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On April 16 2011 09:53 Excalibur_Z wrote:
In SC2, because your units are more effective in a "ball" and you're not fighting pathing, it's almost always better to bring as many units together as possible. I think if the pathfinding in BW were better we would see the same thing. Any unit that you are not actively bringing with you is wasted potential damage that could help turn the tide of a battle.
There is still some pretty cool stuff in SC2 like Blink micro that doesn't really have a BW equivalent, though.
I think outside of a few situations, it seems that the very micro intensive battles seem to happen early in the game in SC2. 4gate v. 4gate, for example. For whatever reason, micro seems to play a lot smaller roll in the mid game than it used to. I think we do see some exciting moments in SC2 mid game though:
1) Marine splits v. Banelings
2) Forcefields to produce exciting in game moments, but as you said, its one sided and momentary. I did see someone in the NASL use a medivac to pick up marines in front of forcefields and drop them off behind mid battle (I think it was in a NASL game, I watch too much, I can't remember all the time where each game is from), I was impressed, but I can't remember which game it was in.
So, there are moments there, but I think due to the fact, as you said, that battles are over so quickly, that it seems that micro has generally been deemphasized in favor of macro, in part due to AI improvements that have made bigger armies almost always simply better than smaller ones. I'm painting with a broad brush here, and I could easily be corrected on certain points, but you get the idea.
The other big one I think is map control, as you brought up. If anyone has a premium NASL subscription and hasn't seen Nada v. DDE from last night, GO WATCH IT. Game 3 especially. Some old school tank lines in that game, and I won't spoil it, but that match felt very "old school" to me. In fact, the one matchup that produces those kinds of games tends to be TvT - and Tanks probably sums up the reason.
Anyway, I'm a noob in the end, and more spectator than player , so my opinions aren't exactly "pro" but I'm not sure what else can be done in the current state of the game besides hope that players get even better at unit control. Perhaps HotS will offer up some protoss and zerg units that can can act more as territory control.
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I agree with all the OP points. Very well stated. I especially liked how you described the player-unit interaction part. I never thought of it that way, but it's a big reason the fights aren't as exciting. I hope with an SC2 expansion there is better interactivity with the current units, or new units that have better interactivity.
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I just really despise abilities like concussive shells they mitigate any form of micro and really just make the game frustrating because someone can right click your unit and you cannot do anything about it.
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Positional units that allow for degrees of map control are important for stable gameflow, yes.
Mechanical difficulty (i.e. selection limits) don't necessarily contribute anything to how great it is to watch as a spectator - when I watch BW I don't think about how difficult it is to do what these guys are doing.
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 think most of these are debatable. reavers and lurkers definitely require more control but I'm not so sure about the rest of your comparisons.
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I just watched the Jaedong vs. Stork FPVOD for the first time. MAN, was my mind blown! I feel that there's really no parallel you can draw between the FPVOD for an SC1 game and the FPreplay for a sc2 game.
The OP really hit the nail on the head, the wow factor of what players can do in SC2 is really non-existent.
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What I just really don't enjoy about this topic is that it isn't saying "What could make SC2 even better?" or such, it starts out with an obvious idea that SC2 is fundamentally flawed in comparison to an 11 year old game.
There are points to be had but I just think this topic won't really try to improve SC2 asmuch as fanboy BW and sadly these topics are the realization of their own prophecies: By complaining this much, people will finally think it to be true. Just as NASL is being trolled at every turn even though it doesn't deserve it, it's just snowballing.
User was temp banned for this post.
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Starcraft 2 has the problem of really boring units. Think about it, every race has a lot of repetitive units that have differing uses in the game but actually all do similar things. Marines/marauders, stalker/immortal, roach/hydra. In bw, there were 0 units that were similar to each other. In sc2, it seems as if they dumbed down the design of each race so badly that every race has a bog standard unit that shoots some projectile that counters something.
