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On April 16 2011 10:53 nodule wrote:
I don't know, it seems like there are tons of opportunity for micro battles in sc2:
TvZ: tank/marine vs. ling/bane/muta is 100% micro dependent
ZvZ: line/bane vs. line/bane, roach/infestor vs. roach/infestor
TvT: practically 100% positional/micro dependent
PvT: ghost vs. templar, ghost vs. phoenix
PvX: immortal micro, blink
The issue with this post is that everything you mentioned here is a 1 way micro battle.
TvZ: Banelings target marines and marines micro, theres nothing zerg can do about mircoing marines except fungal, which in turn make terran do nothing atall.
ZvZ Roach infestor is another 1 way micro battle, infestors fungal and the other zergs roaches do nothing different. ling bling is one exception where both players can micro to counter the others micro which can be countered my more micro
TvT: This is why TvT is the best matchup in the game. Positions, drops and other unit control can win the game, both players can control space and both players have potential to break the others controlled space. also attacking on a second front wont make it so you can be 1a'd to death because your army is split.
PvT: Ghosts are also 1 way micro, you snipe HTs or you emp and the other player does nothing about it. Psi storm is the only good micro mechanic here because it forces a reaction out of the terran. Phoenix pick things up and the terran cant do anything about it.
PvX Blink can be countered by fungal but this agian causes the toss player to do nothing, other than that all other races do not change anything when they blink, they just watch and hope they win. Things get cut off from FF and the opposing player either runs away or does nothing.
This is the issue right now, all of the micro battles except a few are 1 way battles where one player can do something that can either save or kill units, but the other player cant do anything about the players attempt to kill or save units.
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I feel like a discussion on maps is missing from the OP.
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On April 16 2011 10:58 ExcessEnemy wrote:
As someone who never watched BW, my friends and I absolutely love watching SC2. BW has great stuff but it's way too old for us - we never got into it, and we all agree that SC2 is better. And there's a lot of people getting into SC2 that don't know who Jaedong and Flash are and they're having a great time watching it. I prefer the less complicated style, and by the way, storms are not at all useless. That's just absurd. SC2 is just super polished mechanically and visually, and I honestly think it is the best RTS of all time. This thread needed an SC2 fanboy to balance out all of this BW stuff. It's not the same game, and there's just so much nostalgia going on here that it's impossible for SC2 lovers to even get a word in. Imo, SC2 is the perfect balance between complicated as hell and simple - that way, everyone can enjoy it, not just mr. super ultra hardcore bw fan. It's about getting new fans and making it enjoyable for everyone.
There's no nostalgia going on. BW is still stronger than SC2 in Korea. Watch the finals of Proleague, and then watch the GSL finals. BW as an eSport in Korea is just on a whole different level than anything SC2 has experienced.
The people on this site don't want SC2 fail. In fact, I would think most people want the opposite. We want it to get to the level of what BW was and still is in Korea, and that's why we need to discuss whether or not that's possible with the game of SC2 and reasons behind this.
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"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."
Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject 
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On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:"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." Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject
Separately select each high templar and cast psi storm one unit at a time.
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On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:"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." Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject
If you had a control group of high templar in BW and had them all selected and cast psi storm, they would all cast in the same place. You had to individually select, cast, select, cast, select, cast, e tc.
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On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:"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." Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject
In SC1, you had to individually select each templar to cast psi storm. if you used a whole group, they all cast psi storm on one location which wastes it. that combined with everything else you had to do made it pretty hard. in SC2, you can just cast with a full control group w/o any worries.
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On April 16 2011 11:21 rift wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:"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." Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject Separately select each high templar and cast psi storm one unit at a time.
In a lower resolution, small screen where even trying to find your high templar can waste precious seconds that you need to cast.
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On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject
in brood war if you selected 10 templars, hit storm, selected a place on the map.
all 10 templars would storm that spot.
in sc2 only 1 templar would storm for each cast.
in brood war you had to individually select templars and storm. or use cloning. where you order 10 templars to storm, deselect 1, order 9 templars to storm, deselect 1, etc.
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I was thinking recent, SC 2 would be a ton for fun to watch if it was slowed down. Things die way too quickly. I've pretty much stopped watching SC2 streams and just play SC2 and watch BW.
