iccup ? seriously aren't you trolling now but than again back on to the topic overall I do realised that not only sc2 lacks map control or unit that has actual potential to do such . In my opinion the graphic it self in sc2 hinders it spectator enjoyment especially seeing blob vs blob on the big screen is really not that very exciting but that again i hope sc2 actually gets better in hots or in lov expansion till than goodluck.
i've been here longer than you by almost 2 years and nothing you said in any part of this post makes sense. as for map control--what is anyone even trying to say? what is the argument? that sc2 lacks lurkers? that terran is more of a dynamic race now and not as dependent on turtling? what about the viability of unit immobility is good for the viewer?
The fact is you dodge my responses and added your own questions without even bothering to read doesn't even warrant a proper response from me yeah obviously do you like to see billiongs of zergling with hp running across the map and into terran base without even being able to tell what is he doing due to the blob tendency sc2 displaying every map ? . Terran doesn't turtle in sc2 give me a break not only are they slower due to the need of building a supply depot and barracks you think it actuallys give terran the aggressiveness it broodwar counter part has . Early rushes such as BBS all were highlight gameplays of the time giving spectator thrills whenever such plays are actually brought up . Not only T has to wall off them self in every game due to early rushes only shows that it lacks the dynamic play in way bw permitted terran to play look at siege tank position and vulture mines they permitted terran to gain map control and yet make the game interesting as it's not a dead end for the toss as with effective stasis it gave the protoss the ability to break through that tank line . So immobility wasn't a problem to the spectator at all as you had huge battle's all over the screen and the power the immobility grants to the terran who uses it well actually made games more interesting. Clearly you have been a troll nonetheless absolutely ignorant of bw and nonetheless dare to put out some dumb comments like 200/200 yeah its a snore fest it's like as if sc2 does not exemplify that kind of play.
A fundamental design flaw. In ZvP how do you prepare for an upcoming battle? ZvT? PvT? PvZ? TvP? Chances are the answer everyone gives to that question is exactly the same. You minimize or maximize surface area, what else can you do? Units in this game don't require setup time. The function of nearly every unit in this game is simple and one dimensional, reduce or improve DPS. One of the few exceptions to this is the siege tank, I'll touch more on this later.
I will say that the answer for most people (starting with myself) is not the same and is not simply to minimize or maximize surface area. As a general statement I will say that players in any matchup will first Identify the problem and use critical thinking to think of a solution. This may include a zergling runby in response to scouting a Terran moving out his army, or delaying lair tech for earlier banelings against a 3 rax timing push. A lot of the critical decisions are made much before the actual engagement. The engagement and outcome is often result of these previous critical decisions rather than poor execution.
Saying that the function of nearly every unit simple and one dimensional is quite hard to justify. Yes, most units in the game have a primary function to do damage and therefore is simple. This however is not a units only function and definitely not one dimensional. Take the zergling for example in a mirror match of ZvZ. At the start of the game the zerglings first function is generally to scout. After the zergling scouts it is used to either attack or defend and win or stay alive. This is where the zerglings function is quite simple. However as the game progresses into the standard Roach Infestor game, zerglings gain a new function on top of scouting, which is to A. Deter expansions, B. Slow creep spread, and C. wait for runby opportunities. Aside from this, Simple funcions are A GOOD THING. Its the interaction of these many different units that makes very diverse, intricate gameplay.
you're missing the point here. i just want you to think how you prepare your army before attacking into the other guys army. what type of engagement would be optimal for you? chances are you are either maximizing or minimizing surface area and letting your units deal their damage.
Do you know what game flow is? We used to have a term that was used abundantly on this board that described a pivotal aspect of competitive play. Controlling the game flow is, in essence, controlling the pace of the game. In ZvT, if a Terran wanted to push out and kill your third, you exercised your map control to slow down the Terran push by slowly moving back lurkers as they got in tank range. Conversely, if you wanted to force an engagement as Terran you unsiege and attack towards another position or drop harass his bases, forcing the Zerg to completely reposition. When you're controlling the flow, the only things that can happen are the things you allow to happen. If he wants a big fight, you drop everywhere. If he wants a macro game, you attack him constantly.
I agree with OP on this, but Starcraft 2 is not any different in concept, only execution and therefore does not lack "game flow." (If this statement was meant to imply that SC2 did lack it in the first place. Im not entirely sure.)
agree. this is just a setup to make sure people get my other points.
The importance of map control. Map control isn't really how much of the map you are literally covering with buildings and units, rather it is how much area can you freely move without contest. Put simply, just because you have a unit in a certain area doesn't mean you have map control of that area, it's that fact that you can actively deny movement in that area that makes it map control. It seems to me like all these ideas build upon one another and that if you want to be able to control the flow of the game you need to have map control, and if you want to have map control you need units that can do more than add DPS. You need units with map prescence. BW had units like lurkers, siege tanks, and vultures that could very effectively control sections of the map. Can you name one other than the siege tank that SC2 has?