I think the roach, immortal, corrupter, hellion, Viking, are all examples of blizzard making a unit to fit a role.
When they designed the immortal, they were thinking "armoured unit which counters armored unit."
Now think of the defiler. I doubt the person inventing the defiler was thinking "I want to make a unit to counter the marine and all other ranged units," they were thinking "do you know what's cool? PLAGUEEEE! DARK SWARM!!'
When they made the vulture, they didn't think "something to counter zealots," they were thinking "fastest unit in the game which costs 75 minerals and can lay down mini nukes which can destroy the opponents army in seconds."
With the hellion, you can tell it was a "unit to counter light units".
It's almost as if blizzard tried too hard at making the game balanced because everyone knew that designing something that was as overpowered as the vulture, reaver, lurker, defiler, would be hard to balance.
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this is NOT about the superficial factors. i'd appreciate it if you'd properly discuss in this thread rather than try to attack me THANKS.
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I think there is game-flow type play but people aren't utilizing them fully yet especially because things go boom quite quickly in SCII. After all things like creep and pylon warp in require 'setup' time.
I mean, you can still control flow but SCII is much faster and newer. I've seen beautiful flanks and multi-pronged attacks executed in SCII but those are the exception rather than the norm that was brood war. I think you'll need to give it time before writing the game design off.
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I do feel like the vulture mines were replaced by the banelings mines (burrowed banes)
but it doesnt provide as much map control, I have to agree.
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Do you remember how games looked back in 2001? You look at them now and they look absolutely stupid and that was three years after the expansion was released. We're not even a full year into SC2, and yes knowledge gained from bw has passed on, but to think that we've reached a peek in knowing how to play the game is a bit presumptive. Blizzard certainly knows that people want to see more units that act like BW units. (that or they got there head under a rock) But even if they don't come through with good changes with the expansions odds are the games played next year will feature less and less 1a battles as people figure out the finer points of utilizing units to their full potential.
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BW and SC2 has the same story, but they are not the same game.You could write a same list about what SC2 has and BW doesnt aswell, the thing is that SC2 will never be like BW. SC2 brings new challenges and quicker games, more suitable for the foreign scene.
I've jumped in and out of the BW scene for several years, andi loved the matches. But i must admit the thrill from SC2 is bigger.
Watching Kiwikaki vs Morrow at the reddit tour was awesome games, the complexity of that series was way more complex thene normal ppl can handle.Blizzard coulda copied BW in anyway they wanted, only they wanted to appeal to new crowds while still appealing to old BW fans.
As legends rise in this game icant see why it will die out.
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On April 16 2011 10:20 Antisocialmunky wrote:
I think there is game-flow type play but people aren't utilizing them fully yet especially because things go boom quite quickly in SCII. After all things like creep and pylon warp in require 'setup' time.
it's somewhat similar, but kind of misses the mark. if we are playing PvZ in SC2 and i come out slightly ahead, i can IMMEDIATELY attack you creep or no creep. there is no position you can hold if you don't have a unit advantage. with units like lurker or siege tank, i can more effectively hold ground so a slight advantage doesn't turn into a snowball steamroll.
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Taking out the fact that I know you're a gigantic BW fanboy, and incredibly disgruntled with this game  There's some good points in here.
I think SC2 could definitely use some improvements, but I think the gloom-and-doom approach some of the old BW veterans take to the game is a little extreme, and honestly it's really obnoxious. I absolutely agree that SC2 micro compared to BW is a bit more... one dimensional. One thing I didn't see you mention (I got tired halfway through and fell asleep, sorry Mahnini ;p ), although others have commented, is how much Unit pathing has improved. This causes the "ball up" type function, whereas in BW you spent half the game trying to get your retarded fucking dragoons to go where you wanted them to. Hell, I've played games with you and seen you bitch about pathing, when in reality it's infinity times better than BW, lol.