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On April 16 2011 11:21 StutteR wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 11:19 Hierarch wrote:"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." Can someone explain to me the mechanics of casting storm in bw and what "Smart casting is"? sorry I'm a noob on that subject If you had a control group of high templar in BW and had them all selected and cast psi storm, they would all cast in the same place. You had to individually select, cast, select, cast, select, cast, e tc.
AHHHHHH, so if you had like 6 HT on "2" and hit 2 "T" on one area all 6 would cast at the same time instead of like in sc2 where only one casts per time you hit "T"? Wow that adds a whole nother layer of micro. Thanks to everyone who answered the question.
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A very well-thought out post, gives some weight to the discussion instead of the typical "BW was so much better/more balanced/more skill involved/etc" with no insight.
I think SC2 has appealed way more to spectators because its just easier to look at the game and have a sense of what's going on and be excited without being a relatively committed player yourself - casters & streamers seem to have many fans who don't even play the game or play extremely casually. Brood War wasn't like that at all - using the Nada marines vs lurkers video as an example, you'd have to have played some BW to understand what made that impressive.
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I mostly agree, but I don't think a whole lot is going to change. From most of the balance changes made since release, it's clear that making the game more bland, one-dimensional and newbie-friendly is the primary balancing method employed by the SC2 team.
Reapers causing problems? Nerf them out of the game.
Terrans cheesing Zergs? Depot before Barracks.
Warp-in Storm too powerful? Remove Amulet from the game.
If you think it's boring now, wait till they're done "balancing" it.
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10387 Posts
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.
If BW units balled up like SC2, we would most certainly not see ball v ball fights in BW. In fact, engaging as a ball in most BW matchups is freaking BAD (only case I can see it somewhat ok is PvZ, but not really.). There's a good reason why Progamers take so much care to spread their army out into a concave before engagements, and the pathfinding in BW actually helps facilitate this..
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If you included the Lalush macro effect in this article it'd be a perfect summary of everything wrong with the game.
One problem with siege tanks in SC2 though is that their positional play isn't nearly as pivotal it would seem. In ZvT the Zerg can't really exercise much map control to slow down siege tank pushes other than sniping with mutas, fungal, or threatening burrowed units. Most of these threats also have more of an effect of causing some marines to stim and attack rather than really slowing the push down all that much. You kind of end up with this situation where the amount of map control is very spotty rather than the epic tank/luker tug of war described.
Top notch post.
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On April 16 2011 09:48 lazydino wrote:
I guess sc2 is just more noob-friendly. I also think you forgot to mention multibuilding selection.
That doesn't matter to a spectator though. Everything else is directly observable for even the most casual viewers.
I completely agree with the OP. It makes me so nostalgic for Brood War. So many of those things are 'Omg that's sooo hard to do' vs sc2 where it's 'Meh I could probably do that'.
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On April 16 2011 11:25 Toadvine wrote:
I mostly agree, but I don't think a whole lot is going to change. From most of the balance changes made since release, it's clear that making the game more bland, one-dimensional and newbie-friendly is the primary balancing method employed by the SC2 team.
Reapers causing problems? Nerf them out of the game.
Terrans cheesing Zergs? Depot before Barracks.
Warp-in Storm too powerful? Remove Amulet from the game.
If you think it's boring now, wait till they're done "balancing" it.
Reapers still work, just not so much that any mediocre terran can kill idra/nestea
Bunker rushes still work, but are now more of a harass than a game-ender.
Storms still work, protoss just can't have free base defense now. An example was NesTea vs San. NesTea went mass muta and couldn't do shit to harass without taking a warp-in-storm for massive damage.
All these things were nerfed from OP to usable, they are not "removed from the game" 
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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?
That's a great point. It's altogether too hard to defend areas in this game with fewer units so players are forced to keep their armies in large balls. Makes the game less like chess and more like.....w/e. This is why TvT is maybe the best matchup to watch, it's still somewhat like BW where positioning really matters.
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Great post and I completely agree. My question would be, what do you think Blizzard can do at this point to fix these things? I doubt Blizzard is going to significantly change any of the things you pointed out that are problematic. Is our only hope that the expansions perfectly address everything?
also:
made you hold your every time an attack happened
I think you meant to say "hold your breath" here
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I think one of the things that would be really cool and better is if the map was displayed black until explored like in BW maybe it's just me old AoE II and WC2 noob talking but i still think it's better
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EPT