I agree that map control is quite important. Your clarification of map control also seems accurate for the most part except the part about needing units with map presence. There are more than one way to obtain map control in SCBW or SC2. The first would simply be a contain. When you simply have your army outside his base you know that he cant just send a probe past you unscathed, so you have map control. Map control is also the quantity and quality of information received from scouting. Mutalisks are a great unit at gaining this valuable information due to the fact that they fly, are fast, and to extent can fight other units and attack structures.
yes, all kinds of map control exist. however, an important aspect is left out in some sc2 matchups and that's the ability to literally hold territory.
Positioning and setup time. I don't really know how to explain positioning, but thankfully there are units that personify the idea of positioning perfectly: siege tanks and lurkers. If you've ever been a victim of a lurker or siege tank contain you know how powerful these units are when they are properly setup. 5 properly setup siege tanks can mow down twice the amount of dragoons and 5 properly positioned lurkers could deny an infinite amount of marines from touching your expansion.
Yes. Positioning is equally important in Starcraft 2.
Terrans have to worry about siege tank positioning, Turret placement to properly protect workers and tech structures, and their overall sim city, making sure that marines are spread against banelings, not leaving your siege tanks undefended by having marines nearby to protect against muta.
Protoss have to have proper sim city, and when they engage are usually more effective in a ball. So there positioning is there "Death ball" without letting colossus get out of place.
Zerg has to position crawlers so that they cover the most area, block the ramp with two queens against banelings or make sure that your army isn't out of place so no runby to the main happens. When engaging a terran army with zerg its extremely effective to use flanks, so positioning units to flank is key.
In this game of Morrow vs MC at the DreamHack Invitational Stockholm + Show Spoiler +
You can clearly see the constant positioning of armies. Morrow retreats his army till in position to make an offensive engagement (positioning is not limited to defense). Morrow capitalizes on positioning using the map to his advantage.
you left out the bulk or my argument about positioning and setup time. i'm not talking about positioning in general, i'm talking about unit positioning before, during, and after battles. army positioning still matters, terrain still matters. i'm not arguing that.
Player-unit interaction. One of the only sources of player-unit interaction in SC2 are spellcasters because they are one of the only units that require actual micromanagement to use properly. The problem with the spellcasters, though, is that they themselves don't promote a player involved response. Think about the sentry and the spells it has, if a guardian shield or forcefield goes up, as the opposing player what are you doing differently? Chances are you aren't doing anything or you are in full retreat. What about the infestor? What's your response to the infestor besides maximizing surface area or neutralizing it before the battle? When a fungal goes off there is literally nothing you can do to avoid further damage, you just sit there thinking, "well this kinda sucks, I need to spread more".
I do not agree with this statement at all. The "player-unit interaction" I will argue in Starcraft 2 is not only present, but equal if not better than BW. Any player from any race at almost any skill level has a sense of micromanagement (which is what I am assuming that "player-unit interaction" is). Take ZvZ for example. In an all-in situation where both players have banelings and are both fighting for their lives to crush the other player, it is extremely faced paced micro that requires extreme execution where one miss click can cost the game.
yes, you still have to do simple micro. i would argue this idea is different from what i have in mind as player-unit interaction, where units like the lurker require player action to do anything at all. where a unit like the marine with enough control can outmicro it's supposed counter the lurker, where 9 stacked mutalisks can hold 3 groups of marines inside a terran base, where a reaver and a shuttle can absolutely destroy unprepared and poorly controlled armies. it's different than microing away lings so when a baneling goes off it doesnt kill all of them.
Take plague vs fungal growth. If all my front marines plagued, I can run them behind healthier units and still use them to some degree. If I get my front marines fungal'd I get to sit there watching them die stuck in place and there's almost nothing I can do to avoid a second fungal other than running headlong into more fungals. More importantly, plague required a large amount of time to research and you could only cast one per defiler before you had to consume, and many times dark swarm was a better choice. On the other hand, fungal is the primary infestor spell and is smartcasted.
That's one of the primary functions of fungal growth, to limit mobility. The actual function of an infestor is similar to a defiler but in no way worse or better, its just different. Last I checked SC2 and BW are different games. Things that are different with Starcraft 2 yet maintain the feel of Brood War is one of the things that appeals most to me about the game.
equating an infestor to a defiler is very, very wrong. i don't know how else to put it.
Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest.
I find the units in Starcraft 2 quite interesting and equally interactive. It's quite hard to say that there is no contest. Some of the units I miss in the game like the reaver, but others received a vast improvement like the stalker over dragoon. Trying to tell dragoons to move from point A to point B was as painful as nails on a chalkboard.
