EPT[D] What SC2 is missing? - Page 25
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TheRPGAddict
United States1403 Posts
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mordk
Chile8385 Posts
If you go back and see SC vanilla, I'm pretty sure you'll find many of the same problems. If you go watch pro games of the first couple of pro BW years, you'll see pros failing in pretty much the same aspects as SC2 pros do now. I believe 2 things: -Comparing a fully developed pro scene with years upon years of strategy development, unit experiments, and more, to a less-than-1-year-old game, with a scene in infant stages but constant development, in which metagame shifts are common and stars haven't even achieved dominance, is silly and doesn't make too much sense. -You need to wait at least for an expansion to make this kind of comparison, this argument itself has 2 corolaries; first, the obvious, is that when blizz released SC1 it had a pretty large amount of problems in "game design" as we call them, and strategic problems that were fixed with the release of BW. Anyone who objects this didn't play SC vanilla. The second, is that due to some strange choices in the way blizz released SC2, Terran is clearly, very clearly, the most developed and thought through race, while the other 2 look somewhat bland in comparison, this will probably be addressed in expansions. | ||
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karpo
Sweden1998 Posts
On April 17 2011 00:55 deafhobbit wrote: Um, if you haven't noticed, even regular BW events draw much larger crowds than Sc2 events do, and I've never seen even the largest Sc2 events come close to the numbers that Starleague or Proleague finals can draw. In korea. I think it was D9 who said that back in BW EU/US players would jump at the chance to win a $200 tournament, so the spectators of BW outside of korea wasn't that big. SC2 on the other hand is massive. Dreamhack could have easily filled a arena twice or four times the size of the one they used. | ||
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BeMannerDuPenner
Germany5638 Posts
On April 17 2011 00:57 mordk wrote: Time is the answer people. TIME. I understand the argument that says that gamers are now "RTS experienced" when compared to 1 year after SC, but it doesn't mean too much considering the way you play SC2 is fundamentally different from how you played BW. It's just, a different game. If you go back and see SC vanilla, I'm pretty sure you'll find many of the same problems. If you go watch pro games of the first couple of pro BW years, you'll see pros failing in pretty much the same aspects as SC2 pros do now. I believe 2 things: -Comparing a fully developed pro scene with years upon years of strategy development, unit experiments, and more, to a less-than-1-year-old game, with a scene in infant stages but constant development, in which metagame shifts are common and stars haven't even achieved dominance, is silly and doesn't make too much sense. -You need to wait at least for an expansion to make this kind of comparison, this argument itself has 2 corolaries; first, the obvious, is that when blizz released SC1 it had a pretty large amount of problems in "game design" as we call them, and strategic problems that were fixed with the release of BW. Anyone who objects this didn't play SC vanilla. The second, is that due to some strange choices in the way blizz released SC2, Terran is clearly, very clearly, the most developed and thought through race, while the other 2 look somewhat bland in comparison, this will probably be addressed in expansions. time is in no way comparable. sc2 is that succesful cause of broodwar and to a lesser extend wc3. then one of the basic problems is that the game is very one dimensional so all that development and evolution is super limited. and yes expansions can change things. thats why threads like this are so needed. cause so far most of blizzards design decisions went in the exact opposite way of what made broodwar so great. | ||
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buscemi
116 Posts
Your examples of BW map control are basically static, fire-and-forget AOE defenses (spider mines, lurkers, siege tanks). I think that's a poor definition. What gives map control in SC2? I would argue that SC2 map control is taken more actively. While Zerg does technically have spider mines (banelings), and those can be used to great effect versus mass bio, Zerg map control usually comes from fast harassment units like speedlings and mutas. Map control is used to deny scouting and harassment. It isn't really used to constrict the movement of entire armies. Map control is something you need against a turtling player who is building up for a critical mass timing attack. Without active map control, they can keep doing that and perform cost-effective harassment at the same time. Without active map control, they can more easily scout your composition and tailor their high-tech army to counter it even better. I don't understand why you claim the only unit suited for map control is the Siege Tank. It's actually a pretty terrible unit for map control, since it's only effective in large numbers, and therefore really allows controlling only a very specific chokepoint. Sure, if a map is very poorly designed and has only one narrow avenue of attack, siege tanks can lock that avenue down. But in doing so a player dedicates a huge portion of their supply to an immobile defensive line that becomes weaker and weaker as the game progresses. 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. So I take you haven't seen MKP's marine splits versus banelings and even siege tanks, or Qxc's banshee kiting, or Nazgul's blink micro, or Stalife's marauder bombs, or Boxer's medivac/tank play, or MVP engaging a protoss deathball with such perfect micro and multiple angles of attack that he turns a 40 food disadvantage into an instant victory? You haven't seen zergs carpet bombing with banelings? Protoss lifting tanks mid-combat? Terran move siege lines with defensive nukes? Are we watching the same game? | ||