Also, the patent "well the game still has two xpacs and 10 years to catch up to BW" response DOES hold some validity, as there were a lot of units in the history of BW that were considered one dimensional until Boxer or some other innovator came up with a new exciting way to use them. I know we've all thought about every unit a million different ways in SC2, and haven't come up with anything yet, but I won't be surprised when someone else comes up with something new. Hopefully the expansions will hold some more versatile units to diversify the game a little bit as well.
All that stuff being said, I definitely miss some of the elements of BW that really made me think "Man, I could never do what Flash does" whereas in SC2, I'm a pretty average player and I look at most of the top players and think "If I played more, I could be that good." The macro mechanics, streamlined interface, and "user friendly" improvements really do lower the skill gap between the top players and the scrubs like me, I miss the old feeling of awe watching the legends play SCBW.
If you want to make a rant post about how shitty SC2 is, I wish you'd talk more about how the SC2 community approaches difficult situations by expecting a nerf because something is imba, instead of figuring out how to beat it
tldr; Yeah, BW had some stuff that was better, but I think given time and maturation, SC2 will be a great game in it's own right, just not a BW clone like so many wish it was.
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Oh i wish you had written this up and sent it to Blizzard 2 years ago.
They could've made sc2 into a true successor. It baffles me now blizzard missed out what made BW great. They have been spending so much time on this game how could they have missed these elements? Is Dustin just that stupid or did they consciously make the decision to dumb down SC2 for a wider audience?
SC2 is fun, but not that fun, there is definitely a lot missing from it.
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2) Forcefields to produce exciting in game moments, but as you said, its one sided and momentary. I did see someone in the NASL use a medivac to pick up marines in front of forcefields and drop them off behind mid battle (I think it was in a NASL game, I watch too much, I can't remember all the time where each game is from), I was impressed, but I can't remember which game it was in.
I saw the game it was in the NASL it was freakin epic multiple drops plus that micro happening it was crazy the toss couldn't handle it and lost the game as a result
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Great, great post, really, I never played BW, but of what I've seen and hear you tell everything of what people say and you explained it in such way, really, so good.
I really think that the cause for almost everything in this list is because its noob-friendly like someone said, it's sad, when i watch BW matches they are really more exciting that SC2 matches, for example, when ST_Squirtle played against IMMVP in the GSTL, that was so good, and it reminds me a little of BW, because it was for T so mech heavy, and the mothership like if it was an arbitrer. I know it's not the same, but it was a little similar, and that match was so exciting.
Again, thanks for a great reading, and i think nobody can desagree with what you are saying. (:!
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Starcraft 2 allows for very tight balls of units in comparison to BW. This results in something like the "fishswarm effect" which makes it hard for a predator to focus on a target. In BW you probably had to look at the whole screen with equal focus during a battle, but in SC2 I would think that you have to narrow down your focus on smaller groups of units ... to blink Stalkers in 2s or 3s, spread out Marines stimming away from Banelings or individually burrowing Roaches. Maybe some of those who have played both games competitively can confirm or deny this.
In any case I think the "swarm nature" of SC2 makes it hard to see what is going on if you are simply watching a game. As a viewer you can have the same problem a shark has when faced with an abundance of delicious fish (or a customer in a supermarket filled with too many brands to choose from). This might make it harder for new non-Starcraft-players to start watching the game, because you cant focus on one part of the battle to begin with and then slowly start watching the whole battle.
Personally I think the area attacks should be punishing more ... i.e. Siege Tank splash (more damage), psi Storm (bigger area) and Fungal Growth (although Zerg also has the very useful Baneling to force an enemy to spread out his units). Each race should have these "frightening area effects" which kinda give an opponent the choice to either spread out his ball of units and risk less OR to use the ball for maximum firepower at higher risk. Single Siege Tanks dont really hurt right now and only they are deadly only if they are massed in high numbers or are in positions you cant attack. Psi Storm is pretty small and although it deals some damage it is mostly only effective if people dont move out of it. This choice between "spread out army" or "focused army" might make the game a bit more entertaining, but it also has the danger to make it more volatile than it is right now.