The fact of the matter is in any situation in either BW or SC2 there is dominant player-unit interaction. It is one of the key elements of Starcraft.
i dont' know where the idea of me basing my argument on dumb unit ai is coming from. have you seen wraith vs muta? reaver/shuttle vs anything? metal tvz in bw? muta micro in bw? the way the units behave and how the player can use them are vastly different. it requires player interaction to get the most of of many bw units simply because of the way they were designed (whetehr on prupose or not).
Mechanics were more than a skill gap. Having a mechanics requirement was what made things in BW impressive. Saying an RTS player only wins because he's faster is like saying a boxer only wins because he's stronger and not a better fighter. It's just stupid.
The high mechanical requirement enabled extremely skilled players to use their units in ways no one ever could. It made large engagements an event in itself because of how difficult it is to maintain your composure when you are controlling 200/200 armies with a 12 unit limit. Huge army fights were a means to and end, and not and end within themselves. The final battle wasn't a formality to end the game that you knew ended minutes ago, it was a direct contest between players. It was the moment when both players go, "I don't care how big your army is, I have mine and I'm going to kill you with it". Have you noticed that during SC2 battle commentators can't say anything other than, "SO MUCH STUFF IS DYING!!", it's because there's nothing for players to do during fights other than pull back damaged units. There's no clutch psi storms, elegant spine dodging, ruthless zealot bombing, flyby reavers, or gross surrounds. It's a variation of 1a vs another variation of 1a.
The sweet irony is that, if multiple unit selection was implemented in BW, battles would still be more interesting and impressive than SC2 battles simply because of unit dynamics. You can't just 1a BW units and have then attack at full effectiveness.
Micro in BW is impressive but tedious. This tedious aspect gives the illusion that better players play BW and to an extent is true due to the time that people have had to master the game. This in no way makes BW a better or superior game to SC2. Micro in SC2 is also equally impressive and only limited by the players. SC2 also brings a more dominant aspect that sets the best from the average, which is "game sense." Game sense is a players ability to absorb information and make decisive decisions to gain an edge in the game. This game sense that players have plays a more important roll in starcraft 2 than BW. Which is why there are a lot more foreigners in the Pro scene of starcraft 2 than BW. BW relied on the tedious refined mechanics a lot more.
i honestly don't know what to say to someone who says bw micro is tedious. marine vs lurker is tedious? reaver shuttle is tedious? mutas are tedious? vult vs goons are tedious? zealot bombs are tedious? i mean have nothing to say if you think all that is tedious.
What does any of this have to do with spectators? It has EVERYTHING to do with the spectators, one of the main reason that BW was such an intense game is because it provided the necessary build-up and tension. Staple damage dealers like the lurker and siege tank made you hold your every time an attack happened. It's like riding a roller coaster, the slow trip up to the first drop is what makes that first drop so exhilarating. When lurkers are burrowing, mines are being laid, or tanks are sieging the audience is collectively holding its breath. When a protoss or zerg attacks prepares into a heavily fortified tank line, that moment, before the engagement, is just as important, if not more important, than the engagement itself, from a viewer perspective. It's like watching the closing seconds of a tied basketball game, time is out but the ball is in the air. The entire context of the situation gives the action importance, it's not action for action's sake. When I watch an SC2 TvP battle, or ZvP battle there's absolutely no tension. There's TONS of things, exploding, catching on fire, or dying in other sparkly ways, but I don't really care because the conclusion is nearly forgone, I'm just waiting for the AI to make a fancy show out of it.
On the other hand when Savior preparing to dive into oov's gigantic tank line I'm sitting there thinking to myself, "He's not going for it is he? OMG HE'S GOING FOR IT! AAAAAAAAA(<--when the army starts advancing)". When the first dark swarms go off and lurkers burrow "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA", when the spines go off and the first row of tanks disappears, "OOOOOOOMMMMGGGGGGGGGG". I can continue watch his progression laid out clearly on my screen. The zerg pushing into terran territory, how far is he going to get? Commentators and fangirls screaming, tank after tank exploding, zergling after zergling splattering all over the map, but Savior keeps marching till there are no tanks left, "HOLY SHIT. I guess that's why they call him Maestro".
I think the biggest tension builder that's lacking in SC2 is in the casting. There's no loud, magnificent Kim Carrier style orations (besides TB) and the public's insistence on seeing the Production tab destroys a lot of the tension that was in BW. You can't flip to a base and see 4 carriers anymore, because everyone saw the Fleet Beacon go down. Honestly, I think changing these two things would have a profound effect on everyone's excitement. I know everyone says they want the production tab open and full information all the time, but there would be a lot more drama if they weren't.