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WellDuh
34 Posts
You basically give 2 absolutely different screenshots, taken at different times of different games and you want people to name you 6 things that are happening? Its like me taking a screenshot of 200/200 armies fighting with fungal growths, storms, guardian shields, blink micro, vortex, baneling drops, infested terrans spawning and then comparing it with a picture where 3 marines dodge a lurker attack and tell you "name me 6 things happening". What can you do if you see guardian shield on? Well jeez I dont know, maybe target the sentries casting it? If your marines get fungaled how about trying to snipe the infestor that went near you (I heard those marauders have a nice ability to slow down units so they cannot run). Or bring all your medivacs above the fungaled units? At least it can keep them alive you know. And we have seen plently of games where larger armies don't win the game.The 1a assumption is retarded as well. Even if I have bigger army than you, if I don't magic box your thors, drop my banelings correctly, misfungal or fail to flank with zerglings while you roast them with hellions ... guess who wins? Same can be applied to other races. You can't 1a your Terran army while leaving your tanks open for muta attacks. Or you can't put marines in front of marauders when there are banelings on the field. Or you can't let fungals/neural parasite been thrown if you have ghosts and enough energy for EMP. Etc. 1a is just a stupid myth. I didn't quite understand the thing about map control. Can you do drops when there are mutas present and good overlord spread? Not really. Can you move your army around the whole map without taking into consideration the danger of burrowed banelings? Not really. And you can always try to snipe things with single spellcasters - EMP, feedback, storm, fungal, whatever. Still gets the job done. And thats around the part I stopped reading, so I can't comment any further. As a finish I'll say that I do think BW is much better than SC2 mainly because of the noob-friendly interface. And I don't think that will change soon. New functions must be added so the people who really want to devote their lifes to being pro-gamers can use against casual players. Things that require a lot of practice and in return give not much of a reward but still enough to make the difference visible enough (between a casual and devoted pro-gamer). | ||
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m0nkey_man
New Zealand20 Posts
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kaisr
Canada715 Posts
In BW, one of my favorite aspects to watch which demonstrates this was dragoons and zealots v vultures + 1 or 2 tanks. Situations like that are very commonplace and entirely decided on the competencies of the players and drastically different results can occur. In SC2 especially for small engagements in the middle of the map, there are almost no situations where you can force a win through superior micro, and can only make the good tactical decision to either engage or retreat which leads to far less satisfying gameplay imo | ||
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Magic_Mike
United States542 Posts
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Genie1
Canada333 Posts
On April 16 2011 23:30 eviltomahawk wrote: I really doubt it. In several interviews, Dustin Browder gave some decent reasons why they removed the Lurker in the first place. On one hand, burrowed Roaches and Banelings overlapped with the role of the Lurker, at least during the mid-game (according the Browder). Coupled with the fact that Hydras are now Lair tech, Lurker tech was moved up the tech tree into Hive tech. Because of the unit clumping syndrome, the Lurker had to be nerfed. To differentiate its splash-damage role from that of the Baneling, the Lurker's range was slightly increased and it was made into somewhat of a siege unit. In the end, Browder said that the Lurker became too different from its BW rendition, yet it was still being underused in testing due to its place so high up the tech tree while Banelings became a more viable alternative. Consequently, I don't think the inclusion of Blizzard's rendition of this kind of Lurker would be helpful to the game considering that it seems that it would end up like the Ultralisk after being so expensive, high tech, and nerfed from its BW form. As Hive tech, the Lurker no longer could be a mid-game map-control unit forcing detection. Without accompanying Dark Swarm, it would be hard for it to survive in the late game with detection, tanks, and Colossi out on the field by that time. Perhaps Blizzard might implement one or more units filling the Lurker's role in creating a map-control dynamic and forcing detection as a mid-game cloaked attacker. However, I really doubt the Lurker itself will return, at least in multiplayer. So his issue with the lurker was that it overlapped with the baneling which is more of a gimmick unit then anything else because it explodes it draws the eye of the casual players more unlike the lurker with spines coming out of the ground. This guy needs to be removed from the team entirely in order for any real changes to happen on SC2 otherwise nothing will change because this guy favors certain units of others. SC2 is more flash then anything else and making everything easier makes the skill gap so small that even the players who are good at the game can be crushed by players who barely invest time into the game and just play 2-3 games a day can still beat someone who has put hours into the game which shouldn't even be possible. This game has a damn long way to go before it gets anywhere near BW. | ||
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zyglrox