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I didn't play BW, but I've watched a fair few games, and I have to agree with everything you've said. The main problem I have with micro in SC2 is that it's so one-sided. Force fields are probably the best example of this - I play Zerg, and whenever I attack a Protoss I have to 1a in and hope he messes up. If his force fields are bad, I crush him without microing anything at all. If they're good, I lose. There's literally nothing I can do if he FFs well. Banelings vs. marines. If he keeps them bunched, I win with just 1a. If he splits well, he wins. Nothing I can do about it. Playing against blink stalkers - if he has good blink micro gg, otherwise I win. Roach burrow? If he burrows well I lose, if he does it poorly I win.
I'm sure someone's going to tell me that there are actually counters to all these things. Ultralisks can crush well-placed force fields. Fungals stop blink micro and marine splits. Having detection stops roach burrow from working. And that's just part of the problem. If I have ultralisks against sentries, what can the Protoss player do to make his force fields work? Nothing. If my fungals on the marines/stalkers are good, what can my opponent do to win the fight? Nothing. If I have that overseer floating over my army, what can burrowed roaches do to beat me anyway? Nothing. EMPs against Protoss: if the Terran lands EMPs well your entire army loses half its health and it's gg. If he makes a mistake you can pick off/feedback ghosts, but the only way to avoid dying to EMPs is to rely on your opponent making a mistake. There's no interaction at all micro-wise, there's never any sorts of micro wars. It's all just a case of one player having to land their spells right and the other player crossing their fingers and praying, and that doesn't make for a good spectator sport. Watching a Protoss 4gate and FF the Zerg's ramp isn't exciting, it isn't skill-intensive, it's just one player not making any significant mistakes.
I'm hoping the expansions are going to add some really interesting and deep units, because if they don't this game isn't going to last long as an e-sport. I currently enjoy watching it, but unless the game evolves I probably won't be in a year's time. Unfortunately Blizzard has never given me any reason to believe that they're even vaguely competent, but hopefully they can pull off a miracle.
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Good read, I agree with everything you said. I think though the main thing to remember is that the two are vastly different games and the mechanics from BW shouldnt exist in SC2. I do think though there are other things they could do to come to the same result. I think one think is that stuff just dies too fast in Starcraft, making aggression so strong, and expanding so risky.
The whole spells thing I don't buy. Plague and ensnare were both thing that completely were incredibly strong. I would go so far as to say that emp, irradiate, and maelstrom were also all very strong spells. Its just that it was so much harder to use those units and those spells in broodwar. Keeping a single defiler alive in combat was incredibly difficult to do. When you brought it in to drop a Dark Swarm, imagine how OP that'd be in BW, you were pretty much under the idea that it wasn't coming out of battle.
The biggest difference I think is worker thing. The efficiency of a second base in BW was so incredibly strong and it encouraged you to expand often and as much as possible. That's not the case in SC2. If you don't exand at the right time the chances are you're just going to get killed. I think that goes back to the whole. "shit dies too fast" arguement, but I think this is all stuff that can and probably will change far into the future.
We have to understand that this game is still in its infancy and that it will come into its own the more its played. Alternatively I'm sure we will see changes in successive expansions. I'm sure most would argue that SC was fairly broken and silly until Broodwar came out, and not even until a couple patches out did the game really balance out. If we look at it there are still lots of units that are for the most part not used in BW, so saying it was completely balanced is a little false. The scout, dark archon, and firebat were INCREDIBLY niche units that often wouldn't see use other than to BM.
I have to believe that the game will come into its own in time and as successive expansions come out. I'm not expecting SC2 to be BW, and I don't think it should be, but I do think it will be an excellent game eventually. I do think it's already a good solid game and a fun esport to be involved in, but I think it will get better in time.
Nice, well thought out post. Good read.
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