And that's a particular expertise that has to be learned by casters. There are times to show different tabs, times to show players' perspectives and time to unveil the big surprises. I know I've ranted about players in most of this post, but the casters need to improve as well if you really want games to be as big and exciting as they can be.
Closing comments: I really liked this post, but didn't like the lack of support to many of OP's claims. I feel that OP gave WAY too much credit to BW and didn't justify things that OP felt were wrong.
i disagree 100%. i can watch an intense bw game commented in a language that i dont understand and still feel the tension. i can watch some youtube caster i've never heard of cast savior vs oov and i will still hold my breath when savior dives in. it's moments of importance that provide tension, good commentators will just accentuate that.
shuttles with speed upgrade + the reaver was pretty interesting... the enemy could either potentially lose 10 hydras vs the gigantic aoe/splash... or split the units apart... and the projectile wasn't too fast that it wasn't possible to split away
can't really dodge the colossus beams, but they move faster, more hp, and do less damage... ( with enough of them, you could just a-move your opponent to death in some cases )
they added a delay to the colossus' damage point ( made them attack faster, but less damage than worker hp with DPS being equal from the beta version ) so you can't colossus drop someone...
seemed like the bw design team had a good insight on what they wanted the game to turn out than the sc2 team
On April 16 2011 16:47 Carmine wrote: I am new to the (competitive) RTS scene since SC2 so my knowledge on brood war isn't great. With that in mind I think that I can see things that other people may overlook because of my "fresh eyes". I think there are some important things that you overlooked.
On map control: you brought up vultures. I believe that burrowed banelings are basically the equivalent to these. Also broodlords, while late are positional units and make for some interesting interactions, not only because of their siege range, but also because of their pathblocking attack. Don't forget the thors and vikings and their ability to control air space with their range!
On positioning and set up time: I believe that you overlooked the importance of creep and of re positionable spines and spores. These make for very interesting dynamics. Vikings also require a "set up time" which has punished me a lot for trying to harass with them :p
Your fresh eyes are wrong in my opinion, vultures and burrowed banelings are in no way the same, seeing as you probably meant spider mines here I will leave that out of the comparison.
Mines: 125 damage, splash, modified by radius and unit typ. 3 EACH vulture(75 minerals for 3 mines+the vulture itself) Friendly fire Has a MUCH larger range(trigger range etc) ''Easy'' to place(E.G vultures can surround a group of dragoons and plant mines, also in expos'.
Baneling Immobile while underground 50 minerals(1 zergling+morph cost) 25 gas EACH. deals no friendly fire. deals little damage comparable, ~47 to light, which is it max. Its AOE is smaller. Requires placing beforehand(a large margin).
So how do baneling mines reduce tension, exactly? If this thread is about tension, then it would seem baneling mines introduce more tension, because they have to be planted well in advance and they have to be detected to stop.
In BW, on the other hand, if you had enough dragoons, you could snipe a mine before it hit you, even without detection. All this did is slow the game down (control space), which is either strategically exciting or hella boring, just because of how slow it is. This is a subjective call.
But from the perspective of the OP, baneling mines ought to be superior, simply because they introduce more tension and require more set-up.
And if you disagree, it's inevitably going to come down to how you personally FEEL. That's fine, but it's not the most convincing point.
On April 16 2011 17:08 nalgene wrote: shuttles with speed upgrade + the reaver was pretty interesting... the enemy could either potentially lose 10 hydras vs the gigantic aoe/splash... or split the units apart... and the projectile wasn't too fast that it wasn't possible to split away
can't really dodge the colossus beams, but they move faster, more hp, and do less damage... ( with enough of them, you could just a-move your opponent to death in some cases )
they added a delay to the colossus' damage point ( made them attack faster, but less damage than worker hp with DPS being equal from the beta version ) so you can't colossus drop someone...
seemed like the bw design team had a good insight on what they wanted the game to turn out than the sc2 team
I don't think it was intentional at all. Blizzard wasn't aiming to make an esports title with broodwar. I think they just put in a bunch of stuff that seemed cool and they got lucky. ofc it took an expansion and patching to perfect.
On April 16 2011 17:08 nalgene wrote: shuttles with speed upgrade + the reaver was pretty interesting... the enemy could either potentially lose 10 hydras vs the gigantic aoe/splash... or split the units apart... and the projectile wasn't too fast that it wasn't possible to split away
can't really dodge the colossus beams, but they move faster, more hp, and do less damage... ( with enough of them, you could just a-move your opponent to death in some cases )
they added a delay to the colossus' damage point ( made them attack faster, but less damage than worker hp with DPS being equal from the beta version ) so you can't colossus drop someone...
seemed like the bw design team had a good insight on what they wanted the game to turn out than the sc2 team
I don't think it was intentional at all. Blizzard wasn't aiming to make an esports title with broodwar. I think they just put in a bunch of stuff that seemed cool and they got lucky. ofc it took an expansion and patching to perfect.