United States1168 Posts
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craz3d
Bulgaria856 Posts
On April 16 2011 22:45 fer wrote: This pretty much. The whole post reads as nostalgic Brood War praise in my eyes. I'll try to watch Brood War, and as a spectator, for me it's just completely boring. Perhaps Blizzard should think of reintroducing their 'design' and artificially make SC2 harder. Get control groups to max at 2 units. Let us behold the mastery of 200/200 @ such a limit. Oh the mechanics. Sorry but the argument is invertible. One can talk about SC2 and praise its design and loathe BW's just as much as the other way around. Neither is factual, it's just an opinion. The problem most of these threads have is trying to genuinely pose the arguments as some sort of fact. I'll continue watching SC2 and continue to love it, and hope it doesn't change anywhere near around what BW was. So you enjoy watching people sit in their bases, macro up to 200/200 and then engage and watch one player lose his army in 5 seconds? First off: the op isn't about nostalgia. The op is simply trying to say that SC2 strategy doesn't involve much around positional play, and that this is largely due to the one dimensional units in SC2. He used BW games as examples to show how having aoe units capable of defending a position efficiently added to the richness of the game, both for spectators and gamers. This has nothing to do with the BW UI. Hell, did you even watch the games posted in the op (in their entirety)? | ||
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Stoids
United States636 Posts
If you haven't noticed the spectators of BW were few and far between. This statement is just completely baseless and wrong. One thing that I can't understand is the people who say the mechanics are easier. I know a ton of people who never played Broodwar and they've stepped into Starcraft 2 and they're finding it very difficult. The macro is almost the same with a few wasted clicks being removed and it's still hard for the majority of players. Has anyone complaining about it, ever thought that maybe it's because they played Broodwar that they are good at Starcraft 2? It doesn't matter if you were D on ICCUP, just because your in Diamond or Masters now doesn't mean Starcraft 2 is a bad game, it just means you're better. There's very few occasions where someone was good at BW, but found SC2 mechanically demanding. I think that for this game to be more difficult they need to add many more units... don't get me wrong don't over do it but with more units there would be a world of choices to make and players would be more punished for trying to build/upgrade everything... I do see the hardships in balancing such a feat but if you increase the amount of strategy in the game instead of focusing on pure mechanics then we would have ourselves a spectator sport... Adding more units will not make the game "more difficult." It may diversify strategies, but their execution will remain relatively similar. In BW, TvZ bio required such a ridiculous amount of execution, that a lot of Terrans just stuck with mech. Even at the highest S-class levels this is true. There are very few builds that only a handful of people can execute in SC2. Adding more spell-casters is worthless with the ease of smart casting. Maybe throwing in stuff like projectiles can add an interesting micro mechanic..... Everyone says "give it time." Although I can agree with that statement, I have a hard time correlating it to the evolution of BW. The meta game may shift constantly, but the reason BW evolved so much was because of how damn hard the game was. Builds like SK Terran that would have never been used at BW release became possible because of the increased mechanical skill level of players. In my opinion, I see very little room for increased mechanics. The only thing that can really change is the strategies, and that's kind of boring. The top players are going to find it even harder to separate themselves from highly skilled, but not elite players. | ||
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HungryMan
United States10 Posts
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coldonthecob
47 Posts
From the top of my head, the main problems I see in SC2 from a spectator perspective: -Play in general seems too turtley, there is too much sitting in bases massing units waiting for the inevitable battle. In BW there seemed to be more harass and skirmishes throughout the game. -In SC2 large encounters are generally brief and lackluster, I don't know how they would fix this other than increasing HP for units across the board. There is none of the ebb and flow of a battle like in BW because in SC2 it is over in 2 seconds :s -What OP said about units needing more micro is imo the top priority for Blizzard. Seeing 2 armies 1A into each other, with the deciding factor being who has the few extra supply or better unit comp... is just depressing to watch. And it happens all too often in SC2. -Finally I find the maps in SC2 very generic and samey. Maps in BW were more unique with interesting features, for example the ridges on heart break ridge. I feel this led to deeper strategy with regards map control and positionings than what we have in SC2. | ||
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IndieFinch
United States124 Posts
A lot of your arguments are based on the idea that "easier is bad.". Things like multiple building selection and more then 12 units in a control group are things that must be in a game today. A low of the design features of BW were because it was just so old. These features shouldn't be a sign of "better" but rather a design of "old". Sc2 is an amazing game and it is a new game...which still has more expansions on the way. The more time it gets the better. What I don't understand is why people can't be excited that SC2 is getting huge all around the world. I think that is the main goal of SC2 is to gather giant audience ad like it or not the biggest audience is in the casual area. If I wasn't playing SC2 I wouldn't watch Starcraft. The best part of watching is you can log in and try to attempt some of the things you see the top players do. Its time to move on, BW was last decade. | ||