Agreed with you initially. Don't think it was their patching either but rather just pure luck. The fact that balance patches almost never happened let the players develop their strategies and tactics and practice them for months and years before they were changed. In starcraft 2, they have been balance patching for every few months. Too little patching can be harmful, but too much patching can be just as harmful as well. Like the whole 'we'll make zealots more useful and have them hit when they charge' thing. They could have left them alone and within a year or so, they may have been just fine within the metagame. Could you imagine this approach with broodwar's reavers? "oh those scarabs just don't hit at a hgih enough percentage. let's make them hit 100% of the time". Brood War was the result of pure luck by the designers and determination by the players.
Player-unit interaction. One of the only sources of player-unit interaction in SC2 are spellcasters because they are one of the only units that require actual micromanagement to use properly. The problem with the spellcasters, though, is that they themselves don't promote a player involved response. Think about the sentry and the spells it has, if a guardian shield or forcefield goes up, as the opposing player what are you doing differently? Chances are you aren't doing anything or you are in full retreat. What about the infestor? What's your response to the infestor besides maximizing surface area or neutralizing it before the battle? When a fungal goes off there is literally nothing you can do to avoid further damage, you just sit there thinking, "well this kinda sucks, I need to spread more".
Obviously there is nothing you can do that's comparable to, say, dark swarm
Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest.
Comments like this in the OP are farrr too prevalent. Fortunately, it is absurdly easy to respond to something like this. And this makes the inherent flaw of the OP clear: he's simply talking about how he feels, as an individual. This leads him to make untrue or bizarre statements about the presence or lack of tension, or that he is just "waiting for the AI to make a pretty show of foregone conclusions" when he watches SC2.
I would agree that the reaver is a cool unit -- and if I HAD to choose for some bizarre reason, I would go with the reaver (although siege tank-like massive one-shot DPS units are a little boring -- the reaver, the lurker, and the siege tank are a little too similar).
I like banelings more than lurkers, although I think it could be cool if zergs could more effectively control space. This isn't to say that they can't do it with the current units; that has yet to be established. But yeah, you probably need another unit? But I prefer banelings.
I think it's viking/banshee v wraith. I actually prefer the former two. Wraiths are lame, to be honest.
I also like thors a lot more than goliaths, although goliaths are ok. The sheer might of thors, their size and strength and the concussive cannon thing, are all so much more fun.
The phoenix is sooo much better than the corsair. From moving shot to lift-up -- it's just cooler.
The dragoon has cool shoot-and-fire mechanics in BW -- it's cooler than the immortal. But I like the immortal in SC2.
I prefer BW mutas, but I still like them in SC2.
I prefer SC2 hydras -- they are much less spammable and must be used more situationally, but they're fun.
So, really, IS there no contest? Or is there no contest for... just you? You really have to think about these things honestly. I might even say I prefer watching BW, but I love SC2 more. And I will never ever play BW again. It's annoying to play.
if you notice i give a criteria with which i judge these units and it's player interaction.
What does any of this have to do with spectators? It has EVERYTHING to do with the spectators, one of the main reason that BW was such an intense game is because it provided the necessary build-up and tension. Staple damage dealers like the lurker and siege tank made you hold your every time an attack happened. It's like riding a roller coaster, the slow trip up to the first drop is what makes that first drop so exhilarating. When lurkers are burrowing, mines are being laid, or tanks are sieging the audience is collectively holding its breath. When a protoss or zerg attacks prepares into a heavily fortified tank line, that moment, before the engagement, is just as important, if not more important, than the engagement itself, from a viewer perspective. It's like watching the closing seconds of a tied basketball game, time is out but the ball is in the air. The entire context of the situation gives the action importance, it's not action for action's sake. When I watch an SC2 TvP battle, or ZvP battle there's absolutely no tension. There's TONS of things, exploding, catching on fire, or dying in other sparkly ways, but I don't really care because the conclusion is nearly forgone, I'm just waiting for the AI to make a fancy show out of it.
I don't understand the last three or four sentences. There is some amount of reduced tension in SC2; I would agree with that. But the conclusion is often NOT foregone -- and the casters and audience often have no idea how a battle is going to turn out. There have been so many times when everyone called a battle and it ended up going the other way, due to micro, macro, and general unfamiliarity with the game. And that's just in the big fights, when there is sooo much more in this game. It's far from the a-move bubble v bubble game that all the beta haters claimed it to be.
So the OP is obviously not especially logical -- at least the overall point made is not made logically. It's difficult to respond effectively to something like this. There is something to BW that I want more of in SC2, and I think the OP gets at that pretty well, but I'm not sure he's really found a generalizable source of that feeling. And I think his post makes it clear that a lot of his feeling about the game, individually, is really only what he feels. There is nothing to prove or argue, really; just something to write about and say, "I feel like this."
the reason i say it's nearly a foregone conclusion is because player interaction has very little effect on outcome in comparison to bw. take sc2 tvp, during a fight you kite a little and focus fire colossus with vikings. that's pretty much it. on the other hand bw tvp you can block units with vultures, manually target goon clumps, mine behind zealots but infront of advancing goons. all this has tremendous influence in swinging the battle.
it might not be logical for me to want positionally pivotal units like lurkers, defielrs, and tanks to be more prevalent. but as far as whether or not they have an impact on viewability and playability i think i've provided a pretty logical argument.
What i feel missing from sc2 is breathing room for the defender.The speed of reinforcing is just too fast.When you watch a TvP, or a PvZ,once the battle ends and theres like 10 units left,those 10 units are actually able to end the game right there.Like in TvP,when there are then marauders left,or 10 stalkers+1 collosus,they can easily run up to the defender's expos and just kill everything,or just run into the main and destroy the producing structures just like that,with instant reinforcements from the protoss or terran..You dont see that in TvT because of siege tanks.
TBH I've seen D ranked ICCUP games that are more fun to watch than the best SC2 games.
Even if you take a bland SC2 style 1 base timing attack in BW, the BW version is still much more exciting.
Even if a player banked 3000 minerals, never reached 200/200, pulls of terrible storms/swarms, bad muta micro, lurker / marine control, does sub-par ling run-bys, it was still fun to watch.
The unit designs in BW simply forced players to put in that extra effort to focus on their units.
Often it didn't matter how much stuff you had, because good unit control went a long way. If I put 2 lurkers above a ramp, you can send as many marines in as you want, the marines aren't gonna do jack shit they will simply all die before getting above the ramp. You can't put equal cost banelings above a ramp and do the same thing.
What does this mean though, it means that I actually have to do an elevator -> which means something different to just a-move. The other thing is that dropships weren't a staple unit, you needed more tech as well.
I'm not really one to care about MBS or mechanical differences. Most spectators couldn't give a stuff about unlimited unit selection, or how well pro-players can make stuff.
However, spectators do care about mechanics, swarm AI has not produced "better pathing", and the unit designs, playstyle goals, the flow of the game produced from all these factors are very subpar in SC2.
Another thing I guess is the theme. When units die in SC2 you hear a splat or explosion and don't see any gore. In BW when a unit dies there is a blood curdling scream, or the cry of a dragoon followed by a lot of gore which is very visible.
i think they need to lower the dps of everything. Battles just happen way too fast and its sloppy as hell even at high masters. Stuff just dies way too fast for micro to even help anything. sometimes in sc2, a-moving is your best option. this should never be the case.
Well first off - great post mahnini, and i would say there are a lot of different things from BW to SC2 that seems to have "lessened" the game.
A couple points is that some of these differences are based on technology - i am mainly referring to the whole smartcast issue; technology is meant to make things more user friendly. If Blizzard had smart cast 10 years ago i guarantee you it'd be in BW. I mean, it's also more logical.
As much as i love your post (and i am not just saying that) - i am really waiting for that thread about "What SC2 HAS!" rather than what it's missing. There are plenty things that raise tension in the games; baneling micro and infestor micro are pretty awesome - watching a fungle growth go down may stop the micro element but it definitely affects future engagements, tech switches, army composition etc.
On April 16 2011 16:55 suejak wrote:Comments like this in the OP are farrr too prevalent. Fortunately, it is absurdly easy to respond to something like this. And this makes the inherent flaw of the OP clear: he's simply talking about how he feels, as an individual. This leads him to make untrue or bizarre statements about the presence or lack of tension, or that he is just "waiting for the AI to make a pretty show of foregone conclusions" when he watches SC2.
Except there's some universal truths behind his statements. You take them for opinions, I take them for the current state of SC2 micro-management.
[quoteI would agree that the reaver is a cool unit -- and if I HAD to choose for some bizarre reason, I would go with the reaver (although siege tank-like massive one-shot DPS units are a little boring -- the reaver, the lurker, and the siege tank are a little too similar). [/quote]
Except... they're not. Maybe the lurker and siegetank because they can hold ground, but the reaver is so unique because it's like a dagger. It can strike sharp and hard, but it requires precise micro to keep it alive and to know where to strike. It's soooooooo different from lurker and siegetank which are all based on positioning. I think that last part discredits you a bit.