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skythra
Australia3 Posts
Remember, the game is released in a simplistic style, which then gets increasingly more complex as more units come into play and existing ones are refined into specific roles. Even as it is, it's entirely competitive and skillful. Not saying it's skillful, is quite ignorant really. Going to the analogy, a boxer might only have to worry about 3 factors. Time. Force. Speed. That's not a lot. It's certainly a lot less than the perhaps about 8+ dimensions of starcraft 2. Those dimensions become more clouded when any one of those dimensions are expanded. Think of a cube. How much bigger does it get by just lengthening one axis. That's exactly what will happen with starcraft. The lengthening isn't just one plane which grows, it's exponential. It's exponential to the number of dimensions it carries. In other words, starcraft could be a power of 8* more exponential when one factor is changed. Already starcraft is one of the most menal games out there. Sometimes simplicity can be good. Could you call a Counter strike player who wins a tournament with his team, lacking skill? But there are a lot less variables. Their movements are all more efficient by design. Yet because there is seemingly no limit to a individual's skill, that you don't need a lot of factors to both be entertaining and prove a skill. Could you call an olympic runner skillless because his only factor for a 100m race is the few that happen in 10 seconds? Of course not. Why should you use the same analogy on starcraft? Where you say there's less factors to become skilled in, means that more focus will be placed on the ones that exist. Rather than saying "what's missing" you should be asking "what are players missing" if you think that the skill isn't there. | ||
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Volka
Argentina408 Posts
Still, there's room for some good micro, spell casting, hype, map control, positioning, but not as much as BW yep. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
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. Except Terran players can split their marines so the fungal is extremely less effective. When you see infestors and marines, there is initial tension of where the fungal is going to hit. With proper terran unit control, they can make the fungal growth not nearly as strong. I don't see what smartcast has to do with anything. What about Neural Parasite? Look at all the internal tension of getting that spell to work properly (especially if you use it on opposing spellcasters). You need to use units and spells to stop the opponent from sniping your infestor, AND you need to micro the unit you just took. And you only get it for 12 seconds. I'm sorry, but the fact that you're ignoring actually cool micro opportunities in SC2 makes me think this is just a straight up BW vs SC2 thread, which the disclaimer said it wasn't . The fact that battles happen so quickly in SC2 means there is a higher skill ceiling in doing all the things that people need to do.We haven't seen anyone use storm while blink microing while lifting things with phoenixes. Psi storm vs psi storm? A psi storm in SC2 is almost meaningless. In BW, the beauty of psi storm was purely because of the mechanics required to cast it. I don't think there is any debate here. In SC2 smartcast forced a nerf on psi storm to the point where a single psi storm means almost nothing and it requires the screen to be carpeted for it to even be effective. In BW, sequential psi storms were extremely difficult to pull off mid-battle, but had a tremendous payoff. In SC2, not only is it not impressive to see 4 psi storms casted, it's damn stupid to micro against. Microing against a storm almost always means running into 3 more storms because it's so ridiculously easy to cast. I still don't see the issue with smartcasting. So... we have an incredibly awesome and tense spell being used more often? Er... I don't get it. And I was under the impression that psi storm was nerfed because pathing makes all AOE much stronger. | ||
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deafhobbit
United States828 Posts
On April 17 2011 01:00 karpo wrote: In korea. I think it was D9 who said that back in BW EU/US players would jump at the chance to win a $200 tournament, so the spectators of BW outside of korea wasn't that big. SC2 on the other hand is massive. Dreamhack could have easily filled a arena twice or four times the size of the one they used. Yes, in Korea, the only country in the world where esports are institutionalized. They are broadcast on TWO different tv channels, have numerous shows that relate to the scene (analysis shows, BNET attack and it's copies, Hyungjoon becomes a progamer, etc), and where, here's the kicker, people who don't game follow esports. Right now, esports anywhere else is just a bunch of people who love video games watching people play them. There's nothing wrong with that, i watch high level Counterstrike and love it, but there's a big difference between that and what we see in korea. Where crowds of cheering fans stuff aircraft hangers + Show Spoiler + Show up during near record heat waves to watch proleague finals outside on a beach. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/riptide/proleague200809/pl_finals_watchinglive.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Carnac/2005goneby/20.jpg) Until i see over 120,000 people attending a live event, I'll remain unconvinced of the sustainability of the Sc2 scene. | ||
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