I like banelings more than lurkers, although I think it could be cool if zergs could more effectively control space. This isn't to say that they can't do it with the current units; that has yet to be established. But yeah, you probably need another unit? But I prefer banelings.
It's great that you prefer banelings, but the problem is that they still can't hold ground. If you lose a ling/muta army to rine/tank but somehow manage to morph 30 banelings behind that, you're still screwed. You can't force the terran to inch forward bit by bit like you could with lurkers, because its either you can kill them or you can't.
I think it's viking/banshee v wraith. I actually prefer the former two. Wraiths are lame, to be honest.
Whoopdedoo, wraiths require much more micro than vikings. Fact of the matter. Sure, banshees can scoot and shoot, like a valkyrie in BW, but that's nothing to the BW-muta-esque control attainable by wraiths.
I also like thors a lot more than goliaths, although goliaths are ok. The sheer might of thors, their size and strength and the concussive cannon thing, are all so much more fun.
But once again, you can't control the thor. There's no interaction that makes or breaks the unit. You can't micro the thor to get <- this
Face it, if a thor's in a disadvantage, it's most likely dead unless your army can scare away theirs. Otherwise, if you have a thor out being chased by any unit, it's dead.
The phoenix is sooo much better than the corsair. From moving shot to lift-up -- it's just cooler.
I personally think the sair is cooler too, but without scourge, it just doesn't require the same micro sairs did to maintain their efficiency and stay alive.
[quoteThe dragoon has cool shoot-and-fire mechanics in BW -- it's cooler than the immortal. But I like the immortal in SC2. [/quote]
But the dragoon was more interactive. You can't control immortals like the way you could dance dragoons. I mean, even with the horrible dragoon AI, if you were good, you could create beauty out of dragoon dancing. You could kill hordes of lings, which usually counter dragoons, by dancing them. In SC2? Not really. Although, I say this is unfair because stalkers are much cooler cuz of blink and their speed. ^_^ Immortals though, are boring to micro.
I prefer BW mutas, but I still like them in SC2.
but BW mutas were easily much more agile and responsive.
I prefer SC2 hydras -- they are much less spammable and must be used more situationally, but they're fun.
And slower, and dumber, and less useful, and you don't have to storm dodge, you just let them attack behind roaches until they get killed by colossi.
So, really, IS there no contest? Or is there no contest for... just you? You really have to think about these things honestly. I might even say I prefer watching BW, but I love SC2 more. And I will never ever play BW again. It's annoying to play.
There isn't a contest in what Mahini's trying to say for the unit interaction part, which is that SC2 requires much less attention and micro to your units than BW. It's not that the SC2 units aren't fun. It's that they're not... really YOUR units. It's more like the AI's controlling them than you are.
On April 16 2011 16:55 suejak wrote: I don't think anyone has the energy to respond to every point in the OP, but I'll do a couple.
On April 16 2011 09:35 mahnini wrote:
Player-unit interaction. One of the only sources of player-unit interaction in SC2 are spellcasters because they are one of the only units that require actual micromanagement to use properly. The problem with the spellcasters, though, is that they themselves don't promote a player involved response. Think about the sentry and the spells it has, if a guardian shield or forcefield goes up, as the opposing player what are you doing differently? Chances are you aren't doing anything or you are in full retreat. What about the infestor? What's your response to the infestor besides maximizing surface area or neutralizing it before the battle? When a fungal goes off there is literally nothing you can do to avoid further damage, you just sit there thinking, "well this kinda sucks, I need to spread more".
Obviously there is nothing you can do that's comparable to, say, dark swarm
great we agree.
Hahaha. For a banhammer mod, you sure are flippant. I guess that's how this site works.
Even staple units were replaced by less interesting, less interactive versions of themselves. Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra? There's just no contest.
Comments like this in the OP are farrr too prevalent. Fortunately, it is absurdly easy to respond to something like this. And this makes the inherent flaw of the OP clear: he's simply talking about how he feels, as an individual. This leads him to make untrue or bizarre statements about the presence or lack of tension, or that he is just "waiting for the AI to make a pretty show of foregone conclusions" when he watches SC2.
I would agree that the reaver is a cool unit -- and if I HAD to choose for some bizarre reason, I would go with the reaver (although siege tank-like massive one-shot DPS units are a little boring -- the reaver, the lurker, and the siege tank are a little too similar).
I like banelings more than lurkers, although I think it could be cool if zergs could more effectively control space. This isn't to say that they can't do it with the current units; that has yet to be established. But yeah, you probably need another unit? But I prefer banelings.
I think it's viking/banshee v wraith. I actually prefer the former two. Wraiths are lame, to be honest.
I also like thors a lot more than goliaths, although goliaths are ok. The sheer might of thors, their size and strength and the concussive cannon thing, are all so much more fun.
The phoenix is sooo much better than the corsair. From moving shot to lift-up -- it's just cooler.
The dragoon has cool shoot-and-fire mechanics in BW -- it's cooler than the immortal. But I like the immortal in SC2.
I prefer BW mutas, but I still like them in SC2.
I prefer SC2 hydras -- they are much less spammable and must be used more situationally, but they're fun.
So, really, IS there no contest? Or is there no contest for... just you? You really have to think about these things honestly. I might even say I prefer watching BW, but I love SC2 more. And I will never ever play BW again. It's annoying to play.
if you notice i give a criteria with which i judge these units and it's player interaction.
And you're just wrong that this generalizes to every unit. You're also wrong that guardian shield and forcefield do not encourage a player response. There's plenty of sentry sniping and tactical retreats (not just full-on retreats coz you lost). Is this the same as a dark swarm? Actually, kind of. Your position is rendered unfavourable, so you pull back and reposition.
Honestly, how can you claim that wraiths are more interactive than viking/banshee? It's just an odd thing to say. Your true emotional colours come out: you just prefer BW and you're trying to believe that you feelings run deeper than nostalgia.
What does any of this have to do with spectators? It has EVERYTHING to do with the spectators, one of the main reason that BW was such an intense game is because it provided the necessary build-up and tension. Staple damage dealers like the lurker and siege tank made you hold your every time an attack happened. It's like riding a roller coaster, the slow trip up to the first drop is what makes that first drop so exhilarating. When lurkers are burrowing, mines are being laid, or tanks are sieging the audience is collectively holding its breath. When a protoss or zerg attacks prepares into a heavily fortified tank line, that moment, before the engagement, is just as important, if not more important, than the engagement itself, from a viewer perspective. It's like watching the closing seconds of a tied basketball game, time is out but the ball is in the air. The entire context of the situation gives the action importance, it's not action for action's sake. When I watch an SC2 TvP battle, or ZvP battle there's absolutely no tension. There's TONS of things, exploding, catching on fire, or dying in other sparkly ways, but I don't really care because the conclusion is nearly forgone, I'm just waiting for the AI to make a fancy show out of it.
I don't understand the last three or four sentences. There is some amount of reduced tension in SC2; I would agree with that. But the conclusion is often NOT foregone -- and the casters and audience often have no idea how a battle is going to turn out. There have been so many times when everyone called a battle and it ended up going the other way, due to micro, macro, and general unfamiliarity with the game. And that's just in the big fights, when there is sooo much more in this game. It's far from the a-move bubble v bubble game that all the beta haters claimed it to be.
So the OP is obviously not especially logical -- at least the overall point made is not made logically. It's difficult to respond effectively to something like this. There is something to BW that I want more of in SC2, and I think the OP gets at that pretty well, but I'm not sure he's really found a generalizable source of that feeling. And I think his post makes it clear that a lot of his feeling about the game, individually, is really only what he feels. There is nothing to prove or argue, really; just something to write about and say, "I feel like this."
the reason i say it's nearly a foregone conclusion is because player interaction has very little effect on outcome in comparison to bw. take sc2 tvp, during a fight you kite a little and focus fire colossus with vikings. that's pretty much it. on the other hand bw tvp you can block units with vultures, manually target goon clumps, mine behind zealots but infront of advancing goons. all this has tremendous influence in swinging the battle.
it might not be logical for me to want positionally pivotal units like lurkers, defielrs, and tanks to be more prevalent. but as far as whether or not they have an impact on viewability and playability i think i've provided a pretty logical argument.
[/quote] I'm not sure where you think the logic is. I'm not sure that positional units are lacking, much less than the lurker and defilier would make the game more interesting to watch. Indeed, BW is often much slower because of them -- and not always in a good way. So it comes down to preferences and what you're used to, and BW has obviously been with you for a long time.
"Colossus vs reaver? Baneling vs lurker? Viking vs wraith? Thor vs goliath? Phoenix vs corsair? Immortal vs dragoon? Muta vs muta? Hydra vs hydra?"
Could you go more in depth for each of these comparisons, and put it in the OP? (It may have been discussed before but I haven't read the entire thread). It would be nice for those who barely played Broodwar, like me.
I've already read a lot about colossus vs reaver, and I don't think baneling vs lurker is a justified comparison because they're so different (unless banelings were intended to replace the role of lurkers, but either way, lurkers were discussed a lot already), but the rest seem interesting. What made the wraith, golaith, corsair, dragoon, and old versions of muta and hydra so much better?
EDIT: Wow, just saw two posts above me. But, still be nice to see in the OP
Wow, I am not much of a theory guy so all I will say is that this was a good read and I agree 100% with it. Since its more noob friendly, it requires less skill, something along the lines of that. Reaver <3
EPT
